Bridging the Solar and Lunar New Years, West and East, the Nalanda Happiness Festival is meant to give our growing community an occasion to gather and celebrate the triumph of our inner light and fire over nature’s coldest, darkest night.
As a seasonal rite for our global age, the Happiness Festival also aims to yoke our collective consciousness to the historic rite of passage we and all our human kin must make: from regional cultures of conflict and survival to a global culture of compassion and sustainable happiness. Bringing together some of our star faculty to share their experience and vision, the Happiness Festival highlights the pivotal role contemplative practice can play in helping us all make the shift to more sustainable ways of living and being.
Come ready to enjoy a timely occasion for communal reflection, mingling and sharing, and to feast on flashes of insight, light refreshments and music!
Happiness Festival Part 1
The Yoga of Sustainable Happiness: The Meeting of Yoga and Buddhism
Friday Evening Keynote
How We Can Avoid the Earth's Civilizational Cliff:
The Global Renaissance of India's Contemplative Arts & Sciences
7–9PM, January 11, 2013
Speaker: Joe Loizzo, M.D., Ph.D.
Though all cultures have contemplatives, India lead the world in teaching contemplative practices to all. The explosion of interest in Indian yoga and meditation has been fueled by evidence that they help us adapt our archaic instincts and habits to the challenges of global living and interdependence. Reviewing the new contemplative science, this talk unpacks two key ingredients of that explosion: India's knack for making spiritual healing a life science compatible with many worldviews and lifestyles; and its art of teaching contemplative practice in step-by-step ways for people in all walks of life. Dr. Loizzo shares his own take on Tibet's hopeful Time-Machine vision that science and spirituality will come together to help us all on our journey to sustainable happiness and global civilization.
• Location: Tibet House US, 22 West 15th Street, New York, NY
• $25, Tibet House members: $22.50. Online registration via Tibet House.
Saturday Retreat
The Yoga of Sustainable Happiness:
Mindfulness, Compassion and Bliss Through Yoga and Buddhism
10AM–5PM, January 12, 2013
Instructors: Dr. Miles Neale, Dr. Emily Wolf and Mary Reilly Nichols
As the Indic mind science traditions of Buddhism and Hatha Yoga have come into dialogue with modern psychology and brain science, we've begun to learn how they facilitate profound healing and transformation. This retreat will explore the science and practical application of three Indic approaches to mind-body health. Dr. Neale will explore how deep mindfulness and yoga postures promote self-healing and personal transformation. Dr. Wolf will show how mind-clearing works as a crucible for social healing and altruistic engagement. And Mary Reilly Nichols will reveal how the tapping the subtle yogic nervous system through breath-work and chanting helps us learn the highest levels of blissful altruism modeled by living masters. The retreat will weave together talks and discussion with guided practice of a range of yoga practices and meditation techniques.
• Location: Tibet House US, 22 West 15th Street, New York, NY
• $80, Tibet House members: $72. Online registration via Tibet House.
Happiness Festival Part 2
The Psychology of Sustainable Happiness:
Psychotherapy and Buddhism
Friday Evening Keynote
Our Brains Make Us Natural Buddhas:
Buddhist Contemplative Science Meets Modern Neuropsychology
7–9PM, February 8, 2013
Speaker: Joe Loizzo, M.D., Ph.D.
As current brain science revolutionizes our views of mind and its care, it is coming into startling alignment with the ancient contemplative models and methods of Buddhist psychology. This talk touches on three breakthroughs that show modern neuropsychology converging with the Nalanda mind science preserved in Tibet. Research on the distinctively human prefrontal cortex, the emotional limbic cortex, and the "smart vagal nerve" we share with all mammals has revealed that we have a Buddha-like natural potential to unlearn stress-reactive conditioning and cultivate exceptional levels of mind-brain integration and positive social engagement. Dr. Loizzo closes by sharing his vision for the science of happiness, in which time-tested contemplative models and methods help us leverage the new brain science and develop more powerful and effective approaches to psychotherapy and health education.
• Location: Tibet House US, 22 West 15th Street, New York, NY
• $25, Tibet House members: $22.50. Online registration via Tibet House.
Saturday Retreat
The Psychology of Sustainable Happiness
10AM–5PM, February 9, 2013
Instructors: Drs. Miles Neale, Pilar Jennings, and Shaun Nanavati
After the Freudian era, the Prozac era, and the era of cognitive therapy, the last few decades may fairly be called the era of mindfulness-based psychotherapy. This retreat will explore some of the most cutting-edge thinking and methods in contemporary neuropsychology, offering a glimpse into the future through the eyes of three distinguished Nalanda faculty. Dr. Neale will explore how deep mindfulness helps exercise the prefrontal cortex and develop higher levels of mind/brain integration and self-world attunement. Dr. Jennings will review the role of early relationships in our capacity to connect, and show how arts like mind-clearing and giving-and-taking can enhance our capacity for intimacy or inter-being. Dr. Nanavati will survey current studies on learning enrichment, social engagement and vagal tone and link them to the contemplative arts of mentor-bonding and role-modeling imagery. The retreat will weave together talks and discussion with guided practice of three contemplative methods.
• Location: Tibet House US, 22 West 15th Street, New York, NY
• $80, Tibet House members: $72. Online registration via Tibet House.
