Windhorse Zen Community

Empathy, Compassion, and Connection: A Speaker Series

The Windhorse Non-profit Education Branch’s goal is to create a more secular format for our programs, as a means of sharing resources and support to a wider audience, especially in these charged and divisive times.

As a quick overview, the three divisions of this branch are: Wellness, Sustainability, and Diversity. Our first program happened in the fall and winter of 2022: Awakening From Whiteness. This course brought individuals from Vermont, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina together to examine the personal, historical, and institutional forms of racism that we all are subject to: consciously and unconsciously.

With the success of this endeavor, we are pleased to offer our next event: Empathy, Compassion, and Connection: A Speaker Series. This program will not only combine the spiritual and psychological ways that we can strengthen the skills of empathy and compassion, but also offer a host of speakers with unique backgrounds to create lasting community connections. Further, secular forms of meditation that strengthen our capacity to be compassionate with one another will be shared.

For more information, please click the “Learn More” button below.

Spring Zentensive:
April 30-May 5 of 2023

Zentensive Workshop and Retreats®, held here at Windhorse, are for those who feel drawn to exploring the rich intersection of meditation and Western psychology. They offer advanced levels of training for mental health professionals interested in accessing deeper unconscious patterns, as well as for dharma practitioners who may wish to discover a greater understanding of the more hidden dimensions of the psyche.

These trainings take advantage of the natural deepening and openness that comes about as the mind quiets down – and merges this inner silence with a strong psychodynamic perspective. Intensive periods of meditation effectively mobilize the mind on both conscious and unconscious levels. This mobilization works broadly – bringing forth a complex mixture of our innate caring and compassion, along with what are often hidden layers of grief and guilt, love and anger.

As practice continues to deepen, we may see more clearly into those repression-based patterns of thinking and feeling that so often cycle through our lives, and inevitably exert a powerful impact on all that we do. Insights into these embedded energies can lead to significant change, which in turn fosters more focused and sustained meditation.