Bramaviharas--Divine Abodes of the Heart Weekend Non-residential and Online Retreat

Name: Bramaviharas--Divine Abodes of the Heart Weekend Non-residential and Online Retreat
Start: 2026-03-28T10:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-03-29T16:00:00-07:00
Location: The Alembic

Schedule

Sat, 28 Mar, 2026 at 10:00 am to Sun, 29 Mar, 2026 at 04:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

The Alembic | Berkeley, CA

This is both a non-residential and online retreat. Visit https://www.berkeleyalembic.org/ to register.
In this retreat, Tina gives an overview of the “Heart Practices” category of meditation. The Bramaviharas are the “divine abodes of the heart,” found in both Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhism. These include: metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (empathetic joy), and upekkha (equanimity).
Tina will teach the four Bramaviharas as a set of practices. Often they are taught individually, but when they are taught together, they are much more powerful and make more sense. Between the four of them, they provide a way of orienting to the human consition, and give us a way to respond to just about any situation that arises with an open and unhindered heart. Tina will also teach the Forgiveness practice, which she considers to be the “fifth Bramavihara,” and will touch upon Divine Love–an experience of non-duality that the Bramaviharas are pointing to as an aspect of our deeper nature.
These practices are often overlooked, marginalized, or taught in a superficial way as “mantras” or as something we do for others. But they are actually crucial for our own unfoldment, and are as serious and robust of practices as the other categories of: Focused Attention (Samatha), Open Monitoring (Vipassana), and Self-Transcending (Dzogchen). These “Purification of the Heart” practices work our consciousness in a way that none of the other categories do, helping us to digest personality material that is universal, and is an obstacle to our spiritual unfoldment. They are also a balm in difficult times, like the ones we are facing these days individually and collectively.