WINTER CLASSES

4 weeks: Monday, January 5th – Saturday, January 31st, 2026

BUDDHIST STUDIES 

Cultivating Immeasurable Wisdom for 2026

Tuesdays, 7:00 – 8:30 PM PST (January 6th to January 27th)

Online and In-Person at the Nyingma Institute

Cultivating the “four immeasurable” states of mind––love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity––is a classic Buddhist practice that teaches us to transcend our ordinary ways of being and our limited ways of understanding. It is an essential practice in developing bodhicitta: the mind and intention for enlightenment. Contemplating the four immeasurables undermines the commitment to the concerns of the self and turns the mind to the welfare and happiness of others. These “immeasurables” serve as an antidote to suffering, negativity, and emotionality. Buddhist practitioners would often devote time every day to this practice as part of their Bodhisattva training, and in this four-week course, we will use mantra, visualization, and meditation practices to heighten appreciation of these immeasurable qualities. Discussion will center on breaking through barriers to bring compassion, joy, love, and peaceful equanimity into everyday life. Selected readings will be provided. Open to all who wish to see through confusion and limitation to what is beyond measure.

Instructors: Hugh Joswick and Mark Henderson. Cost: $80. Enrollment: https://nyingmainstitute.com/?p=20306

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Cultivating Immeasurable Wisdom: Daily Practice Program

Mondays through Fridays, 6:45 – 7:30 AM PST (January 7th – January 30th)

In-Person at the Nyingma Institute and Online via Zoom

This class is open to those who enroll in Cultivating Immeasurable Wisdom (the Tuesday evening course). This rigorous meditation practice class will meet five (5) mornings a week (except the first week that will begin on Wednesday, January 7.)

We will experientially engage a sequence of meditation practices on the four immeasurable qualities of equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and empathic joy, composed by Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche and the Omniscient Longchenpa. We will also explore how to balance, optimize, and intensify all four practices as an increasingly dynamic whole.

Instructor: Mark Henderson. Cost: $80. Enrollment: https://nyingmainstitute.com/?p=20308

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KUM NYE

Feelings!

Wednesdays, 8:00 – 9:00 AM PST (January 7 to January 28)

Online Only

“All Kum Nye exercises presented here are ways to touch and expand your inner feelings and energies. The external form may be stillness, breathing, self-massage, or movement, but the internal exercise or massage, the essence of Kum Nye, is with feeling. The moment you begin to practice, concentrate on the feelings and sensations that arise.” -Preparation, Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga

Feelings, feeling-tones, sensations, energies – what are we speaking about? Do we understand the subtle language distinctions conceptually? And more importantly how do they unfold in our experience, non-conceptually, leading to this internal massage of feeling, the essence of Kum Nye? We will mine the language subtleties in the text, and explore the contextual underpinnings of Kum Nye Relaxation, and then let it dissolve into the openness of practice.

Instructor: Donna Morton. Cost: $60. Enrollment: https://nyingmainstitute.com/?p=20310

Advanced Kum Nye: Getting the Juice of Experience

Tuesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 PM PST (January 6th  to January 27th)

Online Only

“Each of the senses has its own field of awareness, an openness that illuminates and gathers data in fullness and in depth. ….  It allows our senses to savor the juice of experience, the sweet sense of aliveness that makes experience meaningful. But our senses are not operating at full capacity. ” Joy of Being by Tarthang Tulku p. 173.

How do we take in the full juice of experience? Using terms from Indian aesthetics particularly from the arts of drama and music – how do we take in the ‘rasa’ of the experience. We have to activate our senses to allow them to open fully enough to benefit from the light of awareness. In this class we will work with techniques to soften the tensions in our senses and unravel the limitations under which they operate.

Instructor: Santosh Philip. Cost: $80. Enrollment: https://nyingmainstitute.com/?p=20312 

The Joy of Being Term Two:  The Flavor of Experience: Being Present through Breath

Online & In Person at the Nyingma Institute

When you can taste and enjoy the flavor of experience, when you can feel good about yourself and comfortable in your body, you can see for yourself the treasures that can be cultivated (p.54).

 This four-week term continues to present The Joy of Being’s approach to building and strengthening the Kum Nye experience– a foundation for truly embodying Kum Nye. In practices drawn from “Part Two: Breath,” breath connects with feeling, encouraging tasting and enjoying the flavor of experience and enriching the ground of meditation.

 This is the second of seven modules of the Nyingma Institute International Joy of Being Teacher Training program that also includes 9 weekend workshops and runs through February 2027.

 These weekly classes can be taken separately, just for the love of it, with permission of the instructors. 

 Two sections: 

Mondays: 6-7:30 PM Pacific Standard time.  Hybrid: in-person with Nyingma Institute in Berkeley and online.

Abbe Blum and Santosh Phillip

 Wednesdays: 10-11:30 AM, 6PM U.K./ GMT  U.K. Based faculty. Online only.

Jonathan Clewley. In addition, another section is offered in Dutch.

For information about the teacher training program, go to https://nyingmainstitute.com/kntt/kntt-2026-2/

Instructors: Abbe Blum & Santosh Philip. Register for weekly class only (not teacher training): https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/winter-joy-of-being-weekly-class-only/ 

NYINGMA PRACTICE

Essence of the Lotus Trilogy: Wisdom of Padmasambhava

Winter term, 2026: Learning How to Embody Knowledge

Fridays 10:00 – 11:30 AM (January 9 – January 30, 2026)

Online and In-Person at the Nyingma Institute

Instructors: Abbe Blum and Hugh Joswick

“Wisdom may not be about choosing the right words or the right forms of knowledge. It may be about learning to embody knowledge.”  -Lotus Language p. 225

This four-week class explores the power of a special knowingness, introduced in the last part of Lotus Language, that is not communicated in ordinary ways. Each week we will engage the lotus vehicles of body, language (breath, spirit), and mind to uncover and move beyond assumptions that restrict communication and blunt creativity. As we come to incorporate this playful spirit of inquiry in daily life, we open ourselves to new possibilities of transformation. The class provides a summary of Lotus Body and Lotus Language, highlighting key points for ongoing participants and anticipating themes from Lotus Mind. It includes discussion, contemplation, and movement practices. This term is also an entry point for newcomers into the Lotus Trilogy program.

Instructors: Abbe Blum and Hugh Joswick

Each term offers an intensive weekend of study and practice, followed by a longer retreat at the end of the second year. See program description here: https://nyingmainstitute.com/trilogy/

TIBETAN LANGUAGE

Intermediate Tibetan XIV

Thursdays, 6:15-7:45 PM PST (January 8th to January 29th)

Online only

Continued Reading and translation of traditional texts and prayers in the classical Tibetan language.

Instructor: Mark Henderson. Cost: $80. Enrollment: ​​ https://nyingmainstitute.com/?p=20314