PROGRAMS

Explore the foundational teachings of Buddhism in The Path of Clear Seeing: Exploring the Four Noble Truths, a 10-hour self-paced course. Delve into the Buddha’s insights on suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path leading to liberation. This course is suitable for beginners and seasoned practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding of these transformative teachings. Participants will explore the Four Noble Truths, focusing on ethics, concentration, and wisdom, through presentations, mindfulness practices, and guided meditations. They will gain practical tools to integrate these timeless teachings into daily life for personal growth and the benefit of others. This course is ideal for those seeking a structured yet flexible way to integrate foundational Buddhist teachings into their practice. Access materials anytime and proceed at your own pace.

Discover the relevance of Buddhism today in Buddhism: The Basics, a four-week introductory course offered on weekday evenings at FCM’s Tampa Center and via Zoom. Suitable for those new to Buddhism or seasoned practitioners, the course explores the life of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, his “path of awakening,” and the meditative practices that have evolved over 2600 years. This class provides insights into how Buddhist teachings support spiritual growth and harmonize with other traditions, offering a comprehensive foundation for understanding the Buddha’s profound and timeless teachings.

This half-day workshop, offered in person and online, explores the transformative insights of Buddhist psychology. For over 2600 years, Buddhist meditators have developed a profound understanding of the human mind and emotions, alongside practical techniques for healing and transformation. The workshop covers how Buddhism serves as a positive psychology, viewing all beings as intrinsically pure, and addresses the root of suffering through understanding reality, the mind, and the self. Learn how Buddhist teachings and mindfulness practices can identify and transform maladaptive habits, emotional afflictions, and dysfunctional behaviors to increase personal happiness.

Explore the foundational Buddhist teachings on The Three Marks of Existence: impermanence, suffering, and non-self, in this online self-paced class. These profound insights illuminate the nature of reality and provide a framework for understanding the causes of dissatisfaction while guiding us toward greater clarity, freedom, and compassion. Through recorded teachings, guided contemplations, and reflective exercises, participants will deepen their understanding of these core principles and learn to apply them in daily life. Designed for flexibility, this course allows you to progress at your own pace, making it accessible to both new and experienced practitioners.

This daylong workshop, offered at the FCM Center in Tampa and online, explores the spiritual and practical dimensions of death and dying. By reflecting on impermanence, participants can reassess life priorities and prepare to be present with the dying process—both their own and others’. Topics include conscious dying, providing psychological and spiritual support to the dying, and addressing common fears and misconceptions. Drawing on Buddhist teachings, meditative practices, and insights from medical and contemplative fields, this workshop fosters a supportive environment for reflection and sharing, emphasizing the profound connection between impermanence and living a meaningful life.

Explore the Buddha’s essential teaching on karma—the law of cause and effect—and its profound impact on personal and societal happiness. This workshop examines how thoughts, speech, and actions shape our present and future, with wholesome motivations fostering happiness and unwholesome ones leading to suffering. Through reflection on karma’s relationship to emptiness and compassion, participants will gain insights into transforming personal and societal karma. This understanding helps navigate today’s challenges—personal, relational, and global—while fostering clarity, equanimity, and emotional stability. Join us to deepen your spiritual development and learn practical ways to bring more happiness and alleviate suffering.

This half-day workshop explores Yogacara, a pinnacle of Buddhist philosophical and psychological thought that underpins Mahayana meditative traditions and teachings on karma, consciousness, and liberation. Yogacara reveals how the mind constructs reality, emphasizing the distinction between our perceptions and life itself. Participants will delve into the eight levels of consciousness, the processes leading to misperceptions, and methods to transform unwholesome mental patterns at their base. Through teachings and analytical meditations, participants will learn how the application of Yogacara principles to personal experience can support transformation and freedom. Suitable for laypeople and professionals alike, the workshop offers theoretical and practical insights.

This year-long intensive program explores the Buddhist teachings on self and non-self, central to spiritual awakening. Participants will engage in a deep intellectual, psychological, and meditative inquiry into the Buddha’s teachings that our belief in a solid, permanent self is the root of dissatisfaction and emotional affliction. Through traditional Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and personalized practices, participants will uncover the experiential reality of connection and oneness. The program spans three segments—Spring, Summer, and Fall—allowing for comprehensive study and practice. This intensive is designed for those committed to a profound exploration of self and its deconstruction.

Explore the path to true happiness and liberation in this 3-day retreat focused on dismantling the myth of a solid, permanent self. Through Dharma talks, guided meditations, and introspective practices, participants will examine how societal messages of ego and materialism perpetuate dissatisfaction and striving. Drawing on the Buddha’s teachings, this retreat offers direct teachings and meditative methods to deconstruct the illusion of “I, me, my” and uncover our innate qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom. Formal meditation periods, Q&A sessions, and solitary practice create a supportive environment for participants to learn to enter the world with composure, intelligence and open-heartedness by realizing the freedom we seek.

Discover the Buddha’s teachings on the Five Aggregates—the foundation of our sense of self—and how they create the illusion of “I” that leads to suffering. This retreat will explore the Aggregates: form, feeling tone, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, showing how they function together to create a false sense of self. Through teachings and mindfulness practices, participants will learn to see the impermanent and non-solid nature of the Aggregates, moving beyond theoretical understanding to practical application. This insight fosters freedom from clinging to self and opens the door to true peace and ease of mind.

Delve into “The Seven Points of Mind Training” (Lojong), a revered Mahayana Buddhist text, in this transformative 12-month Intensive study program. Focused on cultivating lovingkindness, compassion, and understanding, the 59 slogans guide practitioners in integrating the Buddha’s teachings into daily life, even transforming adversity into the path of awakening. Participants will study the entire text, work with specific slogans tailored to their life circumstances, and engage in bi-weekly Dharma talks and mentor groups on Zoom. This program offers practical tools for applying Lojong teachings to support spiritual growth and awakening in everyday experiences.

Embark on a transformative year-long study and practice of The Way of the Bodhisattva by the revered Indian Buddhist master Shantideva. This profound text serves as a practical guide to cultivating the Six Perfections (paramitas)—the foundation of an awakened life rooted in interconnectedness, wisdom, and compassion. Participants will explore the path of the Bodhisattva, a way of living modeled by the Buddha and awakened teachers, fostering bodhicitta—the seed of awakened intelligence and love within all. Through unhurried study and reflective practice, this Intensive provides tools to integrate the teachings into daily life and live with purpose and compassion.