Mindfulness, compassion, loving-kindness, and equanimity are a powerful and needed medicine for the challenging times we are living in. These qualities of heart help us meet our difficult mind states and emotions in a balanced way, allowing us to hold all we are experiencing without attachment, with kindness and without judgment. These practices also provide support to engage wisely and compassionately with the suffering of the world, strengthening our resilience as we work for justice, peace, and a sustainable future.

Many of us will need mindfulness practice as we engage in political or social action throughout 2020. To help us meet our experience skillfully and engage in wise action in this period, Hugh Byrne, Kaira Jewel Lingo, and George Kinder are partnering on a series of monthly online group meetings with the following intentions:

To deepen skills and practices to respond to all that is arising within us and in the world in these times;
To support our active engagement in working for justice, peace, and a more compassionate and sustainable world—for example, through engagement in the 2020 U.S. electoral process, supporting vulnerable individuals and communities under attack, working for compassionate immigration policies, racial justice, gun safety, a sustainable planet, climate justice, democratic freedoms, ending corruption, poverty and war, and other forms of engagement.
To provide a venue for community to be together to support one another and break down the illusion of separation that can easily arise in difficult times.

Facilitators: Hugh Byrne, meditation teacher and expert in habit change; Kaira Jewel Lingo, mindfulness teacher and spiritual mentor; George Kinder, meditation teacher and Golden Civilization Conversations founder

Register: Follow the links for the dates you plan to attend or to receive the video recording.

Dates & Times: Wednesdays,

Session 1: Series Kickoff, led by Hugh Byrne, Kaira Jewel Lingo, & George Kinder - Feb 26 (6a HST / 8a PST / 11a EST/ 4p GMT / 9:30p IST)
Session 2: Bringing our practice into the world and the world into our practice, led by Hugh Byrne - Mar 25 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 4p GMT / 9:30p IST)
Session 3: Map of Mindfulness and Golden Civilization Conversation, led by George Kinder - Apr 29 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 4: Inclusiveness and Intimacy: Medicine for Polarization and Privilege, led by Kaira Jewel Lingo - Jun 3 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 5: Being a Bodhisattva in These Times, led by Hugh Byrne - Jun 24 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 6: The Factors of Enlightenment & A Golden Civilization Conversation, led by George Kinder - Jul 29 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 7: Finding a Way to Get in the Way (Inspired by the late John Lewis), led by Kaira Jewel Lingo - Sept 2 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 8: Action Absorbs Anxiety, led by Hugh Byrne - Sep 30 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 5p BST / 9:30p IST)
Session 9: Interbeing and Compassion: Open Hearted Election Practice, led by Kaira Jewel Lingo - Oct 28 (6a HST / 9a PDT / 12p EDT/ 4p GMT / 9:30p IST)
Session 10: Transforming Suffering Into Wisdom, led by George Kinder - Nov 25 (6a HST / 8a PST / 11a EST/ 4p GMT / 9:30p IST)
Session 11: 2020 Wrap Up, led by Hugh Byrne, Kaira Jewel Lingo, & George Kinder - Dec 30 (6a HST / 8a PST / 11a EST/ 4p GMT / 9:30p IST)

Timing: Each session is 1.5 hours. Start times vary based on time zone and time of year. Click the date to check the start time in your area.

Donation: The webinar is offered in a spirit of generosity and everyone is welcome to participate regardless of their finances; for those who can, we invite you to offer a donation ($10-25 suggested) to support the facilitators; give here via PayPal or with Venmo (@Kinder-Institute).

All webinars are recorded using Zoom and shared with those who register.

Meet the Teachers

Hugh Byrne, PhD

An expert and author in the field of mindfulness and positive habit change, Hugh Byrne’s mindfulness and meditation offerings are guided by the vision of helping people shift from autopilot toward behaviors that create greater happiness and freedom of the heart. He is a senior teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW) and the Garrison Institute’s Contemplative-Based Resilience (CBR) program for humanitarian aid workers responding to the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Africa. Hugh has been practicing, teaching and guiding trainings, workshops, intensive retreats for 20 years within the U.S. and internationally. He is trained in and teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and mind-body somatic experiencing approaches to healing. Hugh earned a law degree from London University, a PhD from UCLA and worked for more than two decades in the field of human rights and social justice prior to teaching. Hugh is the author of The Here-and-Now Habit and Habit Swap: Trade In Your Unhealthy Habits for Mindful Ones (April 2020).

Kaira Jewel Lingo

A Dharma teacher and ordained nun of 15 years in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, Kaira Jewel Lingo now leads retreats internationally, offering mindfulness programs for educators, parents and youth in schools, activists, people of color, artists, and families, in addition to individual spiritual mentoring. A teacher with Schumacher College and Mindful Schools and a guiding teacher for One Earth Sangha, she explores the interweaving of art, play, ecology and embodied mindfulness practice and is a certified yoga teacher and InterPlay leader. She edited Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children and has been published in numerous other books and magazines. She graduates from the 4-year Spirit Rock Teacher Training in 2020.

George Kinder

Buddhist teacher and author, George Kinder has led multiple annual week and day-long Buddhist meditation retreats since 1988 and has small sanghas in London, Maui, and Boston. His six books each relate to mindfulness practice, including three on money, one on meditation (Transforming Suffering into Wisdom), and an illuminated manuscript of photography and poetry. In his latest book, A Golden Civilization and the Map of Mindfulness, he draws on 50 years as a mindfulness practitioner, 30 years as a mindfulness teacher, and his experience training financial advisors globally to challenge the basic concepts of economics, our understanding of democracy, of space time, and our own hearts. Founder of the Kinder Institute of Life Planning and Harvard-educated, Kinder has trained over 3,000 professionals in 30 countries in the mindfulness-based field he created known as financial Life Planning. In 2019, he launched a global grassroots conversation movement, Golden Civilization Conversations, aimed at sparking participative democracy across the globe and bringing about a Golden Civilization within a generation. His objective is to bring greater levels of freedom everywhere.