Postponed to 2022: Compassion Cultivation Training

With Seona Gwon

When: Sep 29, 2021 – Nov 17, 2021 (Every Wednesday for 8 weeks) 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: Online Zoom

THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL 2022. PLEASE CHECK BACK!

Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) is a multi-week personal and professional development course designed at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and taught around the world by Certified Facilitators. The program includes practical tools and exercises designed to enhance your awareness, compassion, and resilience.

CCT will support you to improve your relationships with friends, family, clients, patients, staff, and coworkers.

You’ll walk away from each CCT class with tools and practices you can immediately put to work. CCT will help you:

• Improve awareness
• Increase connection to others
• Decrease the distress you may feel in difficult situations

CCT is a two-hour weekly class that includes:

• Large and small group discussions to share learning experiences
• Guided meditation to improve awareness
• Listening and communication exercises to build compassionate interactions

You’ll also have daily homework of one guided meditation per day and informal practices to try as you go about your day.

Tuition

This course has four levels of tuition, on a sliding scale:

• Supporter: $150 – $200  This amount supports our basic event costs
• Mid Level: $200- $250  This amount supports our event and helps keep our event to people of all income levels
• Sustainer: $250 – $350 This amount supports our event,  allows all income levels to attend, and supports our physical center to remain open.
• Pay-what-you-can: No one turned away for lack of funds.

About the Teacher: Seona Gwon

Seona works as a teacher, producer, writer, translator, and interpreter in South Korea, and occasionally in California. She is an International Dharma Instructor, certified by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. Also, Seona is a certified teacher of Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) and Mindful Self Compassion (MSC), teaching in both Korean and English. For 15 years, Seona was an Instructor at Joongang Sangha University, the primary buddhist university in Korea for monks and nuns, also taught in the graduate school of Dongguk University’s Buddhist Department, and at the International School of Buddhist Studies (ISBS), a graduate program for Korean nuns. As a producer, she brought the famous Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh to South Korea in 2003 for a countrywide visit, and Zen teacher Norman Fischer in 2017. Seona has worked as a researcher at the Dongguk University Academy of Buddhism.

Seona has a PhD in Buddhist Studies from Dongguk University, with a dissertation on “Modern Compassion Meditation in the West.” She continues to expand her studies, including completing the Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness (TSM) course and becoming a certified teacher in Self Compassion Training for Healthcare Communities (SCHC).

Seona is highly interested in the ongoing dialogue between West and East regarding methods to relieve suffering in the modern world, and especially interested in the Western secular programs focused on mindfulness and compassion. She often serves as interpreter for these programs in English, and served Jon Kabat Zinn in his first visit to South Korea, in 2012, to introduce Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

Seona has been a practitioner of Korean Zen (Seon) since childhood.  She lives with her husband, John, in Seoul, South Korea. Her central path is developing and deepening her own compassion and then manifesting it in life and action in the larger world.