Classes & events

Why not test-drive Buddhism?

This 8-week course is a practical guide to the entire Buddhist path from first steps, right here and now, to Enlightenment itself. You’ll learn what Buddhism really is, and you’ll be guided in how to put it into practice. It could change your life.

All of Buddhism is designed to do one thing and one thing only, unfold your mind in the direction of liberation. Every ritual, wisdom teaching, meditation practice, mantra or ethical principle is there to help free you from the grip of greed, hatred, fear, timidity and delusion. But liberation from the problems that haunt us in our lives doesn’t happen randomly or haphazardly. 

The Buddhist path is walked in progressive stages and each stage is essential to unlocking the next. This 8 week Journey and The Guide course is a practical guide to the whole Buddhist path from first steps right up to Enlightenment itself. It is designed as a practical guide to Enlightenment and the successive stages that lead to it.        

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Course Description

Streamline your energy: You will learn a model for integrating your attention and energy so you can be more wholehearted and focussed. You will have everyday practices to unify your whole self around coherent goals that serve you and so transform self undermining behaviour. 

Uncover more power: Having unified your energy so that it serves you and those around you you will be given practices to intensify that energy. You will find after time that you have more impact and creativity in your engagement with the world and your environment. 

Shed unhelpful patterns: At the end of the course you will have started to identify habitual ways of behaving that keep you circling around boring and repetitive ways of being. You will be given methods to drop these limiting patterns so that something new can come through.

Open up to more: At the heart of Buddhism is a vision of human potential that can only be experienced to understand. This Enlightened experience is the potential of anyone willing to do enough work to achieve it. This course sets out what a life dedicated to that vision means.       

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Week 1: Integration. Integrate disparate and competing drives and desires so that you act as one person in harmony with your overall life goals and values. Work with “monkey mind” and internal chatter.

Week 2: Developing a Fit Mind. Take responsibility for every aspect of your life instead of delegating responsibility or blame to others. Gain greater knowledge of yourself, your habits and tendencies and own them as yours to change. 

Week 3: Positive Emotion and Action. Move towards a life of action and enterprise. Cultivate intelligent and impactful behaviours that come from states of positivity, courage, robustness and strength. 

Week 4: Positive Emotion and Other People. Learn more altruistic ways of being in the world that shifts you away from overly self interested behaviour to awareness of the needs of others. 

Week 5: Spiritual Death and the Laws of Karma. Learn how the Buddhist teaching on karma can be used to flourish our lives so that we start working more in harmony with reality instead of fighting against it. 

Week 6: Spiritual Death and Views. Become more aware of how our views, both conscious and unconscious, shape our experience of the world and our experience of ourselves. Learn how you can free yourself from limiting and repetitive ways of being through looking at and changing our views of the world and our place in it. 

Week 7: Spiritual Rebirth and Imagination. Once old ways of being have fallen away there is now space for something new to come through. This something new is more connected and more open and acts spontaneously and creatively. 

Week 8: Spiritual Rebirth and Faith: Start getting a sense for dynamic and positive forces that when we are receptive to them can transform our lives. Learn about the place Buddhism gives to faith in spiritual life.       

‍Is this course for me? 

The Journey and the Guide course is open to everyone, including complete newcomers, and is suitable for those starting out on the Buddhist path or those with more experience. By the end of the course you will have a basic grounding in Buddhist teaching and you will be well placed to engage with any class at the Cork Buddhist Centre.

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The classes take place at the Cork Buddhist Centre, in a friendly environment. They are led by Buddhist teachers who will guide you through each week's topic, answer your questions, and help you to reflect on how the teachings are relevant in your life. There will also be opportunities to connect with others, through discussion and a tea break.

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Course dates: 8 Weeks, Friday 31st Oct - Friday 19th Dec, 7.00pm - 9.15pm