Transforming the Heart
2026-04-05 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
April BRN Academy
SUNDAY April 5, 2026 at 10AM PST
With BRN Board President Walt Opie
Transforming the Heart
Both Buddhist practice and recovery from addiction point to an inner transformation of the heart. As practicing addicts, our hearts may have been pretty shut down, which we may not even realize until it starts to open in recovery, perhaps quite slowly at first. One of the wonderful things about Buddhist practice is that we learn we can train the heart through certain practices like lovingkindness (metta). Then we realize we’re not practicing Buddhist recovery for ourselves alone–we’re also learning how to benefit others. In fact, the Buddha encouraged us to be a refuge for all beings.

The Mind in the Body: Breathing with the Nervous System with Kevin Griffin
2026-05-03 10:00 - 11:15 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87579202512?pwd=[REDACTED]

June BRN Academy with Rev. Myokei Caine-Barrett
2026-06-07 10:00 - 11:15 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87579202512?pwd=[REDACTED]
More About the Academy
The Academy has invited some of the leading teachers in the field of Buddhist recovery. On the first Sunday of every month for an hour each teacher will explore the sharp edges of suffering through the lens of the Buddhist Teachings.
The Academy brings together teachers from different Buddhist lineages and approaches. Themes like addiction, alcoholism, depression, stinking thinking and compulsive behaviors will be explored.
During this event we will meditate, listen to the teaching, then have time for a Q & A at the end.

The Unshakeable Heart with BRN July Academy with Vince Cullen
2026-07-05 10:00 - 11:15 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87579202512?pwd=[REDACTED]
Gotama, the Buddha, taught processes, not virtues. Equanimity is the clear‑eyed balance that stops us taking the world’s friction personally. Resilience is the active staying power to endure that friction without striking out. And forgiveness is their most radical by‑product. In this unsentimental talk, Vince reframes equanimity as grounded awareness, resilience as a practical capacity of a regulated nervous system, and forgiveness as a radical act of intelligence. Drawing on secular dharma and evolutionary psychology, he explores how our basic survival instincts — to protect, promote, and satisfy — map directly onto Buddhism’s three types of craving, trapping us in a state of existential friction that fuels resentment, shame, and defensive living. The talk offers a practical way out: not another set of rules to live up to, but a way to settle the nervous system so the heart no longer has to fight reality.

More About the Academy
The Academy has invited some of the leading teachers in the field of Buddhist recovery. On the first Sunday of every month for an hour each teacher will explore the sharp edges of suffering through the lens of the Buddhist Teachings.
The Academy brings together teachers from different Buddhist lineages and approaches. Themes like addiction, alcoholism, depression, stinking thinking and compulsive behaviors will be explored.
During this event we will meditate, listen to the teaching, then have time for a Q & A at the end.

BRN August Academy with Ven. Dayananda
2026-08-02 10:00 - 11:15 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87579202512?pwd=[REDACTED]
To Sign Up and Give Dana and Get Reminders Click Here

The True Nature of Existence: Deconstructing the Sensation of Incompleteness

This talk investigates the true nature of existence through the Buddha’s teaching on the four inversions of perception, mind, and view, found in the Vipallasa Sutta. Rather than viewing our lives through personal narratives, we will examine how these inversions cause us to instinctively mistake the impermanent for permanent, and the non-self for a solid, unchanging “I.”
We will explore how these distortions manifest as a persistent sensation of incompleteness, the precise meaning of dukkha, which arises whenever existence is “not entirely to our way.” By recognizing that existence is a series of conditional arisings rather than a state governed by a fixed “master,” we begin to loosen the unquenchable thirst of the unawakened mind. The talk focuses on how untrapping ourselves from these views allows for a steady, balanced mind, no longer driven by the eight vicissitudes of worldly gain and loss.

More About the Academy
The Academy has invited some of the leading teachers in the field of Buddhist recovery. On the first Sunday of every month for an hour each teacher will explore the sharp edges of suffering through the lens of the Buddhist Teachings.
The Academy brings together teachers from different Buddhist lineages and approaches. Themes like addiction, alcoholism, depression, stinking thinking and compulsive behaviors will be explored.
During this event we will meditate, listen to the teaching, then have time for a Q & A at the end.

BRN September Academy with Vimalasara
2026-09-06 10:00 - 11:15 | https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87579202512?pwd=[REDACTED]
