beginning Fall 2026: Cedar Cohort

Planetary dharma - Two Year Flagship Program

Awaken the Bodhisattva Within - Applications open summer 2025!


Join us for a transformative journey taking place over two years—Fall/Spring Semesters 2026/2027 and Fall/Spring Semesters 2027/2028—with community led practices led over the summer months. This course is designed to support the awakening of the Bodhisattva within you. In a world marked by profound challenges and unprecedented opportunities, the Fourth Turning of the Dharma calls for a renewed commitment to sacred humanism through psycho-education and spiritual practice that meets the needs of our time.

This two-year immersive training in Planetary Dharma offers a path of transformation for spiritual practitioners, healers, and integral leaders who seek to anchor personal awakening within the context of global evolution. Rooted in the insights of the Fourth Turning and informed by both ancient wisdom and modern developmental frameworks, the program bridges meditative depth, psychological insight, and planetary service.

In Year 1, students are guided through foundational teachings that reorient spiritual growth within an integral, planetary framework—one that recognizes the interdependence of personal healing and collective awakening. Through contemplative practices, psychological inquiry, and integrative developmental models, participants cultivate a grounded, embodied sense of wholeness.

In Year 2, students deepen their commitment through the Bodhisattva Training, focusing on essence meditation, lojong (mind training), and compassionate action. This advanced curriculum builds upon the inner foundations established in Year 1 to empower practitioners to embody awakened presence and offer it in service to others.

Course Structure

The course is designed to support deep integration over time through a rhythm of consistent practice, community connection, and immersive retreat experiences.

Each week, students will alternate between small-group practice sessions and MahaSangha gatherings—large group teachings and practices that include students from advanced cohorts (Years 3 & 4). This structure cultivates both intimate peer relationships and a connection to the broader arc of the Planetary Dharma path.

Throughout the two-year journey, you’ll participate in multiple online immersions and at least two multi-day virtual retreats, each designed to deepen your embodiment of the teachings—all held entirely online for accessibility and flexibility.

For those who feel called, there will also be opportunities to join us for an in-person retreat, offered separately from tuition. These gatherings provide a powerful container for extended practice, relational depth, and direct transmission in a sacred, live setting.

The full course structure is in the process of being finalized and dates and structure will be published by September 2025 in advance of the next enrollment cycle.

Year 1: Fall 2026

Foundations of Planetary Dharma

(Fall 2026)

n the Fall Semester, we will be working on the Foundations of Planetary Dharma. This includes the following core modules:

  • Fourth Turning of the Dharma
    Explore the emergence of a planetary dharma rooted in sacred humanism—where timeless wisdom meets the evolutionary challenges of our time.

  • Wheel of Life & The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
    Study traditional Buddhist models of human suffering and liberation, reframed through a contemplative psychology lens to support healing across generations.

  • Psychological Attachment
    Understand how secure attachment forms the basis for emotional resilience, healthy relationships, and deeper spiritual practice.

  • Integral Maps
    Engage with integrative frameworks such as AQAL and the full spectrum of Ken Wilber’s “Ups”:

    • Waking Up (nondual realization),

    • Growing Up (developmental maturity),

    • Cleaning Up (shadow integration),

    • Opening Up (somatic and subtle energetic awakening), and

    • Showing Up (embodied presence and service in the world).
      These maps provide multidimensional guidance for whole-person transformation and spiritual evolution.

Year 1: spring 2027

Calm Abiding – The Nine Stages of Maitreya

(Spring 2027)

Now with the foundational teachings under your belt, you are ready to enter the heart of meditative training through the Nine Stages of Calm Abiding, rooted in Maitreya’s Path of Calm/Staying (shamatha).

This semester centers on cultivating steady attention, emotional resilience, and deep inner stillness. The journey unfolds through The Five Paths, each corresponding to specific stages of the meditative process:

  • Path of Learning – Stage 1: Placing the mind

  • Path of Reflection – Stage 2: Continuous placement

  • Path of Mindfulness – Stages 3 & 4: Repeated placement and close placement

  • Path of Metacognition – Stages 5 & 6: Taming and pacifying the mind

  • Path of Enthusiastic Perseverance – Stages 7, 8 & 9: Fully pacified mind, single-pointed attention, and balanced equanimity

Through progressive training, students move from distracted and scattered attention toward effortless presence. This classical meditative arc—supported by breath, posture, somatic awareness, and insight—forms the contemplative bedrock for the insight, compassion, and service practices that follow in Year 2.

Year 2: Fall 2027

Bodhisattva Training: Essence Practice, Cultivating Absolute & Relative Bodhichitta

(Fall 2027)

With the foundational practices of Year 1 integrated into your body, mind, and daily rhythm, you now step into the deeper arc of the Bodhisattva path. This second year begins with essence and insight practices that reveal the empty, luminous nature of awareness—supporting direct realization beyond concepts and strengthening your capacity to rest in what is.

From this ground of clarity, we deepen into the path of Absolute Bodhicitta, cultivating boundless openness and the experience of interbeing. Simultaneously, we step onto the path of Relative Bodhicitta, or Heroic Altruism, where we learn to meet the suffering of the world not as a burden, but as an invitation into courageous, compassionate service.

Core Areas of Learning and Practice:

  • Train in Mahamudra-style insight and emptiness practices to realize the nature of mind.

  • Deepen your embodiment of Absolute & Relative Bodhichitta, cultivating spacious awareness in body, field, and soul.

  • Practice Heroic Altruism through the time-tested wisdom of Lojong, transforming hardship into awakened presence.

Year 2: spring 2028

Mind Training (Lojong Practice)

(Spring 2028)

Alongside this inner opening, you’ll cultivate Relative Bodhicitta through training in Lojong (Mind Training). These powerful, contemplative teachings offer practical tools for transforming adversity into compassion and turning everyday life into the path of awakening. You’ll work with classic slogans and practices that strengthen your ability to meet suffering with loving presence, and to act with courage in service to others.

This advanced year of training also supports your maturation into soul-guided leadership. You’ll be invited to clarify your vows, refine your life conditions, and begin shaping the next chapter of your incarnational path. As a Bodhisattva-in-training, you are called to bridge inner awakening with outer action—embodying wisdom, resilience, and sacred responsibility in a time of planetary transition.

Core Areas of Learning and Practice:

  • Through Lojong, learn to alchemize confusion, pain, and resistance into insight and boundless care—awakening the heroic heart that responds to the world with fierce compassion.

  • Strengthen your capacity to meet adversity as a path to insight and compassionate action.

  • Explore the fuels of motivation that sustain long-term practice and service.

  • Begin shaping your multi-incarnational narrative self, aligning with your evolutionary purpose.

  • Recommit to your vow to create a Sacred World through awakened participation and ethical integrity.