“Compassion reveals to us that helping others versus helping ourselves need not be a tradeoff – through compassion, we can do both.”—Jordan Quaglia, PhD, WELCOME Instructor
In this 4-week, 8-hour course, you will learn how to intentionally cultivate self-compassion and compassion for others as a means of enhancing well-being, improving resilience, and bolstering one’s capacity to benefit others. Guided by expert Naropa University instructors, you will explore an integrative approach to mindful compassion training that blends cutting-edge research from neuroscience and psychology with practices and teachings from ancient wisdom traditions.
Utilizing experiential exercises, informative readings, and compassionate “fieldwork” activities, you’ll uncover how intentional, mindful compassion creates sustainable change–including through neuroplasticity–transforming the mind and brain’s response to empathy fatigue, emotional dysregulation and social challenges. You’ll also learn how the benefits of this training extend and ripple far beyond the practitioner, increasing collective well-being in tandem with your own.
Join us for WELCOME and discover the power of compassion, as well as unique and pragmatic ways to foster mindfulness and lovingkindness for yourself, loved ones, and even the difficult people in your life.
Learn more about this experiential workshop and with Carla Burns & Jordan Quaglia:
The title WELCOME is an acronym, with each letter outlining a specific aspect of mindful-compassion that will be explored in this course:
W – Welcoming Compassion and Compassion Training
E – Embodiment: Mindfulness and Basic Goodness
L – Lovingkindness
C – Compassion: Lovingkindness for a Dear One
O – Open: Lovingkindness for Strangers
M – Maintain: Lovingkindness for a Difficult person
E – Engage: Compassion in Everyday Life
Find more details in the Program Format and Schedule section below.
Contemplative practice refers to a broad range of mindfulness approaches–including meditation, yoga, personal contemplation, and more–that can help you process difficult emotions, expand your embodied experience, and discover your most authentic self.
How compassion training empowers us to take charge of our own neuroplasticity, and use the mind to change ingrained patterns and behaviors to those more consistent with our highest values.
Why cultivating lovingkindness for the difficult people in our lives is vital to an enduring and holistic compassion practice.
Practical methods for integrating mindful compassion into your personal, social, and professional life.
The title WELCOME is an acronym, with each letter outlining a specific aspect of mindful-compassion that will be explored in this course. Each class session has been carefully crafted to highlight these unique facets of mindful compassion, provide the scientific underpinnings of those facets, and offer contemplative practices for participants to engage what they have learned.
This 4-week course is offered from March 10–April 7, 2026.
Class sessions are held via Zoom every Tuesday from 5:30–7:30 pm Mountain Time, with the exception of March 24 for Spring Break.
What is compassion? Why train compassion?
Science: Understanding neuroplasticity and embodiment
Practices: Welcoming exercise, Mindfulness of the body
The role of embodiment in compassion training
Price: $200
Naropa students, staff, and faculty:
This iteration of WELCOME: Mindful Compassion Training, is designed for members of the public, and is not credit bearing.
Carla Burns, MDiv, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Naropa University, where she develops and leads retreat programs that integrate contemplative and experiential learning. She also works with the Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education, designing and facilitating trainings and programs, and contributes to Naropa’s Compassion Initiative. Her work focuses on integrating corporeal, elemental, and spatial ways of knowing to cultivate deeper everyday awareness. Through her teaching and research, Carla investigates embodied practices that translate expansive understandings of enlightenment into tangible expressions of everyday freedom.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology in Naropa University’s Psychology program, Director of the Cognitive and Affective Science Laboratory, and Research Director of the Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education. An author, professor, and public speaker, Jordan’s work bridges contemplative practice with contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research. He is the author of From Self-Care to We-Care (Shambhala, 2025) and a Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. His research explores mindfulness, compassion, emotion regulation, and boundaries, and he is known for translating research into accessible, experiential insights for diverse audiences.
About Naropa
Located in Boulder, Colorado, Naropa University is a Buddhist-inspired, nonsectarian liberal arts university that is recognized as the birthplace of the mindfulness movement. Naropa offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs that emphasize professional and personal growth, intellectual development, and cultivating compassion.
Academics
Contemplative education brings together the best of Western scholarship and Eastern world wisdom traditions. Therefore, your pursuit of wisdom at Naropa means learning both about academic subjects and about your own place in the world. This innovative approach places Naropa on the cutting edge of the newest and most effective methods of teaching and learning.
Admissions & Aid
If you’re seeking an education that resonates with both personal fulfillment and global impact, Naropa could be your top choice. At Naropa, you will experience a comprehensive curriculum that integrates the best of Eastern and Western educational approaches. Explore how Naropa can fuel your journey of intellectual and spiritual development.
Life at Naropa
Through its incredibly vibrant and welcoming community, “Naropa offers a home for those who aren’t willing to conform to convention—the mystic, the healer, the prophet, the rebel, the artist, the revolutionary, the oddball—those who are incredible contributors to the evolution of society and of our planet.”—Core Associate Professor Zvi Ish-Shalom
The Naropa Difference
How is Naropa different from other universities? At Naropa, a liberal arts education balances rigorous academics with powerful interpersonal skills and self-awareness to educate the whole person. Naropa’s contemplative approach is inspired by Buddhist philosophy and the conviction that we can build a diverse, contemplative, enlightened society when we have transformed education to affirm the basic goodness of every person.
Support Naropa
At a time when the value of higher education is being questioned, Naropa University stands firmly rooted in its mission to create a more just and regenerative world by nurturing insight, awareness, courage, and compassion in its students. By making a gift to Naropa, you play a pivotal role in helping to create the authentic, effective & mindful leaders that the world desperately needs.
Due to adverse weather conditions of high winds and planned power outages, all Naropa campuses will be closed today.
Graduate School of Counseling concentrations listed below will be offering online and low-residency courses to start their programs in January 2026 as well as our Summer 2026 terms.
Beginning a graduate program in Spring 2026 or Summer 2026 means that you will have access to apply for Graduate Plus loans as these loans will be eliminated at the federal level starting in Fall 2026.
Contact Admissions (admissions@naropa.edu) today to learn how you can begin the next step in your graduate education journey.
