with Elaine Jackson

Four Sundays
February 1 – February 22, 2026
10:30am – 12:30pm PST (Pacific Standard Time)
in-person only

Program Category: Dharma Education — Introductory

No prior experience necessary. Everybody is welcome.
Join us and embark on a journey to transform the mind.

Read more about the FPMT introductory course Buddhist Mind Science: Activating Your Potential.

Is warmheartedness a source of well-being? Are human beings kind by nature? How to activate a sense of connection with oneself and others? How to make it a source of true happiness? How far can our inner qualities of love, compassion, joy and so on go?

We will explore such questions from an experiential point of view, using both scientific and Buddhist knowledge of the mind and meditation, in a journey that may translate into increasing lasting happiness and a positive impact on oneself, others, and the world.

The course “Wise paths to the heart” focuses on cultivating warmheartedness and prosocial attitudes, which are essential for human evolution, well-being, and flourishing. It presents the four immeasurable attitudes of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, as drawn from the Buddhist tradition, and explores the mind of awakening, which embraces all sentient beings. It is complemented by references to current scientific understanding on the nature and biological basis of altruism, empathy, compassion, and self-compassion.

“Wise paths to the heart” gradually unfolds as a journey along different topics:

1. Warmheartedness as a source of well-being explores whether warmheartedness is a source of well-being, with research on the nature of altruism and ethics, and on the biological basis of warmheartedness. We also explore whether it can be trained.
2. To care for yourself to care for others starts by seeing how to take care of oneself, and how taking care of oneself also entails taking care—or connecting—with others.
3. The four immeasurables works with specific aspects of warmheartedness and prosocial attitudes: the four immeasurable qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. It also presents how to move from empathy to compassion.
4. Warm heart fitness deepens into the four immeasurables, by exploring their relation with wisdom, and by finding ways to replace afflictions for the four immeasurables.
5. The mind of awakening goes further to explore the possibility of fully developing our potential of warmheartedness and wisdom with the mind of awakening, which aims to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
6. Alchemy of the heart presents unique and provoking approaches to cultivating such a mind with methods that allow us to gradually replace egoism and self-centeredness for altruism and awareness of others.