Education for Compassionate Living

Empower yourself with skills & wisdom to make a difference

How can we live in harmony — with the earth and its inhabitants, and with ourselves? How can we decrease our harm footprint and increase our help footprint? How can each of us contribute to the greater good while leading a balanced life?

These are some of the greatest questions of our time — and it is these questions that Earthville Institute’s programs are designed to help us explore.

WHAT IS COMPASSIONATE LIVING?

Com•pas•sion | kəmˈpaSHən | : A state of being in which one’s heart is open to feel empathy and caring for all beings.
Compassionate living: A mode of living in which one’s heart is open to feel empathy and caring for all beings, one’s mind is open to understand the experience of others and the interconnectedness we all share, and one’s choices and actions come from that place of informed caring.

Living with compassion means caring enough to be sensitive to the impacts (both positive and negative) that our choices and actions have upon ourselves, our planet and all the beings we share it with, and striving to do the least harm and the best good possible.

COMPASSIONATE LIVING:
THE WHOLE PICTURE

Earthville Institute's programs for compassionate living explore several interconnected areas of life.

Natural Building

Sustainable shelter solutions: nature-sensitive architectural design, building with natural materials, renewable energy, etc.

Meditation & Yoga

Through meditation and mindfulness, cultivate a clearer, calmer mind that helps you focus productively.

Organic Food-Growing

High-yield organic agriculture, natural landscape architecture and permaculture design, plant-based nutrition and healthy cooking

Holistic Personal & Vocational Development

Hands-on education and training in personal growth and professional skill development, including creativity, communication and leadership skills, etc.

We explore many topics that weave these areas together, such as permaculture, compassionate lifestyle design, voluntary simplicity, conscious consumption and waste management, DIY products, reuse and upcycling, and more.

Live more sustainably

Discover new solutions for sustainable thriving, so you can flourish while also helping nature and humanity flourish.

Deepen your understanding

Examine issues through new lenses to see their causes and possible solutions with holistic perspective.

Empower yourself

Develop your capacities for creativity, communication, collaboration and manifestation to clarify an inspiring vision and translate it into reality.

WHY STUDY COMPASSIONATE LIVING?

Compassion is in our nature, so why study it? Well, for starters, because so many other forces in modern society have trained us to believe that “success” and “development” come from contorting ourselves to become the opposite of compassionate: competitive rather than cooperative; tough rather than sensitive; forceful rather than gentle; gluttonous rather than moderate; taking rather than giving; consumerist rather than sustainable; distracted and racing rather than slow and present; and thinking shallowly rather than feeling deeply — right? So we all have a lot to unlearn, relearn, and learn from scratch.

“Education needs not only to develop our intelligence, but also to support the basic human values of warm-heartedness and compassion.”
— The 14th Dalai Lama

The global climate crisis and the many injustices and inequities in our society demand that we look urgently at our own lives, to understand the impacts of our choices and actions. The good news is that there’s so much we can do to make a difference, and it’s so rewarding to be part of the solution!

BUILDING A BETTER WORLD

Our flagship service-learning program for compassionate and creative changemaking

Building a Better World is a collaboration between Earthville Institute (USA) and Dharmalaya Institute (India), structured as an ongoing series of workshops, courses, and retreats designed to empower the creators of a more sustainable and harmonious world.

This contemplative and embodied program seeks to engage the whole of us in the exploration of the most vital topics of our times:

Responsible local and global citizenship
Insightful and effective changemaking
Cultivating holistic well-being for self and others
Integrated personal and vocational development
Wise and compassionate leadership
The power of creativity to transform people and the world

For details and registration, see this page.

Leadership Training in the Himalayas

We have some big news to share with you about the future of our Himalayan sister campus, Dharmalaya Institute, and the headline is that you’re invited to be a part of it!

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Reflections on Touching Earth 2023

Following up on the success of last-year’s 27-day Natural Building and Inner Exploration Workshop Series, we opened the doors again this year to make the ongoing construction of our Colorado eco-campus available as a learning opportunity for anyone wishing to explore earthen building and our relationship with nature.

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Straw-bale Buildings Rising!

We’re delighted to report that our 27-day Natural Building and Inner Exploration Workshop Series has wrapped up with results that surpassed even our lofty aspirations. Over the month, around 100 people joined us from across the US and beyond for learning, building, reflecting, and connecting.

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Traditional Timber Framing

In preparation for Earthville Institute’s inaugural 27-day Natural Building and Inner Exploration Workshop Series in 2022, Earthville’s cofounders set out on a mission to add traditional mortise-and-tenon timber framing to their natural building repertoire, embarking on a grand adventure with Robert Laporte of EcoNest.

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What is Compassionate Living?

Everything that matters most — from the quality of our character to the survival of our species and the health of our planet — depends greatly upon our practice of compassion.

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