Special Events

LUNCH AND LEARN

The Right Mountain:

Practical Wisdom for Achieving True Wealth

Please join us to celebrate the publication of this new book with a conversation with Matt Ludmer and co-author Kristin Kaye.

The WMC sangha knows Matt Ludmer as our generous host at the Aligned Center, which he founded as the home of his company, Aligned Wealth Management. Matt is also a dedicated meditation practitioner and lifelong spiritual seeker, whose many teachers include Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. The Right Mountain is a collaboration with co-author Kristin Kaye, an award-winning writer, who is also a longtime practitioner, mindfulness meditation teacher, and student of Tibetan Buddhism and Insight Meditation.

In The Right Mountain, Matt, an accomplished Wall Street director and wealth manager who spent 40 years at the top of his craft, confronts a profound realization: prevailing definitions of wealth and success are fundamentally misaligned. Guided by Integral Theory, Tibetan Buddhism, Nobel Prize-winning economic research, and Jewish wisdom, Matt and co-author Kristin Kaye return wealth to its purest meaning—originally rooted in well-being, not accumulation—and reveal a framework to reclaim it.

The event is free, and lunch will be offered.

Books will be available for purchase, or order here now.

If You Meet a Buddha, Draw Them!

A brief experience with Sacred Geometry

Special Guest Michele Laporte

Sunday, November 15th, 10 am – noon ET

Online only via Zoom

Buddhas have beautiful faces. Such serenity, such peacefulness. Same with their bodies, so elegant, so grounded... But what does this ancient style of looksmaxxing mean for me, a meditator living in modern western culture? As practitioners we are encouraged to associate this perfect, mask-like face and smooth body with enlightenment, but how can visualizing such a “pure” form actually benefit my practice? What makes such proportions “sacred”? And what about all those colors and ornaments?

These important questions point to historical traditions and are part of a larger conversation about the uses of symbolism to promote spiritual realization, and we will touch on these topics in our discussion. Another way to explore this topic, however, is through the practice of drawing, or tracing. We are all familiar with the idea that using our hands to draw or trace forms can supply its own kind of understanding by allowing these shapes to connect with our minds in a visceral way, through feeling. So in this short workshop we will also try that approach, making a simple drawing of a Buddha head or a seated Buddha form.

For all skill levels—no artistic experience required.

All are welcome! Working diagrams will be provided.

Michele Laporte has been a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche since 1978. Over many years she has also had the privilege of studying with other Tibetan Buddhist teachers, primarily from the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages as well as Zen traditions. In New York City where she lives, she has been working as a gallerist and painting conservator for Buddhist art since 1997.

Michele also teaches at Parsons School of Design, The New School, where she is in her 29th year as an instructor in illustration, systems theory, and sustainable design. And for many years she has had the good fortune to act as arts faculty at the Profound Treasury Retreats in Maine.