Welcome
The Open Heart Project was created to help you learn to meditate, stabilize your practice as an everyday part of your life and, if you wish, to go further by applying the insights of practice to every part of your life.
As a meditation practitioner, you will find that it is good for your health, relationships, and creativity. But the benefits do not stop there. As you practice with consistency your life changes in surprising ways. You soften—first toward yourself, and then to others. You discover authenticity, bravery, and joy you may not have thought yourself capable of.
There are two ways to participate in this project.
BASIC. When you sign up for this free newsletter, you’ll receive one email per week from Susan. Each email contains a brand new 10-minute meditation video preceded by a brief “dharma talk,” where I answer common questions and make suggestions for how to stabilize your practice. Videos will be available for 1 month to basic members.
SANGHA. Imagine that a cool, non-dogmatic, interesting meditation center just opened up on your street. Inside you would find meditation instruction, a fully trained teacher, interesting classes, dharma talks, guest teachers, a book club and informal community gatherings. Now imagine that this center also offered 24/7 access to every talk and gathering they ever had! This is the Open Heart Project Sangha, a full-on meditation center–on your computer. $27 USD per month. Cancel at any time. LEARN MORE
FEATURES
BASIC
1 new meditation per week
COST: FREE
SANGHA
1 new meditation per week
1 new video lesson per month
Wed & Fri inspiration e-mail
Free participation in online programs
Book club
24/7 access to archives
Annual all-day virtual retreat
Private Facebook forum
Monthly check-ins
COST: $27 USD per month
Here is what is extraordinary about the Open Heart Project: it is the most complete meditation practice I’ve found online. A complete practice includes a “tripod” of support – often called the “triple gem.” One needs (1) strong practice, (2) the support of community, and (3) a teacher who can transmit energy and insight to students through relationship. Growth takes all three: practice, community, teacher. But how can one possibly have the feel of a authentic spiritual community or a vibrant teacher relationship in this setting?
The OHP succeeds by supplying brilliantly clear instruction in a method, and supporting us to actually DO the practice.
Even more than this, the OHP benefits me because I have a meaningful connection with Susan. She is a real person, with a unique voice and true insight. It doesn’t matter that we rarely interact. I feel blessed to have regular experiences of her as a very real person, and as a companion when I sit. She shares her passions with us, makes her own quirky jokes, opens up about her own suffering, and emanates great respect and love for us as a community. Her compassionate, totally honest, insightful way of being inspires me to practice well. I want to understand what she understands.
One should choose a teacher she loves, and at the OHP it is somehow possible to find this even though traditional forms of interaction are lacking. I find its presence in my life extremely edifying; and my practice is far stronger because of it.
–Angela
ABOUT SUSAN
Susan Piver is a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life and The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Her next book, Start Here Now: A Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation will be published in 2015.
Piver has been a student of Buddhism since 1995, graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and was authorized to teach meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage in 2005.
She teaches workshops and speaks all over the world on meditation, spirituality, communication styles, relationships and creativity. She wrote the relationships column for body + soul magazine, is the meditation expert and contributor at drweil.com, and is a frequent guest on network television, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, CNN, and The Tyra Banks Show. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, TIME, Parade, Money, and others.
In 2011, Piver launched The Open Heart Project, an online meditation community which with nearly 12000 members who practice together and explore ways to bring spiritual values such as kindness, genuineness and fearlessness to everyday life.
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