Know your mind, transform your life

In this 8-week course — the second of three Know your Mind, Transform your Life course modules — we will explore Buddha’s Mahayana teachings on love and compassion.

These teachings offer an approach to life that is grounded in sanity, kindness, and compassion. Yet they also offer a vision that completely transcends our ordinary way of viewing ourselves and others, with an all-encompassing vision of enlightenment.

At the heart of this vision of enlightenment is the view that our innate, fundamental identity is vast, luminous and utterly awake. The Mahayana teachings refer to this as our enlightened heart, or bodhicitta. Enlightenment is nothing other than who we really are. But for most of us, our true nature is like a hidden treasure, concealed behind layers of mental activity and preoccupation.

We will explore how to give expression to our enlightened heart in everything we think, say and do, and especially focus on our relationships, which are like a mirror that shows us exactly where we are at. Our relationships also provide us with a way to dissolve the limitations that prevent the vastness of our true nature from fully manifesting.

Founded on a practice lineage that has been actively and continually practised for hundreds of years, these teachings are completely relevant to the challenges posed by our modern, globalised life. Topics covered in the retreat will include:

• finding meaning in our lives, and connectedness with our world
  
• overcoming loneliness and isolation
• how to thrive in the face of difficulties
• how to contribute to creating a more sustainable, kind, and compassionate world

Course details

• When: 8 classes on Wednesday evenings 6:30pm - 8:15pm AEST, from 5 August to 14 October 2026 (with course breaks on 12 August, 2 September, and 7 October).

  Plus two extended classes 9:30am - 3:00pm AEST on Sunday 23 August and Sunday 20 September 2026

• Where: In person at Rigpa Brisbane, 2/19 Enoggera Terrace, Red Hill QLD and online (online attendance option is intended for participants residing outside Brisbane or if you're unwell)

• Cost: $200 full fee or $110 concession

For Rigpa subscribers: The course is included in your subscription fees. Please email brisbane@rigpa.org.au for the discount code (same code as module 1).

The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma

This course is the second of three modules that together explore the essence of the Buddha's teachings. Buddha presented his teachings on three occasions, called the 'Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma':

• Module 1:  Presents the First Turning, showing how developing wisdom can transform our lives and help us find our path that leads to inner peace and well-being.

• Module 2:  Explores the Second Turning, broadening our path to include our relationship with others through the Middle Way view of emptiness and interdependence and the practices of love and compassion.

• Module 3:  Presents the Third Turning with its key message that our mind's nature, and that of all other beings, is, and always has been, the Buddha: open, spacious, awake, and full of wisdom and compassion. From this perspective, our path is one of coming to recognise our enlightened essence, and bring it into direct experience.
  

About Jan van der Breggen

Jan grew up in the Netherlands where he earned a Masters Degree in Historical Anthropology. He is fluent in English and Dutch. He lives in Brisbane where he works as a data analytics professional. Jan was instrumental in founding Rigpa Brisbane in 1999, where he has served as a Dharma instructor for over 20 years.

Jan was honoured to be entrusted by Khenchen Namdrol Rinpoche and Mindroling Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche as one of the twenty-five worldwide Rigpa Senior teachers. In 2017, he was selected to be a participant in the Milinda program, a 10-year, international Buddhist teacher training program under the guidance of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Jan is a teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and a scholar of Buddhist philosophy. He began the path of meditation at 17 years old, touched by the tenderness of the human experience and filled with questions about what reality was all about. He soon encountered the writings of great masters from various traditions such as J. Krishnamurti, Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hanh and Sogyal Rinpoche. Thirty years later, Jan continues to be moved by the vast profundity of the Buddhist path and its vision of the inherent wisdom, loving kindness and strength that lies in the minds of each and everyone of us.