2024 Awakening Joy Course (2024)

James Baraz

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James Baraz has been a meditation teacher since 1978 and leads retreats, workshops and classes in the U.S and abroad. He is the creator and teacher of the online Awakening Joy course, since 2003. He's also a co-founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. In recent years, he has also focused on dharma and climate change, and serves as an advisor to One Earth Sangha, a website devoted to Buddhist responses to climate change. His books include Awakening Joy with Shoshana Alexander, and Awakening Joy for Kids with Michele Lilyanna. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Jane, and has two sons and three grandchildren.

“This course changed my life. I understand now that I have a lot more to do with experiencing joy than I thought. To be joyful had always seemed like luck, or some sort of accident even, and I felt like I was a victim of life’s circumstances. I now see that I have more “control” over how often I experience joy. I can choose to be happy and choose to be unhappy, even miserable. Joy seems to occur more often as a result of this realization.”

M.E.

“I’ve begun to notice various aspects of my work for which I am grateful. And the more I pay attention to these, the more there are! Many of the things I now notice are things I had begun to take for granted, yet were the very reasons I had chosen this work in the first place.”

C.L.

“Setting the intention to be more alive and to experience joy has been incredibly powerful. I find that I am less afraid of my constant physical pain. My friends are noticing also that I am having fewer episodes of extreme despair. My long-time on-again-off-again boyfriend proposed at the end of July. I was very surprised as I thought he still had doubts about the future of our relationship. Later he explained that he had seen so much progress in the stability of my moods and my ability to live life that he no longer doubted my commitment to 'getting better'. I feel deeply grateful. ”

W.H.

“The course has been a wonderful experience of remembering the joy that is so accessible and available in our lives everyday. ”

D.B.

“I have been bombarded with an exceptional number of difficult experiences in the past two weeks. While I haven’t been joyful in the conventional sense, I have maintained awareness of my intention to cultivate joy…I’ve been very aware of compassion and loving kindness in each situation; and I’ve been conscious of allowing positive feelings and happiness to co-exist with the sadness that has naturally accompanied these situations. ”

D.S.

“I have an increased awareness of joyfulness, and the possibility of cultivating it. I also understand better how to experience it, rather then the old ‘random’ way of simply being surprised, or even worse, unaware of its presence. I now practice choosing to see the joy inherent in many situations, rather then the negative or painful aspects.”

J.L.