ABIDING HEART EDUCATION
Abiding Heart Education™️ is a new approach to education that embraces a path of inner development that is rooted in ancient wisdoms. Our aim is to (self) educate towards inner freedom through a journey of re-discovering our innate goodness, our true nature. This unique approach is centred on experiential and contemplative learning, fostering a process of transformation and the development of wisdom and compassion.
Meditation, contemplation, experiential arts and crafts, communion with nature are the core components of Abiding Heart. In the meditative aspect, we are training our mind for the purpose of transformation. It is done by practising intentional awareness of sustained focus on specific physical and mental processes. We refer to them as meditative themes. In the contemplative component we engage with a reflexive, introspective and investigative study of the views which set out and nourish the process of mind training and transformation. We ponder, observe and reflect on the lessons we learned. Within that, we integrate arts and crafts as essential support for this course of mind training and development. Communion with nature, connecting to a sense of place and local heritage are also aspects of our education that are neatly woven in to deepen the learning process. We celebrate our rich diversity and common humanity as a way of recognising that, in essence, we all have the same wish, that is, to be happy and not to experience suffering.
Combined together these components of Abiding Heart Education reinforce one another, becoming one whole path towards mind development and transformation. Striving towards transforming our mind, the willingness to bear the difficulties it entails and finding ways to make it happen, is very similar to other pursuits in life, such as becoming an engineer.
The tools we offer in our education approach create a quiet peaceful place within ourselves so we can expand, see our turmoil and confusion, let go and discover the innate intelligence that goes along with this process. Abiding Heart Education is designed to offer us, ordinary busy human beings of all ages, a way to integrate a spiritual path in our everyday life, learning to deal skillfully with situations as they arise and transform confusion and dissatisfaction into the highest form of joy that is not contrasted with pain.
What Courses we Offer?
Study retreats, art retreats, adventure retreats;
Holistic personal and professional development courses;
Teacher education diploma courses;
Our courses are designed for anyone wishing to deepen their journey of self-cultivation, as well as for educators, teachers, parents, therapists, medical professions, carers, social workers and anyone caring for children, including our own inner child. We have something for everyone. For detailed information about our courses, please see below.
Abiding Heart Teacher Education
Abiding Heart’s children’s education fuses contemplative wisdom together with contemporary learning approaches, experiential arts and crafts, heritage, nature, sense of place and developmental science. Developmental science is an interdisciplinary scientific field that brings together paediatric, developmental psychology, developmental neuroscience and neurodiversity, child development, the ecology of human development, sociology and anthropology.
Abiding Heart Curriculum for Kindergarten to Class 12
In the Abiding Heart’s curriculum, for kindergarten through to class 12, all subjects taught are immersed within contemplative traditions that focus on developing wisdom and compassion. Our unique children's meditation and contemplative education is integral to each main lesson theme and throughout the school day, embracing a ‘short times many times’ style, which is developmentally more suitable for children.
Our curriculum content is grounded in a sense of place, nature and local heritage to foster another measure of wellbeing in children. Our learning approach cultivates a balance of the intellectual, affective, meditative and action or doing domains and how that informs our everyday life. In this wholesome way of learning, our aim is to nurture in children (and their teachers) the seeds of progressing on the path enabling them to re-discover their true awakened nature.
Abiding Heart Bespoke Education
Embedded in this approach is a method to create bespoke curriculums (for kindergarten to class 12) and teacher training courses that meet the specific needs of local communities around their world and their unique heritage. A working example of this adaptable approach is Abiding Heart's bespoke Experiential Buddhist Education for Buddhist communities around the world, which we developed and implemented since 2017 in the Himalayas.
The Founder of Abiding Heart Education™️
The Abiding Heart Education™️ approach has been conceptualised and developed by Dr Meyrav Mor over nearly 3 decades with the aid of experts and teaching practitioners. She has been conducting research that informs Abiding Heart's courses compositions and methodology as well as our children’s curricular content and learning approach.
Dr Meyrav Mor (left) with her teacher and education advisor Marjorie Theyer
Abiding Heart Courses
Our courses are taught by a team of acclaimed local and international academics and experts in education, pedagogy, contemplative studies, developmental science, neuroscience, movement, therapeutic education, healing practices, crafts and the arts.
Full-Time/Part-Time Diploma Courses:
This training is for existing teachers, aspiring teachers and educators.
This training is for existing teachers, aspiring teachers and educators.
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Full Time Paubha Painting (Thangka) Diploma Course
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Full Time Charya Nritya Buddhist Ritual Dance Diploma Course
Short Personal and Professional Development Courses:
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Designing a Bespoke Waldorf Curriculum: Integrating sense of place, heritage and contemplative education in Waldorf schools. This course is open to Waldorf teachers only.
Parenting Workshops:
Becoming: A series of short Meditation and Contemplative Parenting Workshops
Retreats and Adventures:
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Personal Development Inner-Study Retreats: For anyone interested in personal development and enrichment.
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Teachers Matter: Caring for teachers through learning to be: This personal development retreat for teachers is sprinkled with arts, awareness and mindfulness meditation, loving kindness and compassion contemplative practices, sharing our life stories and meals, socialising, being in nature and rejuvenating. This course is beneficial for all teachers of all education traditions.
Our full time and short courses are a hybrid of online and in-person classes and self study. Our delightful study retreats are in-person attendance only. We cater our courses for local, regional and global communities.
Abiding Heart Centre
Abiding Heart's centre is located in the lovely and welcoming town of Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Surrounded by glorious, rural countryside, pastoral land, enclosed in rolling hills and meandering rivers. This location is designed to help our students immerse in learning that engages the head (intellectual), heart (affective and meditative) and hand (doing and applying). This area of outstanding natural beauty also supports learning to let go and just be. This is an essential part of the transformative process of integration and embodiment.
Upcoming Courses
Full Time Contemplative Teacher Education Courses
1 Sep 2024 and 31 Jan 2025
1 Sep 2024 and 31 Jan 2025
1 Sep 2024 and 31 Jan 2025
1 Sep 2024 and 31 Jan 2025
Part Time Teacher Training Courses Route
The following 4 short courses form part of our full-time two-year teacher education
programmes and are offered also as stand-alone courses.
We are offering these courses for students who are unable, at this point, to commit to
our full-time teacher training or would like to try some of our courses first before
deciding whether to continue with the whole programme.
For more information or an informal chat, please contact our admissions coordinator admissions@abidingheart.education
Short Courses
1 Sep 2024
Heritage Learning
We offer short courses in Scotland's Traditional crafts and Himalayan sacred art fused with contemplative ecology, awareness and mindfulness meditation...in celebration of our common humanity.
To learn more, please click on the links above and below.
World Heritage Learning: Charya Dance
(introduction course)
Dates TBC
On-going registration
On-going registration
Study Retreats
On Tomlin Love and Relationship
This is an in-person retreat in Scotland.
This is an in-person retreat in Scotland.
4 July 2025
1 Aug 2025
30 Dec 2024 and
14 Apr 2025
Workshops
We offer curated workshops for parents at each stage of their path of parenthood.
To learn more, please click on the links above and below.
Peaches and Cream: Joyful Beginning
Infants and Toddlers, birth to age 2
Say What you Mean, Mean what You Say: Everything is Changing
Adolescence, age 13-18
Under the Rose Apple Tree: Awareness Middle
Childhood, age 6 to 10
I’m the Boss of Me: Loving-Kindness and Compassion
Puberty, age 11-13
2 June 2025
3 June 2025
4 June 2025
5 June 2025
6 June 2025
19 Aug 2024
"Love is the only cause of happiness. Its nature is all-pervasive like space. Love is the sunlight of the mind."
~Garchen Rinpoche