Jewel Heart Chicago Courses (2025-2026)
Current Course
Wednesday Meditation
This series of analytical meditations on various Mahayana points is intended to help calm mind and body, improve concentration, and deepen spiritual understanding and development.
* 1:00-2:00pm Wednesdays: 6/17, 6/24, 7/1, 7/8, 7/15
* Logan Square Branch, Chicago Public Library, 3030 W. Fullerton Ave.
* Free
* All are welcome
* Please email [email protected] with any questions
Deepening Awareness: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness explored mindfulness of body, feelings, thoughts and phenomena. It shifted awareness gradually from immediate physical sensation to more and more subtle mental phenomena, inside and outside of the meditator’s body-mind complex. This course concluded in March 2026.
Creating Space: Clarity and Insight
Creating Space used the breath as an anchor to gently hold the mind, allowing the mind to notice the arising and fading of various physical, emotional and mental phenomena that naturally occur. Staying close to the breath in this way can be profoundly grounding and relaxing. This course concluded in October 2025.
Recent Public Talks
Demo Rinpoche Spring 2025 Chicago Event
His EminenceDemo Rinpoche delivered a public talk in Chicago in the spring of 2025 at the Bucktown-Wicker Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Titled “Strong Like a Mountain, Flow Like a River” the talk addressed how to calm your mind in challenging times. Key messages included how to use shamatha meditation to stabilize the mind, how crucial it is to recognize, analyze and strive to eliminate negative emotions, and why we must press forward even though obstacles may be ahead or behind us.
The courses above are follow-ups to this event.
Demo Rinpoche: Choose Compassion Over Fear (2024)
In June 2024, in the community room of a local church, His Eminence Demo Rinpoche presented a talk on how to “Choose Compassion Over Fear.” The talk explored how compassion can help overcome the limitations caused by fear and confusion, and serve as a reliable guiding force for our everyday lives.
As a follow-up, senior sangha members led a multi-week course on The Four Noble Truths.
About Jewel Heart Chicago
Jewel Heart Chicago coalesced in the 1980s and 1990s to embrace the authentic and accessible teachings of Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche.
Over the years we have hosted numerous teachers, public events, discussion groups, dharma classes, guided meditations and local sangha celebrations, influenced by Rimpoche’s teachings. Although we lost our dedicated physical space during the pandemic, we continue to seek out and find venues to share the dharma with others. Please stay tuned and join us for upcoming classes, public talks and sangha gatherings.