Connected:
The Deep Ecology of Being Human
Level 100
Monday, May 4th – June 15th, 2026
9 - 10:30 AM PT
What if your life is not a problem to solve, but an ecology to inhabit? Connected The Ecology of Being Human invites you into a lived exploration of interdependence: how body, mind, senses, relationship, and environment continuously shape one another and how recognizing this changes the way you move through the world.
Instructor - Dr. Bob Dozor
- 7 live online classes
- 90 minutes per week
- Zoom link sent on registration
- Recordings available or 6 months after class
- Free cancellation after first class
- Donation only
Description
This course begins from a simple yet radical recognition: the way we experience ourselves shapes the way we experience the world. When attention fragments, the world appears fragmented. When presence deepens, relationship becomes possible.
Belonging to a Living World Embodied Ecology for an Ecological Age invites you into an embodied exploration of what it means to belong not abstractly, but directly and sensorially to a living Earth.
Grounded in the contemplative vision of Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, particularly his teachings on Gesture of Great Love and the unity of Time, Knowledge, and Being, this course examines how perception, movement, thought, and ethical action arise together within a single living field. Rather than approaching ecological crisis as a problem “out there,” we explore the subtle ways separation is constructed within experience itself.
Drawing in dialogue with systems thinking, contemporary science, and Indigenous perspectives on relationality, our emphasis remains experiential. Through guided contemplative practices, embodied inquiry, and reflective dialogue, participants learn to sense ecology not as theory, but as participation.
This is neither a course in despair nor an escape into idealism. It is a disciplined inquiry into intimacy with reality an exploration of how care, responsibility, and love arise naturally when we experience ourselves as inseparable from the world we inhabit.
Who is this course for
This course is for those who feel the ecological moment personally not only intellectually.
It is for people who sense that activism without inner grounding becomes reactive, and that spirituality without responsiveness becomes insulated. It is for those who want their contemplative practice to inform how they live, work, and respond to the wider world.
No scientific training is required. What is required is a willingness to question the felt sense of separateness and to explore what shifts when that assumption softens.
What you will gain
Participants develop:
- A lived understanding of Embodied Ecology — how perception, emotion, and action continuously shape relationship
- Direct experience of interdependence through contemplative and somatic practice
- Greater coherence between inner work and outer responsibility
- A deepened sense of stewardship rooted in care rather than urgency
- Connection with a thoughtful community engaged in shared inquiry
Many leave not simply with new ideas, but with a quieter, steadier way of inhabiting the world.
Learning Focus
Our shared inquiry engages ecological disruption through the lens of embodied participation. Together we explore:
- The evolution of human consciousness and its ecological implications
- Systems theory and complexity as reflections of lived interdependence
- Indigenous understandings of place and relational belonging
- Buddhist philosophy and Western phenomenology as pathways of inquiry
- Contemplative practices from Tarthang Tulku that cultivate embodied knowing and ethical responsiveness
This course does not position you as someone who must “save” the world. It invites you to meet the world as part of it.
Weekly Themes
Week 1: Introduction to Embodied Ecology
Week 2: Presence and the Construction of Experience
Week 3: Embodied Knowing as Evolutionary Intelligence
Week 4: Becoming Indigenous to Place
Week 5: Reconnection as Practice
Week 6: Council and Collective Voice
Week 7: Ecology, Mind, and Artificial Intelligence
Mondays, May 4th to June 15th 2026
9:00am – 10:30am PT
Participant Reflections
“Thank you for such a wonderful class and I look forward to hearing how we go forward.”
Margaret M.
“I really appreciate that the concept of Embodied Cognition is helping me to bring together some different areas of interest/knowledge into a more coherent whole, transparentizing and dissolving the partitions between them, helping me to see connections.”
Simon C.
“I’m loving the way the course is provoking connections in me!”
Simon M.
Instructor
Dr. Bob Dozor
Bob Dozor is the Medical Director of the Integrative Medical Clinic of Santa Rosa and the Nyingma Senior Retreat Center at Ratna Ling. He holds a BA from the University of Chicago in the history and philosophy of science and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco. He has been a student of Buddhism since the 1960’s and a student of Venerable Tarthang Tulku since 1972.
Assistant Instructor
Dr. Carl Pilcher
Carl Pilcher is retired from a career in space science. He holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry, the latter from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.P.A. in International Relations from Princeton University. He was on the astronomy faculty of the University of Hawaii for a dozen years before becoming a NASA administrator for almost 3 decades. His professional arc took him from planetary science to serving as Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. He began studying ancient teachings in 2015 with a Hindu teacher and joined the Dharma College community as a student in late 2021. Central to his interests are integrating ancient wisdom, particularly of non-dualism, with a modern scientific world view.
Rosalyn White
Rosalyn White has studied meditation and Tibetan art under the guidance of the Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Tarthang Tulku, since 1972. She holds a BFA in Fine Arts from the California College of Art and a teaching credential from UC Berkeley. She has been teaching classes in meditation and sacred art for over 40 years. She has worked in the Nyingma Community since 1975, illustrating Dharma Publishing and Yeshe De books and contributing designs for the Odiyan retreat center. She also managed Dharma Publishing for two years, the Tibetan Aid Project for ten years and Ratna Ling Retreat Center for seven years.
Mondays, May 4th to June 15th 2026
9:00am – 10:30am PT