The Adhimoksa Foundation is an educational nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) foundation which aims to teach people how to live mindfully and to compassionately engage in charitable and altruistic activities that benefit society. The foundation’s main purpose is to provide a free and complete educational program in the theory and applied practice of mindfulness-based Buddhist meditations from a secular perspective. Anyone interested in mindful living as a way of benefiting both oneself and society is welcome, for free, to take the online courses, to receive personalized instruction in mindfulness, and to practice mindful living in one of the foundation’s three retreat cabins that are specially designed for applied learning of mindfulness.

Toward this end, Adhimoksa’s educational program serves as a school with virtual and real components to educate students in all the necessary steps to achieve mastery in mindful living. First, students are taught the theory and basic meditation techniques for cultivating mindfulness and compassion in formal seated meditation at their own home, via online instruction. During this time, students also are taught to integrate their practice of mindfulness with all activities in their lives, namely eating, sitting, walking, working, showering, brushing teeth, sleeping and so on. Then, once any student has gained a preliminary degree of stability in mindfulness and compassion in their daily lives—whether it be through Adhimoksa’s educational program or through any other educational resource—that student is taught to practice mindfulness in daily life using the foundation’s solitary retreat cabins. The cabin has been designed to help teach students how to practice mindfulness both during formal meditation sessions and after those sessions while engaging in normal living activities, such as cooking, eating, walking, and so on.

To clarify, the cabins are not places to live while learning to practice meditation. Rather, the solitary retreat cabin itself is a specially designed classroom setting where a student practices mindful living and hence, it forms an integral part of the Foundation’s educational mission. The solitude is a teaching tool that removes distractions and makes it easier for students to focus their attention. The simplified living environment helps to increase their stability in mindfulness during everyday living activities. After their retreat, they can learn to extend their mindfulness to include more complicated and distracting daily activities at home. Also, in the future, they may return for longer retreats in order to increase their stability further. Overall, teaching students how to live mindfully promotes mental health, helps them develop compassion for others, thereby improving the quality of their own and others’ lives through their altruistic engagement in society. 

Beyond benefitting the students themselves, Adhimoksa’s educational program also aims to help to alleviate the societal burden of dealing with persons suffering from mental health issues, such as depression, addiction, stress, and anxiety. It also helps to increase the number of persons engaging in charitable activities for the benefit of society. As an example of this, the Adhimoksa Foundation itself is set up as a charity that relies solely on donations so that its education program can be offered free of charge. Unlike other charities, Adhimoksa’s board members and instructors are do not benefit financially from donations to Adhimoksa’s educational program or its cabins. In this way too, the Adhimoksa Foundation teaches individuals the importance of altruism in truly mindful living.