Midnight Path

Illuminating Wisdom in Uncertain Times

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Inspiring the inner promise

In an era of unprecedented uncertainty, we stand just 85 seconds from midnight—the closest humanity has ever been to apocalypse. In 2026, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock forward by four seconds.

This moment calls us not to turn away, but to illuminate our deepest compassion, wisdom, and capacity for action. Midnight Path is an online course inviting us to walk with purpose in uncertain times, cultivating a new moral compass—for ourselves, for one another, and for the Earth.

Journey into the reasons of the heart

The path ahead requires more than intellectual understanding. It asks us to journey into the reasons of the heart and the wisdom of the body, where we can discover a different kind of resilience—one born from embracing both shadow and light. Through Midnight Path, we learn to shift from states of overwhelm, nervous system dysregulation, and reactivity into a grounded presence that can hold complexity and uncertainty.

The living practice of the paramitas

We’ll explore the 10 paramitas, from the Pali Canon, as gateways to understanding change in ourselves and the world. Rather than presenting these as idealized virtues to attain, we will approach them as embodied practices for navigating the full spectrum of our human experience.

  • Exploring what we can truly offer when we feel depleted. Working with scarcity wounds and the shadow of giving to receive.

    In Pali: Dana

  • Facing what we must let go of. Working with grief and attachment.

    In Pali: Nekkhamma

  • Acknowledging our not-knowing. Integrating head and heart intelligence.

    In Pali: Panna

  • Staying present with discomfort and working with the body's timeline for transformation.

    In Pali: Khanti

  • Bridging personal and collective shadows. Exploring what we hide from ourselves.

    In Pali: Sacca

  • Meeting our confusion and uncertainty. Practicing deep listening to body wisdom when the mind is clouded.

    In Pali: Sila

  • Understanding our patterns of activation and collapse. Finding sustainable engagement.

    In Pali: Viriya

  • Meeting fear in the body and finding courage in vulnerability.

    In Pali: Aditthana

  • Extending compassion and loving-kindness to our shadows. Working with judgment and rejection.

    In Pali: Metta

  • Finding balance without bypassing and trying to stay regulated during chaos.

    In Pali: Upekkha

What makes this course unique?

Shadow work

Learning how to define and recognize the shadow in each paramita so that we may move closer to our truest expression.

Focus on the collective

Learning how our inner environment relates to our outer environment so that we may apply the practices in our community.

Your working ground

Learning how to identify your unique way of service and to develop the tools for applying them in your community.

You will walk away from this course with the tools to…

  • Regulate your nervous system for sustainable engagement

  • Access both body and mind wisdom in decision-making

  • Track and work, somatically, with emotional patterns in the body

  • Build capacity to stay present with difficulties

  • Develop resilience in body and mind

  • Transform reactive patterns into responsive presence

Course details and registration

Timing

Class dates for 2026 are still to be determined. We are aiming for the fall.

Pricing

Pricing shared after dates publicized. Interest-free installments available. Scholarships upon request, read FAQs below for more info

Format

  • Live online classes with recordings

  • Online group discussion forum

  • Peer-to-peer mentoring

  • Weekly homework and final project

Individual class structure

  • Opening ritual to ground in present moment awareness.

  • Meditation practice to embody each paramita.

  • Dharma teaching on historical wisdom and contemporary applications.

  • Somatic exercise for nervous system regulation in threatening realities.

  • Group practice for exploration and authentic dialogue with an intergenerational cohort.

  • Applying the class teachings to daily life.

  • Closing ritual to anchor our learning.

Meet your teachers

Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward will be our principal teacher throughout this journey. Below you will see some of the guest teachers we had in 2025. The complete teacher line up for 2026 will be released later in the year.

  • Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward

    LEAD TEACHER

    Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward is the Co-Founder and Director of Education of The Lotus Institute, a senior teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism, and the author of Love’s Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships. She has her doctorate in adult education and an MA in counseling psychology. Through meditation, movement, and art, Peggy offers a path of deep insight that enables her students to discover and embody their most creative and authentic selves.

  • Kaira Jewel Lingo

    GUEST TEACHER

    Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher with a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage. Kaira is the author of We Were Made for These Times and co-author of Healing Our Way Home: Black Buddhist Teachings on Ancestors, Joy, and Liberation. Today, she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. You can find out more about her work at kairajewel.com.

  • Lama Rod Owens

    GUEST TEACHER

    Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger, and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care.

    A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. You can find out more about his work at lamarod.com and by signing up for his email list.

  • Kazu Haga

    GUEST TEACHER

    Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm as well as the upcoming book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country. He has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family. You can find out more about his work at kazuhaga.com.

  • Joe Reilly

    GUEST TEACHER

    Joe Reilly is on a musical journey of faith and spirit. His songs touch deep reserves of compassion and joy within the hearts of his listeners, giving encouragement to others on the spiritual path and using music as a universal voice of communication and celebration beyond lines of religion. Joe was raised Catholic and currently studies and practices progressive Catholicism, Native American spirituality, and engaged Buddhism. Joe has been a student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh since 2004 and is often found singing and writing songs on spiritual retreats. Reflective of the diverse traditions that guide his path, Joe has brought his music into Ba’hai, Buddhist, and Jewish Temples, Catholic, Methodist, Unity, and Unitarian Churches, and many Native American gatherings and ceremonies. You can find out more about his work at joereilly.org.

  • Ava Avalos

    GUEST TEACHER

    Ava Avalos is a Dharma teacher, HIV specialist physician, activist & dancer living in Botswana. Originally from Southern California, she weaves together her Mexican roots with those of Africa, where she has worked for over 24 years. Ava is a devoted yogini and brings her wisdom and love of the body, dance and yoga to her Dharma practice. Her expertise in dissolving embodied knots of confusion, trauma and fear into gateways towards clarity, understanding and courage form the foundation of her teaching, For Ava, compassionately exploring the intergenerational mysteries and the continuously unfolding miracles of the body allow life to be fully lived and celebrated with each breath and passing moment.

  • Brett Cook

    GUEST TEACHER

    Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling as a vehicle to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Using inquiry-based approaches he designs inclusive processes and products that promote awareness and embody the complexity of loving communities. His objects feature painting, drawing, photography, and elaborate installations to tell pluralistic stories with broad representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy and contemplative strategies along with music, performance, and food to create fluid boundaries between art making, daily life and healing. You can find out more about his work at brett-cook.com.

  • Tamara Cress

    GUEST TEACHER

    Tamara is a trauma-informed yoga and meditation teacher, life coach and speech-language therapist. She is a nomadic yoga teacher, who brings mindfulness based practices to community spaces including schools, churches, support groups, community centers, football fields and family reunions. Her teachings help people connect to their inner wisdom and to each other through fun, movement, stillness, and the breath. As a teacher of yoga nidra,Tamara understands the transformative power of rest, joy, community and compassion to renew, recharge and restore us.  

    Tamara has been featured in the magazine Yoga Journal and is a returning presenter at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. She is trained in meditation and mindfulness through Brown University's  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and is a faculty member with yoga teacher training programs offering wellness practices through meditation, movement and creativity. Tamara shares teachings that invite us to explore curiosity, self- inquiry and to connect to community.  She has a unique ability to connect to our hearts through storytelling and fun.

Who is Midnight Path for?

Those who sense a deep potential inside, ready for kind attention and nourishment.

Those who feel called to water seeds of peace, ignite creativity, and foster liberatory practices on a profound level.

Those who seek to heal misperceptions, instability, and fear in themselves and putting this into practice within the wider community.

Those who are ready to confront and integrate personal and collective shadows with courage and compassion.

FAQs

  • We will have an opening and closing session. The rest of the classes will be centered around the teachings of each of the 10 paramitas.

    Between each class, there will be opportunities to meet with other students and to practice the learnings. There will also be homework throughout the modules and a final project.

  • We hope that Midnight Path, and all of our Lotus programs, are rooted in intergenerational learning. It is when different generations gather to listen and share wisdom and lived experiences that we can wholly move forward together.

    For people who feel a call to participate in collective change and liberation and are looking for some guidance to identify their unique way of participating.

    For people who have been deep in activism work and are feeling despair or on the brink of burnout.

    For those who are interested in weaving/building a community centered around our current world reality.

    For anyone interested in embarking on a journey of seeing their own shadows and how they relate to the shadows of the collective, so we can move to a new way of being together.

  • We encourage you to sign up whether you plan to attend all or some of the classes live, or if you need to watch the classes through the recordings because of work or school.

    All of the course materials (recordings, homework, resources, discussions) will be accessible online. If you know ahead of time that you won’t be at a live class, please try to be active and engaged in the online discussion spaces so that your reflections and questions on the materials can be shared and heard by others.

  • We have a limited number of partial and full scholarships.

    Scholarships are primarily reserved for emerging adults (ages 18–29), BIPOC, and those from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

    As a guideline to support you in deciding whether or not you should apply for a scholarship, please review this model.

    Those who are within Tier 1 and 2 are invited to apply for a scholarship by emailing us at support@thelotusinstitute.org and letting us know if they’re requesting a full or partial scholarship.

  • If you sense that you have a unique gift to offer this world in our steps towards collective liberation, in whatever capacity, this course will give you the tools to bring this gift to the surface and learn to nourish it.

    You will be guided in how to sustain yourself and this offering in these trying, seemingly impossible times, and will be supported in bringing these learnings into practice through your own project within your community.

    Everything you learn will be applicable to your individual and relational experience.

  • Send us an email at support@thelotusinstitute.org.

  • Please share this program with your friends, family and communities. Thank you!

“These actions are not dictates from the outside of ourselves, but rather realizations of the greatness inside of ourselves that's only waiting for our kind attention and nourishment. This nourishment has a unique capacity to shift us from states of overwhelm and reactivity to a kind of calm yet powerful resilience in daily life. Together, we will explore the essential questions: How do we direct our energy? Where is our time best spent? What is our aspiration in our short lives?”

Dr. Larry Ward, course teacher