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Greetings!
 There are big changes at the Center. As Obama says, change you can believe
in. Our new Executive Director Philip
Snyder will arrive in September, bringing with him a remarkable set of skills
and experience as well as the desire to make wisdom accessible within the
existing culture, create spaciousness in busy lives, and help people and
organizations contribute to solving ecological and planetary problems.
After a time of passing on the inner secrets of the
organization, I will become a Senior Fellow in December. Still affiliated with the Center, I will work
on special projects and take time to reflect and write about what we have
learned.The "special projects" will
include a pilot retreat for Army caregivers (chaplains and medical teams who
are suffering from burnout) and a handbook on contemplative practices in higher
education, drawing from the amazing work of our Contemplative Fellows and
others. It will be the beginning of what
Norman Fischer and Jon Kabat-Zinn are calling the "post-institutional
life." Is there actually life beyond budgets and conference calls and board
meetings? I'll let you know.
Contemplative wisdom teaches us that everything is changing
all the time, and our work is to let go while being totally present, holding no
expectations of what will come. Last week on Martha's
Vineyard I was at the bedside of a dear friend who was dying, and
that was just what was called for: letting
go, being there, and expecting nothing, being ready for anything. I am entering my next phase in this spirit,
inspired by my dear dying friend and by those of you who are revealing the path
by walking it. Please stay in touch.
All blessings,
Mirabai
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Introducing Philip Snyder,
Our Next Executive Director
After almost two years of
searching for our next Executive Director and interviewing many fine
candidates, we are delighted to announce that we have selected Philip
Snyder to succeed founding director Mirabai Bush.
Philip's experience in directing organizations combined with his deep
interest and experience in contemplative practice make him an ideal
director of the Center. With a doctorate from Cornell in anthropology,
he has been the executive director of several complex non-profits,
including a large, multifaceted center at Cornell (the Center for
Religion, Ethics and Social Policy) and the International Office of the
Global Ecovillage Network. He also taught anthropology and received a
Senior Fulbright Fellowship in 1997 to coordinate the citizen conflict
resolution program of the Fulbright Commission, in the divided island
of Cyprus. Philip has had rich experience in all facets of
organizational and program development.
His inner journey includes Zen Buddhism, a year in a Christian retreat
and education center, and study with a Cypriot teacher and healer. Many
other approaches also inform his ongoing inquiry and exploration.
Philip will join the Center on
September 1, 2008, and will work together with Mirabai for a few
months, during which he will be getting to know staff, board, advisors,
supporters, and participants in our programs. Thereafter, Mirabai will
be affiliated with the Center as a Senior Fellow, guiding special
projects, and reflecting and writing about the work of the Center.
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Announcing the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education
For the past ten years, we have worked through our Academic Program to promote a culture of contemplation in higher education. The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education is a new professional membership association which
connects a network of leading institutions and academics committed to
the recovery and development of the contemplative dimension of
teaching, learning and knowing.
The ACMHE seeks to stimulate scholarship and research concerning contemplative pedagogy, methodology and epistemology within and across disciplines through retreats, meetings, conferences, and our annual Summer Sessions.
Our e-newsletters and private social networking website allow members to share scholarly work, participate in discussion forums, search each others' profiles, and read uploaded papers and syllabi. For more information and to join, visit http://www.acmhe.org. |
The 2008-2009 Contemplative Practice Fellowships
This past year, The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society took
over the complete selection process and administration of the contemplative practice fellowship program,
after ten years of working closely with ACLS (the American Council of
Learned Societies). The competition was promoted widely to include
proposals from the sciences and from Canada, and resulted in the
greatest number of applications ever, almost twice as many as in
previous years.
The increase
in applications attests to the growing interest in integrating
contemplative practice into the classroom and the field of
contemplative studies, but made the selection process very difficult.
Among very many applications worthy of recognition, these were the strongest. We extend a warm welcome to the 2008 Fellows.
Application materials and instructions are now available for the 2009 competition.
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Now Available in our Online Store
 Tree of Practices Print
$8.00 plus shipping
The
Tree of Contemplative Practices has long been the most popular page on
our website, so we are pleased to finally have 11"x17" color prints of
the Tree available for purchase in our online store.
 The Love That Does Justice
Edited by Michael A. Edwards and Stephen G. Post
$9.95 plus shipping
"Spiritual activism" refers to a growing movement of individuals
and organizations who cultivate an explicit connection between inner
transformation and their work for justice in the world. This book
contains statements by 21 of the leading voices in spiritual activism (including our own Mirabai Bush), complemented by 21 statements from well-respected scholars and
researchers who reflect together on the phenomenon that Martin Luther
King once called "the love that does justice." This unique book
provides ideas, inspiration, and support to one of America's most
significant emerging social-spiritual movements.
Visit our online store
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A New
Kind of Search at Google:
"Search Inside
Yourself: Mindfulness Based Emotional Intelligence"
At Google's
request, the Center, supported by Advisory Board member Dan Goleman, developed a
workplace course using mindfulness practice and other contemplative techniques
to develop the five essential competencies of emotional and social
intelligence. This eight-session
course, offered at the Google workplace in Mountain
View, California, will be taught for the third time this
fall. The pilot course, a big success,
was taught by Center Board Member Norman Fischer and Mirabai Bush. It included instruction in mindful
emailing. From Norman's teaching:
We find out that the more intimate we are willing to
be with our own emotions (and this may not be easy--there may be unpleasant
emotion, buried emotion, shameful or illicit emotion, emotion that threatens
our lives as they now are), the more we are willing to connect with others:
this is a visceral connection, not a cognitive one. It's as if we are hooked into another,
connected, almost, in the breath. We are
swimming together in the same emotional ocean.
Photo: Mirabai Bush with Chade-Meng Tan, Google University
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Summer Session for Contemplative Curriculum Development
August 3-8, 2008
Smith College, Northampton, MA
The summer session prepares professors at 2- and 4-year colleges and universities to return to
their classrooms with a deeper understanding of the practice of
contemplative teaching and a fully developed course.
Sorry, the application deadline has already passed. Information on the 2009 Summer Session will be available this fall.
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Retreat for Academics
November 13 - 16, 2008
Menla Mountain Center, Phoenicia, NY
We are pleased to offer our third retreat for academics.
Much
of our time together will be spent in silence and engaged in a variety
of contemplative practices, in addition to several sessions providing
training in contemplative methods adapted for the classroom and
discussions about the relationship of the contemplative perspective to
teaching, learning, and knowing. The retreat is designed to appeal to
participants with a wide range of experience in contemplative practice,
from beginners to seasoned practitioners. 
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Retreat for Law Professionals
September 11-14, 2008
Menla Mountain Center, Phoenicia, NY
Co-sponsored by CUNY School of Law
4 hours of MCLE Credits
Mindfulness meditation can provide a practical tool for busy legal
professionals to quiet the mind, enhance clarity and professional
effectiveness, and restore a more peaceful balance to their lives. This
program will include meditation instruction and practice, and will
explore the interplay between contemplative and legal practices and the
role meditation can play in the professional and personal lives of
lawyers, judges, law professors, law students, and other legal
professionals. There will be periods of silent meditation, lectures,
and group discussions concerning skills training and the ethical
practice of law.
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Deep Replenishment and Connection: Meditations of Loving Communion and Presence for Social Justice Activism and Service
with Lama John Makransky
assisted by Leah Wise, MSW
July 18-20, 2008
Garrison Institute, Garrison, NY
This summer retreat took
place at the Garrison Institute, Garrison,
NY on July 18-20, 2008. 20 inter-generational activists, organizers, social workers, and therapists
gathered in retreat with Lama John Makransky, a spiritual teacher in the
Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and Leah Weiss, his assistant, to
explore the value of meditation of loving communion and wisdom and what it might
offer them to maneuver a culture of work where fatigue and burnout are
perceived as a rite of passage, a nonnegotiable in recovering justice for the
communities they serve. And where holding a space to honor the fundamental
goodness for the people and institutions perceived to responsible for the
suffering and injustice they are working to reverse is not encouraged.
Retreatants
participated in guided meditations, silence and deep dialogue. It was a space
of mutual challenge, using the mind and spirit to make the abstract relevant,
simple and practical to social action. Several retreatants, who have had the
benefit of several years of consistent meditation learned at previous trainings
and gatherings, achieved major breakthrough that were evident and visibly
transformative.
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Shifting Metaphors:
Activism as a Path to Awakening
with Rev. H. Ryumon Gutiérrez Baldoquín
June 13 - 15, 2008
Smith College, Northampton, MA
On
June 13-15th, 50 activists, organizers and social work
students met in retreat with Rev. Ryumon Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquín, an ordained
priest in the Soto Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi on the Smith College
campus in Northampton, MA. Over the two days participants were asked to consider a different
archetype for social justice activism. They were asked to shift the metaphor of
an activist from being an individual devoted to a cause or an issue to one
devoted to the welfare of all beings. From one who fixes the injustices of the
world to one who is a witness and gives support to communities who themselves
heal the tear in the world. The group discussed the importance of healing what
was shattered in the activist as the first step.
This
retreat offered retreatants the opportunity to enter into stillness,
spaciousness and community as a way to explore these questions through the
teachings and forms of Zen. The two days include zazen (sitting meditation), kinhin
(walking meditation), dharma talks, authentic
movement and wisdom circles.
Noble
silence was observed. And although meditation experience was not required to
attend, participants were asked to take on the practices for the duration of
the retreat. A personal interview with the retreat leader was offered to each
participant.
photo (c) Marcia Lieberman
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Meditation Retreat for Law Professionals and Students
April 2-6, 2008
The Angela Center, Santa Rosa, CA
Practices at this 4-day retreat included sitting and walking meditation, yoga, qi gong, intentional
conversation, and role-playing. Legal
discussions were focused around ethics, communication, the elimination of bias,
and working with emotions. 60 lawyers,
mediators, judges, and students attended.
"I came away deeply moved, first,
by the experience of going deeply within myself within the silence of the
retreat, but perhaps even more lastingly, by having done that with 60 or so
other lawyers, who shared their souls through either their words or their
heartfelt silence....
Even though we have all gone our separate ways, I feel supported knowing that there are 60 others out there who are
all working, separately and together, in their various parts of the legal
profession to grow the seeds that we sprouted in the retreat."
- Law retreat participant
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Mindfulness as a Foundation for Teaching and Learning
February 9, 2008
Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC
160 teachers, mindfulness professionals, and practitioners attended this
conference, co-sponsored by The
Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and the Mindfulness in Education
Network (MiEN), exploring how to cultivate a foundation of contemplative awareness
for teaching and learning. Kimberly
Post Rowe, David Levy, and Florence Meleo-Meyer offered presentations about
mindfulness practices, opportunities to experience different practices and
themes for discussion in the morning plenary session. Afternoon breakout sessions were led by
presenters, planners, and other experienced contemplative educators.
Kimberly Post Rowe is the founder of Five Seeds, an
organization bringing mindfulness to health care and education. Her manual and curriculum guide, A Settled Mind: Stress Reduction for the
Classroom and Beyond (2007), introduces practices to adolescents and is the
basis for her "ridiculously popular" course "Teen Zen." David Levy, professor of Information Science
at the University of Washington and Contemplative Practice Fellow, has written Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents
in the Digital Age (2001) ) and
the paper, "No Time to Think," a contemplative response to the climate of
fragmented attention and information overload in schools. Florence
Meleo-Meyer of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School, adapts Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
for teachers and teenagers developing capacities for open awareness, training
of attention, sensitivity to interconnection, and enhanced self-knowledge and
expressiveness.
Charlie Halpern, chair of The Center for Contemplative Mind in
Society, gave welcoming remarks and introduced the presenters,
and in addition to David Levy, five other Contemplative Practice Fellows were
in attendance. The Center was pleased to
support the conference and the vision of integrating contemplative practice
into education it holds.
The next conference is scheduled for Saturday, February 14,
2009 at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Look for updated information as the time
approaches.
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| News & Events from other organizations
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Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program
Invites New Applicants
The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy
Training is a visionary and comprehensive two-year certificated program for a
new kind of chaplaincy intended to serve individuals, communities, the
environment, and the world. The program focuses on altruistic and compassionate
leadership and service, and on social transformation from a systems perspective.
It is intended to prepare people to have the skillful means to transform all
forms of suffering, including suffering induced by structural
violence.
Upaya is now accepting applications for the 2009
training cohort.
Faculty for 2009 will include
Roshi Joan Halifax, Margaret Wheatley, Fleet Maull, Stephen Batchelor, Richard
Davidson, and many more. For more information, contact Maia Duerr, chaplaincy@upaya.org, and see http://www.upaya.org/training/chaplaincy.php
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The 2008 "Nonviolence as a Way of Life" Conference
Sept. 11-14, 2008
at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
The 2008 Nonviolence as a Way of Life Conference will bring together nearly 2,000 people of all ages and backgrounds for four days of workshops, panels, dialogues, play-shops and other activities focusing on inspirational and practical applications of nonviolence in the following 14 areas of human life:
- Community & Culture
- Partnering, Parenting & Family
- Diversity & Equity
- Politics & Governance
- Economy & Labor
- Protection & Justice
- Education & Lifelong Learning
- Science & Technology
- Entertainment & the Arts
- Spirituality
- Health & Well-Being
- Sustainability
- Media & Information
- Youth
The common thread that weaves together each of the activities at the conference is the vision that the philosophy and practice of nonviolence can serve as a universal value for organizing all facets of human life.
Our aim is to provide conference attendees with a sense of hope, purpose, and meaning, rooted in the practical and useful applications of nonviolence.
This conference is being co-sponsored by:
The Coalition for Nonviolent Living
The Oregon Network for Compassionate Communication
The Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace
For more information and to register, visit http://www.nonviolentliving.org/.
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Neuroscience
&
Spiritual
Practices
Transforming the
Embodied Mind
An inter-religious conference
exploring emerging understandings in
neurospirituality
October 12-14, 2008
Claremont School of Theology
Claremont, California
What happens to the brain during spiritual
practices? Recent
neuroscientific studies
suggest that meditation,
contemplation, and prayer may change the brain and neurosystem in
identifiable and possibly predictable ways. What are the implications of such
findings for spiritual formation? For science? For theology and philosophy? For
life?
In
addressing such questions, this unprecedented conference will gather an
international group of renowned scientists, philosophers, theologians, and
contemplatives to probe the relationship between neuroscientific understandings
and the contemplative practices of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
The conference will offer presentations, conversations, and opportunities to
engage in and reflect on spiritual practices from each of the religious
traditions represented.
For more information and to register, visit http://neurospirituality.blogspot.com/
To register or ask questions about registration, contact
the Center for Process Studies: events@ctr4process.org or (909) 621-5330
With questions about the conference program and/or it's
speakers, email:
info@neurospirituality.org
The conference is sponsored by
The Claremont School
of Theology Spiritual Formation Program and the Center for Process
Studies, with major
support from the Fetzer Institute.
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"I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing
changed."
- George Carlin, 1937- 2008
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