  |
|
|
Dear Friends So much has changed since the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society was founded over ten years ago. The health and personal benefits of meditation and other contemplative practices are now widely recognized, and the movement to transform our world with wisdom and compassion continues to grow. Your donation will help our programs continue to demonstrate that contemplative awareness is vital to not only personal transformation, but the development of organizations, educational institutions, businesses and our government. Your support and engagement are vital to our ability to do this work, bringing the inner riches of humanity’s wisdom traditions forward into the everyday world.
|
||
|
Our Social Justice Program will use your donation to provide instruction, information, and support to those who are working to heal the wounds of injustice and oppression in our society. At our retreats, workshops and training sessions, we offer practical methods of bringing contemplative awareness into organizations, going beyond stress reduction to integrate contemplative practices into meetings, strategic planning, decision making and communication. Our team of Mentors is a unique strength of our Social Justice Program. At our mentoring retreats, these experienced activists, who also specialize in a range of professions--art, alternative healing, education, organizational development, conflict resolution and more--work with participants to help them understand how social action and spirituality can work together. Our country faces a growing wealth divide, and increasing numbers of people are requiring assistance from social service organizations. Activists and community organizers on the front lines of this work are facing greater demands and shrinking resources. Yet this is also a time of tremendous hope, opportunity and openness for change. Your donation will allow us to strengthen social justice movements by helping more people create and deepen personal sources of motivation, inspiration and sustenance through contemplative practice. |
||
 |
 |
Quietude allows moments of clarity to come forth, to see the fire that is lit underneath our sorrows and suffering...Ordinary actions can bring extraordinary results once we are able to transform our inner fire, access our ancestral wisdom and bring these teachings into our lives. Nghia Tran |
 |
 |
|
Contemplative practice has transformed my life. Helped me onto a more healthy, holistic path in my activism, in my humanism, in my “me.” In particular, the Social Justice Program has been a door, encouraging and supporting action that is grounded in the balance of body, mind and spirit. Kym Clark |
 |
 |
|||
 |
Our Academic Program is changing higher education. Your financial support has enabled thousands of students to experience new approaches to learning through contemplative courses and programs. Our program activities, including retreats, conferences, Contemplative Practice Fellowships and an annual week-long curriculum development workshop support pioneering instructors who are discovering ways to integrate contemplative practices into their teaching methods to create a deep, enriching, and transformative learning environment. In 2008, your support also helped us produce a research report on the use of meditation in higher education and establish the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, the first professional association for institutions and academics committed to the contemplative dimension of teaching, learning, and knowing. For 2009, we are developing a handbook on using contemplative practices in the classroom.Your donation will help us continue to serve the educators, administrators, support staff and students who are part of the growing movement to create a more contemplative educational system. |
||
 |
|
From my second family at Contemplative Mind I learned what Thomas Merton discovered: that contemplatives in any tradition might have more in common with one another than with co-religionists. The Center has become a place of communion without the need for language. My involvement has emboldened me to bring silence and lectio divina into the classroom. Sr. Linda-Susan Beard |
|
 |
|
We have in place a BFA in Jazz and Contemplative Studies, one of the first curriculums at a mainstream institution to include a significant contemplative studies component...Students from all over campus flock to our contemplative studies courses. Ed Sarath |
|
|
|||
 |
The Law Program is a leading voice in the growing movement to integrate contemplative awareness and the practice of law. Our retreats address questions from both the contemplative and legal perspectives, such as the role of compassion in adversarial situations, conflict resolution, ethics, and trust. We are helping lawyers, judges, and law students reconnect with their deepest values and bring balance to their professional and personal lives. Our long range hope is that legal professionals will both to respond to the question “how can I use contemplative practices to make my life as a lawyer better?” and go beyond this question to contribute to a re-envisioning of the legal profession. |
||
 |
|
Contemplative practice has changed my life...I practice meditation at home, on the trains, in the split-second between seeing clients, and sometimes even before I answer the prosecutor. It gives me an incredible perspective on how I react, feel, and take things in life. Mercedes S. Cano, Esq. |
|
 |
|
The Law Program offers a critical opportunity to help lawyers live a life reframed, to see matters in a larger integrated context, to install a “pause button” before initiating action. The contemplative lawyer offers him/herself the opportunity to improve the profession, to integrate his/her life and contribute to a meaningfully better world. Timothy A. Tosta |
|
|
|||
