Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

Our Vision

We envision an education that promotes the exploration of meaning, purpose and values and seeks to serve our common human future. An education that enables and enhances personal introspection and contemplative awareness cultivates the realization of our inextricable connection to all beings, opening the heart and mind to true community, deeper insight, sustainable living, and a more just society.

The experiential methods developed within the contemplative traditions offer a rich set of tools for exploring the mind, the heart, and the world. When they are combined with the powerful set of traditional practices in higher education, an enriched research methodology and pedagogy become available for deepening and enlarging perspectives, leading to lasting solutions to the problems we confront. None of these methods require an ideology or creed and are available equally to all.

We envision higher education as an opportunity to cultivate a deep personal and social awareness, stimulating inquiry into what is most meaningful to us as interconnected human beings. Through the inclusion of contemplative modes of teaching and learning, we seek to recast the traditional foundations for education into a truly integrative, transformative, and communal enterprise that is wholly open and inclusive of all backgrounds and that cultivates each person in the fullest possible way.

Our Mission

The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society transforms higher education by supporting and encouraging the use of contemplative/introspective practices and perspectives to create active learning and research environments that look deeply into experience and meaning for all in service of a more just and compassionate society.

The Tree of Contemplative Practices

You may be familiar with meditation, prayer, and yoga, but what about lectio divina, tonglen, and contemplative art? The Tree illustrates the similarities and common roots of a variety of contemplative practices.

Recommended Publications

Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live
Papers from The State of Contemplative Practice in America, a conference at the Fetzer Institute, June 2010; edited by Mirabai Bush. Over 400 pages of information on the applications of contemplative methods by secular, religious and spiritual organizations and professional sectors.

"Mindfulness in Higher Education"
by Mirabai Bush, Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 12, 2011, issue 1, pp 183-197
This paper explores the introduction of mindfulness into courses in higher education.Some of these courses are taught by Buddhist scholars; others are taught by scholars within other disciplines who themselves have a meditation practice.Those scholars included here represent a much larger number in diverse settings, including state universities, liberal arts colleges, Ivy League institutions, and historically black colleges. They teach in almost every discipline, including architecture, poetry, chemistry, economics, and law. The paper also places this movement into a short history of contemplative education and raises questions about its future impact on the academy. Read more.

Research on the Effects of Mindfulness, Meditation,
and Other Contemplative Practices

Looking for websites, books, and articles on studies of contemplative practice?
Visit our page of research resources.

Upcoming Events

The Mindful Teacher
A webinar with Steven Emmanuel
Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Wesleyan College
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
3:00-4:00pm EDT

Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet
July 1-7, 2012
Lama Foundation, San Cristobal, NM

8th Annual Summer Session on Contemplative Pedagogy
July 29-August 3, 2012
Smith College, Northampton, MA

Contemplative Approaches in the Diverse Academic Community: Inquiry, Connection, Creativity, and Insight
The 4th Annual ACMHE Conference
September 21-23, 2012
Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Contemplative Retreat for Educators
October 18-21, 2012
Garrison Institute, Garrison, NY

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