Spring greetings! The snowy cold winter at last seems to be drawing to a close. Bulbs are sending their plucky shoots up into the stronger light of the returning sun. After months under a shroud of white here in Massachusetts, the magic of green unfolds from the Earth yet again. The blessings of renewal!

Spring finds the Center deeply engaged in a process of reflection and inquiry as we envision the ways our work must adapt to the remarkable times in which we live. We are reaching out to a wide range of people who share a connection with the Center, confident that the collective wisdom of this extraordinary network can help us see beyond our limited perspective. The future will take us into more collaborative relationships and new partnerships with allied organizations, as we synergize our work by acting together. By summer we anticipate that the way ahead will be clear.

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Become our fan on Facebook

We've just created a Facebook page! If you have a Facebook account, become a fan. It's a simple way to keep in touch.

Download meditation mp3s

We've started building a collection of contemplative practice instructions. Right now we're offering seven recordings by Mirabai Bush, Diana Winston and Arthur Zajonc. You may listen to these mp3s online or download them to your mp3 player.

Browse the recordings

Social Justice Program Mentors Video

Our SJP Mentoring Project connects social justice activists with seasoned veterans. With support and guidance, participants explore how to use contemplative practice as a tool to sustain themselves and their social change work.

Watch it on YouTube

Remembering Our Roots

The Center’s Social Justice Program was invited to participate in “Remembering Our Roots” ALANA Leadership Retreat, a one-day retreat organized by Vassar College’s ALANA Student Cultural Center. ALANA is a space for learning, student advising, understanding, and celebrating ALANA culture. These African American/Black, Latino/a, Asian/Asian American and Native American organizations serve as a focal point for both students and faculty, essentially the entire academic community, to explore issues of cultural and racial identity, equity, and pluralism.

The Sankofa symbol comes to mind in describing the retreat experience. Sankofa is a mythic bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. An Akan word, it literally translates to mean “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forget.” Retreatants were reflecting on the roots of the College’s ALANA’s beginning, reaching back to the past to both honor it and retrieve what was either forgotten or lost that could benefit these emerging leaders as they move forward into the future as leaders in their respective organizations and as a collective on campus. 

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Spring Law Retreat:
"Effective Lawyering in Times of Great Uncertainty"

On April 2-5, the Law Program returned to the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA for our 8th annual meditation retreat for legal professionals in California. The theme of this year's program was The Meditative Perspective: Effective Lawyering in Times of Great Uncertainty." Over 80 legal professionals attended, with over one-third rejoining us from past Law retreat. The program wove together periods of mediation (sitting, walking, and movement) with lectures and conversations about integrating contemplative practice into our lives as legal professionals. Norman Fischer, James Baraz, Edith Politis, Judi Cohen, Ron Greenberg and Charlie Halpern presented talks. As evidenced by our closing circle, it was a profound experience for many and overall a great success.

The ACMHE Webinar Series

The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education is organizing a series of webinars--online seminars which allow participants to watch and listen to a live presentation over the internet. Recordings of our first two are now available on acmhe.org; click either button the the left to link to the webinar recordings and supplemental materials.

Symposium on Contemplative Practices for Army Care Providers 

In February, representatives from across Army organizations attended a symposium hosted by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. They met with distinguished scientists, scholars, and meditation teachers to discuss how contemplative practices and mindfulness training may equip chaplains and medical care providers with enhanced capabilities to give compassionate care and reduce the occupational risks of compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout.

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Search Inside Yourself

Several years ago, we worked with Google to design a Google University course in mindfulness-based emotional intelligence. The course has just been taught for the sixth time, and each session has been improved through student feedback and teacher discussions.

The course now includes an introduction to the science of meditation (101), a day-long introduction to mindfulness and other contemplative practices (102), and 5 2-hour sessions (103).  The course is well regarded at Google.  Some student comments:

 I've noticed significant change in my ability to influence others and build consensus with project approaches. Also I am much calmer, happier and my creativity is zooming. I wrote some code with a lot less worry about getting it right. It seemed to flow.

I feel much more in control of my emotions and how I react to others. Life just feels easier lately.

It was transformative. I developed empathy and the ability to really really listen to what others were saying.

Focus, Awareness, Balance: Continuing Education at UC Davis

We partnered with the Continuing Education Division of the University of California at Davis to plan the Division’s annual meeting on January 28, 2009. The Division serves approximately 60,000 adult learners from Northern California and throughout the world each year in a diverse array of programs. The meeting program included guest speaker Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted, who discussed the difficulty of our multi-tasked lives and reported that meditation is an effective method of developing focused attention. In the afternoon, Mirabai presented the work of the Center to 100 administrators, faculty, and staff. Cliff Saron of the Shamatha meditation research project, a unique collaboration between top-ranking neuroscientists and psychologists at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, presented his findings, including increased attention, decreased stress, and increased empathy. Mirabai and a local meditation teacher then introduced basic mindfulness practices. Afterward, Dean Dennis Pendleton wrote that “echoes continue to reverberate through our organization. Many folks have told us how much they valued the day and that they will use it in their professional and personal life. Several people told me that they were touched personally and directly by the program…can’t ask for more than that.”

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