Practice: The Core of Contemplative Education

Practice: The Core of Contemplative Education

A webinar with Mirabai Bush, Founding Director and Senior Fellow, The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
originally broadcast Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Mirabai Bush will introduce a range of practices that have been integrated into courses across the curriculum, including mindfulness, contemplative reading and writing, compassion and loving kindness, yoga and tai chi. Contemplative practices cultivate capacities central to education, including focused attention, deepened understanding of course material, greater kindness and compassion, and enhanced inquiry and insight. This webinar will also address the relationship between personal experience with contemplative, introspective practice and bringing a contemplative approach to one’s professional role.

Examples are drawn from the courses of Contemplative Mind Fellows and members of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education.

About the Presenter

Mirabai Bush was a co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and served as Executive Director until 2008. Under her direction, The Center developed its programs in education, law, business, and activism and its network of thousands of people integrating contemplative practice and perspective into their lives and work.

Mirabai holds a unique background of organizational management, teaching, and spiritual practice. A founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization, she directed the Seva Guatemala Project, which supports sustainable agriculture and integrated community development. Also at Seva, she co-developed Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists on the interconnection of spirit and action. She is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. She is editor of Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live. She recently recorded the CD Working with Mindfulness.

Mirabai is currently writing a book on contemplative academic methods with Center Director Dan Barbezat, and she teaches in the Smith College School of Social Work Contemplative Clinical Practice Certificate Program.