Cultivating the Executive Mind: Is Mindfulness the Key to 21st Century Economic Survival?
A webinar with Jeremy Hunter, Assistant Professor, The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. Peter Drucker, the founder of the discipline of modern management, asserted that making knowledge workers productive was the key to economic survival for the developed economies. Though knowledge workers use their minds to make a living, are they ever taught to use their minds more effectively? This webinar discusses the decade-old mindfulness program at the Drucker School of Management designed to teach managers to manage themselves.
Read MoreIntegrating Trial Advocacy and Mindfulness Theory & Practice
A webinar with David M. Zlotnick, Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law. Sponsored by a fellowship from the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Professor Zlotnick created a course that explored the potential for mindfulness theory and practice to help aspiring lawyers make a career in trial work more humane and sustainable. In this webinar, he provides some background on how trial advocacy is typically taught in American law schools and walks attendees through the various ways in which mindfulness theory and practice were integrated into the course. This webinar should be of interest to teachers of all kinds of experiential learning, those who teach in professional schools, and those whose courses involve student presentations, as some of the exercises were also designed to ameliorate public speaking anxiety.
Read MoreThe Contemplative Spirituality of Toni Morrison
A webinar with Linda-Susan Beard,
Associate Professor of English, Bryn Mawr College
Lectio divina is an ancient Christian monastic practice associated with more than 1500 years of Benedictine prayer and preparation for prayer. It moves “reading” beyond the search for knowledge to an attentive and interactive appreciation for what rests beneath the text and in our own souls. Though usually used in working with sacred texts, lectio easily adapts itself to a wide variety of meditative approaches to texts–from poems, novels, or cultural critiques to the soul-chilling daily headlines of the local newspaper. This is a method of “reading” that also teaches us how to listen, with the whole self, to what a word or phrase speaks directly to or intimates about our lived experience. Prof. Beard uses this technique in classes on African and African American literatures, especially in a course aptly named “Toni Morrison and the Art of Narrative Conjure.”
Read MoreContemplative Activism: Meditations Adapted From Tibet to Empower Service and Action
A webinar with John Makransky, Associate Professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology, Boston College Wednesday, February 23, 2011 For more information: see FoundationForActiveCompassion.org, with links for Social Service, Social Justice, Dharma Teaching, etc. For workshops, retreats and meditation groups: go to FoundationForActiveCompassion.org, see links for Calendar and Meditation Groups. For a directory of socially engaged Buddhist organizations: Google “Socially Engaged Buddhist Directory” Suggested readings: John Makransky, Awakening through Love: Unveiling Your Deepest...
Read MoreArchitecti et usus meditatio: Vitruvian Echoes in Contemplative Practice
A webinar with Peter Schneider, Professor of Architecture and Chancellor’s Scholar, College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado Denver Wednesday, December 1, 2010 This webinar explores the effects of Vitruvius’ 1st century BCE descriptions of meditatio and contemplatio as they ripple through the history of architecture’s practices. Vitruvius’ words establish meditatio–from the Greek medesthai–as the essential mode that the way that architects do their work: the singular practice of attending to what they are doing while they are doing what...
Read MoreContemplative Pedagogy and Deep Listening
A webinar with David Haskell, Professor of Biology, University of the South, Sewanee, TN Wednesday, October 27, 2010 This webinar explores the use of contemplative practices in two different classroom contexts: hunger awareness and acoustic openness. Contemplation can provide students with the interior resources to hear both the pain of the world and the world’s beauty. These practices can also give us the groundedness from which to discern how we should respond to world’s problems and joys. David Haskell will discuss the ways in which he has used contemplative practices in...
Read MoreContemplative Neuroscience
A webinar with Richard J. Davidson, Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 This webinar provided an introduction to the emerging field of contemplative neuroscience. This emerging field is harnessing the concepts and methods from the modern study of neuroplasticity and applying them to the alterations that might be produced through contemplative practice. While the field is in its infancy, there are several promising findings that have emerged that suggest that the regular practice of certain forms of meditation...
Read MoreNo Time to Think: The American University and its (Anti-) Contemplative Roots
A webinar with David M. Levy, Professor, The Information School, University of Washington Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 David Levy writes, “Ten years ago I moved from a well-known high tech think tank to my first academic job, discovering along the way that the extreme busyness, overload, fragmentation, and acceleration of contemporary culture are just as prevalent within the ivy tower as beyond it. Universities are no place to think, I concluded, any more than hospitals are places to be sick. In this presentation I will explore how this state of affairs has arisen by examining the complex...
Read MoreContemplative Arts and Society
A webinar with Anne Beffel, Associate Professor of Art, Syracuse University Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Anne Beffel is a practicing “public artist” and professor of art at Syracuse University. She creates opportunities for empathetic exchanges through art. As a 2008 Contemplative Practice Fellow she created the course Contemplative Arts and Society to explore the intersection of art, contemplative practice, and social psychology. In our April webinar, Beffel discussed students’ experiences with a number of contemplative and creative art practices in preparation for designing...
Read MoreConsciousness-In-Action
A webinar with Raúl Quiñones-Rosado, Ph.D. and Rose Sackey-Milligan, Ph.D., Co-Directors, c-Integral Wednesday, March 24, 2010 This presentation provides an overview of consciousness-in-action, c-Integral’s unique approach to personal and social transformation. The presenters introduce some of the key concepts, principles and applications of this transformative path. They also speak to the value of contemplative practice in addressing complex identity and social justice issues for individual and collective liberation from oppression, a necessary stage as we move...
Read MoreContemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet
A webinar with Paul Wapner, Associate Professor and Director, Global Environmental Politics Program, School of International Service, American University Wednesday, February 24, 2010 How can higher education best address global environmental challenges? How can we equip our students to engage in environmental work, and how can we undertake meaningful scholarship that can actually contribute to global environmental wellbeing? This webinar will explore these questions through the lens of Contemplative Environmental Studies. Recommended Reading: Paul Wapner, Living Through the End of...
Read MoreVisualizing Contemplation
A webinar with Joel Upton, Professor of Art History, Amherst College Wednesday, December 9, 2009 A presentation on the expression of contemplation through architecture and the construction of meditative spaces. Upton writes, “Using images and schematic drawings, I will offer an exemplary model that draws on meditative space as one might find it in Japan generally and in the sub-temple of Daisen-in at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. Although I will give a Japanese name, “ainoma,” to the conceptual reality that informs this space, I will relate this particular visualization of...
Read MoreContemplative Practice in the Science Classroom: Practical approaches to the impractical / Impractical approaches to the practical
A webinar with Michelle Francl, 2008 Contemplative Practice Fellow, Professor of Chemistry at Bryn Mawr, and writer for Nature Chemistry. October 22, 2009 Prof. Francl teaches writing and chemistry and embeds contemplative practices into both. Her courses demonstrate the value of this approach for learning and doing science, where practice provides nascent scientists with another set of ways to reflect on their work in relationship to the larger world. She explores the use of many practices adapted for classroom use including “stilling” (breath and body awareness),...
Read MoreMindful Shopping: How Smart Consumption Can Benefit Beings
A webinar with Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. September 23, 2009 A talk on current developments in consumer-friendly tools that provide greater transparency regarding the health and environmental effects of the manufacturing, packaging and transportation of products. Goleman discussed how changes in consumer behavior and responsibility are necessary for truly sustainable change. This webinar will not be posted online, but a recording is available for single-viewing/classroom use. Please contact Carrie Bergman at carrie@contemplativemind.org for instructions on how to access the...
Read MoreDevelopments in the Field of Contemplative Studies
A webinar with Hal Roth, Professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at Brown University May 27th, 2009 Roth hosted an hour-long program about the field of Contemplative Studies and the experience of establishing the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown. Download the Powerpoint presentation used during the webinar.
Read MoreThe Science of Meditation
A webinar with Al Kaszniak, Professor and Head of Psychology, University of Arizona, and Arthur Zajonc, former Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Professor of Physics, Amherst College March 11, 2009 An hour-long program about current research into the physiological and psychological effects of meditative practices. Download the Powerpoint presentation Read the research report referenced in the webinar, Toward the Integration of Meditation into Higher Education: A Review of Research,prepared by Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown, and John A. Astin. Edited by Maia...
Read MoreAn Introduction to Contemplative Pedagogy
A webinar with Arthur Zajonc, former Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Professor of Physics, Amherst College, and Mirabai Bush, founding Director and current Associate Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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