This will be an experiential workshop that includes critical contemplative practice and dialogue through the lens of Radical Dharma (Kyodo williams, Owens, Syedullah, 2016). It will further expand one’s field of practice and develop the concept of a social justice orientation to extend more deeply into practice and related communities. The experience will highlight the …
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Master Lectures: Seeing Reality: Interdependence, Relationality and the Expansion of Contemplative Practice
What is transformative insight, what methods lead to it, and what results come from it? Beyond short term benefits, lasting transformation from contemplative practice appears to come from shifts in the way practitioners see themselves, their experiences, their world, and others. Has the time come for a broader approach to contemplative practice, one that builds …
Master Lectures: Integrating First–person Inquiry in the Higher Education Classroom
At the heart of contemplative pedagogy is the cultivation of what psychologist DeWit (1991) and neurobiologist Varela (1996) have called “first–person inquiry,” a method that valorizes critical subjectivity in science and social science endeavors. This lecture briefly surveys diverse theoretical foundations of this method, with emphasis on application to higher education teaching and learning in …
Keynote: To Be of Benefit: The Promise of Contemplative Research and Practice
In 2002, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote, “The desperate state of our world calls us to action…We all are responsible for creating a better future.” Over 15 years later, those words inspire and alarm. Enormous suffering exists in our world today. Mental health problems and adversity are prevalent and impairing, including among children and …
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Dinner & Dialogue hosted by The Fetzer Institute: Consciousness and Contemplative Studies: Worldview Matters
Join Ed Sarath, University of Michigan, and Mohammed Mohammed, Program Director of Research at the Fetzer Institute, as they guide you through a provocative dinner dialogue critically exploring the significance of worldview in contemplative development. What might contemplative studies, with its emphasis on epistemology “how we know” learn from consciousness studies and its ontological quest …
The Ceremony of Art: Mindfulness In Indigenous Art and Vision
This lecture follows the tracks of the visionary/artist of Indigenous America as a path of mindfulness. The first track reveals the nature of dream and vision as viewed through the eyes and words of American Indian visionaries and artists, past and present. The second track explores the central role of vision in the context of …
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Master Lectures: Contemplative Studies Panel: Contemplating the Future of “Contemplative Studies”
This master lecture roundtable panel brings together eminent scholars in the field to explore the very idea of Contemplative Studies and its future. Panelists will explore critical questions and probe the importance of collaborative research processes that involve first, second and third-person perspectives and span the disciplines. They will explore questions such as: What is …
Master Lectures: Social Justice Panel: “From Awareness to Embodied Change: A Conversation Toward Contemplative Justice”
In her Keynote at ISCS 2016, Rhonda Magee posed the idea of “creating science that resonates with the suffering of the world” by considering how colorblindness and implicit bias impact contemplative research and practice communities. We are called to consider the ways in which it is necessary to move beyond identifying these individual factors toward …
2018 International Symposium for Contemplative Research
The Mind & Life International Symposium for Contemplative Research (ISCR) is the flagship conference for interdisciplinary investigations of the mind, meditation, and other contemplative practices. We are teachers, researchers, scientists and scholars. We are activists, politicians and business leaders. We are parents, students, social workers and first responders. We are instructors, writers, filmmakers and philosophers. We are all change-makers.
Ecologies of Mind in Health and Illness: A Perspective from Cultural Psychiatry
Mental afflictions challenge people everywhere in the world and every tradition has methods for alleviating mental suffering. Cultural psychiatry explores the impact of diverse social histories, cultures, and contexts on mental health and illness. A growing literature demonstrates the role of culture in shaping illness onset, experience, coping, healing, and recovery. Recent work in cognitive …
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