Mindful U at Naropa University

24. Barbara Catbagan: Creating Resilient Teachers for a Crazy World

April 30th, 2018  |  29 mins 2 secs

education, teacher training, teachers

How does teaching with a contemplative focus help teachers in a crazy world? When we have practiced how to love ourselves enough to stand in our own business, then we can be more empathetic to the context from which our students come. If I'm in a class with 27 students and one of them is having a particularly hard day or hard week–or life–then it makes it possible for me to resource my patience and my sense of humor, if that's called on to help that student remain focused. To help that student to create tools that help them get through the day, for themselves, within themselves. And, no matter what age you are, if your life circumstances are in your way it's really hard to get through the day. Every class we start with a check in, which gives me a sense of what's in the room. It doesn't take away from the content, because the content is still there. The check-in informs me and the rest of the class about how that content might be heard.

23. Empowering Underserved Communities: Holistic Life Foundation

April 23rd, 2018  |  49 mins 14 secs

holistic life foundation, meditation, public schools, yoga

The Holistic Life Foundation is a Baltimore-based 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization committed to nurturing the wellness of children and adults in underserved communities. Through a comprehensive approach which helps children develop their inner lives through yoga, mindfulness, and self-care HLF demonstrates a deep commitment to learning, community, and stewardship of the environment. HLF is also committed to developing high-quality evidence-based programs and curriculum to improve community well-being. Listen as we discuss the Foundation and Naropa with its founders.

22. Elaine Yuen: Engaging Our World with Contemplative Practice

April 16th, 2018  |  30 mins 55 secs

contemplative healing, healing, trauma

How do we blend contemplative practice with service in the world? How can we extend ourselves, offer ourselves to that world in an authentic way? One where we're not burning out at the same time? How can we support people both at the peak of tragedy, getting over the most difficult parts, as well as the lasting repercussions? We meet people there, with them, where they are, with an open heart, acknowledging with them moment by moment by moment. I feel that's where our contemplative practices are most supportive, helping us be more present with that moment to moment disillusion. There is one moment - the one moment that is all of our life really. This thought is embedded deeply in Naropa's curriculum.

21. Joey Marti: Healing Emotional Trauma Naturally with TiPi

April 9th, 2018  |  31 mins 53 secs

contemplative psychology, natural health

T.I.P.I., the French acronym for “Technique d’Identification des Peurs Inconscientes,” or "Technique for the Sensory Identification of Subconscious Fears" in English, resets our emotional response to trauma naturally, using the body’s sensory memory to harmonize with the trauma's origin. Joey Marti discusses TiPi and how he uses it, and how Naropa's psychology programs helped him. A Colorado transplant who moved here to attend Naropa, Joey received his Bachelor’s Degree in 2014 in Contemplative Psychology with a dual concentration in Health & Healing and Somatic Psychology. While progressing through his studies, Joey realized that he wanted to further his knowledge within the myriad forms of natural medicine. This realization led him to the desire to be a Doctor; his ultimate dream is to assist in bridging the gap between the numerous fields of medicine, health, healing, and wellness.

20. Mark Miller: Contemplative Approaches to Music and Improv

April 2nd, 2018  |  28 mins 56 secs

improvisation, jass, john coltrane, meditation, miles davis, music, sonny rollins

Improvisation is a wonderful contemplative practice–a mindfulness practice–a discipline that has to do with paying attention in a very precise way to what's going on in the present moment. It's about showing up–being open to whatever is happening musically, to whatever my colleagues are playing, or to the environment of the room–the acoustics, the audience, that sort of thing–and really drawing inspiration from that. Paying attention to all of that requires one hundred percent concentration. Music happens so quickly, so naturally, your intellectual mind really can't keep up with it. The brain can't be analyzing and explaining and interpreting why you're playing, you just have to play. To me, that means you show up and play who you are.

19. Rev. angel Kyodo williams: Liberation Through Radical Dharma

March 26th, 2018  |  35 mins 6 secs

angel kyodo williams, mindfulness, practice, radical dharma

Radical dharma and mindfulness - everybody is going to get a little taste of some meditation, and its great - whatever door you use to enter into practice is great. But - the conflation of mindfulness with a depthful practice that includes an ethic view is a problem. When mindfulness becomes yet another thing that we can modify, and we think is something that is there so that we can consume it, then it’s actually serving our ego. It's serving our ideas of who we are and who we would like to be seen as, in our performance as ourselves. In that way, it can become a factor in our incarceration rather than our liberation.

18. Lauren Ciovacco: A Journey of Discovering Sanity

March 20th, 2018  |  34 mins 12 secs

alumni, college student, contemplation, naropa journey

I remember it was after the first year I came back to Naropa–I was actually upset with my professors. I was like, "What did you all do? Whatever you offered me, I see the world in a new way now!" I was upset because I saw the world in its fullness. There were things I saw then–when I came to Naropa I was all sunshine and rainbows. It was all "...the world is beautiful and the world is great, and I am going to study Buddhism, and I'm going to be one!" It was an 'absolute' kind of thinking. But Naropa gave me a chance to actually stop, pause, and feel -- the suffering that is here too.

17. Lama Rod Owens: A Dialogue Between Love and Rage

March 13th, 2018  |  37 mins 29 secs

buddhism, dharma, happiness, lama rod owens, oppression

There will always be suffering. But with meditation, we begin to transform our relationship to the suffering and therefore the suffering itself transforms too. Dharma is all about relationships - it’s about how we are centered within our sense of self. And ego how the ego is always interpreting phenomena. Ego interprets phenomenon to give itself life, and the narrative, and the purpose - but that purpose doesn't have to be about being happy and free. It can also be about suffering and pain. You know? Any way that the ego can actually differentiate itself, it will do that.

16. Anne Parker: Gross National Happiness - The Inner and Outer Practice

March 6th, 2018  |  26 mins 58 secs

bhutan, environmental caretakers, gross national happiness, himalayas

When people hear the words "gross national happiness," they tend to envision a sort of idealization of what's really going on in Bhutan, the country that originated the concept. I watch our students while we're in Bhutan sometimes idealize things, and then hit a sort of crash as they see the reality, and then come out with a really deep sense of excitement and amazement about what's actually happening. We'd like to take that idealization off its pedestal altogether.

A bit of context for our listeners, first: Bhutan is a small country–about the size of Switzerland–that climbs from about 600 feet in elevation to 23 thousand feet in elevation, and quite quickly. It’s a very steep sort of place, mashed between India and China. It’s a little country trying to do this very large, very brave experiment. The fourth king of Bhutan, when he was pretty young, came up with the gross national happiness term, pretty spontaneously. As a reporter was bugging him about the poverty of his country, here is what I believe was his exact quote: "We don't believe in gross national product. Gross national happiness is more important."

15. Ian Sanderson: Survival Skills Through a Contemplative Model

February 27th, 2018  |  29 mins 43 secs

buddhism, martial arts, ninja, survival

In the background of all of all martial arts–outdoor education, Buddhist mind science, indigenous thought–there's a fundamental aspect of how to be in the world, one that is predicated on an elevated awareness. That's really where we start in Naropa's contemplative-styled survival skills class. We could spend all semester learning techniques, tips and tricks–things like that–but we don't have enough time. There is not enough time in one semester to learn all of those things, and if there was, and we did that, we'd be jumping the gun on some other really, really important pieces. Particularly, the concept that most dire survival situations–in fact, most elevated situations, most dangerous situations–the great majority of them can almost always be avoided.

14. Joy Redstone: Compassionate Therapy, Counseling, and Poverty.

February 20th, 2018  |  29 mins 13 secs

compassion, mental health, naropa community counseling center, poverty

A person has the right answer for themselves, and to express and ask for their needs to be met. It may not look like the answer that, ideally as a therapist, I might think would be best for them. But they have their own answers within, and every time we can be a conduit or a guide to helping them understand what their internal answers are and to actualize them, that's the gift we have to offer people.

13. Scott Rodwin: Awareness of the Built Environment

February 13th, 2018  |  31 mins 48 secs

ada, architecture, green building, sustainability

We're asking questions about changing an ordinary classroom into something that is as wonderful and nourishing and sustainable as it can possibly be. How does it encourage a great learning environment? How does it become part of the beauty of the campus? How does it contribute to the sustainability of the campus? All these things get wrapped in. Sustainability is too often thought of as a technical overlay to other rules and requirements necessary for building. We don't want to look at it that way, but rather as the starting point–part of the holistic design. When someone says I need a thousand square feet for a classroom - we should be asking questions like "why do you need it? What are you trying to achieve? Who is going to be there? What experience should the students have in this classroom? Should there be a living wall in the classroom? Should there be flexible seating? What kind of indoor/outdoor connection are you looking for? What kind of natural daylight?" and so on. These are the sustainability aspects of our questioning, and the answers all go back into the holistic design of the built space.

12. Deborah Bowman: Gestalt–Awareness Practice, Healing in the Here and Now

February 6th, 2018  |  31 mins 36 secs

gestalt, here now, therapy, zen

Gestalt therapy is a methodology one can use for therapy or for growth. I like to call it Gestalt Awareness Practice because it’s a way of working in the here and now for healing and growth. Gestalt - from German and not truly translatable into English - essentially means "the whole." Or something ever greater than the whole. It’s the idea that we're whole with everything and that our goal is to be whole within our self - not divided - not split. Using Gestalt Awareness Therapy, we can bring somebody back into the present by reminding them to breathe, or by reminding them of full body awareness. We can shuttle intention and attention from inside to notice what is going on out here. It can become a relational awareness practice where one is not just hanging out of the body - "... this is what I feel. This is what I think." But noticing facial expressions, body language, voice tone, and trying to see what the difference might mean between whether you're listening to me or not listening to me.

11. Ramon Parish: Discipline and Delight–An Embodied Education

January 30th, 2018  |  29 mins 31 secs

embodiment, naropa, parish, somasource, somatics

Ramon Parish is a second-year adjunct instructor in Naropa’s environmental studies department currently teaching a course on Environmental Justice. He also works with Golden Bridge, and with a budding rites of passage networking organization called Youth Passageways. Parish continues to study SomaSource - the brainchild of Naropa professor Melissa Michaels - deep teaching about authentic movement, somatic-based mindfulness, men’s work and contemporary rites of passage.

10. Jeffery Pethybridge: Writing, Literature, and Contemplative Approach

January 16th, 2018  |  29 mins 52 secs

There's a real diversity of tactics about how to integrate contemplative practices into the study of writing and the study of literature and the creation of those ways of being. This is about what it means to approach writing through a contemplative way. One of the great joys about teaching here at Naropa is the openness of students to experiment. The real readiness at which they're willing to implicate their person and their body and their spirit. That approach to the whole person in the classroom is really such a gift to work with as a - as a teacher and a peer and a colleague and a fellow and a researcher.

09. Richard Brown: Contemplative Teaching

January 2nd, 2018  |  31 mins 12 secs

compassion, contemplative education, mindful students, mindful teaching, teaching

At Naropa, the notion of contemplative education is one of drawing out the full richness of the student. In this episode of "Mindful U," Professor Richard C. Brown, core faculty in the Contemplative Education grogram, discusses what "contemplative teaching" is, and gives an example of techniques that work well for integrating it into ordinary classroom situations.