Mindful U at Naropa University
Thoughts and Instruction on Mindfulness in Higher Education
About the show
As the birthplace of the mindfulness movement in the United States, Naropa University has a unique perspective when it comes to higher education in the West. Founded in 1974 by renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and lineage holder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Naropa was intended to be a place where students could study Eastern and Western religions, writing, psychology, science, and the arts, while also receiving contemplative and meditation training.
Forty-three years later, Naropa is a leader in ‘contemplative education’, a pedagogical approach that blends rigorous academics, contemplative practice, and experiential learning. Naropa President Chuck Lief explains, “Mindfulness here is not a class. Mindfulness is basically the underpinning of what we do in all of our classes. That said, the flavor or the color of mindfulness from class to class is really completely up to the individual faculty member to work on—on their own. So, what happens in a poetry class is going to look very different from what happens in a research psychology class. But, one way or another the contemplative practices are brought into the mix.”
This podcast is for those with an interest in mindfulness and a curiosity about its place in both higher education and the world at large. Hosted by Naropa alumnus and Multimedia Manager David DeVine, episodes feature Naropa faculty, alumni, and special guests on a wide variety of topics including compassion, permaculture, social justice, herbal healing, and green architecture—to name a few. Listen to explore the transformative possibilities of mindfulness, both in the classroom and beyond!
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Episodes
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88. Dr. Nicholas Powers: A Future On Psychedelics
August 15th, 2022 | 55 mins 42 secs
burning man colorado, legalized colorado mdma, legalized psychedelics, mdma therapy, mushrooms legalized in colorado, naropa university, nicholas powers, poet, proposition 122, psilocybin legal, psychedelic journalism, psychedelic writer, what is burning man
This is a bold, no-holding-back conversation on the future of psychedelics in therapy and beyond. "Last time I sang the national anthem, I was on ecstasy." (Powers, 2018) Nicholas Powers, PhD, is a writer. His no-BS approach to humanitarian literature has caught the eyes of Wall Street Journal, Truth Out, and The Independent. Tune in for a bold conversation on how a future on psychedelics might look.
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87. Spring Washam: Ayahuasca's Accelerated Earth School
August 1st, 2022 | 54 mins 27 secs
entheogenic, pachamama, plant healing, plant medicine, psychedelics
Spring Washam "clocks in" at a job many of us here at Naropa day-dream about: Hosting entheogenic plant ceremonies at a retreat space in Costa Rica. This episode is a colorful glimpse into her world of combining meditation, detoxifying nutrition, integrative practices, and sacred plant medicine in what she calls "accelerated earth school".
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86. Tai Amri Poetics: Beautiful Ashe
July 20th, 2022 | 46 mins 56 secs
buddhism, mindfulness, naropa university, on being, restorative community, restorative justice
"I started Allies in Action at Naropa while I was there as a student, and also was the editor of Tendril, which was a journal on diversity. And that really came out of my feelings of like, man it’s really hard being black in Boulder, and being black at Naropa was also very difficult. And — and I was getting triggered all the time, and micro-aggressions, which I didn’t have language for at the time, I just like, I’m not gonna be able to graduate from here if I don’t do something to try to change it. And Allies in Action was really like - how do we address unaddressed privilege and oppression in the school environment? And I feel like B.L.A.C.K Lawrence tries to do a lot of that, as well as how do we create space for black creators in a place where there’s not a lot of us.”
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85. Regina Smith: Visions of a Thriving Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community
July 1st, 2022 | 59 mins 18 secs
anti-racism, buddhism, buddhist school, culture, mindfulness, naropa university, on being, restorative community, restorative justice
Regina Smith, Masters in Contemplative Psychotherapy & Buddhist Psychology from Naropa, has a contemplated what a thriving mission, culture, and inclusivity-driven community could look like. Tune into this episode to get a glimpse of her vision and find out how you can help.
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84. Jamelah & Amanda: Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community at Naropa
June 11th, 2022 | 49 mins 23 secs
anti-racism, buddhism, justice, mindfulness, naropa university, on being, restorative community, restorative justice, transformative justice
Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community is an important development in Naropa's recent history. MCIC was created post murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - when the push for closer alignment with the University's values and mission was necessary for the conscious evolution of our community. Learn more about this division of Naropa from Jamelah & Amanda in this Mindful U Podcast episode.
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83.Travis Cox: Ecopsychology and Psychedelics
February 16th, 2022 | 58 mins 27 secs
ecopsychology, environmentalism, green living, psychedelic therapy, psychedelics, social change, sustainability, trauma healing
Ecopsychology is a field whose goal is to bridge our cultures' long-standing historical gulf between the psychological and the ecological to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum. Transpersonal ecopsychology is the evolving exploration expression and embodied practice of the inter-dependence of humans in the more than human world, which tends towards to the health balance and optimal well-being of all. A change in our internal landscapes might change our relationships with the land in a way that includes extending social ethics to the land and an examination of our loyalties, affections, and convictions.
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81. Jamie Beachy: Psychedelic Chaplaincy
September 29th, 2021 | 55 mins 33 secs
buddhism, chaplaincy, contemplative studies, naropa university, plant medicine, psychedelic therapy
"When we’re with people who are reviewing the end of their life or saying goodbye to a loved one, there’s this heightened sense of connection and awareness, a lot of times in crisis and sometimes difficulty. Psychedelic journeys can be — not always be easy and expansive, sometimes they’re challenging. And so there's a lot of our training, I think crosses over well into psychedelic therapies. And in particular, chaplains have this capacity to help assess the spiritual and religious landscape for a person before they go into a psychedelic experience. Because what can happen is, you can have a very powerful existential, you know, awareness of like the presence of a being or maybe a feeling of connection and — and then it becomes important to integrate that with your understanding of the cosmos and your religious and spiritual commitments. So people can go into some degree of existential crisis or just transition — it’s a very creative space. And chaplains are good at navigating those spaces as they’re unfolding. So that’s what chaplains I think, have to bring to the field, but at the same time, there are a lot of religious taboos and a lot of teachings within the religious traditions that encourage staying away from psychedelic medicines. And so that conversation is very much happening in the field right now and among religious leaders and professionals and chaplains and it’s — it’s an interesting conversation that’s taking place you know about the right use of these medicines and plants and how we can also do that without harming the communities that they come from."
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82. Dr. Sara Lewis - Psychedelic Assisted Therapy
September 29th, 2021 | 53 mins 34 secs
alternative therapy, buddhism, contemplative studies, plant medicine, psychedelic therapy
Join Dr. Sara Lewis, Associate Professor and Chair of the Contemplative Psychotherapy and Buddhist Psychology at Naropa University to discuss psychedelics and therapy in an academic setting with an interdisciplinary approach.
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80. Anne Lamott and Neal Allen: Conversation for Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside of You
July 29th, 2021 | 57 mins 9 secs
buddhism, buddhism lessons, contemplative, contemplative literature, divine connection, divinity, education, gender, healing journey, higher education, illusion, naropa, naropa university, patriarchy, schoalrs, self-help books, spiritual authors, spiritual literation, understanding truth
In this special evening event, hosted on June 3, 2021, by Naropa Extended Campus, spiritual coach and writer Neal Allen is joined in conversation by his wife, best-selling author Anne Lamott. Allen’s new book, Shapes of Truth: Discover God Inside You, provides a contemplative method for discovering one’s inner nature that is influenced by Eastern traditions, especially Sufism and Buddhism, as well as contemporary psychodynamics. Lamott’s best-selling spirituality books often explore a personal Christianity that is removed from the currently popular doctrinal evangelism. Together they discuss their collaborative writing life, practical approaches to spiritual practice, freedom from suffering, and much more.
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77. Charlotte Rotterdam: Finding Courage in Contemplative Education
February 17th, 2020 | 47 mins 38 secs
charlotte rotterdam, college, contemplative, contemplative education, courage, david devine, education, higher education, meditation, mindful, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, university
"Absolutely. You know we might have an idea about something, but then when you begin to express it from a creative place it's almost like you have to feel into it. If I want to write a poem about sadness it's not just about my ideas about sadness. At some point as I'm writing I need to stop and feel into what does sadness feel like? And then I might even think about a very specific situation in my life that brings up sadness. And then what arises from that place as a poem is coming from a non-conceptual place. Non-conceptual knowing and yet I've expressed something and I might even express it in words like with a poem. So, what we're trying to do in contemplative education is to bring both of those together. So, it's not in spite of conceptual knowing -- concepts are great, thinking is great -- but that there are other ways of knowing that are equally important and maybe if we bring them all together then there's a richness of knowing that begins to emerge."
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78. Charles Eisenstein: The Origin of Wrongness
February 17th, 2020 | 45 mins 53 secs
buddhism, buddhist inspired, charles eisenstein, david devine, education, good intention, higher education, inner self, inner work, inspiration, intention, meditation, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, origin of wrongness, reflection, self development, university, war, wrongness
"I read very widely and was trying to put the pieces together to understand this lifelong question that I had carried. What is the origin of the wrongness in the world, which is presented to us as a series of fragmented isolated atrocities and injustices and horrors -- without any synthesizing narrative that explains why the world is the way that it is? And I really wanted to understand so that I wouldn't be part of maintaining the status quo through pursuing insufficiently deep solutions that may be actually part of the problem. I think a lot of our solutions are part of the problem -- or you could even say our solution templates -- I mean one of them is the war on evil. So, I wanted to -- to get really deep and eventually I came to understand that all of the crises and horrors that we see in the world are an outgrowth of the mythology of civilization. The story of separation is what I call it, which basically says it answers the most fundamental questions that human beings ask. Who are you? Who am I? What is important? How is life to be lived? What is real? What is possible? How does the world work? And our culture answers that in a certain way. And other cultures have answered it different ways."
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79. Anthony Gallucci: Re-establishing Masculinity
February 17th, 2020 | 41 mins 25 secs
cisgender, contemplative, education, gender, higher education, masculine, masculinity, mindfulness, misogynistic, misogyny, naropa, naropa university, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, university
"There's gender identity, which isn't actually a problem. It's when it's forced into a limited paradigm or spectrum it can be an issue or when it's forced into a hierarchy. I see us eventually eliminating the hierarchy within these systems of identity and becoming more for lack of a better term, more merit based in our assessment of people's qualities. The re-establishing masculinity group believes that at Naropa to be foresighted and to support these movements we need to begin to get out of the way sort of speak and actually become allies to the anti-misogynistic movements that are occurring in our world. And to do that we ought to be -- we being people whom identify as masculine ought to be not disempowered to engage in that work. We ought to be empowered in our opinion to engage in that work. And the offering that's available of how masculinity is defined and actualized too often is non virtuous and not empowering."
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76. Miki Fire: Discovering the Self Through Transpersonal Wilderness Therapy
July 1st, 2019 | 46 mins 47 secs
buddhism, college, contemplative, david devine, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, miki fire, mindful, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, therapy, transpersonal, transpersonal wilderness therapy, university, wild life, wilderness, wilderness therapy
"I do think here at Naropa specifically we do have a transpersonal orientation, a transpersonal lens that we then incorporate into all of our classes. So, the contemplative education piece is very much interwoven in what we do in the field. And so, we incorporate contemplative practices, we talk about how nature based experiences themselves can be forms of contemplative practice and inquiry. We also do introduce the transpersonal model. So how do we work with those kinds of experiences that the transpersonal orientation has really taken in and not pathologized. And being in the outdoors for many people, depending on the context, also can be quite evocative of experiences that do not fit cleanly into our usual psychological frameworks or when they are they're often pathologized."
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75. Carl Anthony: The Urban Habitat Program
June 17th, 2019 | 35 mins 18 secs
breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat
"We need to think about a new quality in our organization where we are not only protesting against the things that are really hurting our communities and neighborhoods, but we're also really cultivating expertise on ideas and visions that we might have for the neighborhood and community. Finding ways that rather than having these issues come forth in competition, that we can actually have a big enough solutions put forth that incorporate. And one of the areas that we have been specializing in is something called Movement for Regional Equity and what that basically means is that the decisions that are made at a regional level are taken up by the community and our metropolitan region."
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74. Paloma Pavel: Reimagining Community Organizing & Environmental Literacy
June 3rd, 2019 | 45 mins 11 secs
breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat
"It's been a great joy and privilege in my life to work with individuals, with communities, with groups—sometimes in traditional organizations and non-profits—sometimes at a community level. We're living in a time where I think we're being called to move from a politics of protest and saying no to one of saying yes, and of governance, and of really learning how to take charge of the basic infrastructure of our lives. Communities are taking back locally produced energy and energy grids. People are working on knowledge about where their water comes from and soil—and also their sense of meaning and community and creativity and art in the broadest sense of: how do we imagine a new culture that is truly inclusive of all?"
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73. Paloma Pavel & Carl Anthony: Breakthrough Communities, Underserved Populations, & Community Engagement
May 20th, 2019 | 52 mins 7 secs
breakthrough communities, carl anthony, city planning, communities, contemplative, education, environment, environmental justice, higher education, justice, naropa, naropa university, paloma pavel, social justice, university, urban communities, urban habitat
"As we open and see that what we're carrying around inside ourselves, what we have created around us is kind of a fear story. When we actually step into the fierce love story that we long for, we start having a much more joyful experience and one where we're not at war with our earth community. One where we're actually welcoming growing things in our backyards and on our roofs, where we're seeing that space is imagined in a whole other way. And also, we do need to live closer together if we're going to preserve wilderness and agricultural land and green space—it's essential that we learn how to be with one another. And we're excited for this moment because we feel that it's probably one of the most energizing, innovating moments that we've ever lived through. And it's accelerating."