Mindful U at Naropa University

58. Dungse Jampal Norbu: Cultivating the Mind with Awareness

January 29th, 2019  |  47 mins 32 secs

"[Meditation] can be a little unfamiliar and scary, but it's something that we all can do. We just lean into it. Lean into the openness. What is it like to just be free? I mean, think of when you graduated college for instance—you'd been studying your whole life—filling your time with acceptance essays or homework or a thesis or something like that, and then you come out the other end of the education curriculum. And suddenly there's all this room. It's like, what do I do? And society says get a job. But for a brief moment when we graduate—it’s like what's all this space? What's going on here? It's a little like that."

57. Kate Mazuy: Healing through Wilderness & Equine Therapy

January 22nd, 2019  |  31 mins 23 secs

"The natural world is unconditional, and it welcomes us in whatever state we bring ourselves to it. It invites a level of presence. It sort of insists on a quality of presence, because while there's incredible stillness in the natural world there's also sort of constant movement—even if that's grass being blown by the breeze in a meadow, or a squirrel in a pine tree preparing for winter. There's always a little bit of movement and there's this quality of vastness, right? The natural world is so much bigger than us and in that unconditionality, I think we're invited into an experience that helps us deepen our connection with ourselves, but also helps us get out of our own way."

56. Bari Tessler: The Art of Money

January 14th, 2019  |  55 mins 2 secs

mindfulness, money

Bari Tessler is encouraging people to take a more mindful and conscious approach to their relationship with money. When Tessler finished a graduate degree in Somatic Counseling, she sought financial help to help guide her career. She found that most of the financial guidance offered was coming from older white males and was focused on traditional money management, how to pay off loans, invest, etc. Tessler was curious, “Where does the body come in?” and her subsequent work has been about helping people examine and heal their relationship with money to lead more empowered, sucessful lives. Learn more about Bari and her work in this exciting conversation with Mindful U podcast host, David DeVine.

55. Encore Presentation: Lama Rod Owens: A Dialogue Between Love and Rage

January 7th, 2019  |  37 mins 29 secs

lama rod owens, lovingkindness

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.

54. Encore Presentation: Phillip Stanley - The Relationships Between Sense Perceptions, Concepts, and Emotions.

December 31st, 2018  |  29 mins 11 secs

epistemology, experience, perception, philosophy, senses

Naropa University presents encore presentations of our most popular and heartfelt podcasts from 2018, including Phillip Stanley talking on The Relationships Between Sense Perceptions, Concepts, and Emotions :

Dr. Phillip Stanley, PhD, speaks about one of his favorite class topics: the relationship between sense perceptions, concepts and emotions. Such an exploration leads to surprising insights that leave students often dumbfounded. We think we know what sense perceptions are–concepts, and so forth–but if you start looking into it it can be quite surprising.

53. Encore Presentation - Dr. Itai Ivtzan: The Discovery of Meaning and Purpose

December 24th, 2018  |  38 mins 8 secs

karma, naropa, psychology

Naropa presents some of the most popular and moving episodes of MindfulU from 2018, including "The Discovery of Meaning and Purpose, with Dr. Itai Ivtzan."

The disciplines of psychology and spirituality both offer us humans a gift. Psychology, being the mind-oriented discipline, seems to offer us a chance to envision ourselves within our surroundings. At the same time, spirituality invites us to move beyond the mind, and even beyond the definitions of a self. Most of us tend to focus on one or the other over our lives. But, in doing so, we often narrow our experience. When these two disciplines are married, however, we can achieve an incredible explosion of potentials to live life as fully as possible.

52. Encore Presentation - Rev. angel Kyodo williams: Liberation Through Radical Dharma

December 17th, 2018  |  35 mins 6 secs

angel kyodo williams, mindfulness, practice, radical dharma

While Naropa University spends some contemplative downtime with families and friends for the holidays, we present some of our most popular an moving episodes from 2018, beginning with the Rev. angel Kyodo williams...

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.

51. Sherry Ellms: Strengthening Our Resilience in a Time of Uncertainty

December 10th, 2018  |  34 mins 9 secs

environmental studies, ma resilient leadership

How are we defining the self? Are we all getting into the real depths of the lie that we are separate, that we're separate entities? Sherry Ellms' students get to explore that separateness and realize that we've always been part of Earth. Consider this analogy: if you cut off my arms I will live. If you cut off my legs I will live. But, if you cut off my air, I will die. How can one say that my limbs are more a part of me than the air? We really are completely interdependent with all of life, and with all of Earth. If we have an enlightened sense of self; if it's an ecological self, then taking care of the earth is like enlightened self-interest. It's not being selfish, because we are connected with everything.

50. Richard Rudis: Therapy through Sacred Sound and Gong Baths

December 3rd, 2018  |  49 mins 16 secs

healing, music, richard rudis

Richard Rudis spent years in Tibet and Nepal, and in the Himalayas, where he met many teachers and many fundamental teachings came forward. At some point, the outline of sacred sound healing became clear, and he introduced the gong once he found a manufacturer who was creating a poly-tonal instrument that was noble enough and had as much expansion of sound, overtones, harmonics, and frequencies that would reflect sacred sound healing as it came from tradition. Then, he started on the journey of offering gong baths.

49. Diane Israel: Finding Inner Healing from Body Image & Eating Issues

November 26th, 2018  |  42 mins 47 secs

diane israel, psychology, therapy

Diane Israel's platform is about remembering wholeness and healing the complexity of humanity. Very inspired and excited and alive by exercise, she is still very much here to move. Her movie "Beauty Mark" is "...a raw exploration of this quest for perfection." Speaking about filming the movie: "I was like: 'This is what you want to work on -- like fitting in a smaller pair of pants. When we could be leading the world and changing the world and doing such incredible service.'" Diane made it her goal to change that, and to help others find the tools - in the plain air and out in the open - to heal their lives.

48. Jayson Gaddis: Exploring the Dynamics of Interpersonal Relationships

November 19th, 2018  |  38 mins 16 secs

psychology, transpersonal psychology

Being a better person within the dynamics of relationships really starts with our relationship to ourselves. We constantly cultivate our amazing relationship with who we are in the context of relationships. We can learn to have a better relationship with ourselves sitting on the cushion, and that's super useful, but getting the day in and day out feedback from other human beings telling me what an asshole I am is also powerful.

47. Betsy Leach: Contemplative Education and Multicultural Education

November 12th, 2018  |  38 mins 55 secs

contemplative practice, public education, teaching

Join us as we sit with Betsy Leach, Elementary Education instructor at Naropa, and discuss the multicultural aspects of public education, and how training in contemplative practices can enhance the experience for everyone. "My experience with students has always been that when they feel like you're real–like you're being genuine rather than pretending to be some perfect authority figure...they trust you and they are willing. I had students telling other students "You got to be good for Miss Leach because she keeps it real, and she's going to have your back!" That to me was huge, especially going into teaching at 22, with only a summer of training. It was really important to bring that humility, and not to pretend to know more than I did, and to be really transparent with students. When I had a bad day, where my lesson was not engaging, I would say "That wasn't as awesome as I wanted it to be. What could I have done better?"

46. David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year in Review

November 5th, 2018  |  48 mins 9 secs

history, host

Listen in to get a history of the first year of Naropa's podcast, Mindful U, via an intimate discussion with our delightful host, David DeVine. From David: "So, before I was 14, I almost became like 8 different religions. But when I turned 21 -- I found Buddhism and what I realized is Spirit is within. So, I didn't have to -- go to church. And, like, kind of hear some stuff I kind of get, and kind of don't get. What I've realized is like we all have self-healing mechanisms within us and we just need to learn how to activate them and or find them within ourselves. So, we have the capability to find Spirit all the time."

45. Hunter Lovins: Sustainability, Investing in a World You Want to See

October 29th, 2018  |  51 mins 50 secs

colorado, energy, investing

If we were to create a regenerative economy here in this region -- what would it look like? People say the Colorado economy is nothing but extractive industries–mining, conventional agriculture, oil and gas–and that's what it always has been, and what it always will be. But that’s not true. Colorado's economy is really predominantly services. It's educational institutions, a growing natural foods industry and organic agriculture, a lot of tech, and a lot of entrepreneurial startups. Outside of Silicon Valley, the Denver-Boulder area is one of the hottest startup communities in the world. There's tourism, the outdoor industries, and the cannabis industry. Put all of these together and they dwarf the so-called "heritage industries" of oil, gas, coal, mining, and conventional agriculture. We have a regenerative economy, and its actually already bigger than the old-fashioned extractive economy, but we don't recognize it. We don't celebrate it and we aren't asking: "What is it about our current economy that served us in the past, but is no longer?" Or, "What is the economy we do want, and how do we encourage that?"

44. Richard Miller: Integrative Restoration, Yoga Nidra

October 22nd, 2018  |  51 mins 57 secs

integral, miller, yoga

What is the singular thread that runs through every spiritual tradition? Yoga nidra (nidra means "sleep" in Yoga) gives us a framework off of which to hang so many teachings. Yoga nidra is like a tree with many branches that many spiritual teachings can hang off of, and the main trunk is the singularity. Yoga nidra offers many branches to hang Eastern teachings off of, and one can also hang many Western teachings off of it too. We can see every western psychological approach and every eastern approach reflect one another, but we can also see the singularity within them that they all share in common, and so East and West fall away into one singularity of understanding. We can learn how to welcome the fact that all that we are is an expression that comes out of this deep mystery that has given birth to the entire cosmos. Everything, everything is part of that mystery. Every thought, every emotion, every body sensation, every person, every tree, every rock is that mystery incarnate. So, you have to think, "What am I trying to get rid of? What am I trying to change?"

43. Michael Bauer: "The Discovery of Deep Community Resilience"

October 15th, 2018  |  39 mins 56 secs

ecopsychology, ecosystem, sustainability

If we can protect top-tier predators then we can protect large wilderness areas. The United States wilderness system, the national park system, and the national forest system–which are unparalleled globally–could help us build the room in our hearts for wilderness areas. And that's what really called to me. As I went into a career at Boulder County Parks and Open Space, I really started to notice and get more concerned about climate change. I realized that we can protect wilderness from mining and logging and overuse and create the cultural space in our hearts for that wilderness, but we can't protect it from climate change directly. It has to be a change in the hearts of people. So, that got me really paranoid.