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

  • 26. Candace Walworth & Cynthia Drake: Interdisciplinarity–The Bricolage of a Naropa Education

    May 14th, 2018  |  29 mins 17 secs
    bricolage, education, interdisciplinary degree

    "I think of bricolage as an approach to interdisciplinary inquiry and to meaning-making. It comes from a French word meaning to tinker, and it's sometimes associated with improvisation, and sometimes associated with "do-it-yourself." I don't like that term as much because it's missing the collaborative aspect of interdisciplinary studies. Think about Levy Strauss observing craftspeople, noticing how they use materials left over from one project and creating something new. It's a sense of giving birth to what does not yet exist; improvising and using tools; fashioning tools–creating tools that didn't yet exist." - Candace Walworth

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    25. Paul Bassis: The Arise Movement

    May 7th, 2018  |  30 mins 36 secs
    arise, art, mindful, music festival

    "Da Vinci said "...motion is life." What better way to move than to some music cranking and to lift the spirit? There is something coded in our
    DNA - something really ancient about our need to be tribal, our need as humans to come together with other humans, and music calls us all. Music is that beat, that rhythm that we feel in our hearts when our hearts are beating together in that same groove. There's something going on there that we all long for. Something that we need that we don't find in many other places in our modern society." - Paul Bassis, Arise Co-Founder Find out more at http://arisefestival.com/.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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."

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.