Mindful U at Naropa University

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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."

72. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 2 of 2

May 6th, 2019  |  36 mins 30 secs

activism, activist, bodhisattva, buddhism, climate change, college, community, contemplative, contemplative education, crisis, david devine, deep ecology, earth, eco system, ecology, education, equality, higher education, joanna macy, mindful, mindful u, mindfulness, mother earth, naropa, naropa university, nuclear activist, nuclear guardianship, planet earth, social change, social justice, social responsibility, the great turning, the work that reconnects, university

"We talked about the spiral of the work that reconnects and then you talked about how once you dare to really see and speak what you've wanted to keep at arm's length, once you refuse to turn away and really suffer with your world and then you realize that the world is flowing into you and the living planet becomes alive for you. And then it generates for you. So that's we call seeing with new eyes. Everything looks different. And we use practices that are inspired by what we call deep ecology like the council of all beings. Where we step aside from our human role, which is only the last chapter of our long planetary journey. We've, as we know from the life forms we had in the womb of our mother, you know we had a tail and gills and fins. And so that we capitulate that ontogeny."

71. Joanna Macy: The Work That Reconnects Part 1 of 2

April 29th, 2019  |  53 mins 16 secs

activism, activist, bodhisattva, buddhism, climate change, college, community, contemplative, contemplative education, crisis, david devine, deep ecology, earth, eco system, ecology, education, equality, higher education, joanna macy, mindful, mindful u, mindfulness, mother earth, naropa, naropa university, nuclear activist, nuclear guardianship, planet earth, social change, social justice, social responsibility, the great turning, the work that reconnects, university