Mindful U at Naropa University

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."

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."

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."

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

Rick Snyder: Decisive Intuition, Using your Gut Instincts to Make Smart Business Decisions

April 15th, 2019  |  49 mins 48 secs

buddhism, buddhist, business, college, compassion, contemplative, david devine, decisive intuition, education, higher education, intuition, mindful, mindful u, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, rick snyder, smart business, university

"Emotional intelligence has completely revolutionized our lives and our business space. And because that's there there's now this foundation around intuitive intelligence. So, this is the next nuance that I'm really passionate to bring in, is that emotional intelligence is foundational and key. But it's not the whole story of how we discern information and how we navigate the world, even though emotions are supercritical and a big part of that. Intuitive intelligence also weaves in a greater, wider array of data information that we have to be able to learn to discern. So, it's even a little more refined in some ways. So that's what I'm really excited about is bringing this next wave to the business base and then also beyond that too. So that people give themselves more permission to trust themselves on a fundamental level. And bring their empowerment and their gifts forward without apology."

Venerable Pannavati: Hearing the Cries of the World & Responding with Compassion

April 8th, 2019  |  53 mins 48 secs

awareness, buddhism, care, compassion, david devine, devine, fierce compassion, higher education, love, meditation, mindfulness, naropa, naropa university, practice, university, venerable pannavati

"Meditation is so important—particularly training and concentration. How to steady and fix the mind until conceptual thoughts fall away. We live so much in our conceptualizing nature that we can't imagine life without that. But when you start doing this practice, you find out that you can conceptualize, and you cannot. So, learning how to drop into that stillness, as the Buddha calls it, until you come to the absolute stilling of all thought. We think well then, there's nothing. Yes, there is something beyond that, you could never see it before because you were caught in the cycle of conceptualizing. But the other side that the Buddha calls meditation—a pleasant, abiding here and now, touching kind of contentment and peace that the world didn't give you. So, the world can't take it away. But what he called practice was something entirely different. We just need to do more practice, and the practice is not to sit on the pillow. Sitting on a pillow is sitting on a pillow. But to practice is how we handle ourselves in every moment of our waking day—when one is accosting you, taking what is yours and what is criticizing you."

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.

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.

Judith Simmer-Brown: The Science and Practice of Compassion

October 11th, 2017  |  25 mins 58 secs

buddhism, compassion, contemplative science, judith simmer-brown

Looking at the ‘new’ science of compassion allows us to focus on what is right about human beings and understand how to cultivate kindness through exercises like compassion training. Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown also gives an example of a compassion training practice and shares a brief history of the mindfulness/compassion movement in the West.