The Franciscan contemplative Richard Rohr wrote that “contemplation is a long, loving look at what really is.” This orientation is powerfully countercultural. Forces – human, cultural, technological – make it difficult to adopt this contemplative stance; one must often stand outside of cultural norms to do so. The first challenge is with the word “long.” Rohr means sustained, deep, and…
Professor Rhonda Magee has been working for years to bring a social justice dimension to the contemplative studies field. Her own contemplative practices are based in her Christian heritage and supported by deep study and practice in the Buddhist tradition, as well as her Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training. She teaches law at the University of San Fransisco and has…
The day fatherhood first came my way, twenty-six years ago when our son was born, the transformation from child and husband to co-parent and father felt as if a miraculous moment were unfolding. And twenty-two years ago when our second child came out into this wild and ever-changing world, being a father to a daughter was a new and distinct…
Join Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows at “Rainer Maria Rilke and the Force of the Storm,” on September 19-23. Click here for info and to register. For almost fifty years, since the winter’s day I found it on a table in a Munich bookstore, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours has been a cherished companion. My book is the original…
The 2016 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute started on Saturday at the Garrison Institute and this year’s theme is People, Place, and Practice: Putting Contemplative Studies into Context. From mindandlife.org: As we are well aware, practices that were once embedded within traditional religious cultures are now being widely disseminated across a variety of globalized, largely secular settings. Contextual factors…
As practitioners of the buddhadharma—whether we are new or experienced—we practice because we’re unhappy with the miserable state of samsara. In the Vajrayana tradition, we vow to bring temporary comfort and ultimate liberation to each and every sentient being mired in profound suffering, and at times it can be quite difficult to understand how we might possibly achieve such a…
Join Josh Korda, Karen Maezen Miller, and Anyen Rinpoche at “Finding Freedom from Painful Emotions,” this year’s Lion’s Roar retreat at the Garrison Institute, July 29-31. Click here for info and to register. A little over a decade ago I spent my first retreat with a wonderful British Theravada monk—Ajahn Sucitto—and found myself arriving to the meditation center with an…
How do you change a world culture that is, in many ways, going in the opposite direction of love at top speed? This is the question at the heart of a recent wide-ranging conversation between Garrison Institute co-founder Jonathan Rose and Garrison Institute Spiritual Advisor Father Thomas Keating. They begin their conversation by discussing contemplation in the schools, which can…