One morning in 2015, I opened my Sunday New York Times to find a profile of Mark Bertolini, the CEO of healthcare giant Aetna, on the front page of the Business Section. The story was not a typical business story, but rather a vulnerable and personal portrait: the story of a corporate leader’s personal journey into meditation and his vision…
Along with the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZCCC), the Garrison Institute is hosting the fourth biennial Contemplative Care Symposium on November 8-11, 2018. The heart of the symposium is exploring ways to transform the culture of care through contemplative practice, meeting illness, aging, and death with compassion and wisdom. In the above video, Frank Ostaseski delivers a…
Like the rings on a tree, once again, Holy Week is upon us, marking another cycle of celebrating and entering into the life that culminated in the mysterious events that shook the world 2000 years ago in a small, out-of-way province of the Roman empire. The reverberations continue to be felt down to the present time and will doubtlessly be…
The rich, brown-black soil crumbles in my fingers, cool and just slightly moist as I rake my hands through a garden bed that will soon be planted with carrots. It’s a mild day in mid-March and the sun is shining, warming the back of my neck and the surface of the soil while I pick out the last remnants of…
In November 2016, America and the rest of the world were stunned when a candidate whose platform included harming immigrants and discriminating against certain citizens won the presidency. When I learned he’d been voted in, my heart sank, realizing that America had become even less of a place I can call home. Many of us had been living under a…
Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein was once waiting for take-out in a restaurant and the man helping him talked about a dream of moving to Wyoming. He longed for the open space, the beauty. Joseph said to the fellow, “You know, there’s an inner Wyoming.” This story always makes me smile when I think of Joseph, in the middle of a…
We typically think of those in caring professions like health care workers, teachers, and social justice organizers engaging in contemplative practices to cultivate their resilience. A quite different perspective is to consider how those who are being cared for can contribute to the resilience of their caregivers. Through nearly 10 years of teaching mindfulness in prison, and mentoring prisoners in…
Final preparations are being made by the Contemplative-Based Resilience (CBR) Project team for our biggest operational moment of 2018 so far. From March 20th to March 29th, the CBR Project’s team of psychologists and meditation and mindful movement teachers will be on the ground in the Middle East offering direct support and building the resiliency skills of aid workers in…