Join John Tarrant at “Imagine a Doorway: The Creative Life and Meditation,” on September 16-18. Click here for info and to register. Every creature alive has an interest in getting out of the cage, prison, or golden palace where their idea of themselves was formed and meditation is essentially an escape art. My earliest memories are of learning how to…
What is your relationship with technology? Does it feel balanced or out of control? As part of our “Garrison Talks at the JCC” event series, teachers and authors Sharon Salzberg and Ethan Nichtern recently discussed whether it’s possible to mindfully use technology. Some of the key ideas explored: In a technologically-amplified world it’s even more important to have a way to…
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…
Welcome to the fourth episode of the Climate, Mind and Behavior Podcast. Each month, we’ll explore groundbreaking intersections between climate change, resilience, contemplative practice and human behavior. Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. As an evangelical Christian and daughter of missionaries, Dr. Hayhoe resides in the unique space between religion…
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…