Mindful U at Naropa University: Recent Episodes
Naropa University
As the birthplace of the mindfulness movement in the United States, Naropa University has a unique perspective when it comes to higher education in the West. Founded in 1974 by renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and lineage holder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Naropa was intended to be a place where students could study Eastern and Western religions, writing, psychology, science, and the arts, while also receiving contemplative and meditation training. Forty-three years later, Naropa is a leader in ‘contemplative education’, a pedagogical approach that blends rigorous academics, contemplative practice, and experiential learning. Naropa President Chuck Lief explains, “Mindfulness here is not a class. Mindfulness is basically the underpinning of what we do in all of our classes. That said, the flavor or the color of mindfulness from class to class is really completely up to the individual faculty member to work on—on their own. So, what happens in a poetry class is going to look very different from what happens in a research psychology class. But, one way or another the contemplative practices are brought into the mix.” This podcast is for those with an interest in mindfulness and a curiosity about its place in both higher education and the world at large. Hosted by Naropa alumnus and Multimedia Manager David DeVine, episodes feature Naropa faculty, alumni, and special guests on a wide variety of topics including compassion, permaculture, social justice, herbal healing, and green architecture—to name a few. Listen to explore the transformative possibilities of mindfulness, both in the classroom and beyond!
Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez are inspiring examples of what it looks like to build a successful non-profit that utilizes yoga and mindfulness to empower communities. They are the founders of The Holistic Life Foundation, a Baltimore-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to nurturing the wellness of underserved communities—whether that’s in schools, detention centers, drug treatment centers, mental illness facilities, recreation centers, group homes, colleges, senior centers, and more. HLF is run by BiPOC and demonstrates a deep commitment to learning, community, and stewardship of the environment. In this episode, they talk about the programs they run, the inspiration that fuels them, and their new book, Let Your Light Shine, that goes into their personal practices that led them to this work and inspires their own lives. Check out this episode to get inspired about the possibilities that mindfulness and socially engaged entrepreneurship have in store for our world. Special Guests: Ali Smith, Andres Gonzalez, and Atman Smith.
In this episode we’re diving into the world of creative entrepreneurship with Nova Han. Nova is the Creative Director for Electric Forest Festival, String Cheese Incident, and much much more. She discusses how she got started in the space, what her work looks to today, and how her creative vision keeps evolving. Check out this episode to hear an inspiring conversation of what it looks like to follow your passions and gifts, even as you’re creating it as you go. Special Guest: Nova Han.
In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Stephanie Yuhas, the chair of both Eco Psychology MA program and the environmental studies BA program at Naropa University. Dr. Yuhas discusses the topics of climate grief, eco anxiety, and how to mobilize and ease these states into helpful action for our planet. She also talks about the various career paths available to students studying Ecopscyhcology and Environmental Studies and why these are needed in our world going forward. Check out this episode to hear a rich conversation on climate, ecology, and psychology! Special Guest: Stephanie Yuhas.
SHE'S BACK! Ladies, theydies, and gentlemen - tune in for the uplifting magic that is Jaguar Womban! Those who got to witness her on Naropa's campus already know. And those who haven't can feel her healing aura through this episode. Jaguar is a multi-dimensional healing artist, medicine woman, a visionary Mother of the womb nation. She also works with herbs, ancestral channeling, poetry and ceremonial plant medicine. She flew from Oaxaca, Mexico to meet us in Boulder, CO as the Honored Artist in Residence Keynote for our 2022 Naropa Community Practice Day. We welcome her back to her alma mater and also the Mindful U podcast! Her message today "Words Do Not Teach" is a part of her work in the "conjuring the language of the liminal spaces" of energy healing. Tune in to hear more on her journey to the Womb Nation Mother she has become. Instagram - @jaguarwomban (https://www.instagram.com/jaguarwomban/?hl=en) Jaguar's Linktree (https://linktr.ee/Jaguarwomban) Cover Photo by Daniel N. Johnson Find Daniel's work on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/danieljohnsonis/?hl=en) Special Guest: Jaguar Womban.
Today, our beloved professor of the Religious Studies Program and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Andrew Schelling, joins us to discuss language, the page as a performance, and the bravery to pursue writing as a spiritual practice and state of mind. Andrew's work involves around 20 odd books of writings and edits along with being a translator in Sanskrit. He has taught at Naropa for over 30 years. Big Quotes: “Where does breath come from? And then how do you record that on the page? How do you work with line breaks? How do you work with punctuation, stanza breaks, so that you can capture on the page? You know, that’s why I say the page is a performance.” “With a creative art, you can say there’s a goal, which is becoming an accomplished writer, or musician or whatever, or generating great work, but you can’t see it until you’re there. It’s a whole different kind of world.” Tune into this episode to hear this rich discussion on developing writing as a spiritual practice and state of mind. Special Guest: Andrew Schelling.
Netanel Miles-Yepez is a Sufi Pir (Sufi spiritual guide), Doctor of Divinity, and World Wisdom’s Professor at Naropa. He is also an artist, an author, a religious scholar, a spiritual teacher and a Co-Founder of The Heart Fire Festival. His focuses and studies are with Sufiism. In this episode, we hear him speak about Sufiism, developing a deeper understanding of religion, and what connecting to his own religion did to assist his soul path. Special Guest: Netanel Miles-Yepez.
The 14th Dalai Lama's wisdom is largely accessible to the English-speaking world because of today’s honorary guest. In this episode, we hear Thupten Jingpa speak fondly of his monk-hood as a compassionate Tibetan child, the divine alignment that cast him as the principal English translator to the Dalai Lama, and his Holistic appreciation for the contemplative model of education exemplified by schools like Naropa. Please join us as we welcome our inspiring friend into our hearts and minds. Please share this episode with a compassionate friend of yours and subscribe to the Mindful U Podcast for more educational conversations like this. Wisdom & Traditions Department of Naropa University (https://www.naropa.edu/academics/graduate-academics/wisdom-traditions-department/) The Institute of Tibetan Classics - Founded By Thupten Jingpa (https://tibetanclassics.org/) The Frederick Lenz Foundation (https://fredericklenzfoundation.org/) "I understand the word contemplative, as a way of bringing an approach that emphasizes self awareness, paying attention, and also bringing conscious intention into what you do. And tempered with, you know, important fundamental human values that we share. And if we broadly mean this by the word contemplative, then clearly, this is something that needs to be, you know, brought into any education system across the world. Because, even though you may speak different languages, may live in different parts of the world. But when it comes to fundamental human reality, we are all sharing this one small planet, which is now facing existential threat from climate crisis, as well as, you know, the pressures of globalization, putting on all of us to really find a way to live where peaceful coexistence based on mutual respect and understanding becomes an important part of our challenge, important part of the requirement, if we want to save the world, you know. So, in all of these, some element of contemplative education has to be necessary." -Thupten Jingpa Langri, Mindful U Podcast Special Guest: Thupten Jinpa Langri.
Join Jordan at this science-backed training on Sept 6th "Compassion-Based Boundaries: An Introduction with Jordan Quaglia, PhD" (https://www.naropa.edu/event/compassion-based-boundaries-an-introduction-with-jordan-quaglia-phd/) "In this workshop, Director of Naropa’s Cognitive and Affective Science Lab, Jordan Quaglia, PhD, offers an introduction to what he calls compassion-based boundaries, a science-backed framework that provides practical skills for navigating complex interpersonal situations." "But if someone has trained their attention in a particular way to be more open and receptive, there might be even a different felt sense to someone listening to you from that perspective. So, I think that's not a bad sort of just little example of thinking how it is that training our own mind, training our own attention and intention and awareness can have ramifications for others in our life as well. And it offers us the potential I think, to be generous with our minds. And you could say generous with our hearts. If we have more attention available in the sense that we've grown this capacity to pay attention, then we can be more generous with our attention without it feeling like we're depleting ourselves." Register Here (https://www.naropa.edu/academics/extended-campus/compassion-boundaries/) September 6 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm $40 – $49 Special Guest: Jordan Quaglia.
"Last time I sang the national anthem, I was on ecstasy." (Powers, 2018, maps.org (https://maps.org/news/bulletin/black-masks-rainbow-bodies-psychedelics-and-race/)) Nicholas Powers, PhD, is a writer. His no-BS approach to humanitarian literature has caught the eyes of Wall Street Journal, Truth Out, and The Independent. Tune in for a bold conversation on how a future on psychedelics might look. https://indypendent.org/authors/nicholas-powers/ Powers, N. June 15, 2018. "Black Masks, Rainbow Bodies: Psychedelics and Race." Maps.org. https://truthout.org/authors/nicholas-powers/ https://www.naropa.edu/event/psychedelic-alchemy/ Psychedelic Alchemy guest speaker Nicholas Powers, PhD, believes that psychedelics must leave the lab and therapy office to give humanity a chance to reimagine itself, and challenge our current path of self-destruction. Remarkably, personal therapy mirrors what happens in social movements: wounded souls return to their real selves, real bodies often discarding former identities like old skin. But according to Powers, we must go beyond healing the individual to healing our history and collective trauma.
Spring Washam "clocks in" at a job many of us here at Naropa day-dream about: Hosting entheogenic plant ceremonies at a retreat space in Costa Rica. This episode is a colorful glimpse into her world of combining meditation, detoxifying nutrition, integrative practices, and sacred plant medicine in what she calls "accelerated earth school". Spring is the author of two books, A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground. She is a a pioneer for meditation & mindfulness in diverse communities and is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She also studied meditation under renowned teacher Jack Cornfield and now has the same spirited impact with her own teachings. Spring's website is rich with both audio. & video teachings and I highly recommend checking it out. On her website, you will also find a range of remote and in-person group classes & retreats. https://www.springwasham.com/ Special Guest: Spring Washam.
Tai Amri: "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.” Beautiful Ashe: Memoirs of A Sweet Black Boy and Other Poems Beautiful Ashe: Memoirs of A Sweet Black Boy Tai Amri (https://www.blurb.com/b/10758753-beautiful-ashe) In This Episode: -Influence of Music in Writing -Black Studies & Black Aesthetics -Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics -Black Literature & Arts Collective of Kansas -Tai Amri Original Spoken Poetry -Elegba - Trickster God, African Deity -Obatala - African Deity of Peace & Creativity -Pantheon of Orishas -Influential Teachers of Color at Naropa -Soltahr Tiv-Amanda (http://soltahr.com/) Soltahr.com -Malaika Pettigrew Remembering Malaika (https://www.malaikapettigrew.com/) Tai’s Favorite Jazz Musician: This Is Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DZ06evO3S0ZGe?si=2099b70fa06a41f9) http://artblakey.com/ More Influence: Tito Puente This Is Tito Puente on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DZ06evO44lISP?si=1210829a48dc426e) Bob Marley Legend - The Best of Bob Marley and The Wailers on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/album/4jKeipwuUTjlx9USNYdhZn?si=OEDpa9jVSCuln-dmZ9tDSg) Poetic Influence: https://soniasanchez.net/ Sonia Sanchez (https://soniasanchez.net/) https://whitmanarchive.org/ Walt Whitman (https://whitmanarchive.org/) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amiri-baraka Amiri Baraka - Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amiri-baraka) Naropa's Office for Inclusive Community (https://www.naropa.edu/about-naropa/naropa-mission-and-values/office-for-inclusive-community/) Get To Know Your Host: Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-devine-an-intimate-interview-and-mindful-u-year/id1293885372?i=1000423270893) Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HYmXIB6XJbrPwpAfiXMK5?si=d31325fbc7e149a4) Your Next Noteworthy Listen: MU 79: Anthony Gallucci: Re-Establishing Masculinity (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mu-79-anthony-gallucci-re-establishing-masculinity/id1293885372?i=1000465892494) Special Guest: Tai Amri.
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. Regina and her Naropa team are mirroring this vision in order to make it less of a dream and more reality. Tune into this episode to catch a glimpse of her insights and find out how you can help. Episode Links: Nikki Giovanni (https://nikki-giovanni.com/) Poetry: Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day (https://nikki-giovanni.com/works/poetry/cotton-candy-on-a-rainy-day/) Ubuntu I Am Because We Are (https://www.ttbook.org/interview/i-am-because-we-are-african-philosophy-ubuntu#:~:text=In%20practice%2C%20ubuntu%20means%20believing,no%20tensions%2C%22%20said%20Ogude.) Novel: Feminist Accountability Buy it at the Boulder Bookstore (https://www.boulderbookstore.net/book/9780814777152) Big Quotes: "One of the things I know is that I’m not the one who knows, I’ve decided to demote myself from being the one who knows. So, I can just tell you about my experience, I can’t tell you whether it’s the ultimate truth." "How do we become okay with not being special or important or central, but rather becoming what’s needed for the collective to thrive?" Get To Know Your Host: Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-devine-an-intimate-interview-and-mindful-u-year/id1293885372?i=1000423270893) Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HYmXIB6XJbrPwpAfiXMK5?si=d31325fbc7e149a4) Your Next Noteworthy Listen: 02. Judith Zimmer-Brown: The Science and Practice of Compassion (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindful-u-at-naropa-university/id1293885372?i=1000393315902) Special Guest: Regina-Smith.
Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community is a new division at Naropa University. It was created post murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - when the push for closer alignment with unconditional peace was necessary for the conscious evolution of our Naropa community as mindfulness leaders. Learn more about the work this division is doing at Naropa from Jamelah - Restorative Community Coordinator & Amanda - Senior Director of Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community - in this Mindful U Podcast episode. Learn more about: -Transformative Justice Practices -Enhancing & Repairing Community Systems -Self-Regulation -Pro-Active Community Building -The Importance of Trust & Relationship Building Learn a term: -J.E.D.I. Conflicts - Justice. Equity. Diversity. Inclusion. Get To Know Your Host: Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-devine-an-intimate-interview-and-mindful-u-year/id1293885372?i=1000423270893) Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HYmXIB6XJbrPwpAfiXMK5?si=d31325fbc7e149a4) Your Next Noteworthy Listen: Travis Cox: Ecopsychology & Psychedelics (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/travis-cox-ecopsychology-and-psychedelics/id1293885372?i=1000552233730) Special Guests: Amanda Aguilera and Jamelah Zidan.
Travis Cox, PhD is back after our first conversation, four years ago, this time adding on the lens of psychedelics to look at ecopsychology as a radical intervention. Explore the negative consequences of our disconnect from planet, personal, and spirituality and how it intersects and impacts ecopsychology when we introduce psychedelics to explore reconnected. Special Guest: Travis Cox, PhD.
"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 are a lot of — 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 — you know, understanding of the cosmos and the — 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." Special Guest: Jamie Beachy.
"But it’s also a lot of sort of ordinary people who have tried everything else, you know, veterans, first responders, sexual assault survivors, people who have already been through years and years of therapy and different kinds of medications, people with substance abuse, people who have had suicide attempts. So the fact that the FDA has given MDMA and psilocybin, it’s now been demarcated with a status called breakthrough — which basically just means that the results have been so efficacious, that drugs are sort of given the status and expedited when it seems like the results are so promising." Special Guest: Sara Lewis .
"When that first object that represents the truth of the belief that I have an emotional issue dissipates or disappears from me, I fall into exactly the state of being that Buddhists call equanimity. That state of contentment and self satisfaction that needs nothing at the moment. I don’t just get respite from my emotional issue that I happen to be looking at. I got respite from everything for you know a matter of minutes or hours, or it might stretch a little longer. And the more times I do it, or the more often that kind of respite can enter into it. Because eventually once I’ve done this 20, 30, 100 times it varies from person to person- I start to believe oh, that’s who I am. I’m not the voice up in my head. I’m actually this collection of body objects that’s — neither is who I actually am. But this one is telling the truth all the time." Special Guest: Anne Lamott.
"Absolutely. You know we might have an idea about something, but then when you begin to express it from a creative place it's almost like you have to feel into it. If I want to write a poem about sadness it's not just about my ideas about sadness. At some point as I'm writing I need to stop and feel into what does sadness feel like? And then I might even think about a very specific situation in my life that brings up sadness. And then what arises from that place as a poem is coming from a non-conceptual place. Non-conceptual knowing and yet I've expressed something and I might even express it in words like with a poem. So, what we're trying to do in contemplative education is to bring both of those together. So, it's not in spite of conceptual knowing -- concepts are great, thinking is great -- but that there are other ways of knowing that are equally important and maybe if we bring them all together then there's a richness of knowing that begins to emerge." Special Guest: Charlotte Rotterdam.
"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." Special Guest: Charles Eisenstein.
"There's gender identity, which isn't actually a problem. It's when it's forced into a limited paradigm or spectrum it can be an issue or when it's forced into a hierarchy. I see us eventually eliminating the hierarchy within these systems of identity and becoming more for lack of a better term, more merit based in our assessment of people's qualities. The re-establishing masculinity group believes that at Naropa to be foresighted and to support these movements we need to begin to get out of the way sort of speak and actually become allies to the anti-misogynistic movements that are occurring in our world. And to do that we ought to be -- we being people whom identify as masculine ought to be not disempowered to engage in that work. We ought to be empowered in our opinion to engage in that work. And the offering that's available of how masculinity is defined and actualized too often is non virtuous and not empowering." Special Guest: Anthony Gallucci.
"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." Special Guest: Miki Fire.
"We need to think about a new quality in our organization where we are not only protesting against the things that are really hurting our communities and neighborhoods, but we're also really cultivating expertise on ideas and visions that we might have for the neighborhood and community. Finding ways that rather than having these issues come forth in competition, that we can actually have a big enough solutions put forth that incorporate. And one of the areas that we have been specializing in is something called Movement for Regional Equity and what that basically means is that the decisions that are made at a regional level are taken up by the community and our metropolitan region." Special Guest: Carl Anthony.
"It's been a great joy and privilege in my life to work with individuals, with communities, with groups—sometimes in traditional organizations and non-profits—sometimes at a community level. We're living in a time where I think we're being called to move from a politics of protest and saying no to one of saying yes, and of governance, and of really learning how to take charge of the basic infrastructure of our lives. Communities are taking back locally produced energy and energy grids. People are working on knowledge about where their water comes from and soil—and also their sense of meaning and community and creativity and art in the broadest sense of: how do we imagine a new culture that is truly inclusive of all?" Special Guest: Paloma Pavel.
"As we open and see that what we're carrying around inside ourselves, what we have created around us is kind of a fear story. When we actually step into the fierce love story that we long for, we start having a much more joyful experience and one where we're not at war with our earth community. One where we're actually welcoming growing things in our backyards and on our roofs, where we're seeing that space is imagined in a whole other way. And also, we do need to live closer together if we're going to preserve wilderness and agricultural land and green space—it's essential that we learn how to be with one another. And we're excited for this moment because we feel that it's probably one of the most energizing, innovating moments that we've ever lived through. And it's accelerating." Special Guests: Carl Anthony and Paloma Pavel.
"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. So that we capitulate that ontogeny." Special Guest: Joanna Macy.
"The pelvic floor muscle tissues are connected very intricately and beautifully, and I feel like it can be complex in some ways to the abdominal muscles. And I think of the pelvic floor as the foundation of a building, it's like the ground level of the body. If the foundation of a building is off or suffering or it's not right, the whole rest of the building is off. So, that's my best metaphor is that the pelvic floor is our foundation. It's so connected to our legs and our feet and the way that we walk and move and dance through the world. And it supports everything above it. So, the reproductive organs, the digestive system, all the organs, the heart, the voice, the throat, and the brain are supported by the pelvic floor. And I've had huge changes in my digestion and rewiring of my nervous system and real cognitive and mood balances from working with my pelvic floor that before, I was trying a million different things to feel better. For me, the pelvic floor is like the Holy Grail." Special Guest: Alicia Patterson.
"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." Special Guest: Rick Snyder.
"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." Special Guest: Venerable Dr. Pannavati.
"It's said in Tibetan medicine that you have to have all five elements plus karma in order to be incarnated at all. So, even to obtain the precious human body you have to have all five elements in karma. So you're going to choose certain parents and situations. They're going to give you some genetic factors which are going to influence your inner elements and then also you're going to have the diet and the behavior that your mother has during your pregnancy is going to influence it. The outer environment is going to influence it and then very early on in life -- your life situations are also going to influence it. So, family systems, psychology, all of that has an impact on the choices we make. So, somebody could be inherently one type of being and perhaps their family system either didn't recognize or support that and so they made a choice in order to compensate on a psychological level." Special Guest: Nashalla Nyinda.
Brigitte is an herbalist and nutritional consultant of Natural Health with almost fifty years of experience. She teaches Herbal Medicine at Naropa University and The School of Health Mastery in Iceland. She has taught at Omega Institute, Esalen, Kripalu, Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Arise, Envision and Unify Festivals, and The Mayo Clinic. She blogs for the Huffington Post and Care2. She is also a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild. Find out more about Brigitte: brigittemars.com/. Special Guest: Brigitte mars.
"Creativity is inherent in us as human beings. I think that we've, in some ways, lost the connection and the right to have our own creativity and our own artistry. For me, just touching into that in of itself is healing. It also takes you into a different part of your brain. It accesses different parts of your psyche and your spirituality and your soul in a way that maybe verbal therapies don't quite touch. And so, it's a deeper more integrated avenue dealing with you know whatever it is that you're working with." Special Guest: Sue Wallingford.
"You know, we're doing this job dealing with people's problems and not necessarily giving them advice, but just allowing them to tap into their own thoughts and weigh out their own options to create decisions. The more you hold on—you attach yourself to an outcome, then that becomes stressful and then it's not genuine anymore. It's also stressful on the other end of the person that is dealing with the actual problem. So just knowing that you may not see the results—but one thing I have noticed is the maturity that came from my students that I've interacted with—the same situation, but a different outcome of the consequence whenever you're redirected." Special Guests: Deanna Martinez, Jamar Peete, and Ramon Monnie.
"Anything dealing with meditation or anything dealing with children's emotional growth is difficult to quantify. And it's difficult to put a price on it. So, it's difficult for schools, principals in particular to bring programs when you have to pay some people to do some things inside of a school. So, meditation and things of that nature unfortunately will be put on the backburner. And a lot of people's levels of urgency tend be well, low on that on that scale. Because a lot of people just aren't into it themselves. And unfortunately, can't see a broader picture, outside of what's the immediate gratification." Special Guests: Monique Debi and Vance Benton.
"Personally in ten years I see mindfulness implemented in every aspect of life -- whether it's school -- like a school will have like a mindful moment at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day and have alternative suspension rooms where kids de-escalate themselves. It would be cool if you know every business started their day off with the practice. I'm not saying that it's definitely going to get there, but you know I can have high hopes and be optimistic." Special Guests: Ali Smith, Andres Gonzalez, and Atman Smith.
"Art and music is such a visceral thing, and it's so experiential. And storytelling is a way to convey eons of moral compass and tradition as well. Every culture of the world has their own stories, and by telling those you don't tell people, 'This is the exact history, and this is what happened, and this is what happened.' It's more like these myths emerge through these cultures that people really latch on to and people connect with. And so, I was hoping to kind of create this new myth in a way to connect people to nature as well as humanity and compassion for other people." Special Guest: Gabriel Vanaver.
I really enjoy this field so much because it gives you a very practical way of investigating the spiritual mysteries of the world. so that we can gain inspiration to look deeper into ourselves. But also, it is a very practical way of helping people with very difficult problems—people with very powerful kinds of pain and those that feel like they're locked in a body that's going to hurt for the rest of their life, and nothing can be done about it. And then I say, ‘You don't live in reality.’ If it feels like you do and that you're trapped in this pain body, but I can teach you how to alter that. Special Guest: Ian Wickramasekera.
"So, I went to the first summer of Naropa. And, it was not cool to be like a hippie anymore. There was an aggression of turning away from society. So, we encourage students to do meditation practice, but also to cut your hair, become a member of society, get a job, and having sort of this basic sanity notion of just having a quote, unquote normal life. Cleaning up your kitchen and going to work and doing a good job and meditating—like that's all you need. You know, you didn't have to do this fight against society. You just kind of go along with the energy." Special Guest: Jim Jobson.
"[Meditation] can be a little unfamiliar and scary, but it's something that we all can do. We just lean into it. Lean into the openness. What is it like to just be free? I mean, think of when you graduated college for instance—you'd been studying your whole life—filling your time with acceptance essays or homework or a thesis or something like that, and then you come out the other end of the education curriculum. And suddenly there's all this room. It's like, what do I do? And society says get a job. But for a brief moment when we graduate—it’s like what's all this space? What's going on here? It's a little like that." Special Guest: Dungse Jampal Norbu.
"The natural world is unconditional, and it welcomes us in whatever state we bring ourselves to it. It invites a level of presence. It sort of insists on a quality of presence, because while there's incredible stillness in the natural world there's also sort of constant movement—even if that's grass being blown by the breeze in a meadow, or a squirrel in a pine tree preparing for winter. There's always a little bit of movement and there's this quality of vastness, right? The natural world is so much bigger than us and in that unconditionality, I think we're invited into an experience that helps us deepen our connection with ourselves, but also helps us get out of our own way." Special Guest: Kate Mazuy.
Bari Tessler is encouraging people to take a more mindful and conscious approach to their relationship with money. When Tessler finished a graduate degree in Somatic Counseling, she sought financial help to help guide her career. She found that most of the financial guidance offered was coming from older white males and was focused on traditional money management, how to pay off loans, invest, etc. Tessler was curious, “Where does the body come in?” and her subsequent work has been about helping people examine and heal their relationship with money to lead more empowered, sucessful lives. Learn more about Bari and her work in this exciting conversation with Mindful U podcast host, David DeVine. Special Guest: Bari Tessler.
"Dharma isn't sexy, or glamorous for me..., it’s just work. It's discipline and work, and I do it because the fruit is spaciousness; this openness. Where I can just be with my life. That spaciousness is where liberation actually happens. Over the years of practice, you realize you've become a different person. You begin to trust yourself more because you're always in tune with your experiences...and that is what I love. It just becomes very ordinary." - Lama Rod Owens Special Guest: Lama Rod Owens.
Naropa University presents encore presentations of our most popular and heartfelt podcasts from 2018, including Phillip Stanley talking on The Relationships Between Sense Perceptions, Concepts, and Emotions : Dr. Phillip Stanley, PhD, speaks about one of his favorite class topics: the relationship between sense perceptions, concepts and emotions. Such an exploration leads to surprising insights that leave students often dumbfounded. We think we know what sense perceptions are–concepts, and so forth–but if you start looking into it it can be quite surprising. Special Guest: Dr. Phillip Stanley, PhD.
Naropa presents some of the most popular and moving episodes of MindfulU from 2018, including "The Discovery of Meaning and Purpose, with Dr. Itai Ivtzan." The disciplines of psychology and spirituality both offer us humans a gift. Psychology, being the mind-oriented discipline, seems to offer us a chance to envision ourselves within our surroundings. At the same time, spirituality invites us to move beyond the mind, and even beyond the definitions of a self. Most of us tend to focus on one or the other over our lives. But, in doing so, we often narrow our experience. When these two disciplines are married, however, we can achieve an incredible explosion of potentials to live life as fully as possible. Special Guest: Itai Ivtzan.
While Naropa University spends some contemplative downtime with families and friends for the holidays, we present some of our most popular an moving episodes from 2018, beginning with the Rev. angel Kyodo williams... Radical dharma and mindfulness - everybody is going to get a little taste of some meditation, and its great - whatever door you use to enter into practice is great. But - the conflation of mindfulness with a depthful practice that includes an ethic view is a problem. When mindfulness becomes yet another thing that we can modify, and we think is something that is there so that we can consume it, then it’s actually serving our ego. It's serving our ideas of who we are and who we would like to be seen as, in our performance as ourselves. In that way, it can become a factor in our incarceration rather than our liberation. Special Guest: Rev. angel Kyodo williams.
How are we defining the self? Are we all getting into the real depths of the lie that we are separate, that we're separate entities? Sherry Ellms' students get to explore that separateness and realize that we've always been part of Earth. Consider this analogy: if you cut off my arms I will live. If you cut off my legs I will live. But, if you cut off my air, I will die. How can one say that my limbs are more a part of me than the air? We really are completely interdependent with all of life, and with all of Earth. If we have an enlightened sense of self; if it's an ecological self, then taking care of the earth is like enlightened self-interest. It's not being selfish, because we are connected with everything. Special Guest: Sherry Ellms.
Richard Rudis spent years in Tibet and Nepal, and in the Himalayas, where he met many teachers and many fundamental teachings came forward. At some point, the outline of sacred sound healing became clear, and he introduced the gong once he found a manufacturer who was creating a poly-tonal instrument that was noble enough and had as much expansion of sound, overtones, harmonics, and frequencies that would reflect sacred sound healing as it came from tradition. Then, he started on the journey of offering gong baths. Special Guest: Richard Rudis.
Diane Israel's platform is about remembering wholeness and healing the complexity of humanity. Very inspired and excited and alive by exercise, she is still very much here to move. Her movie "Beauty Mark" is "...a raw exploration of this quest for perfection." Speaking about filming the movie: "I was like: 'This is what you want to work on -- like fitting in a smaller pair of pants. When we could be leading the world and changing the world and doing such incredible service.'" Diane made it her goal to change that, and to help others find the tools - in the plain air and out in the open - to heal their lives. Special Guest: Diane Israel.
Being a better person within the dynamics of relationships really starts with our relationship to ourselves. We constantly cultivate our amazing relationship with who we are in the context of relationships. We can learn to have a better relationship with ourselves sitting on the cushion, and that's super useful, but getting the day in and day out feedback from other human beings telling me what an asshole I am is also powerful. Special Guest: Jayson Gaddis.
Join us as we sit with Betsy Leach, Elementary Education instructor at Naropa, and discuss the multicultural aspects of public education, and how training in contemplative practices can enhance the experience for everyone. "My experience with students has always been that when they feel like you're real–like you're being genuine rather than pretending to be some perfect authority figure...they trust you and they are willing. I had students telling other students "You got to be good for Miss Leach because she keeps it real, and she's going to have your back!" That to me was huge, especially going into teaching at 22, with only a summer of training. It was really important to bring that humility, and not to pretend to know more than I did, and to be really transparent with students. When I had a bad day, where my lesson was not engaging, I would say "That wasn't as awesome as I wanted it to be. What could I have done better?"
Listen in to get a history of the first year of Naropa's podcast, Mindful U, via an intimate discussion with our delightful host, David DeVine. From David: "So, before I was 14, I almost became like 8 different religions. But when I turned 21 -- I found Buddhism and what I realized is Spirit is within. So, I didn't have to -- go to church. And, like, kind of hear some stuff I kind of get, and kind of don't get. What I've realized is like we all have self-healing mechanisms within us and we just need to learn how to activate them and or find them within ourselves. So, we have the capability to find Spirit all the time." Special Guest: Kelly Watt.
If we were to create a regenerative economy here in this region -- what would it look like? People say the Colorado economy is nothing but extractive industries–mining, conventional agriculture, oil and gas–and that's what it always has been, and what it always will be. But that’s not true. Colorado's economy is really predominantly services. It's educational institutions, a growing natural foods industry and organic agriculture, a lot of tech, and a lot of entrepreneurial startups. Outside of Silicon Valley, the Denver-Boulder area is one of the hottest startup communities in the world. There's tourism, the outdoor industries, and the cannabis industry. Put all of these together and they dwarf the so-called "heritage industries" of oil, gas, coal, mining, and conventional agriculture. We have a regenerative economy, and its actually already bigger than the old-fashioned extractive economy, but we don't recognize it. We don't celebrate it and we aren't asking: "What is it about our current economy that served us in the past, but is no longer?" Or, "What is the economy we do want, and how do we encourage that?" Special Guest: L. Hunter Lovins.
What is the singular thread that runs through every spiritual tradition? Yoga nidra (nidra means "sleep" in Yoga) gives us a framework off of which to hang so many teachings. Yoga nidra is like a tree with many branches that many spiritual teachings can hang off of, and the main trunk is the singularity. Yoga nidra offers many branches to hang Eastern teachings off of, and one can also hang many Western teachings off of it too. We can see every western psychological approach and every eastern approach reflect one another, but we can also see the singularity within them that they all share in common, and so East and West fall away into one singularity of understanding. We can learn how to welcome the fact that all that we are is an expression that comes out of this deep mystery that has given birth to the entire cosmos. Everything, everything is part of that mystery. Every thought, every emotion, every body sensation, every person, every tree, every rock is that mystery incarnate. So, you have to think, "What am I trying to get rid of? What am I trying to change?" Special Guest: Richard Miller, PhD.
If we can protect top-tier predators then we can protect large wilderness areas. The United States wilderness system, the national park system, and the national forest system–which are unparalleled globally–could help us build the room in our hearts for wilderness areas. And that's what really called to me. As I went into a career at Boulder County Parks and Open Space, I really started to notice and get more concerned about climate change. I realized that we can protect wilderness from mining and logging and overuse and create the cultural space in our hearts for that wilderness, but we can't protect it from climate change directly. It has to be a change in the hearts of people. So, that got me really paranoid. Special Guest: Michael Bauer.
"I have been thinking a lot these days in this world we inhabit about how our traditions give us companions and teachers, and that it's one of the most important things. In Buddhism, there are the lineages of teachers that are just absolutely critical–living and dead–but in Christianity, there is the communion of saints and the cloud of witnesses. It’s the same idea - but my tradition hadn't given me that. So, I discovered a lot of depth. Theology has a whole different set of questions about our lives and about what happens between people in the world–about our conduct moment to moment. Looking at the world with the eyes of a journalist, but with a theological education, I eventually had this idea for a public radio show, which is how "On Being" started. A show in which the theological part of life would be addressed with intelligence, and that would also be attentive to spiritual depth and the intellectual content of our traditions." - Krista Tippett Special Guest: Krista Tippett.
Marlow Brooks teaches a class about the human predicament of being very diverse and celebrating differences. For instance, a fire-type person likes to be out in the sun, likes heat, likes passion. Hot, firey people want to lead. They have great senses of humor, and great heart, but they are prone to burning themselves out. Consider a water type person - a personality like winter, being in the depths under the ground, or like a ball on the ground, gathering potency, gathering wisdom. For them to go into situations with loads of fire might feel extremely threatening. Many people that show a propensity for water think they are depressed, or that they are too serious. This class is about learning to accept yourself and then learning to accept the differences in others. Every organism really has different ways of coming into its own. The compassionate approach is to give that organism the type of elemental energy that will nurture them into the person that they will, or that they could, become. Special Guest: Marlow Brooks.
Look at statistics about our civic literacy in this country–we're in the grip of civic illiteracy largely because not all high schools and colleges are doing enough, though some might be. Not doing enough to make civic literacy actually enough of the required general education of the students. As a result, students have largely turned away–the humanities, which includes history and civics, have been demeaned. We've commodified higher education in such a way that we've actually monetized it. This is not a liberal or conservative issue–both sides are at fault in the continuing removal of civic education and history from high school and college curricula. Statistically, student participation in history majors, history departments goes down about 10 percent a year or every two years. Particularly at this point in our history, when everyone has an opinion about our history and what it means, and access to more information, opinions, viewpoints, and propaganda than ever before. We're politicizing history, which is why it's a lot easier for colleges and high schools to drop the subjects altogether, rather than to try and sort through it. Naropa's founder talked a great deal about creating an enlightened society, and he thought that Naropa should model that society institutionally. But he also thought Naropa should graduate students who would long for a better world, and who were willing to put their bodies, speech, and minds on the line for that world. This is why we're here at Naropa, and why we're committed to teaching a contemplative approach to social justice. Special Guest: John Cobb.
Think about eco-poetics as not just a focus on degraded soil, air and water, but vibrational absence. When a species leaves the planet, they take everything with them. Their heartbeat, their flutter, their footfalls, their hooves. In the past 50 years, the planet has seen a 60% loss of all the wildlife. We've recently found out that we've lost 50% of the coral reefs in that time. Europe has lost 75% of its flying insects. I immediately started making rituals to create a place of extreme present. That's the purpose of what I do. And, when I am doing these rituals -- translate into all art forms. "Each morning a blue jay screams at the edge of the clear cut forest I scream with her at the bleeding stumps Scream inside something borrowed like ocean, like skin I want to see before I die a mink wearing a human scarf..." – CA Conrad Special Guest: CA Conrad.
It is important to cultivate discernment in the sense of a historical awareness: the ability to discern many different streams in yogic traditions, and understand their fundamental orientations, outlooks, and practices. This means not letting these different streams all get mixed up into a very vague notion of yoga, but actually appreciating the depth and integrity of each. And thus when we draw from each lineage, we gain greater access to its transformational power. I think that discernment is something that is missing in the broader world of modern postural yoga. Special Guests: Ben Williams, PhD and Nataraja Kallio.
Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni on performing her wildly popular one-woman piece, "One Drop of Love," for the Naropa community as part of the Bayard and John Cobb Peace Lecture last Spring: "I have been doing this performance for 5 years, and have been in a lot of different communities–some certainly more receptive to the themes around race and racism and class and gender than others. Sometimes I think people feel uncomfortable with it, or maybe they're shy because of the stigma of being in a theater. But I got the sense after being here at Naropa for about a day that this might be a very embracing community–and that's exactly what it was. Still, something that I really appreciate about this community was its natural interaction–a kind of vocal interaction–which I don't always get. Naropa was just right there along with me, laughing out loud, saying "Hmmmmm...," and just offering both a wise and calming response." Special Guest: Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni.
Traditionally, Judaism is practiced by way of rituals. This includes actual ritualistic practices that involve ritual objects, but it also includes ritualistic prayer, as well as ritualistic forms of study, such as studying Torah in a certain way. My personal practice has shifted from one that is centered around ritual to one that is more about integrating the direct experience of presence, or of divinity, or of reality into everyday life. The rituals' original function was to facilitate that kind of a process, but there are more accessible ways for many people in our culture to access an embodied condition of presence in everyday life. There are ways that do not require people to engage in these complicated and inaccessible rituals that are relevant for someone in an Orthodox community, but not very relevant for 99 percent of the planet. For me, Kedumah represents a way to transmit the essence – the Primordial spirit of Judaism – into a paradigm that is accessible for anybody, really, originating from any tradition, anywhere, or from no tradition at all. Special Guest: Zvi Ish-Shalom.
There should be free movement. There's something about the monarch butterflies having freedom of flight and freedom of mobility that many humans don't have. We found out that in Mexican folklore the monarch butterflies arrive in Mexico at the very beginning of November–right around the Day of the Dead. The day after the Day of the Dead is the Day of the Children, and the mythology is that the monarch butterflies are the spirits of dead children returning home to Mexico. There are international protections for monarch butterflies, while there are children dying in the desert–children whose names are unknown–just a belt found with a name on it. That idea of not being seen, not being noticed made it seem like the migration of monarch butterflies was a great way to put these children's stories out and into people's consciousness. Special Guests: Amy Buckler, Teresa Veramendi, and Victoria Pilar-González.
Sometimes, especially in mid-career, we get a little stale. It’s nice to refresh by deeply and authentically getting in touch with what matters to us within our core purpose, within our values, and within why we're doing what we are doing. Part of the training that we provide is helping people who are already in leadership roles bring more of who they authentically are to their role. In the authentic leadership program, we emphasize three different competencies: presence, engagement, and change management. Enjoy the whole podcast to hear about how we train leaders to recognize and develop these traits. Special Guest: Susan Skjei.
Sometimes we take for granted that text is an image–the letters are images–and there are some writers who are very conscious of that. When we're reading a book we take for granted that the text on the page is an image, and the focus of the book is what the text is communicating. Spend some time thinking about text as an image, like Rachel Blau DuPlessis's work. Rachel is a poet and a critic who also does collage poems. Poems that are made from collage, and they really emphasize text. Special Guest: J'Lyn Chapman.
The disciplines of psychology and spirituality both offer us humans a gift. Psychology, being the mind-oriented discipline, seems to offer us a chance to envision ourselves within our surroundings. At the same time, spirituality invites us to move beyond the mind, and even beyond the definitions of a self. Most of us tend to focus on one or the other over our lives. But, in doing so, we often narrow our experience. When these two disciplines are married, however, we can achieve an incredible explosion of potentials to live life as fully as possible. Special Guest: Itai Ivtzan.
Join us as we talk about blending the spiritual with the practical, busting some myths, and providing some tips on what it means to run a business from a spiritual vantage point. When it comes to the term "life coach," or any other spirituality-based profession, some of the myths are that you can use the law of attraction to just manifest clients or money into your life and into your business. While we believe that's really true, the elements that so often get left behind in your belief and practice in the law of attraction and manifestation is you showing up, and you actually doing the practical work. Special Guest: Caitlin Winkley.
Many people are unaware of the interspiritual dimensions of what we offer here at Naropa - the multiple dimensions that we have here. And the fact that a lot of what we've been researching and studying in the last few years is how millennials and Gen Z in particular approach spirituality. This term talked a lot about: "spiritual but not religious," is only the tip of the iceberg - it actually becomes detrimental to look at it that way. If we broaden it out, we find it’s really about interspiritual dimensions. In terms of spirituality, what Wayne Teasdale talks about is an opening of dialogue and a sharing of wisdom among leaders and practitioners of different religious traditions, because people are no longer satisfied with a singular affiliation. People need to be aware of all the possibilities - and young people, in particular, are not willing to say "I am only going down one path." Special Guest: Stephanie Yuhas.
It's our mission to grow more awareness of women's issues, women's voices, women's history, women's studies worldwide. We're still so far behind in knowing what we should know about the history of women in the world and their contributions, as well as the lived experiences of women, and the way it informs everything about the way our country operates, the way the world runs now. One can't really teach a gender studies class effectively any way but contemplatively. All of the best practices of contemplative education are what make gender studies unique, and they also make gender studies possible. Approaching this from a lecture standpoint , or from any other standpoint than just really being very aware of your students, being invested in them - not just intellectually but emotionally - is not going to end in success. Students are doing so much hard work, so much hard emotional work. They're breaking into traumas, trying to correct ways of seeing things they've experienced their whole lives. There is going to be serious emotional labor with these students, and Naropa is a wonderful place to do this. Special Guest: Olivia Meikle.
The work of Carl Jung and of Stanislav Grof - as well as many others - have been under an umbrella of "transpersonal psychology," a field that was developed in the '50s as an extension of humanistic psychology. Abraham Maslow first developed humanistic psychology - a framework around many other professionals who were developing that branch of psychology, such as Fritz Perls and Carl Rogers, but Maslow defined the field. However, when Maslow studied individuals who were exceptional, he found that they all described mystical experiences. All of his subjects described experiences beyond the "little self" or the ego that gave them a connection to everything. Experiences where they weren't separate from others, and that helped them to understand that they were either not separate, or that we all share a unitive experience. When Maslow studied these people, he realized that there was a vast new field beyond humanistic psychology that included it, but went well beyond. This is the field of transpersonal psychology, and Naropa's program is among the best in the world. Special Guest: Deborah Bowman.
There is more to bipolar than just pathology. People are familiar with bipolar as a disorder that used to be called manic-depressive disorder, or maniac depression. Bipolar Order is a declaration of that, and a necessary bridge for people meeting the criteria for bipolar disorder, and particularly bipolar disorder in remission, to be empowered. Chris Cole is trying to activate and inspire people to be empowered, be bold, and be bipolar strong. Listen to Cole's podcast - Waking Up Bipolar - for more insight, and visit his website ColeCoaching for more information. Have a look at a selfie of Chris and David at Naropa! Special Guest: Chris Cole.
"I think of bricolage as an approach to interdisciplinary inquiry and to meaning-making. It comes from a French word meaning to tinker, and it's sometimes associated with improvisation, and sometimes associated with "do-it-yourself." I don't like that term as much because it's missing the collaborative aspect of interdisciplinary studies. Think about Levy Strauss observing craftspeople, noticing how they use materials left over from one project and creating something new. It's a sense of giving birth to what does not yet exist; improvising and using tools; fashioning tools–creating tools that didn't yet exist." - Candace Walworth Special Guests: Candace Walworth and Cynthia Drake.
"Da Vinci said "...motion is life." What better way to move than to some music cranking and to lift the spirit? There is something coded in our DNA - something really ancient about our need to be tribal, our need as humans to come together with other humans, and music calls us all. Music is that beat, that rhythm that we feel in our hearts when our hearts are beating together in that same groove. There's something going on there that we all long for. Something that we need that we don't find in many other places in our modern society." - Paul Bassis, Arise Co-Founder. Find out more about ARISE. Special Guest: Paul Bassis.
How does teaching with a contemplative focus help teachers in a crazy world? When we have practiced how to love ourselves enough to stand in our own business, then we can be more empathetic to the context from which our students come. If I'm in a class with 27 students and one of them is having a particularly hard day or hard week–or life–then it makes it possible for me to resource my patience and my sense of humor, if that's called on to help that student remain focused. To help that student to create tools that help them get through the day, for themselves, within themselves. And, no matter what age you are, if your life circumstances are in your way it's really hard to get through the day. Every class we start with a check in, which gives me a sense of what's in the room. It doesn't take away from the content, because the content is still there. The check-in informs me and the rest of the class about how that content might be heard. Special Guest: Barbara Catbagan.
The Holistic Life Foundation is a Baltimore-based 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization committed to nurturing the wellness of children and adults in underserved communities. Through a comprehensive approach which helps children develop their inner lives through yoga, mindfulness, and self-care HLF demonstrates a deep commitment to learning, community, and stewardship of the environment. HLF is also committed to developing high-quality evidence-based programs and curriculum to improve community well-being. Listen as we discuss the Foundation and Naropa with its founders. Special Guests: Ali Smith, Andres Gonzalez, and Atman Smith.
How do we blend contemplative practice with service in the world? How can we extend ourselves, offer ourselves to that world in an authentic way? One where we're not burning out at the same time? How can we support people both at the peak of tragedy, getting over the most difficult parts, as well as the lasting repercussions? We meet people there, with them, where they are, with an open heart, acknowledging with them moment by moment by moment. I feel that's where our contemplative practices are most supportive, helping us be more present with that moment to moment disillusion. There is one moment - the one moment that is all of our life really. This thought is embedded deeply in Naropa's curriculum. Special Guest: Elaine Yuen.
T.I.P.I., the French acronym for “Technique d’Identification des Peurs Inconscientes,” or "Technique for the Sensory Identification of Unconscious Fears" in English, resets our emotional response to trauma naturally, using the body’s sensory memory to reconnect with the trauma's origin. Joey Marti discusses TiPi and how he uses it, and how Naropa's MA programs in transpersonal psychology helped him. A Colorado transplant who moved here to attend Naropa, Joey received his Bachelor’s Degree in 2014 in Contemplative Psychology with a dual concentration in Health & Healing and Somatic Psychology. While progressing through his studies, Joey realized that he wanted to further his knowledge within the myriad forms of natural medicine. This realization led him to the desire to be a Doctor; his ultimate dream is to assist in bridging the gap between the numerous fields of medicine, health, healing, and wellness. Special Guest: Joey Marti.
Improvisation is a wonderful contemplative practice–a mindfulness practice–a discipline that has to do with paying attention in a very precise way to what's going on in the present moment. It's about showing up–being open to whatever is happening musically, to whatever my colleagues are playing, or to the environment of the room–the acoustics, the audience, that sort of thing–and really drawing inspiration from that. Paying attention to all of that requires one hundred percent concentration. Music happens so quickly, so naturally, your intellectual mind really can't keep up with it. The brain can't be analyzing and explaining and interpreting why you're playing, you just have to play. To me, that means you show up and play who you are. Special Guest: Mark Miller.
Radical dharma and mindfulness - everybody is going to get a little taste of some meditation, and its great - whatever door you use to enter into practice is great. But - the conflation of mindfulness with a depthful practice that includes an ethic view is a problem. When mindfulness becomes yet another thing that we can modify, and we think is something that is there so that we can consume it, then it’s actually serving our ego. It's serving our ideas of who we are and who we would like to be seen as, in our performance as ourselves. In that way, it can become a factor in our incarceration rather than our liberation. Special Guest: Rev. angel Kyodo williams.
I remember it was after the first year I came back to Naropa–I was actually upset with my professors. I was like, "What did you all do? Whatever you offered me, I see the world in a new way now!" I was upset because I saw the world in its fullness. There were things I saw then–when I came to Naropa I was all sunshine and rainbows. It was all "...the world is beautiful and the world is great, and I am going to study Buddhism, and I'm going to be one!" It was an 'absolute' kind of thinking. But Naropa gave me a chance to actually stop, pause, and feel -- the suffering that is here too. Special Guest: Lauren Ciovacco.
"Dharma isn't sexy, or glamorous for me..., it’s just work. It's discipline and work, and I do it because the fruit is spaciousness; this openness. Where I can just be with my life. That spaciousness is where liberation actually happens. Over the years of practice, you realize you've become a different person. You begin to trust yourself more because you're always in tune with your experiences...and that is what I love. It just becomes very ordinary." - Lama Rod Owens Special Guest: Lama Rod Owens.
When people hear the words "gross national happiness," they tend to envision a sort of idealization of what's really going on in Bhutan, the country that originated the concept. I watch our students while we're in Bhutan sometimes idealize things, and then hit a sort of crash as they see the reality, and then come out with a really deep sense of excitement and amazement about what's actually happening. We'd like to take that idealization off its pedestal altogether. Special Guest: Anne Parker.
Think of the martial art behind the idea of "ninja," and the associations that pop culturally in all our heads when we hear that. Ninja art is still around, and it really is an art. Ninja literally means "persevering person;" Someone who faces life and is able to win - not just for themselves, but for everybody. As indigenous peoples, we've had to learn how to keep going in the face of enormous, overwhelming adversity. also, the spiritual lineage of ninjitsu is Buddhism, and a whole lot of that is about how to keep going. Special Guest: Ian Sanderson.
A person can look far less healthy than they actually are in moments of extraordinary stress. When we put ourselves in another person's shoes and we have some sense of the weight and the burdens and the stresses and the different directions they're being pulled in, it makes more sense, but we all seem to fall away from remembering that. When someone is fed, their kids are ok, they're housed, and they have what they need - that in itself makes a person infinitely more healthy. We teach a lot about the DSM in the clinic because it’s the language of the mental health field, but it's only a snapshot. I encourage people to remember that - that we're seeing a person at a snapshot in time. Whatever our judgement is about them–despite the fact that we're working in a system that calls for judgement and diagnosis–that it’s just a snapshot. Special Guest: Joy Redstone.
What would you see if you were looking at the world from the point of view of a person in a wheelchair? Or if you're mobility impaired, or blind, or deaf? As architects, we need to learn to look at what kind of physical environment we are creating for people. What's missing? What else could we do here, in this central courtyard, that would make the space better? Students will answer "a fountain," "a garden," "a shaded area where you could study." We could add benches, hammocks–you name it. And then they all start seeing great ideas about the built environment. Special Guest: Scott Rodwin, Faculty in Environmental Studies.
Gestalt therapy is a methodology one can use for therapy or for growth. I like to call it Gestalt Awareness Practice because it’s a way of working in the here and now for healing and growth. Gestalt - from German and not truly translatable into English - essentially means "the whole." Or something ever greater than the whole. It’s the idea that we're whole with everything and that our goal is to be whole within our self - not divided - not split. Special Guest: Deborah Bowman.
People already know many things. People arrive at school with their own intelligence, and they come here to cultivate that intelligence through contact with one another - embodied contact with teachers, administrators, other students - as well as with various resources and wisdom traditions, academic traditions. Real learning and transformation both take place in that contact, not through the input or memorization of knowledge or information. They come through grounding and body-based awareness - embodied mindfulness - whole-person embodiment. When we start dealing with difficult and challenging - and eventually rewarding - situations and concepts, you already have a kind of nervous system of self-knowledge. The embodied curriculum at Naropa can help you develop and cultivate both a social and sociological self-knowledge. Special Guest: Ramon Parish.
There's a real diversity of tactics about how to integrate contemplative practices into the study of writing and the study of literature and the creation of those ways of being. This is about what it means to approach writing through a contemplative way. One of the great joys about teaching here at Naropa is the openness of students to experiment. The real readiness at which they're willing to implicate their person and their body and their spirit. That approach to the whole person in the classroom is really such a gift to work with as a - as a teacher and a peer and a colleague and a fellow and a researcher. Special Guest: Jeffrey Pethybridge.
At Naropa, the notion of contemplative education is about drawing out the full richness of the student as well as the teacher in the learning process. It's about utilizing different contemplative practices such as mindfulness, awareness, compassion, and contemplation to draw out the wisdom of the various dimensions of who we are as human beings. It’s not just about thinking. Conventional education trains us to be thinkers and doers–which is very important–but there's an emphasis in contemplative education about supplementing our thinking process with the wisdom of our emotional life–the wisdom of our sensory experience, of our bodily experience, and of the environment in which we're learning. All these factors go together to make a wholeness of learning that is all about creating a richness, one which is permeated by that space. All of these factors–how we think, how we feel–aren't just mixed together haphazardly, but with room for all of them to move and affect each other. The way we think can be enriched by our feelings. The way we move can be affected by the environment we're in, the other people that you're learning with, and the current issues in the world. It gets very, very rich, starting from the inside to untangle this web, which has been very tightly made in more conventional types of education. Special Guest: Richard C. Brown, Professor of Contemplative Education.
We're going to be imagining what this ideal city might be like. There are thousands of different aspects of a city ecosystem that we could address, but I want to address just four: community ownership, ecological sensibility, economic democracy, and people power. Special Guest: Stephen Polk.
Ecopsychology is a field whose goal is to bridge our cultures' long standing historical gulf between the psychological and the ecological to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum. Transpersonal ecopsychology is the evolving exploration expression and embodied practice of the inter-dependence of humans in the more than human world, which tends towards to the health balance and optimal well being of all. A change in our internal landscapes might change our relationships with the land in a way that includes extending social ethics to the land and an examination of our loyalties, affections, and convictions. Special Guest: Travis Cox, PhD.
In this episode, Dr. Stanley delves into the real differences between sensory perception and experience, and touches on how our emotions affect what we see, and which qualities we project onto our world. Once we see that our perceptions are different fro our experiences, can we learn how we're really experiencing our world, versus how our minds tell us our world exists? It's classes like this that set Naropa's curriculum apart from other universities - adding a level of contemplation to this type of understanding welcomes deep examination, and offers a clarity rarely experienced. Special Guest: Dr. Phillip Stanley, PhD.
Brigitte is an herbalist and nutritional consultant of Natural Health with almost fifty years of experience. She teaches Herbal Medicine at Naropa University and The School of Health Mastery in Iceland. She has taught at Omega Institute, Esalen, Kripalu, Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Arise, Envision and Unify Festivals, and The Mayo Clinic. She blogs for the Huffington Post and Care2. She is also a professional member of the American Herbalist Guild. Find out more about Brigitte: brigittemars.com/. Special Guest: Brigitte mars.
Scott Rodwin, Naropa University faculty teaching Building Design in the Environmental Department, is one of the leading green architects in the country. An architect and a builder, Rodwin owns and runs a 13-person design build firm in Boulder. Scott graduated from Cornell in 1991 with an architecture degree and moved out to Boulder shortly thereafter, and has been working as an architect for about 26 years. During this time he has focused his career on creating the greenest buildings possible, and his firm specializes in extreme green custom homes. In this episode of Mindful U, Scott will be discussing his "Green Building 101" class at Naropa. Special Guest: Scott Rodwin, Faculty in Environmental Studies.
Jeanine Canty is a full time and professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Naropa University, which includes the MA and Resilient Leadership Program and the BA Environmental Studies major. In this episode, Canty shares on the topic, ‘Oppressions of People and Oppressions of the Earth Go Hand and Hand’. Canty explains the link between social and ecological injustice and how throughout human history, the oppression of people of color has been inseparable from the oppression of the natural world. She also talks about the theoretical framework of Eco-psychology and how it can help us recognize these patterns of injustice and reconnect to our ‘ecological selves’ in order to bring about individual and environmental healing. Special Guest: Professor Jeanine Canty, PhD, Chair, Environmental Studies.
Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown is a Distinguished professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies at Naropa University. In this episode, Simmer-Brown discusses an undergraduate course she teaches at Naropa, Wisdom & Compassion: The Buddhist Path. Simmer-Brown discusses how much of the scientific research done in the West has focused on the negative, or what is wrong with humans/human nature. Looking at the ‘new’ science of compassion, by contrast, allows us to focus on what is right about human beings and understand how to cultivate kindness through exercises like compassion training. Simmer-Brown also gives an example of a compassion training practice and shares a brief history of the mindfulness/compassion movement in the West Special Guest: Judith Simmer-Brown, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies.
Chuck Lief is the President of Naropa University, and a long time student of Naropa's founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this inaugural episode of MindfulU, Lief discusses his various roles at Naropa since its founding, and explains what makes Naropa University unique. Lief then gives an overview of the course he teaches at Naropa as a part of the Peace Studies undergraduate program, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He explains how the idea of a social enterprise has shifted over time to acknowledge that business and business tools can be used to create significant social change. He also gives examples of social enterprises that have been generated from Naropa students as class assignments. Special Guest: Charles G. Lief, Naropa University President.