Past Webinars
"Contemplative Neuroscience"
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
with Richard J. Davidson, Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
This webinar provided an introduction to the emerging field of contemplative neuroscience. This emerging field is harnessing the concepts and methods from the modern study of neuroplasticity and applying them to the alterations that might be produced through contemplative practice. While the field is in its infancy, there are several promising findings that have emerged that suggest that the regular practice of certain forms of meditation produces changes in brain function, brain structure and behavior. Collectively, this new corpus of research suggests that qualities like happiness, kindness and equanimity should be regarded as the product of trainable skills that can be enhanced through contemplative practice.
Note: Due to a technical glitch during the presentation, we were unable to display or record Dr. Davidson's PowerPoint slides. The audio from his talk is available below. We hope to have his slides available for viewing (as a PowerPoint file) by the end of the month.
Video: Contemplative Neuroscience
Recommended Reading: The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality
"No Time to Think: The American University and its (Anti-)Contemplative Roots"
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
With
David M. Levy, Professor, The Information School, University of Washington
David Levy writes, "Ten years ago I moved from a well-known high tech think tank to my first academic job, discovering along the way that the extreme busyness, overload, fragmentation, and acceleration of contemporary culture are just as prevalent within the ivy tower as beyond it. Universities are no place to think, I concluded, any more than hospitals are places to be sick. In this presentation I will explore how this state of affairs has arisen by examining the complex debt that the modern university owes both to industrial culture and to ancient Greek philosophy. And I will suggest that we are now uniquely positioned to bring the contemplative element (back) into the academy, both because we are better able to see the consequences of certain industrial-era attitudes on current academic practices, and because we are in a position to recover and renew the Greek philosophers’ conception of education as a process of radical growth and transformation."
Video: No Time To Think: The American University and its (Anti-)Contemplative Roots
"Contemplative Arts and Society"
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
With Anne Beffel,
Associate Professor of Art, Syracuse University
Anne Beffel is a practicing “public artist” and professor of art at Syracuse University. She creates opportunities for empathetic exchanges through art. As a 2008 Contemplative Practice Fellow she created the course Contemplative Arts and Society to explore the intersection of art, contemplative practice, and social psychology. In our April webinar, Beffel discussed students’ experiences with a number of contemplative and creative art practices in preparation for designing their own “daily practices,” which they document using media arts.
Video: Webinar: Contemplative Arts and Society
"Consciousness-In-Action"
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
With Raúl Quiñones-Rosado, Ph.D. and Rose Sackey-Milligan, Ph.D., Co-Directors, c-Integral
This presentation provides an overview of consciousness-in-action, c-Integral's unique approach to personal and social transformation. The presenters introduce some of the key concepts, principles and applications of this transformative path. They also speak to the value of contemplative practice in addressing complex identity and social justice issues for individual and collective liberation from oppression, a necessary stage as we move toward integral well-being and development.
Video: Webinar: Consciousness-in-Action
Recommended Reading:
Raúl Quiñones-Rosado
Consciousness-in-Action: Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation
"Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet"
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
With Paul Wapner, Associate Professor and Director, Global Environmental Politics Program, School of International Service, American University
How can higher education best address global environmental challenges? How can we equip our students to engage in environmental work, and how can we undertake meaningful scholarship that can actually contribute to global environmental wellbeing? This webinar will explore these questions through the lens of Contemplative Environmental Studies.
Video: Webinar: Contemplative Environmental Studies: Pedagogy for Self and Planet
Recommended Reading:
Paul Wapner,
Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism
"Visualizing Contemplation"
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Joel Upton, Professor of Art History, Amherst College
A presentation on the expression of contemplation through architecture and the construction of meditative spaces. Upton writes, "Using images and schematic drawings, I will offer an exemplary model that draws on meditative space as one might find it in Japan generally and in the sub-temple of Daisen-in at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. Although I will give a Japanese name, "ainoma," to the conceptual reality that informs this space, I will relate this particular visualization of contemplation to the more familiar language of Simone Weil and Henry David Thoreau."
Video: Webinar: Visualizing Contemplation
"Contemplative Practice in the Science Classroom: Practical approaches to the impractical / Impractical approaches to the practical"
October 22, 2009
Michelle Francl, 2008 Contemplative Practice Fellow, is professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr and a writer for Nature Chemistry. She teaches writing and chemistry and embeds contemplative practices into both. Her courses demonstrate the value of this approach for learning and doing science, where practice provides nascent scientists with another set of ways to reflect on their work in relationship to the larger world. She explores the use of many practices adapted for classroom use including “stilling” (breath and body awareness), contemplative writing, “beholding” and lectio divina, and finds that a curriculum that includes contemplative practices has the potential not to merely produce science, but to form scientists.
Video: Webinar: Contemplative Practice in the Science Classroom
Link: http://tinyurl.com/contemplativescience: Michelle's website, containing practices and other resources for use in the classroom.
"Mindful Shopping: How Smart Consumption Can Benefit Beings"
September 23, 2009
Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., presented a talk on current developments in consumer-friendly tools that provide greater transparency regarding the health and environmental effects of the manufacturing, packaging and transportation of products, and discussed how changes in consumer behavior and responsibility are necessary for truly sustainable change.
This webinar will not be posted online, but a recording is available for single-viewing/classroom use.
Please contact Carrie Bergman at carrie@contemplativemind.org for instructions on how to access the video.
Links:
"Developments in the Field of Contemplative Studies"
May 27th, 2009
Hal Roth (Professor of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at Brown University) hosted an hour-long program about the field of Contemplative Studies and the experience of establishing the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown.
Video: Webinar: Developments in Contemplative Studies
- Download the Powerpoint presentation used during the webinar.
"The Science of Meditation"
March 11, 2009
Al Kaszniak (Professor and Head of Psychology, University of Arizona) and Arthur Zajonc (Academic Program Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Professor of Physics, Amherst College) hosted an hour-long program about current research into the physiological and psychological effects of meditative practices.
Video: Webinar: The Science of Meditation
- Download the Powerpoint presentation
- Read the research report referenced in the webinar, Toward the Integration of Meditation into Higher Education: A Review of Research, prepared by Shauna L. Shapiro, Kirk Warren Brown, and John A. Astin. Edited by Maia Duerr.
- Supplemental papers recommended by Al Kaszniak:
Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness (Bear, Smith et al, Assessment, March 2006, Vol. 13, No. 1, 27-45)
The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being (Brown and Ryan, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 84, No. 4, 822-848)
"An Introduction to Contemplative Pedagogy"
February 18, 2009
A presentation by Arthur Zajonc (Academic Program Director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Professor of Physics, Amherst College) and
Mirabai Bush (Senior Fellow of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society).
Video: Webinar: Introduction to Contemplative Pedagogy