Often times climate change—and its urgency—is narrated through linear time. When narrated like a ticking clock, the sense that swift action is needed obscures responsibilities to others who risk being harmed by solutions to climate change. This presentation will then offer four different Indigenous approaches to narrating climate change: “depth time,” “seasonal time,” “kinship time,” …
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How to Give the Future a Chance: Mind, Earth, and Climate Change
We humans are creatures of bounded rationality and finite processing capacity, and it is understandable that we focus attention first on the here and now. And yet, many individual and social issues (from sufficient pension savings, to healthy eating, to sustainable economic growth) require increased attention to the future costs and benefits of possible courses …
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A Conversation with Christiana Figueres: The Case for Stubborn Optimism
Christiana Figueres is renowned for having delivered the seemingly impossible. During her tenure as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from 2010-2016, she brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations, activists, financial institutions, communities of faith, think tanks, and technology providers to jointly deliver the unprecedented, historic Paris climate …
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Plenary Panel: “Pathways to Resilience in the Pandemic from a Contemplative, Moral and Public Health Perspective“
This plenary session will consider the key major challenges we face during and after the pandemic and social unrest from the lens of social, affective and contemplative neuroscience and from public health. Insights from these disciplines will be applied to consider possible interventions and solutions for some of the key challenges we face today. The …
Plenary Symposium: Clinical Panel “Effects of Contemplative Training in Vulnerable Populations”
This session will feature talks on how contemplative and mindfulness-based training can help to enhance social connectivity and aid in the development of individual and societal flourishing in vulnerable and marginalized populations, including older adults, African Americans and people living with chronic medical conditions. David Creswell Mindfulness training to decrease loneliness and enhance social connectivity …
Meditation: “Taking a Stand by Taking Your Seat”
In this meditation, Jon will guide us in taking up residency in awareness and apprehending the vast scope of human experience and interconnectedness in the only moment they can be apprehended—this one—and point out mindfulness’s individual, social, and global potential for optimizing well being and healing, including racial, economic, and global injustices and inequalities.
6 Days, 28 Speakers, 1 Powerful Message: The Climate Crisis, It’s a Relationship Problem
Even the best-intentioned efforts to stem the climate crisis often fail to address root causes; namely, our disconnection from one another and the earth. Could solutions to this and other climate-related challenges lie within the human mind? More than 900 scholars, scientists, contemplatives, students, and activists from 30+ countries convened online for Mind & Life’s …
Evolution of the Heart
On July 6, Mind & Life will honor the Dalai Lama’s birthday with the release of “Evolution of the Heart.” The 36-minute film chronicles conversations between the Dalai Lama, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, and social scientist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela.
2021 Online Speaker Series
This six-day speaker series explores how the union of contemplative traditions, indigenous wisdom, and science can lead to greater awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, and reignite our collective responsibility as stewards of our planetary future.
From Awareness to Action: Mind & Life’s Response to Anti-Asian Violence
The horrific treatment of Asian-Americans continued this week with the brutal attack of a 65-year-old Filipino woman on a New York City street. In the wake of such attacks comes the analysis of our collective paralysis, and the recognition that the news that makes it to the headlines fails to account for the pervasiveness of …
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