Autumn 2012 E-Newsletter
Advancing the Field of Contemplative Care | The Art and Science of Contemplative Teaching and Learning | Learning the Contemplative Art of Seeing | Demonstrating Pro-Climate Behavioral Change in US Cities
Public Symposium, November 8-11:
Advancing the Field of Contemplative Care
The Garrison Institute is partnering with the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care to present a groundbreaking Buddhist Contemplative Care (BCC) symposium next month, exploring contemplative approaches to palliative and end-of-life care. Registration is open to professional, volunteer or student physicians, health providers, caregivers and social workers and all those involved in end-of-life or palliative care. Discounts for students and CME/CEUs for medical doctors, nurses and social workers are available. Click here for the details, including a stellar lineup of speakers and presenters, from leading physicians and pioneers of palliative care to the New York State Poet Laureate.
Among them:
- Seattle oncologist Dr. Anthony Back, speaking on applying contemplative insights to clinical practice.
- Robert Chodo Campbell and Koshin Paley Ellison, co-founders of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, presenting on contemplative approaches to palliative care and on “The Great Matter of Life and Death: Intimacy at the Bedside and with the Team;”
- Special guest New York State Poet Laureate Marie Howe
- Dr. Diane Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care and professor at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, discussing the integration of key principles of listening and presence into the rapidly growing field of palliative care;
- Dr. Bruce (BJ) Miller, hospice and palliative care specialist at UC San Francisco Medical Center, speaking on the importance and therapeutic value of beauty, sensory fulfillment, and the aesthetic domain for terminally ill patients.
You’ll find the full list of speakers and presenters, the agenda, other information and online registration at www.garrisoninstitute.org/contemplative-care/buddhist-contemplative-care-symposium.
Mindful Special Offer
Mindful, a new magazine published by leaders in the mindfulness movement across North America, through the Foundation for a Mindful Society, is “dedicated to helping you live a more satisfying life through the practice of mindfulness,” a likeminded goal that we share. Mindful has extended this special offer to the Garrison Institute community:
Subscribe ($19.95 for a year of the magazine) and Mindful will donate $10 to the Garrison Institute. We’ll use the money to fund scholarships so those who need financial aid can attend our retreats and programs. Here’s the link.
(You’ll need to select the Garrison Institute from the short list of Mindful partners for the donation to come to us.)
Watch & Listen
Mark Greenberg on "Exploring Ways of Knowing"
Edutopia: "Integrate the Arts, Deepen the Learning"
Dan Siegel on Dan Siegel on Mindsight
Public Symposium, November 16-18:
The Art and Science of Contemplative Teaching and Learning
The Garrison Institute’s Contemplative Teaching and Learning (CTL) Initiative invites you to join its annual public symposium “The Art and Science of Contemplative Teaching and Learning: Exploring Ways of Knowing.” Registration is open to parents, educators, academics and anyone concerned with the future of education. A growing body of research reveals the benefits of contemplative practices such as mindfulness and yoga in education, and schools already teach many subjects such as art, music, dance, theater and language arts that can be contemplative in a broad sense and serve to educate the whole child. You can preview the rich array speakers and programs here. The symposium offers teachers CEU credits, partial need-based scholarships, and opportunities to reflect, relax and refresh themselves personally as well as develop professionally.
For more details and online registration, click here. Questions? Email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Learning the Contemplative Art of Seeing
In a joint program last week with the Dia Art Foundation, linked to our upcoming education symposium (above), art scholar, prize-winning author and Garrison Institute community advisory board member Roger Lipsey gave an enlightening talk on contemplative aspects of art appreciation at Dia:Beacon. Taking his theme from a saying of sculptor Richard Serra, “The Art of Seeing Takes an Effort,” Lipsey’s talk dealt with spirituality in art past and present, the act of viewing art as a kind of deep reflective or contemplative practice and the inward attentiveness by which anyone can learn to become a connoisseur.
“Experiencing art can be a pleasurable, revelatory effort of eye and mind, heart and body,” says Lipsey, whose books include The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art, Angelic Mistakes: The Art of Thomas Merton and a three-volume edition of the life and writings of Anglo-Indian curator Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. “Like artists wholly engaged in creating, viewers have the opportunity to be wholly engaged in viewing works of art. There is an art of seeing.” After Lipsey’s talk participants spent time wholly engaging works in the Dia collection by Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin and Richard Serra. This was the first of what we hope to be many collaborations between the Garrison Institute and the Dia Art Foundation.
Demonstrating Pro-Climate Behavioral Change in US Cities
Despite the explosion in energy-efficient technologies -- from hybrid vehicles to low-energy appliances to smart metering -- we continue to waste an awful lot of energy. During the past two decades, the average person in the US has consistently generated a carbon footprint 20 times larger than the global average. This fact underscores the importance of the Garrison Institute’s Climate, Mind and Behavior (CMB) Initiative. Its people-centered approach engages and empowers people to avail themselves of the many energy-saving options they now have. These options can save energy, carbon and money - often without costly investments in expensive, new technologies.
CMB is working collaboratively in several geographic regions to help people and organizations across the US shift toward more sustainable energy practices. We have a new initiative in the Pacific Northwest, where we’re working with local partner organizations to create three demonstration projects, designing and implementing a set of innovative, people-centered, energy and carbon savings programs in Seattle. The work is supported by generous grants from the Bullitt Foundation and Boeing Foundation.
We’re also collaborating with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) to provide cities with low-cost strategies for identifying the most promising opportunities for shrinking the energy and carbon footprints of city residents. As part of this effort, CMB has recently developed a prototype of a new tool that examines regionally specific patterns of energy use and opportunities for energy savings, and estimates savings associated with the top ten behavioral choices.
March 13-15, 2013, the Institute will present the CMB national Climate, Cities and Behavior symposium, “The Human Dimensions of Resilient and Sustainable Communities: People, Organizations and Networks.” To sign up for monthly email updates on CMB and related events and research, click here.