The Four Fields are Mossrock, Wildfire, Lit Ocean, and Space. They are a response to the question: how does my spiritual practice actually help the material reality of climate mutation and ecological loss? Together the Four Fields accommodate ecosystems, psychological experience, unconditional awareness, and total openness.
During this salon, Adam will introduce these Four Fields and explore how they might support response-abilities to face collective climate trauma and discover a powerful form of life within the Anthropocene.
Adam Lobel, PhD, is a practitioner-scholar of philosophy and religion, an ecopsychologist-activist, and meditation teacher. Adam served as a teacher (acharya) in the Shambhala tradition from 2005-2018; he designed curricula and trained teachers for the international Shambhala meditation centers. He would like to acknowledge the challenge of having been part of the leadership in Shambhala in the midst of the revelations of sexual abuse and abuse of power.
A speaker on ecology and spirituality at the United Nations, he was part of the first delegation of Buddhist teachers invited to the White House under President Obama. He leads ecodharma workshops called “Silent Transformations,” has taught in the EcoSattva Training, is a Greenfaith fellow, and is active in ecological and social justice movements. Adam’s teachings focus on ecological spirituality, Great Perfection, modern phenomenology, and inoperative studies (Heidegger, Foucault, Agamben). As a founding practitioner-educator at the City of Bridges High School, he has a longstanding interest in progressive contemplative education and transformative pedagogy. A professor of Buddhist and phenomenological psychology and a Focusing professional, he is curious about cultural therapeutics for our collapsing society. He remains attuned to an awakened, just, terrestrial society. Adam teaches a critical style of contemplative training that seeks to avoid enclosure in neoliberal mindfulness while still disclosing effortless awareness. He is currently developing what he calls “four fields” of contemplative practices for potential worlds.
