Climate Change is undeniably unfolding before our eyes, and possibly very literally in our lives. We need emotional and psychological preparedness to meet the challenges of the times within which we are living! We need to hold the mutations of our earth and our experience with awareness and loving-kindness and find ways to transmute fear, powerlessness, and paralysis into compassionate participation. We need elemental bravery and a vast perspective in order to stay with the troubles.
This course explores how Contemplative Psychology Methods may be applied to the topic of Environmental Justice. Environmental justice goes beyond conventional environmentalism by including social ecology as part of our ecosystems. We will venture into compassionate action in both group activities online, as well as independent homework between courses. Through engaging our sense perceptions in sacred rituals, we learn to bond and communicate with natural elements of space, water, earth, fire, and wind. We can engage the natural world, both its seen and unseen forces as personal allies in our quest to find equanimity and inspiration in this challenging era.
Please come prepared to work experientially within a community, to turn your cameras on, and to share your hearts honestly about the environment we aspire to defend and protect.
Adam Lobel, Ph.D., Harvard University, is a Buddhist minister and a scholar of philosophy and religion. His research focuses on Great Perfection (Dzogchen) Tibetan Buddhism, phenomenology, and inoperative studies. He has a longstanding interest in contemplative education, philosophy as a way of life, and transformative pedagogy. He is a Guiding Teacher for One Earth Sangha, a GreenFaith fellow, has taught alongside Joanna Macy and others in the Ecosattva Training, and is active in ecological and social justice movements. He has been a speaker on ecology and spirituality at the United Nations and part of the first delegation of Buddhist teachers invited to the White House. Adam’s questions and teachings tend to orbit around the interdependence of contemplative practices and the everyday practices that shape modern subjectivity and culture. This is another way of saying that he remains attuned to an awakened, just society inseparable from our living earth. He lives and teaches in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife and two sons, where he is involved in resisting the petrochemical industry and offering ecodharma workshops called “Silent Transformations.”
Melissa Moore Ph.D. is a co-founder and Executive Director of Karuna training. She has been teaching Contemplative Psychology since 1994. Melissa has her MA in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and her Ph.D. in Psychological Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Melissa has been a student of Vajrayana Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche since 1979. Melissa has studied deep ecology since the early ’80s and championed multiple ecological efforts, especially working with issues of eco-anxiety. Her forthcoming book, The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology will be released in November 2021. Melissa has taught Karuna Training in nine countries and in four states in the U.S. She lives in Denver with her dog and husband.
