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Mindful U at Naropa University — Education
Mindful U at Naropa University

As the birthplace of the mindfulness movement in the United States, Naropa University has a unique perspective when it comes to higher education in the West. Founded in 1974 by renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and lineage holder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Naropa was intended to be a place where students could study Eastern and Western religions, writing, psychology, science, and the arts, while also receiving contemplative and meditation training. Forty-three years later, Naropa is a leader in ‘contemplative education’, a pedagogical approach that blends rigorous academics, contemplative practice, and experiential learning. Naropa President Chuck Lief explains, “Mindfulness here is not a class. Mindfulness is basically the underpinning of what we do in all of our classes. That said, the flavor or the color of mindfulness from class to class is really completely up to the individual faculty member to work on—on their own. So, what happens in a poetry class is going to look very different from what happens in a research psychology class. But, one way or another the contemplative practices are brought into the mix.” This podcast is for those with an interest in mindfulness and a curiosity about its place in both higher education and the world at large. Hosted by Naropa alumnus and Multimedia Manager David DeVine, episodes feature Naropa faculty, alumni, and special guests on a wide variety of topics including compassion, permaculture, social justice, herbal healing, and green architecture—to name a few. Listen to explore the transformative possibilities of mindfulness, both in the classroom and beyond!

Latest Episodes:

93. Jaguar Womban: Words Do Not Teach Nov 07, 2022

Show notes

SHE'S BACK! Ladies, theydies, and gentlemen - tune in for the uplifting magic that is Jaguar Womban! Those who got to witness her on Naropa's campus already know. And those who haven't can feel her healing aura through this episode.

Jaguar is a multi-dimensional healing artist, medicine woman, a visionary Mother of the womb nation. She also works with herbs, ancestral channeling, poetry and ceremonial plant medicine. She flew from Oaxaca, Mexico to meet us in Boulder, CO as the Honored Artist in Residence Keynote for our 2022 Naropa Community Practice Day. We welcome her back to her alma mater and also the Mindful U podcast!

Her message today "Words Do Not Teach" is a part of her work in the "conjuring the language of the liminal spaces" of energy healing. Tune in to hear more on her journey to the Womb Nation Mother she has become.

**Instagram - @jaguarwomban
Jaguar's Linktree

Cover Photo by Daniel N. Johnson
Find Daniel's work on Instagram
**

Special Guest: Jaguar Womban.

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92. Andrew Schelling: Writing as a Spiritual Practice & State of Mind Oct 10, 2022

Show notes

Today, our beloved professor of the Religious Studies Program and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Andrew Schelling, joins us to discuss language, the page as a performance, and the bravery to pursue writing as a spiritual practice and state of mind.

Andrew's work involves around 20 odd books of writings and edits along with being a translator in Sanskrit. He has taught at Naropa for over 30 years.

Big Quotes:

“Where does breath come from? And then how do you record that on the page? How do you work with line breaks? How do you work with punctuation, stanza breaks, so that you can capture on the page? You know, that’s why I say the page is a performance.”

“With a creative art, you can say there’s a goal, which is becoming an accomplished writer, or musician or whatever, or generating great work, but you can’t see it until you’re there. It’s a whole different kind of world.”

Tune into this episode to hear this rich discussion on developing writing as a spiritual practice and state of mind.

Special Guest: Andrew Schelling.

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91. Netanel Miles-Yepez: Comparative Religion Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

Netanel Miles-Yepez is a Sufi Pir (Sufi spiritual guide), Doctor of Divinity, and World Wisdom’s Professor at Naropa. He is also an artist, an author, a religious scholar, a spiritual teacher and a Co-Founder of The Heart Fire Festival. His focuses and studies are with Sufiism. In this episode, we hear him speak about Sufiism, developing a deeper understanding of religion, and what connecting to his own religion did to assist his soul path.

Special Guest: Netanel Miles-Yepez.

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90. Thupten Jinpa Langri: Translating The Dalai Lama Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

The 14th Dalai Lama's wisdom is largely accessible to the English-speaking world because of today’s honorary guest. In this episode, we hear Thupten Jinpa speak fondly of his monk-hood as a compassionate Tibetan child, the divine alignment that cast him as the principal English translator to the Dalai Lama, and his Holistic appreciation for the contemplative model of education exemplified by schools like Naropa. Please join us as we welcome our inspiring friend into our hearts and minds.

Please share this episode with a compassionate friend of yours and subscribe to the Mindful U Podcast for more educational conversations like this.

Wisdom & Traditions Department of Naropa University

The Institute of Tibetan Classics - Founded By Thupten Jinpa

The Frederick Lenz Foundation

"I understand the word contemplative, as a way of bringing an approach that emphasizes self awareness, paying attention, and also bringing conscious intention into what you do. And tempered with, you know, important fundamental human values that we share. And if we broadly mean this by the word contemplative, then clearly, this is something that needs to be, you know, brought into any education system across the world.

Because, even though you may speak different languages, may live in different parts of the world. But when it comes to fundamental human reality, we are all sharing this one small planet, which is now facing existential threat from climate crisis, as well as, you know, the pressures of globalization, putting on all of us to really find a way to live where peaceful coexistence based on mutual respect and understanding becomes an important part of our challenge, important part of the requirement, if we want to save the world, you know.

So, in all of these, some element of contemplative education has to be necessary."
-Thupten Jinpa Langri, Mindful U Podcast

Special Guest: Thupten Jinpa Langri.

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89. Jordan Quaglia: The Science of Mindfulness Training Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

*Join Jordan at this science-backed training on Sept 6th "Compassion-Based Boundaries: An Introduction with Jordan Quaglia, PhD"
*"In this workshop, Director of Naropa’s Cognitive and Affective Science Lab, Jordan Quaglia, PhD, offers an introduction to what he calls compassion-based boundaries, a science-backed framework that provides practical skills for navigating complex interpersonal situations."

"But if someone has trained their attention in a particular way to be more open and receptive, there might be even a different felt sense to someone listening to you from that perspective. So, I think that's not a bad sort of just little example of thinking how it is that training our own mind, training our own attention and intention and awareness can have ramifications for others in our life as well. And it offers us the potential I think, to be generous with our minds. And you could say generous with our hearts. If we have more attention available in the sense that we've grown this capacity to pay attention, then we can be more generous with our attention without it feeling like we're depleting ourselves."

Register Here
September 6 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
$40 – $49

Special Guest: Jordan Quaglia.

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88. Dr. Nicholas Powers: A Future On Psychedelics Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

"Last time I sang the national anthem, I was on ecstasy." (Powers, 2018, maps.org) Nicholas Powers, PhD, is a writer. His no-BS approach to humanitarian literature has caught the eyes of Wall Street Journal, Truth Out, and The Independent. Tune in for a bold conversation on how a future on psychedelics might look.

https://indypendent.org/authors/nicholas-powers/

Powers, N. June 15, 2018. "Black Masks, Rainbow Bodies: Psychedelics and Race." [Maps.org.](https://maps.org/news/bulletin/black-masks-rainbow-bodies-psychedelics-and-race/)

https://truthout.org/authors/nicholas-powers/
https://www.naropa.edu/event/psychedelic-alchemy/
Psychedelic Alchemy guest speaker Nicholas Powers, PhD, believes that psychedelics must leave the lab and therapy office to give humanity a chance to reimagine itself, and challenge our current path of self-destruction. Remarkably, personal therapy mirrors what happens in social movements: wounded souls return to their real selves, real bodies often discarding former identities like old skin. But according to Powers, we must go beyond healing the individual to healing our history and collective trauma.

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87. Spring Washam: Ayahuasca's Accelerated Earth School Aug 01, 2022

Show notes

Spring Washam "clocks in" at a job many of us here at Naropa day-dream about: Hosting entheogenic plant ceremonies at a retreat space in Costa Rica. This episode is a colorful glimpse into her world of combining meditation, detoxifying nutrition, integrative practices, and sacred plant medicine in what she calls "accelerated earth school".

Spring is the author of two books, A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground. She is a a pioneer for meditation & mindfulness in diverse communities and is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She also studied meditation under renowned teacher Jack Cornfield and now has the same spirited impact with her own teachings.

Spring's website is rich with both audio. & video teachings and I highly recommend checking it out. On her website, you will also find a range of remote and in-person group classes & retreats.

https://www.springwasham.com/

Special Guest: Spring Washam.

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86. Tai Amri Poetics: Beautiful Ashe Jul 20, 2022

Show notes

Tai Amri:
"I started Allies in Action at Naropa while I was there as a student, and also was the editor of Tendril, which was a journal on diversity. And that really came out of my feelings of like, man it’s really hard being black in Boulder, and being black at Naropa was also very difficult. And — and I was getting triggered all the time, and micro-aggressions, which I didn’t have language for at the time - I just like, I’m not gonna be able to graduate from here if I don’t do something to try to change it. And Allies in Action was really like - how do we address unaddressed privilege and oppression in the school environment? And I feel like B.L.A.C.K Lawrence tries to do a lot of that, as well as how do we create space for black creators in a place where there’s not a lot of us.”

Beautiful Ashe: Memoirs of A Sweet Black Boy and Other Poems
Beautiful Ashe: Memoirs of A Sweet Black Boy Tai Amri

In This Episode:
-Influence of Music in Writing
-Black Studies & Black Aesthetics
-Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
-Black Literature & Arts Collective of Kansas
-Tai Amri Original Spoken Poetry
-Elegba - Trickster God, African Deity
-Obatala - African Deity of Peace & Creativity
-Pantheon of Orishas
-Influential Teachers of Color at Naropa
-Soltahr Tiv-Amanda
Soltahr.com
-Malaika Pettigrew
Remembering Malaika

Tai’s Favorite Jazz Musician:
This Is Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers on Spotify

http://artblakey.com/

More Influence:

Tito Puente
This Is Tito Puente on Spotify

Bob Marley
Legend - The Best of Bob Marley and The Wailers on Spotify

Poetic Influence:
https://soniasanchez.net/
Sonia Sanchez

https://whitmanarchive.org/
Walt Whitman

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/amiri-baraka
Amiri Baraka - Poetry Foundation

Naropa's Office for Inclusive Community

Get To Know Your Host:
Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review
Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review

Your Next Noteworthy Listen:
MU 79: Anthony Gallucci: Re-Establishing Masculinity

Special Guest: Tai Amri.

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85. Regina Smith: Visions of a Thriving Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community Jul 01, 2022

Show notes

Regina Smith, Masters in Contemplative Psychotherapy & Buddhist Psychology from Naropa, has a contemplated what a thriving mission, culture, and inclusivity-driven community could look like. Regina and her Naropa team are mirroring this vision in order to make it less of a dream and more reality. Tune into this episode to catch a glimpse of her insights and find out how you can help.

Episode Links:

Poetry: Cotton Candy On A Rainy Day

Ubuntu
I Am Because We Are

Novel: Feminist Accountability
Buy it at the Boulder Bookstore

Big Quotes:
"One of the things I know is that I’m not the one who knows, I’ve decided to demote myself from being the one who knows. So, I can just tell you about my experience, I can’t tell you whether it’s the ultimate truth."

"How do we become okay with not being special or important or central, but rather becoming what’s needed for the collective to thrive?"

Get To Know Your Host:
Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review

Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review

Your Next Noteworthy Listen:
02. Judith Zimmer-Brown: The Science and Practice of Compassion

Special Guest: Regina-Smith.

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84. Jamelah & Amanda: Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community at Naropa Jun 11, 2022

Show notes

Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community is a new division at Naropa University. It was created post murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - when the push for closer alignment with unconditional peace was necessary for the conscious evolution of our Naropa community as mindfulness leaders. Learn more about the work this division is doing at Naropa from Jamelah - Restorative Community Coordinator & Amanda - Senior Director of Mission, Culture & Inclusive Community - in this Mindful U Podcast episode.

Learn more about:
-Transformative Justice Practices
-Enhancing & Repairing Community Systems
-Self-Regulation
-Pro-Active Community Building
-The Importance of Trust & Relationship Building

Learn a term:
-J.E.D.I. Conflicts -
Justice.
Equity.
Diversity.
Inclusion.

Get To Know Your Host:
Apple: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review

Spotify: David DeVine: An Intimate Interview and Mindful U Year In Review
**

**Your Next Noteworthy Listen:
Travis Cox: Ecopsychology & Psychedelics

Special Guests: Amanda Aguilera and Jamelah Zidan.

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