David R. Loy is one of the international references in the West of Japanese Zen Buddhism. He is a writer and teacher of Zen in the Sanbo Zen tradition and the author of multiple essays and books that have been translated into many languages. His articles appear regularly on the pages of major magazines such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines, including Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma. He is a member of the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, Clear View Project, Zen Peacemakers, and the Ernest Becker Foundation. David Loy lectures nationally and internationally on various topics, focusing primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and modernity. Professor of Buddhist and Comparative Philosophy, Loy was, from 1990 to 2005, Professor at the Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan. In January 2006, he became the Professor of Ethics / Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, until September 2010. and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2014, David received an honorary degree from Carleton College, his alma mater, and in 2016, David returned it in protest of the College’s Board of Trustees’ decision not to divest to fossil fuel companies.
Vidyamala Burch is a Mindfulness Teacher, Writer and Co-Founder of Breathworks, an international Mindfulness organization known especially for developing mindfulness-based pain management. She is the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Pain Management Program (MBPM). The British Pain Society has recognized her ‘outstanding contribution to pain relief’ and in 2019 she was named to the Shaw Trust Power 100 list of the most influential disabled people in the UK. Burch Mindfulness for Health’s book won the British Medical Association’s 2014 Medical Books Award in the Folk Medicine category. Her organization, Breathwoks, operates in 35 countries helping alleviate the suffering of people with chronic pain or permanent ailments.
Janine Schipper, Ph.D. Sociology, Boston College, is associate professor of sociology at Northern Arizona University and executive editor of the sociological journal Humanity and Society, dedicated to publishing work on social justice, activism, and public sociology. Her book Disappearing Desert: the Growth of Phoenix and the Culture of Sprawl (University of Oklahoma Press 2008) examines the cultural forces that contribute to suburban sprawl in the United States. Her publications in environmental sociology focus on topics such as the cultural productions of space and time, rethinking our ideas about harmony with nature and questioning how responsible “responsible development” is. She recently published a seminal article on Buddhist sociology titled “Towards a Buddhist Sociology: Its Theories, Methods, and Possibilities” (American Sociologist 2012) and is a co-author of Sociology: A Critical and Contemporary Perspective (4th Edition, National Social Science Press 2012). As a public sociologist, Janine has been involved in public debates on collective wisdom and sustainable communities and is a professor in NAU’s Master in Sustainable Communities. Janine has been integrating contemplative practices into her undergraduate and graduate classes in Environmental Sociology, Awareness and Social Change, and Sustainable Communities for the past 6 years. Her current research examines how mindfulness practices can affect grassroots organizations.
Beth Berila, Ph.D., 500-hr RYT, is the director of the Women’s Studies Program and a professor in the Department of Women’s and Ethnic Studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, USA. She is also a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher and Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist by the Devanadi School of Yoga and Wellness. She works every day at the intersection of empowerment, Mindfulness, feminism, and social justice. She is the author of the book Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Social Justice in Higher Education (Routledge). Beth was part of the leadership team of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition for two years and now she is a community partner working to make yoga and meditation accessible to all by challenging the lack of diversity in Western yoga culture. Her current projects fuse yoga and meditation practices with feminism and mindful education to create a socially engaged form of learning.
Steven Stanley BSc PhD is a critical psychologist in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales. His academic background is in Psychology. He holds an Honours degree in Psychology (The Nottingham Trent University, 2000) and a Doctorate in Philosophy titled ‘Doctoral Dilemmas: Towards a Discursive Psychology of Postgraduate Education’ (Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, 2005). Stanley is interested in the therapeutic cultures of late modernity, with a particular focus on social studies of mindfulness. His articles have appeared in journals such as Theory & Psychology, Social & Personality Psychology Compass, and Qualitative Research in Psychology. Alongside his academic research, Stanley has a 20-year meditation practice, and has undertaken the two-year Committed Dharma Practitioner Programme at Gaia House, Devon, and Pāli Summer School at Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, Oxford. Currently, he is collaborating internationally on a series of interdisciplinary studies of mindfulness, meditation, and mind wandering. He is leading co-editor of the Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness (Stanley, Purser & Singh, Springer Publications, due 2018). Stanley is the Principal Investigator of a three-year research project ‘Beyond Personal Well-Being’, a landmark study of the mindfulness movement in the United Kingdom, funded by The Leverhulme Trust.
Manish Behl is founder of the Mindfulness India Summit and the Mindful Science Center in Mumbai, Manish has extensive personal experience in meditative practice that has led him to be a benchmark in the field of contemplative sciences and its relationship with modernity in such a complex country like India. He is a TEDx speaker and renowned Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence pestige trainer, being India’s leading Mindfulness and Awareness expert working on fostering wisdom through Emotional Intelligence and Neuroscience. MSC is an Emotional Intelligence study and research institution based on Mindfulness, oriented to work, education and personal well-being.
Who is the conference aimed at?
Mindfulness practitioners, of any level, who want to delve into the topics covered in the conference.
Mindfulness teachers and instructors who want to go deeper beyond practice.
Professionals in medicine and psychotherapy who want to find out more about essential aspects of Mindfulness
Mechanics of the Conference
It is about two days with three sessions each, of 90 minutes, of which 20-30 minutes will be dedicated to questions, doubts and debate. However, by using the Zoom platform, attendees can, at any time, intervene, comment and ask questions. These are live sessions, with five or ten minute passes between each one.
