Eco-Centric Development and the Four Foundations of Mindfulness
This session also marks the opening of the 2023-24 season of the EcoSattva Training. This online course is revised every year to stay attuned to our rapidly changing situation and to integrate new findings and fresh perspectives. If you would like to learn more about the training, this EcoDharma Exploration will provide a helpful introduction.
The view we have of ourselves and our world shapes this world. Frameworks within the Dharma such as the ‘four foundations of mindfulness’ emphasize universal characteristics of our being human and part of a larger field of belonging. Eco-centric models of human identity, born of an intimate observation and participation within the wider natural world also offer a reminder of our deeper embeddedness whilst emphasizing the particular characteristics of our individuality.
An eco-centric wheel of human development invites us to experientially explore how the wider ecological world, and in particular the four seasons as we experience them can serve as a ‘mirror’ for our own maturation, including the four seasons of our human journey through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and elderhood along with the social and ecological developmental tasks associated with these stages.
These two frameworks emphasising the universality and particularity of our location acknowledge the indivisibility of individual and collective flourishing; a seamless belonging in which our particular and unique expression is necessary, a relational Dharma, as Joanna Macy named so eloquently, “World as Lover, World as Self”.
We invite you to join Insight practitioner and environmental educator Rupert Marques in this month’s EcoDharma Exploration to explore these themes.
Sunday, October 22, 2023
11:30 AM to 1:30 PM US Eastern / 8:30 to 10:30 AM US Pacific /
5:30 to 7:30 PM CEST View in your time zone
A recording of the conversation will be provided for those who cannot attend the gathering.
EcoDharma Explorations are entirely donation-supported.
Any amount you can give is greatly appreciated.
