Strand 3: Social, cultural, and systemic approaches

Deepening the Roots of Socially-Engaged Mindfulness: Awareness-based Support for Change and Transformation in Troubled Times with Rhonda Magee

In a world of difference and diversity, how does mindfulness help cultivate ethical awareness necessary to the maintenance of universal human rights and planetary consciousness? What additional practices might deepen and diversify our own resources for this times? In this Keynote address, Professor Rhonda Magee will argue that mindfulness may be the key to the development of the moral agility and empathic dexterity required for more effectively managing the challenges of our times. Throughout the Western world, major institutions are presently confronted by the reality that post-colonial, profoundly integrated and multicultural communities are rife with causes and conditions leading to heightened fear, threat, and destabilization. At the same time, Professor Magee posits, these conditions create the potential for lived experiences that are not merely informative but may be essential to the expansion of the moral imagination and capacity for everyday compassion and cooperation necessary to more inclusive identities and lived-ethics. She will describe why and how socio-ethical mindfulness is the key to maximizing our capacity to choose actions that connect rather than divide, and to deepening the roots of wellbeing for us all in theses times.