Ramon Parish "Contemplative Approach to Academia" **** [MUSIC] Hello. And welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I'm your host, David Devine. And itÕs a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions - Naropa is the birth place of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] Today, I'd like to welcome Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish to the podcast. Ramon is adjunct instructor in the Environmental Studies department. Thanks for speaking with us today. [00:00:54.10] RAMON: Thank you. Glad to be here. [00:00:56.12] DAVID: Yeah, glad to have you. Would you like to introduce yourself a bit further? [00:01:02.09] RAMON: Sure, so Ramon. Uh I am pretty much a lifelong resident of Colorado. I teach in the Environmental Studies and the Naropa core. And...hmm what else. Also, some of my outside of Naropa uh interest in work - I work with an organization called Golden Bridge in Boulder, Colorado. And they do international youth based rites of passage and leadership camps in the summer. And uh I have learned and am studying a modality that is the uh brain child of a teacher here named Melissa Michaels uh itÕs called SomaSource. Uh and so I think that was kind of my first introduction in a way or like deep teaching about mindfulness embodiment uh and also the whole notion of a rite of passage and life cycles and what not. And, I also work with a budding rites of passage networking organization that actually grew in part out of Golden Bridge called Youth Passageways. Yeah, so there's that and you know I'm a dad and husband and yeah! [00:02:19.20] DAVID: Full time? All the time. [00:02:21.03] RAMON: Yep, all the time. [00:02:22.00] DAVID: Awesome. Well, we're really happy to have you today. And uh what are we going to be talking about? [00:02:27.18] RAMON: You know I kind of - this kind of varies. Uh I think it will be in part just what comes up spontaneously, but I guess part of what I'd like to talk about - some of the areas and subjects that I teach at Naropa and also just some of the - actually some of the challenges that I encounter with working with students uh I kind of freestyle uh in class. And I kind of - I am probably going to be doing some of that here uh and honestly, I think that's a big part of what we're trying to teach here. Is you know how do you study, how do you integrate what you're studying with what you already know? Right, because one of the assumptions of uh Naropa's uh approach to contemplative education is that people already know things. People already have their own intelligence. And, really what they're doing is - is they come here to cultivate their intelligence more by having contact with one other - other students - by having contact with instructors and professors. Having contact with staff, having contact with the resources and then having contact with these wisdom traditions or these academic traditions. And so, itÕs like the - the real learning and the transformation takes place in the contact, not in the inputting of knowledge or information into the mind of the student by the faculty. Or by the school. [00:03:52.01] DAVID: Yeah, the integration. [00:03:52.21] RAMON: Yeah. So yeah, some of what I teach here - I will start with the core classes. The core classes are classes that all students have to take coming in and I also work with first time, first year students in particular - so students coming straight out of high school or maybe students have taken a gap year or maybe students who took many years off but itÕs still their first time in college. Uh, but generally the age group is you know late teens, early 20s. And I think I started to notice over the years and even actually looking back at my own time as an undergraduate student that there is a particular set of needs that arrive I think at that point in life. And there is actually I think a particular opportunity at that point in life. [00:04:36.05] DAVID: Yeah. What do you think those needs are? [00:04:40.01] RAMON: Well, you know one of the needs is like you're stepping out of your home for your first time. And, you've got to learn how to take care of your you know basic material needs in the adult world. You know and so some of the - the class actually focuses on like just helping students orient and develop good study habits. There is a one on one check in that we do with students called the Journey Guide which helps them you know just sort of orient to the school like accessing school resources. You know looking at their living situation, reflecting on their classes and so sort of addition to advising. [00:05:18.18] DAVID: Some kind of guidance. [00:05:19.03] RAMON: Some guidance. And it also gives them some practice in having one on one contact with their professors and their instructors which universities all over find is - is actually part of what helps students build success is just that ability to like have that contact. And then actually I think that's part of the adult becoming process is to be able to just directly speak to people that you perceive as being an authority. Right? Because think about it - I mean the whole society we've been schooled from age 4 to age 5 to you know age 18 to age 19 and - and there's often times this gap between the teacher and the student and the part of that journey guide thing is just like connect across that gap. Stand on your own. [00:06:03.15] DAVID: Like mentor almost? [00:06:05.16] RAMON: Totally. Totally. So, yes so there is that uh - that need to - to be met by somebody. To be witnessed by somebody. To be scene in like your curiosity and in your passions and even in your troubles to a certain extent. And then also, I think that there's a need at that time in life to actually go to dive and go deep. You know, and to actually even be somewhat with drawn from the world. And to like go into the interior person. And really ask like the you know kind of basic and profound questions that we all have in life. You know? [00:06:47.23] DAVID: Not many question academia likes to go into I guess. Talk about the studentÕs journey within? [00:06:55.01] RAMON: Yeah, I think that there is this idea that higher education. You know you're going to be exposed to these disciplines that are of uh you know great age and you know will give you a certain amount of societal power and that's important. But, I think itÕs a kind of known tacit assumption that we have about college that you go to college to discover who you are. You go to university to discover who you are. And so, we front load that at Naropa. We front load that. You're not just studying a subject matter. You're studying the self. And you're studying relationship. And then by - through that study of self and relationship and we you know layer practices and this is that first class in contemplative theory - that core class by starting to layer in like self-reflective and contemplative practices - it could be sitting meditation. It could be movement and dance based. It could be arts and creative based, right? And - and even looking at scholarship itself as a way to inspect the content of your own mind. You know we set students up with those skills and their - and their entry into Naropa. So, that as the go through Naropa they can continue to use and cultivate those skills and so they're not only looking outward - they're looking inward the whole time. [00:08:20.02] DAVID: Yeah. And I've been on the Naropa campus for about 8 years now. I was a student there a while back in 2010. And I came as a later student. ItÕs really interesting to see new students come in and see their journey from start to finish. And see the development happen through the contemplative process. [00:08:37.11] RAMON: Totally. [00:08:38.08] DAVID: ItÕs such a beautiful thing and sometimes its - itÕs not beautiful, but what's beautiful is that its allowed to not be beautiful. [00:08:45.19] RAMON: Right, the beauty is the totality of it, right? And like that - and I mean you - it gets messy at certain points and college is a container that we have to hold space in a way for that process to get messy. And if young people don't do it in college and I am not saying itÕs the only path. I'm not even saying itÕs the best one. But, this is what - where we're at if they don't have that then often times they'll try to create those situations themselves and sometimes that's really successful. And sometimes that looks like you know you taking a 5 to 7 year detour. You know what I mean? [00:09:21.03] DAVID: Which I did. [00:09:22.04] RAMON: Sure! Sure, and those detours can be instructive if you have a place to unpack them. You know? So, so there's that like need I think in your late teens to get to the core and your early 20s - the core of life. And have like raw experiences of life. Right? And, to sort of be able to drop off the map. [00:09:49.01] DAVID: Yeah. [00:09:49.21] RAMON: You know? [00:09:50.16] DAVID: And to also have a cohort of communities - so also other students who are having the same experience, the same process that is - it seems really crucial in the development of one self. To have somebody sitting next to you who has like-minded ideas and thoughts or maybe not, but is willing to just be supportive and witness the process. [00:10:15.01] RAMON: Yeah. Totally. And then that gets to me another class that I am - that I teach here. That we teach here, which is the intro diversity seminar. Right? You're speaking about having like-minded ideas or maybe not. Right, so the other thing that - that happens at the university level is you move out of your town. You move out of your high school and you come across people from ideally from all different backgrounds - from different parts of the nation. From different parts of the world. People with very different life experiences and that - that meeting of minds and that meeting of difference. Like that's a crucial stimulus to becoming an adult. Part of what we are studying in the diversity seminar is like we're laying the foundation for critical theory. Right, critical theory is like you know itÕs - itÕs a branch of academia where you're looking at how power relationships operate in a particular society. How you can examine and dissect power relationships in particular society and how you can use that dissection process and the identification process to actually equalize or help circulate power in a society. Right? So, you know you're looking at your - your kind of standard demographic or sociological markers. You're looking at race. You're looking at gender. You're looking a social class. You're looking at sexuality. You know you're looking at nationality -- [00:11:43.09] DAVID: Yeah, location too. Where you're located uh -- [00:11:47.01] RAMON: Yeah, right. And that's - that's looking at all these different sort of demographic areas is what helps you to discern your own social location. Right? And like the particular challenges and benefits or the privileges that - these different forms of repression that you encounter based on that social location. [00:12:11.06] DAVID: Yeah. It also seems like there is a set of tools in which we are given while we are developing to learn how to process things a little bit more skillfully as well. You know because we're diving into who are. How we receive education. How we filter it. And then we're also learning how to filter this thing we call ego. Those things we call feelings, emotions, experiences we're having. So, we're - we're learning how to filter the education and we're also learning how to filter the education we are developing within ourselves. [00:12:43.14] RAMON: Yeah. Yeah right. And - and so ideally you start off with a contemplative theory. You get some exposure and some grounding in the contemplative theory and the contemplative practice. And - and the practice is really about like these different techniques of like self-watchfulness. Right? And the particular approaches that I've been schooled in are more body based. And sometimes that body based approach is like itÕs very concrete. Right? ItÕs like I'm in a classroom with somebody. We start having a conversation about race. We start looking into police shootings. All right? Or even let's just be current. You know somebody just walked into a church - was it in Texas? [00:13:29.22] DAVID: Yes. [00:13:30.19] RAMON: And just killed 23 people. Ok, and we say that and we bring this stuff up in class because these are current events. And - and you might - your heart might start racing. [00:13:41.16] DAVID: Yeah. [00:13:41.16] RAMON: Right? [00:13:42.15] DAVID: Mine right now. [00:13:42.22] RAMON: Totally. Your throat might constrict. You might start sweating. Ok. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I think everyone can relate to these kind of like - you hear certain stuff and its difficult and you feel nervous. So, the mindfulness is like be aware of that. See that happening. Know that wow this is challenging for me. Instead of just going straight into activation or going straight into being frozen. You're like I'm challenged by this - this topic. I'm challenged to be sitting in this room with these people when I've had this experience and they haven't. You know what I mean? [00:14:20.12] DAVID: Yes. [00:14:21.10] RAMON: So, that grounding and - and body based awareness - body based mindfulness - embodiment. You know then when we start dealing with these - these difficult and challenging and - and eventually rewarding you know investigations into social identity and social location. You already have that kind nervous system self-knowledge. Or some of that nervous system self-knowledge that helps you to encounter some of these teachings and questions that are - to help you develop that social and sociological self-knowledge. And that's where I find one of the biggest challenges that's like that - the diversity seminar at Naropa I think is one of the most challenging classes for students. You know - because so many of our students come in here with I think the - in Buddhist traditions I think they refer to it as big mind. You know, you come in with the sky view of things. [00:15:20.18] DAVID: Ok. [00:15:20.18] RAMON: You come in seeing a connectivity between things, between life. And this is another thing that we try to cultivate in the contemplative seminar - open heartedness. Right? Naropa has got this whole theory of warriorship. That like active, intelligent, engagement in the world is based off of open heartedness. [00:15:43.02] DAVID: What would you say open heartedness is? Speaking of someone who has never experienced what that means. Like when you say I have an open heart. What does that mean to someone? Or to you? [00:15:57.07] RAMON: (sighs) I think it means that when you encounter -- anything and this is ideal - right? This is developmental. When you encounter anything - any kind of experience you don't turn away from it. And you let your experience touch you. [00:16:19.14] DAVID: Yeah. [00:16:19.14] RAMON: Right? So, if you see somebody - you're driving - you're on the highway and you're stopped at an intersection and you see people standing out on the street with signs you know needing help - you take that in whether you give or not. You take it in. I mean and in a way, itÕs like you almost let it hurt you. And - and part of the idea is that actually the world kind of hurts. And it hurts good. And - and that hurting good is where the beauty is. [00:16:51.18] DAVID: Yeah. [00:16:51.18] RAMON: And, then that wakes you up to - it automatically if you let the world touch you - you have an impulse to reach back into the world. [00:17:01.00] DAVID: Yeah, you just made me think about by feeling the hurt of others, by experiencing it - it almost grows your heart more so you're able to love deeper because you can feel others' hurt. You're not contained to your own - like oh that doesn't deal with me. I'm not going to feel that. But you're able to I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my soul. And it - it kind of develops this love. This thickerness of -- [00:17:25.18] RAMON: That's it. And that's it. Because like you said itÕs like -- the heart that allows itself to be touched takes things on. And then it becomes heavy hearted. But then itÕs like you were to train for a long distance run with weights around your ankles. You get stronger. And then when you take the weights off - actually you can jump. [00:17:49.16] DAVID: You're just flying. [00:17:49.16] RAMON: Yes! So, itÕs like the heavy heartedness becomes the basis for light heartedness. [00:17:55.10] DAVID: Yeah. [00:17:55.21] RAMON: And then the - and this is one of the things in Naropa's mission is we talk about discipline and delight. So, you want to cultivate that quality of like that softness and that being able to receive actually makes you stronger. And that strength like creates a kind of quickness and like an ease and a - and then the littlest things -- the littlest things that you see in the world can be like a cause for - for joy and for celebration. So, like that's the basis in a way that we're trying to cultivate for activism if you want to say that. Or like citizenship. ItÕs that - that engaged, that heart level engaged willing to be in touch with experience and itÕs something that grows over time. You can't expect people to come in and be willing to like face all the pain and difficulty in the world or any surprise experience. By the way it takes time. [00:18:51.02] DAVID: Yeah, itÕs not every day that you hear techniques to feel someone's pain. You weren't - we're not being invited to feel other's pain. I don't think that itÕs something we're taught -- [00:19:02.04] RAMON: No, no you race right past it. [00:19:04.12] DAVID: That's not mine. [00:19:05.06] RAMON: No. [00:19:06.01] DAVID: No thank you. [00:19:06.09] RAMON: I can't deal with that. And it doesn't mean that you are unnecessarily like you can't extend yourself to such a degree that you lose your own footing. [00:19:15.10] DAVID: Yeah you have to be energetically sustainable to yourself. [00:19:18.12] RAMON: Right. [00:19:19.20] DAVID: But there is - there is a moment of allowing others feelings to come in and support. And then by doing that by developing this open heart - this love then you can be beacon. So, when you do come across something that does feel heavy hearted and might be emotionally harder to take on - you can hold that space - you're a container now. You know? [00:19:46.15] RAMON: Yeah. [00:19:47.11] DAVID: That's what it seems like with a lot of development is coming to. [00:19:50.02] RAMON: Totally. And in a way, I think that's basically what it means to be an adult. Is that you're a container. [00:19:56.12] DAVID: Nice. [00:19:56.12] RAMON: And other people will rely on you and put weight on you and you can hold things for other people. And so, I think more than - more than the subject matter - yes subject matter is important. Yes, discipline is important, but particularly at the under graduate level which is where I am teaching you're trying to help people make that transition between and this is the traditional college student. I want to preface what I am saying with that. But, you want to help them make that transition between - between youth to adult hood. Between being someone who has been held to being somebody who can hold. Right? And, somebody who can witness with relative clarity and then somebody who has the willingness, the stability, the self-recognition and then some basis of skill to step into life and offer something. [00:20:54.10] DAVID: Yeah. Some wise words right there. [00:20:58.05] RAMON: Working on it. [00:20:59.23] DAVID: ItÕs beautiful. Yeah, it sounds like there is a rite of passage through academia, higher education, discovering who you are, development, adulthood. There is so much transition - it - itÕs a very crucial moment in student's lives to - to go to college. To be exposed to not be at home sometimes. To meet new people. You know? [00:21:25.18] RAMON: Totally! [00:21:26.20] DAVID: Very interesting. [00:21:27.11] RAMON: You ever hear of the work of Bill Placken? [00:21:29.22] DAVID: No. [00:21:30.04] RAMON: Well, he's another guy. He is Durango, Colorado. He's also created this beautiful map of like different phases of human development in industrialized societies I should preface because I think it varies, but and one of the things he talks about is and he doesn't necessarily connect age in life stage but he talks about this stage of post adolescence. He's like is the critical stage - in our society right now. And that a lot of people don't make it through that stage psychologically. And they get stuck there and they loop there. And they stay in a - in a way of being that is so externally focused and referenced. How do I look? How do I look? Do I look ok? That they never root down into their inner self and then through their inner self into nature. And then they can't really bring up water. And then therefore they don't really - not only because not only do you hold space for others, but then you become a feeder of others. And maybe even eventually food. And a lot of people itÕs like - itÕs the heart man. ItÕs like if you can't get into that wetness of the heart - and you don't know your way around in there. A lot of times you're what you can offer as a human being is like finished. [00:22:58.11] DAVID: Contemplative education is like a map to the inner self. [00:23:01.07] RAMON: Yeah! And you're bringing people into contact with these maps of inner self and itÕs you know Naropa is Buddhist based but there is multiple traditions that are represented here. And so, by having these contact with these different maps of the inner self and even maps of what's going on in the world - right, because I also teach in the environmental studies department particularly with the justice focus. Food justice, environmental justice. These are these large scale issues and problems that we are all navigating in the world. So, you show the inner map and then you show the outer. Then itÕs like what sparks for you? Is food justice? You know what's that for you? Is it Tai Chi? You know is it early childhood development? What thing that happening on the outside that you contact through discipline sparks what's alive for you on the inside. And if you can start to match those two - then you got a lot of flowing energy to give to situations. [00:23:57.19] DAVID: Oh yeah. So much to be had here. LAUGHS [00:24:04.03] RAMON: We got to make the most of it. [00:24:06.00] DAVID: So, is there anything else you'd like to speak about? [00:24:07.19] RAMON: So, I was trying to make this point about big mind. And I think this is one of the trickiest places I come to with students. On the one hand, we - are trying to work with this idea yeah that of big mind and big heart or open heart. And - and to recognize the real validity of everyone's experience. And on the other hand, when you start learning you know about social occasion. When you start learning about privileged identities. When you start learning about oppressed identities. What you see is that we actually are not all equal. We are not all on the same playing field. Some of us are exposed to more danger. Environmentally, socially. Some of us have a less ready access to forms of social power. Some of us are less represented in media. Some of us are less represented in mythology. Some of us are told that our experiences are not important. They are not central to what this country is about. And I think we see it real strong right. Its real strong right now - that struggle that we've had in the United States and I am just restricting my speech to the United States. Its real strong right now. Who are we? Who is an American? Ok. So, on the one hand, we're looking -you started from your own heart emotional mental bodily experience. Like you have worth. Period. And on the other hand, there are these differences in the way that that plays out socially. Naropa's founder brought this language of basic goodness. You know this idea that the world is sensible. And, your existence in the world is sound. That you are well placed. And, so we have that and then we also have - here is structural inequality. And it shuffles people based off of appearance. Based off culture. Based off language. And so, there's this rub there. Of like you're telling us on the one hand that our existence is wholesome. And on the other hand, you're telling us that we're in all these differentiated positions. So, students come into this place where they're like really bonding and then come to this place and they're looking around - they're like oh - wait a minute, you're from that family. Oh, wait a minute, you're that skin color. Oh, wait a minute that's your gender expression. Like we have these differences and they're not immediately uh you can't immediately just build a bridge across and say everything is all good. And even coming out of here we might be going back to radically different life experiences and you might have golden road and I might have to walk in the valley. And I'm like how do you reconcile that tension of knowing that at the core everybody is a human being and at the same time some people are going to get the short end of the stick and some people are going to get a silver spoon. And then, how - knowing that - how do we set to work from our particular places in our particular social locations and our particular family, cultural, racial uh class environment to actually chop down privileges and dis - redistribute them. To protect those people who are vulnerable or to protect ourselves if we are those people who are vulnerable. Like how do we become agents of creating a just society? And - and itÕs a struggle for a lot of students here. [00:27:54.22] DAVID: And I do feel like there's a lot of allies at Naropa. When you come here you get to meet a lot of allies. You get to meet a lot of people who may not be in the same valley or road that you're on, but they're developing their open heart and they're holding space - they're holding a container for you and they're here for you. You know, so there is this ally-ness that we develop here and I feel like that's - that's a good point. And that's a good place to start. [00:28:23.13] RAMON: Yeah, I mean if we can't recognize one another than forget it. [00:28:27.15] DAVID: Seriously. Yeah. [00:28:29.13] RAMON: And actually, if you feel yourself we can recognize one another almost instantly. [00:28:35.13] DAVID: I recognize you. [00:28:37.00] RAMON: Totally. Likewise. [00:28:37.21] DAVID: Awesome. So, I'd like to say thank you to Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish. He is an adjunct instructor in the Environmental Studies department. And, thanks for speaking today. [00:28:49.08] RAMON: Actually, got promoted to instructor. [00:28:51.05] DAVID: Hey, all right! He's the instructor of the Environmental Studies department. Oh yeah, congratulations. [00:28:58.21] RAMON: Thank you. [00:28:59.05] DAVID: Take care. [MUSIC] On behalf of the Naropa community thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates. [MUSIC]