John Cobb "Contemplative Approach to Social Justice" [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 it's a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions -- Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] [00:00:46.04] DAVID: Hello. Today I'd like to welcome a very special guest to the Naropa podcast, John Cobb. John is a former Naropa University president from 1993 to 2003. And he also sits on the Naropa board of trustees. He is a lawyer and also an educator. John and his wife also started the John Cobb Peace Lecturer's at Naropa. So, welcome to the podcast. [00:01:07.00] JOHN COBB: Thank you, David. Good to meet you, again. [00:01:11.08] DAVID: So, when I first came here as a student -- you were just rounding off your presidency at Naropa. So, that was kind of fun to kind of see you in that capacity. [00:01:20.07] JOHN COBB: Yeah, well they invited me back for an interim year. So, I did ten years and then went away for a while and uh they had an opening and they invited me back, which was great fun in 2011. I believe you were here then? [00:01:38.08] DAVID: Yeah. [00:01:38.19] JOHN COBB: Wonderful to come back. I think people had forgotten what an autocrat I was in the first 10 years. And I was welcomed very heartily and did some good things in a short space of time and reconnected with the place, which was wonderful for me. [00:01:56.13] DAVID: Well, itÕs good to have you back. [00:01:57.09] JOHN COBB: Thank you. [00:01:58.09] DAVID: And so, just to let our listeners know who you are, what you've done -- just give us a quick background of how you've come to where you are now. [00:02:06.13] JOHN COBB: Whoa. Yeah, '73 that might take more time than you've got -- LAUGHING -- but I was a practicing lawyer for about 25 years in both the private sector and the public sector. I did a lot of legal aid work and civil rights work. At one point, in time I went from -- working for a legal aid organization in Denver and I joined a law firm in Boulder and that happened to represent Naropa among other things. I represented the founder too as well and -- I got very much involved with Naropa from the point of representing them. And, it ended up in the founder appointing me to the board of Naropa when we first started the independent board in 1985 that was. So, that was my first formal relationship with the institution and one thing led to another and in '92 when they did a -- Barbara Dilley resigned -- they did a search. After that search went on for 18 months they finally chose me and -- for some reason. Probably the start of the best job that I could have imagined. [00:03:25.19] DAVID: Wonderful. Naropa found you because you started working for a law firm that was representing Naropa and tell me a little bit about what drew you to law -- working in law? How did you find that? [00:03:39.17] JOHN COBB: Well, I went to law school for probably a pretty bad reason, which was that I didn't want to go to Vietnam. So, I went to law school and I'm very fortunate because I've had a -- what I call the best education money can buy which was Harvard and Columbia. And I went to Columbia Law School -- it was a really excellent law school, but I wasn't ready for it. In a sense, I was going for the wrong reason. But, the moment I got out of law school I went into Vista as a lawyer and they sent me to Colorado, which is how I got to Colorado. [00:04:13.19] And when the first client walked through the door the whole thing changed for me. I realize -- you have a sudden insight that what you've been laboring about in your studies actually has a real world impact and experiential impact. I mean Naropa is very good at joining studies with experience as well as meditation and self-insight. But, I had never had the experiential at Columbia because they hadn't even started a clinical program then. So, the moment I got out -- I said wow this is absolutely amazing and actually a person comes through your door and you might have something to help them. [00:04:55.23] DAVID: Someone to represent. [00:04:57.10] JOHN COBB: Yeah, so that took off and then I just had a sense that the best place for me was representing people who couldn't afford representation any other way. So, I had spent a lot of time and legal aid. [00:05:12.04] DAVID: That's wonderful. What kind of drew you to that sort of legal -- [00:05:15.10] JOHN COBB: I think my upbringing and girlfriend to be wife also was very supportive of that. She was supportive in the fact that I turned down a Wall Street job and continued on -- that would have paid me three times as much. And, I just made that decision. It's a decision that Naropa students make all the time -- in small and large ways. And I was very fortunate that I made that decision. So, you know I went to work on the Navajo reservation and -- as a lawyer -- as making ninety five hundred dollars a year -- pleased with it. You know, it was an experience that I couldn't trade. You know I've been very fortunate in my life choices -- one of which was taking the job as president of Naropa, which I kind of backed into. I haven't been very proactive in my life choices, but I've been fortunate -- you know what I mean? [00:06:12.07] DAVID: Awesome. Well I really appreciate the work you're doing and just kind of like how you've come to this idea and just being able to like hold space for that, you know, because I feel like a lot of people that want to be a lawyer they don't necessarily think of the underserved populations that could need lawyer services. [00:06:28.13] JOHN COBB: Yeah, I think that it ebbs and flows with the need for survival, the need for money -- all the issues that students face -- I faced. I was just fortunate to be able to make that choice. And I have graduates of my course that are making those same choices. And I feel very empathetic with them. It's hard -- itÕs very hard [00:06:50.23] DAVID: Definitely. But it's the good work, you know. [00:06:52.19] JOHN COBB: Yeah. [00:06:53.03] DAVID: I'm hear -- I'm also hearing like a similarity between you and Chuck -- the current president of Naropa -- because both are lawyers and both you've worked in -- [00:07:00.03] JOHN COBB: Yeah, we were law partners in that same law firm -- [00:07:04.13] DAVID: Working in a social justice kind of world and doing the good work. And just like -- I also spoke with him like a long time ago. So, it's really cool to kind of round it off with both of you -- being president of the Naropa. [00:07:14.17] JOHN COBB: Yeah. Well it makes it -- uh life for paycheck is pretty dry and somewhat unsustainable emotionally and psychically, I think. You've got to have other things going on. It's a choice you can make at any point in your life. I'm 73. I could still make that choice. You know, there's a lot of -- I still have choices. [00:07:37.04] DAVID: Yeah, we all have choices at any moment. That's so amazing. Awesome. So, I understand that you are currently teaching courses at Naropa and I'm just curious -- how long have you been teaching? And what is it that you teach? Let's dive a little deeper into that. [00:07:52.09] JOHN COBB: Well right now I'm teaching a course and have for seven years called Law of Human Rights and Social Change. I've always taught the presidency was a 24/7 job. I always wanted to teach. I love to teach, but also it puts me in touch with the students -- if I'm a bureaucrat. It also puts me in touch with the faculty because I understand what faculty are going through experientially in the classroom a bit more. So, it was extraordinarily helpful for me -- in a selfish way. I hope it was also helpful for the students. I taught a course in the college for years called, Freedom's Just Another Word -- which is the old Janis Joplin song, but which was about the Bill of Rights. And then when we started Peace Studies, Candace Walworth came to me and said, would you like to teach a law course? And I said fine. What should it look like? And that was about seven, eight years ago and we came up with this Law of Human Rights and Social Change course, which you could say as an introduction to law, but it's a lot more. I've found it really joins a -- I sneak in a lot of history. [00:09:07.21] DAVID: Uh oh. [00:09:09.00] JOHN COBB: Uh oh. You see that's what most people -- but the law is very attuned to precedent. It's based in what's happened before, but it's also using precedent as a springboard for policy into the future. So, it's a very interesting way to teach civics, to teach history, and yet pay attention to the chart of where we're going. I usually call the arc of the universe bends towards justice. You know that quote? And so, are we really bending towards justice? And if not, why not? If so, how? And that was my intention. So, we study this -- the Supreme Court decisions under the 14th amendment. We go all the way back to Dred Scott Plessy vs Ferguson. And we bring it forward to Brown vs. Board of Education. And to the reason affirmative action cases. Now, you can actually chart those on a board and show where we're headed or not headed. And now, it's fascinating to students actually because you can't really get them excited about the Dred Scott case. Most people say that's the worst decision the Supreme Court has ever made. And that's accurate. But, you have to actually look at it and how we grew out of that moment, you know, and moved forward. [00:10:31.09] DAVID: Like where was your arc going after that decision? [00:10:33.22] JOHN COBB: Yes. And it's not a steady state. So, that's what we do -- we study three themes. We study -- what I would call equality, freedom -- or liberty and due process. Those three themes and how they have manifested in the Supreme Court and in our daily lives. Due process I also call fundamental fairness. How people treat each other. How the government treats us. How we treat each other. So, there's a quality of going deeper and seeing how these things -- where these things came from. [00:11:10.15] DAVID: Yeah, I love the idea of breaking all that down, studying each one of them, and then kind of piecing them back together and seeing how they commingle and kind of worked together. And I also like the idea of you showing the history because within history is stories and I guess when you're learning law -- personally I don't know if this is true, but I feel like it is true. If you're learning law -- having a story of like past what has happens -- helps you make decisions upon newer laws and makes -- helps you kind of understand the justice arc in kind of where we are going as a society and a community. [00:11:47.06] JOHN COBB: Exactly. And I want to -- in still -- or even I could use the word train students to have a sense of what I call relentless curiosity about these stories. I mean I could go on in length about this, but there's a quality of accepting things without questioning them. Especially there's a lot of us -- a lot of opinions floating around today that are not based in reason or fact, right. So, I want Naropa students to constantly question. I call it relentless curiosity and I -- we often say at Naropa generally the question is more important than the answer. [00:12:31.02] DAVID: Truth. [00:12:31.02] JOHN COBB: It is true generally in your life even from a introspective point of view. Right? You don't want to come up with answers like I'm a bad person, right? Or even I'm a good person. It's -- just keep questioning you know, so you don't involve in self-deception. Well, the study of history is the same way. The study of fact situation -- so does the same way. So, I want the students to be able to pose questions and never be satisfied with the answer until they get to the bottom of something and may be that find out that it's bottom less, right, which is good Naropa term. [00:13:06.18] DAVID: Just a bunch of questions down there. [00:13:07.17] JOHN COBB: Yeah there are more and more questions. And -- that I think is the contemplative aspect of my course, right? And along with that curiosity is demystifying the law. I mean most people -- [00:13:21.22] JOHN COBB: Say more about that. [00:13:22.09] JOHN COBB: Well, ok. This has been a busy legal week. Maybe you've paying attention. It's been a busy legal week for -- the Supreme Court has announced all these cases. And they are big deals in our society. They are big -- but a lot of us would say, ok, there they go again. I don't really understand it. It seems to be in favor of Trump and against the people. Or it seems to be pro this or pro corporate and people sum it up. Well, I got the email from a student in my course last week after this interesting case came down out of Colorado from the Supreme Court and she said I just want to thank you because I actually read the decision. [00:14:09.06] See that's the difference. So, you can read -- you're not -- you don't just shy away and assume that it's meaningless in your life or that you're going to rely on Rachel Maddow to explain it to you. You're actually -- you feel confident that you can -- you can Google the opinion and read it. And my students can. [00:14:31.08] DAVID: Self empowered. [00:14:32.01] JOHN COBB: Yes exactly. And demystified. And so, you don't just stop at a certain point. [00:14:37.19] DAVID: You're empowering people to understand the law and to not -- it be seen as a mystery. And it's -- it's like this veil that you have to unveil to actually figure out what's going on and there's like decisions being made in there that you can understand a bit more. Once you start understanding the process of law and understanding how the judicial system works. [00:15:04.07] JOHN COBB: Also, you know, in every case these cases this week have largely been decided 5-4. 5 justices, 4 against. And that's very close, right. That's very close. So, as a student, as a graduate, as an alumnus -- alumna -- what do you want to know? You want to know what the issue was. And why it was decided that way. And what it means. And those kinds of questions are really important. Now, A, if you can ask the question. And B, you can't go any further with the question -- you're in trouble, right. Actually, I feel like our citizenship -- our participation in this democracy is dependent on our having that curiosity. That intellectual discipline. I might say certainly college graduates citizen. I think that -- anyway I'll stop there for a moment. Ask me another question. [00:16:09.18] DAVID: So, real quick what I'm hearing is there's this idea of past, present, and future. The past is -- the decisions we made before. The present is the moment we're in of trying to make a decision. And then the future is decisions we will make upon wrapped up in the judicial system. And so, you're empowering your students to actually view this -- what have decisions have we made before in these like pivotal cases? How do we make decisions currently? And how are we moving to make decisions within the future? And you're empowering the students and the persons that are interested to actually go deeper into it -- other than just being subjected to what the -- what the judicial -- [00:16:51.10] JOHN COBB: What the present moment of this -- what the present composition of this court is saying -- its well said. You said it well. So, it's sort of like the decisions of the present are standing on the decisions of the past. Right? They're modifying them a bit because of present concerns, but not too much. And so, we might look at it and say why aren't they adapting quicker? Well actually there are good policy reasons sometimes for not adapting quicker. And, then they may be looking towards the future. So, it's no different from the individual actually. When you asked me how did I get here? You know its that same thing. It's implicit in how did I get here is the present moment, right. But it's -- it's a whole 73 year journey to this present moment with you sitting across from you. And then we're both looking to the future. We are -- we are. I'm thinking about, you know, how my course is going to be -- or you know I'm thinking about -- the law is the same way. [00:17:51.10] DAVID: So, you just said you're thinking about your future course. Tell me more about that. How are you going to approach this next semester? Anything you're excited about -- anything you're looking forward to? Do you notice anything with the students that you get? Like are there a certain type of archetypes as students that you get that are interested in law? [00:18:09.00] JOHN COBB: I'm told that there's a rumor going around that it's the hardest course in the college. So, I think students self- select -- [00:18:19.11] DAVID: I accept your challenge. [00:18:21.02] JOHN COBB: I would have avoided it when I was in college. But, no it's -- it's -- I'm rather proud of that because students need and accept a challenge to a new language. It's like learning Greek, largely a lot of Latin based words. But it's in a new language. So, the demystification involves actually learning a little bit of a new language. So, you start off, but I've always thrown them in the deep end and I start them off reading an actual case from 1948. Shelley vs. Kramer which is a famous first year law student case. And they actually read the opinion and by class 3 they've done an analysis of the case from the opinion as opposed to, you know, Wikipedia or something. And so, they look at me and they look at each other and said, did we just do that. Right? So, it's -- it's really great. And I look forward to it every year because the Supreme Court has just given us a huge amount of fuel for the course next year. The Masterpiece Cake Shop case which you know pits the First Amendment freedom of free exercise of religion against the 14th Amendment -- gay rights. Equal protection for gay rights people. And the Supreme Court has opined about it, but it doesn't stop there. You see what I mean. So, that's you know you could devote a whole class to that and people who would be totally engaged. And also, it takes you back to how we got here -- how the history of gay rights came to this point. How the First Amendment free exercise of religion goes all the way back to 1620. You see what I mean? [00:20:13.08] DAVID: You have to put history in there. [00:20:15.13] JOHN COBB: You can't -- [00:20:16.06] DAVID: You cannot do it. [00:20:17.15] JOHN COBB: And yet it makes it alive -- because it's here and now at the same time. [00:20:22.20] DAVID: It gives it life too because then you're understanding why it is where it is in this moment and also it kind of makes you realize like maybe you can breathe some more life into it and have it conform to society a bit more because we're changing so rapidly. [00:20:38.03] JOHN COBB: For sure. [00:20:41.20] DAVID: So, in the current climate of education and college and just students coming in to receive education -- how do you see civics informing students nowadays? [00:20:54.03] JOHN COBB: It's a big topic, but I can tell you that if you look at any statistics about our civic literacy in this country -- it's basically were in the grip of civic illiteracy and I think high schools and colleges for a number of reasons are not doing enough. Some might be. Not doing enough to make that actually part of the core. I don't want to say core curriculum, but enough of the required general education of the students. And, as a result, students have kind of turned away. I mean there are a lot of forces going on, right, we've commodified higher education such a way that we've monetized higher education. So that the humanities, which includes history and to a certain extent includes civics, have been a sort of demeaned, I think. And there are a lot of forces at work in that and including -- and this is not a liberal or conservative issue -- it's, I think, the liberals are as much at fault as the conservatives in the removal of civic education and history from college curricula. [00:22:12.03] You look at the statistics -- it goes down about 10 percent a year -- or 10 percent every two years in terms of student participation in history majors, history departments. Particularly at this point in our history where it's difficult everybody is -- has an opinion about our history and what it means. They don't necessarily research anything, but they state their opinion in order to -- so they're politicizing history. And liberals and conservatives do this as much. And that's why -- since we politicize history -- it's a lot easier for colleges and high schools to drop it altogether rather than to try and sort through that. You see what I mean? So, I'm very resistant to that. I also think that the founder talked a great deal about creating enlightened society, right. And he thought institutionally -- institutionally Naropa should model that institutionally, but it should also graduate students that were -- had a longing for a better world and were willing to put their bodies on the line for a better -- their bodies and minds -- body speech and mind on the line for a better world. And I think that civics -- in part. It can be, you know, it can be therapy in part. It can be arts, theatre -- it can be all of that. But, the fact that we don't teach anybody about the Bill of Rights and what it means today and what it's going to mean for our future -- and maybe we just sacrifice it at some point and we don't really care and no one -- oh that was nice. The First Amendment was nice. Whatever happened to that? You know, I mean it's like -- that's an exaggeration. We could be headed that way without even knowing it. Right? So, I think colleges have to step up. I mean colleges were originally formed around what it -- what education is necessary to be a good citizen of a democracy. That's 1930's talk, right. Whatever happened to that? And so, this is -- you can tell I'm -- I'm almost grabbing you around the neck. [00:24:30.20] DAVID: He's so passionate about this. I love it. I am really feeling you. [00:24:34.18] JOHN COBB: So that's -- that's a big deal for me. I would say that at Naropa we have a lot of students in the psychology's which is great. Some of them turn out to be some of the best students I have in my course. But I emphasize -- I would say I emphasize the objective more than the subjective. And the reason for doing that is I think that it balances out the rigor involved in understanding what's going on. So, I joke with my students -- I say don't write me a sentence that starts with I feel, right. You see what I mean? And they go -- they laugh, but they still do it. And then they don't do it ever again. Right? So, I feel that. As opposed to that. And then a footnote. You see what I mean? [00:25:27.19] DAVID: You're taking it away from -- [00:25:31.06] JOHN COBB: The opinion and the emotional. [00:25:33.08] DAVID: Yeah -- you just want to see the facts. [00:25:36.05] JOHN COBB: Yeah. Because we react very emotionally to history. I mean -- but that's not the whole thing -- different from a Harvard classroom. I can tell you the Naropa classroom is full of emotion -- full of empathy. All right? It just generally flows over. Even in my course we read a case like Miranda -- which is a case everybody knows. People react very emotionally to it. And they should. And I appreciate that. But, you can't just say, ok, I side with Miranda obviously -- poor guy. Or I side with the state because Miranda was a killer. Right? You've got to have much more of an intellectual discipline about it. On the other hand, where does our sense of justice come from -- except deep down, right. [00:26:25.06] DAVID: I'm hearing this like -- justice needs to not be wedded to ego in emotion. [00:26:31.20] JOHN COBB: Oh! [00:26:32.15] DAVID: You know because if you're making -- [00:26:34.07] JOHN COBB: Good! You must have graduated from Naropa. [00:26:37.06] DAVID: Well, I'm really understanding the separation of ego and the separation of like truth and facts and just moving forward with different decisions. And also, we respond from ego. Like ask yourself this question -- when you're having a difficult situation how would you show up with ego and how would you show up with your heart? They would say completely different things. You know what I mean? Because the ego is like this protective -- like oh I'm going to like make sure I feel good. You're always wrong. I'm always right. I'm going to like talk myself into it, but then the heart's like I hear where you're coming from. I hear -- you hear everything you -- you -- to filter it. [00:27:10.22] JOHN COBB: Much more open. [00:27:13.09] DAVID: So, by having your students not say I feel -- you're taking out the -- the ego of it and you're just having to just strictly thought -- just pure thought, no emotion attached. [00:27:26.10] JOHN COBB: Well, certainly not based in ego. Yeah, I think that when our emotions are clouding our relentless curiosity -- because when you have relentless curiosity you want to find out something that you thought was true before you started asking questions. That's a problem. Right? And that's usually emotional. It's like how could this be. [00:27:49.20] DAVID: Wait a minute. [00:27:50.13] JOHN COBB: Wait a minute, how could this be, right? Yeah and it's very powerful. The absence of it is very powerful. It's not that you could segregate. it It's very holistic. But you have to segregate it a little bit in order to see what you're doing. [00:28:08.10] DAVID: Yeah awesome. Thank you. So, we only have a couple minutes left and there is two -- [00:28:12.18] JOHN COBB: Really? [00:28:14.01] DAVID: Like I said it goes by fast. [00:28:14.21] JOHN COBB: I got a lot more to say. [00:28:17.13] DAVID: Yeah, I mean we can probably keep saying it too. So, I just wanted to ask you about the peace scholarship that you have at Naropa. So, you've started a peace scholarship -- can you tell me more? [00:28:27.13] JOHN COBB: No, actually the scholarship was started by a really good friend of mine. [00:28:31.23] DAVID: OK. [00:28:32.23] JOHN COBB: Yeah. No, I didn't name a scholarship after myself. Going back to the ego question. No, it was Bill Jones -- a longtime trustee of Naropa -- gave a bunch of money, I think, trust that he set up and it started the John Cobb -- [00:28:53.01] DAVID: So, he put it in your name? [00:28:54.12] JOHN COBB: The scholarship. And since then my wife and I have added to it because I thought it should be larger just from the point of view of benefiting students. So, it's a scholarship that is endowed and a student gets it every year -- or one or more students get it every year. And it helps, you know. A student in my class got it this year, which I am very happy about because he might not have been able to continue without it. And he's a jewel. So, it makes me feel good. And I thank Bill Jones for being generous and giving me further opportunity -- my wife and I to be generous as well. I mean I think that -- the cost of higher education is something to be reckoned with and it impacts what we've been talking about in this podcast. It's just very hard for students to turn away from computer science to go into the arts, poetry, Buddhist studies -- even the, you know, law -- human rights, you know. So -- [00:30:05.18] DAVID: Yeah. So, you have this scholarship but then you also have the peace lectures. [00:30:11.13] JOHN COBB: Oh yeah. That is something that I didn't name for myself again. It was named -- the board named it after me. [00:30:20.10] DAVID: What is it named? I [00:30:22.15] JOHN COBB: t's called The Bayard and John Cobb Peace Lecturer -- annual peace lecture. Yeah, my wife is Bayard-Cobb and we started that back when peace studies started because we thought that peace studies -- peace studies students and faculty should have an opportunity every year to hear from and hang out with major thought leaders and practitioners in this -- I would say peacemaking. And it's been incredibly successful. We've had a long range and people could go up on the website, I think. I don't know what it is, but the Bayard and John Cobb Peace Lecturer is somewhere. [00:31:02.12] DAVID: Yeah, you just type it in the search bar and it shows up. [00:31:04.10] JOHN COBB: Yeah and see the list of -- and what we hope to get were people that were actually on the ground and working in the field and from whom they would spend time like Fanshen Cox spent a lot of time with students this time. She gave a wonderful -- I wouldn't say it was a lecture -- [00:31:26.18] DAVID: A performance. [00:31:26.18] JOHN COBB: She gave a one act performance, which was fantastic. [00:31:30.10] DAVID: One Drop of Love. [00:31:30.10] JOHN COBB: Oh, One Drop of Love. And then she also hung out with students for quite a lot of time, took questions -- [00:31:37.04] DAVID: She is enjoying her work for sure and doing some good -- and she was on our podcast. [00:31:40.22] JOHN COBB: She was contagious. She is contagious. Oh yeah, absolutely wonderful. [00:31:45.16] DAVID: She was the most recent one that's -- [00:31:47.06] JOHN COBB: Yeah and she was in a sense -- brought to us by a Naropa grad who is out there and said -- you've got to have this. So, Candace said we should ask this person. I said, my wife and I said -- Byron and I said, great. [00:32:01.11] DAVID: We brought Sa'fonya Davis last year, right? [00:32:04.07] JOHN COBB: Yes. [00:32:05.21] DAVID: That was so amazing - just -- [00:32:09.11] JOHN COBB: Restorative justice, which in my course I don't deal with that very much. Candace Walworth deals with it in her courses in-depth. But, obviously there's a lot more we could do with restorative justice, mediation and other ways of solving disputes than the adversarial system, which is basically what we have. I mean it's not -- I could actually give a defense for the adversarial system, which -- and I think my students see and understand it better when they get through the course. [00:32:45.21] DAVID: Awesome, thank you for sharing. So, with everything going on in the justice system and you with your career growing up learning law and teaching human rights and working for a contemplative educational university -- what advice could you give young people wanting to pursue a career in the human rights and or like as a lawyer representing people? What sort of advice can you give someone? [00:33:12.04] JOHN COBB: I'm very proud that out of -- I have five students who took my -- I've taught maybe 150 students in this course over the course of, you know, seven years and maybe slightly less. And five of them have gone to law school. And, I was -- I am quite proud of that and then I have a second thought which is OMG they've gone to law school, you know. So, it's hard career as a lawyer for reasons that we discussed earlier on in the podcast, but I think they're really doing well. I mean I've got to graduate from a year ago -- second year of law school and she's working with -- working on pardon petitions for convicted criminals. It's just -- and she spoke to the class and it's just remarkable. I mean everybody in the class was -- this is just wonderful work and she's made a decision that even though it's -- it's not going to bring her a lot of money this is what she wants to do. And she's working in a lot of other aspects of her interests. You know, she's sort of interested in nutrition and she has this whole -- it's not really a hobby -- it's her -- her whole life. And she's integrating that into the idea that what she wants to work with is dietary issues of prisoners that lead to recidivism and craziness in prison. I mean I couldn't I -- I was just -- I was -- my jaw was on -- [00:35:01.23] DAVID: How did she piece that together. So that interdisciplinary. [00:35:02.23] JOHN COBB: But she's researched the whole thing about dietary that it causes bad results or worse results for incarcerated people. So, she's -- that's -- that's the thing. I mean, and she was sitting in my class, you know, two years ago and here it is, you know, yeah, I'm just sitting there saying wow, you know, go girl. I mean it's just unbelievable. And that was totally inspirational to my class that you could join those things together. My law degree helped me as much in the practice of law as it did at Naropa. Right. Just -- just understanding what I talked about at the beginning was when people come to you and say X did this and X should be fired. OK. And everybody agrees. Right? And then you just sit there, and you say I have to get to the bottom of this. Right? In fairness. That's the lazy way is to say -- all right, when do you want the person fired? You know that's the lazy way. But you can't -- you've got to have that quality of asking questions -- [00:36:25.04] DAVID: Understanding perspective because if you're only having one perspective of a assumed story you're not a well-informed citizen to make a decision that may affect someone's life. [00:36:38.16] JOHN COBB: That's exactly right -- exactly right. And sometimes I say that, and students say you what? You ask more questions? Isn't it obvious. And I say no. [00:36:49.00] DAVID: But that's your job. [00:36:49.10] JOHN COBB: Yeah, but students - students would say, isn't it obvious, right? But don't -- don't we hear ourselves saying it's obvious. I never really liked the person. Right? [00:37:02.08] DAVID: And that's when you can be like, yes, it is obvious. But there is a due process. Everyone is subjected to the process of justice. And we have to go through the process, whether I agree or disagree. That doesn't matter. What matters is facts. [00:37:22.02] JOHN COBB: And even the way you treat your friends. Or even more difficult how you treat your non friends. So -- its helpful. That training is helpful in that way. I mean and meditative training is very helpful that way, right, because you treat others the way you would treat yourself. And if you can't meditate -- it's very hard. It's very hard to -- you know what I mean? If you can't ask questions of yourself and see yourself clearly -- [00:37:53.11] DAVID: That's a lifelong process too. Because I'm -- you know I'm like a third through my life and I'm just thinking to myself I know absolutely nothing. This is great. [00:38:04.08] JOHN COBB: Oh no that's not true. [00:38:05.15] DAVID: This is great. I'm going to keep learning. [00:38:09.17] JOHN COBB: Well, let me tell you it never lets up. [00:38:12.19] DAVID: Wonderful. [00:38:13.00] JOHN COBB: It never lets up. [00:38:14.09] DAVID: Things to look forward to. Awesome. So, I think that's our time and it was just such an honor to hear you speak and there's like a little bit of lineage going on here because you were a former president for 10 years -- you like held the Naropa a flag. There's all this good work you're doing in the human rights and justice work. And you're just -- you're just like activating all the students to have like well informed decisions and it just -- it just feels really good to have what's labeled as the hardest course at Naropa. I feel like this is a good endeavor for us to activate students to be empowered to really flow with the society that we are all collectively in. [00:38:53.22] JOHN COBB: Well, thank you. It's an honor to be here. And thank you for the work you're doing. I looked at a couple of the podcasts and I was like, wow, David, thank you. [00:39:05.15] DAVID: Here we are. Awesome. So, I'd like to thank our very special guest, John Cobb. John Cobb was a former Naropa university president from '93 to 2003 and he is also a lawyer and educator. So, thanks again for speaking with us. [00:39:20.03] JOHN COBB: Thank you. It was a pleasure. [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]