I just finished a white paper for the Fetzer Institute titled “Assessing the Current State of Contemplative Practices in the U.S.” This is a research area that I’ve been developing for the past eight years — the application of contemplative practices such as mindfulness meditation in non-religious settings, like business.
I thought you might be interested in this timeline that I created for the paper. It occurred to me that, over the past decade, there have been a number of programs, initiatives, and events involving meditation (or some other kind of practice) that have been designed in response to current events, such as the war in Iraq.
When I plotted them out on this timeline and color-coded like events (e.g. politics, science, technology), the relationship between historical events and “contemplative events” became more obvious.
Interesting, eh? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
By the way, the graphics may look a little fuzzy… just click on them and they should open in another window with better resolution. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to convert a drawing that I create in Word into a good graphic file for uploading to blogs. If you have any tips on how to do this, please let me know.
Wow, Maia! This is awesome. Great bird’s eye views of the mainstreaming of mindfulness in contemporary America. We are so fortunate to be in the midst of this major current.
Right at this moment, feeling very grateful for gift of our connection. Like you, I am very much interested in bringing together the contemplative and secular worlds together around two sister rock foundations of mindfulness, and loving kindness.
With much metta,