Conversations on Compassion

Continuing our mini-series in which our Advisory Council hosts the podcast, Melissa Keller, Advisory Council member, and lead therapist at University of Arizona Campus Health CAPS, is in heartfelt conversation with Jacoby Ballard, yoga and meditation teacher, and social justice educator about his path to teach queer and trans yoga, transforming pain and grief into compassionate action, and creating spaces of belonging for all. Melissa and Jacoby also talk about his recent book, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditation for Liberation. About Jacoby Ballard: Jacoby Ballard is a social justice educator and yoga teacher on Shoshone, Ute, Paiute and Goshute land now known as Salt Lake City, Utah. He leads workshops and trainings around the country on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a yoga teacher with 24 years of experience, he leads workshops, retreats, segments in teacher trainings, teaches at conferences, and has been an artist-in-residence on dozens of college campuses. In 2008, Jacoby co-founded Third Root Community Health Center in Brooklyn, to work at the nexus of healing and social justice. Since 2006, Jacoby has taught Queer and Trans Yoga, a space for queer folks to unfurl and cultivate resilience and received Yoga Journal's Game Changer Award in 2014 and Good Karma Award in 2016. Receiving prenatal yoga training in 2021, Jacoby now offers a Queer & Trans Centered Prenatal Yoga online and LGBT inclusion workshops in prenatal yoga teacher trainings so that queer families can be anticipated and supported in their process. Jacoby has taught in schools, hospitals, non profit and business offices, a maximum security prison, a recovery center, a cancer center, LGBT centers, gyms, a veteran's center, and yoga studios. He is the author of A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditation for Liberation, released in 2022, a critical love letter to teachings and practitioners of yoga and Buddhism, and serves on the board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Get details about Jacoby Ballard's visit to the University of Arizona at https://compassioncenter.arizona.edu/events/queer-trans-mindfulness-retreat-wjacoby-ballard Events at Yoga Oasis Tucson: https://www.yogaoasis.com/queer-dharma-chat.html#/ Follow Jacoby on Instagram: @jacobyballard https://jacobyballard.net

In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, UArizona student Belle Johns talks with clinical psychologist and author Eduardo Duran, PhD about his journey, writings and wisdom gained from his spiritual teacher and how that informed the development of his groundbreaking works, 'Healing the Soul Wound: Trauma-Informed Counseling for Indigenous Communities' and 'Buddha in Redface'. In this conversation, Belle and Ed move deeply into sharing personal experiences and perspectives together, including their insights on the power of compassion in the healing process. About Eduardo Duran, PhD: Ed Duran (Apache/Tewa/Lakota) is a psychologist who has been working in indigenous communities most of his professional career. He is a Vietnam Veteran who started his academic training after being discharged from the US Navy. He has been involved in Buddhist and traditional Native practices for many years, and his work is informed by traditional Indigenous understanding of heart knowing.

A psychiatrist, an astronomer and a former Tibetan Buddhist monk turned western psychologist walk into a....podcast studio? In this fascinating conversation from our archives, world renowned experts Dr. Charles Raison, Dr. Lobsang Rapgay, and Prof. Chris Impey explore the connections between modern science and ancient Tibetan Buddhist wisdom in the cultivation of compassion, bringing humor, storytelling and critical inquiry to the conversation. Charles Raison, MD, is the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Distinguished Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families and Professor, School of Human Ecology, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Raison also serves as Director of Clinical and Translational Research for Usona Institute and as Director of Research on Spiritual Health for Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA. In addition, Dr. Raison is the co-founder of the University of Arizona Center for Compassion Studies and has served as mental health expert for CNN.com for many years. Dr. Raison is internationally recognized for his studies examining novel mechanisms involved in the development and treatment of major depression and other stress-related emotional and physical conditions, as well as for his work examining the physical and behavioral effects of compassion training. More recently, Dr. Raison has taken a leadership role in the development of psychedelic medicines as potential treatments for major depression. Lobsang Rapgay, Ph.D, is research psychologist and director of the Clinical Training program for Mental Health Professionals at the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Born in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1958, at the age of 4, he and his family fled the approach of Chinese soldiers with a caravan of refugees on a 7-day trek into the Himalayas. They settled in Dharamsala, India, which would become the home-in-exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government. After completing studies at a Catholic boarding school and Delhi University, where he trained as a Buddhist monk, in 1978 he became a deputy secretary and English-language interpreter for His Holiness. At the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Medicine and Astrology Institute, Dr. Rapgay began learning ancient Buddhist meditative practices. He earned a doctorate in clinical psychology and wrote four books, including "Tibetan Medicine: A Holistic Approach to Better Health," before coming to California to study psychoanalysis. Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 210 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. Prof. Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, and he has won its Education Prize. He's also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council's Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called 'Shadow World', and eight popular science books: 'The Living Cosmos', 'How It Ends', 'Talking About Life', 'How It Began', 'Dreams of Other Worlds', 'Humble Before the Void', 'Beyond: The Future of Space Travel,' and 'Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes'.

In this conversation, Charlie Cutler, founder and Executive Director of BYTE (Border Youth Tennis Exchange) shares the power of tennis to strengthen resiliency, community and cultural exchange at the US - Mexico border, and in other unexpected areas where borders exist to open conversation, understanding and create connection while combatting divisive stereotypes and making a positive difference. Charlie Cutler began sharing the tennis program that would later become BYTE with youth at detention centers that hold refugee asylum applicants at the US-Mexico border in 2015 while he was earning his Master of International Studies and Human Rights at the University of San Francisco. Prior to pursuing a graduate degree, he competed on the professional tennis circuit achieving an ATP singles world ranking of #1420. Charlie has coached all levels professionally during his career and is dedicated to using his passions for sports and advocacy to provide opportunities to kids. Most recently Charlie taught as an associate tennis pro at the California Tennis Club, as assistant coach for the University of San Francisco Men's Tennis program, and as a regional coach for the Northern California section. He is convinced of the healing power of sport and its role in public health. BYTE has been recognized by the USTA Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for innovative work at the intersection of sports and public health. Learn more about Border Youth Tennis Exchange (BYTE) https://bytetennis.org Twitter: @bytetennis Facebook: bytetennis

Artist and creator of the ECO Tarot Adriene Jenik shares the inspiration for the ECO Tarot, an adaptation of the traditional tarot deck to reflect and embrace ecological symbols, concerns and guidance for how we can find our roles in shaping our planet's future. In this conversation, we delve deep into Adriene's process of developing the ECO Tarot, grounded in spiritual tradition and the latest climate science, and she gives Leslie a brief 2-card spread reading to help illustrate how this tool can help transform climate anxiety and grief to hope and inspiration toward compassionate action. Adriene has been free offering climate future readings with her ECO Tarot at farmer's markets, art festivals and other public gatherings around the world since 2017, and reproductions of the ECO Tarot deck are available for sale through ASU. Find more about Adriene Jenik and her art here: adrienejenik.net Instagram: @ecotarot

What do we see when we look at our society through the lens of cultural institutions? How can we widen the lens to be more inclusive and reflective of the lived experiences of all in our communities? Chelsea Farrar and Russ Toomey join us for this conversation about 'Mapping Q', a community/university collaboration between LGBTQ youth, community organizations, and the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) to create safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ youth through artmaking while providing youth with the language, tools and voice to overcome societal discrimination and stigma, and expand LGBTQ artist representation in the art museum. The result is beautiful expression, and an invitation to expand our vision of ways of being. About Chelsea Farrar: Chelsea is the Curator of Community Engagement at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, and the creator of 'Mapping Q'. She has more than ten years' experience in teaching in museums, college, and K-12 classrooms. Her work with community engagement through the arts has included several award-winning community programs and exhibitions involving LGBTQ-youth, military families, and adults with disabilities. About Russ Toomey: Russ is Professor of Family Studies and Human Development in the Norton School of Human Ecology at the University of Arizona. He conducts research on the processes by which sexual and gender minority youth thrive and are resilient despite the oppressive barriers and challenges they encounter in society. His research identifies both the individual-level mechanisms (e.g., coping, activism) and systems-level policies (e.g., inclusive school policies) that reduce the impacts of discrimination and contribute to optimal health, well-being, and educational outcomes. Links: https://artmuseum.arizona.edu/mapping-q https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ Follow: @uazmuseumofart @mappingq.uama @ua_compassioncenter

Climate + Compassion co-facilitators Leslie Langbert and Al Kaszniak talk about the relational framing for the series, and what participants can expect in joining us for this 6-week series beginning September 27, 2022. Learn more and register at compassioncenter.arizona.edu/events/climate-compassion-online

The reweaving of our relationships with each other and the earth depends in large part on our capacities to engage our imagination, call on inspiration, and create new ways forward. Mike Martin, co-founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organization RAWTools joins us for this conversation that includes healing from gun violence by transforming guns to garden tools, the necessity of learning how to resolve conflict without violence, and how community gardens are powerful spaces of healing trauma and cultivating belonging. About Mike Martin: Mike learned to blacksmith in order to turn guns into garden tools and is passionate about connecting people to nonviolent skills like restorative justice and conflict mediation. He is trained for restorative justice facilitation, dialogue circles, and encourages everyone to explore how they can connect to similar efforts in their community. Mike believes turning swords into plowshares requires a comprehensive approach to gun violence, one that addresses the triggers in our streets, and the triggers in our hearts. Learn more about RAWTools by visiting https://rawtools.org

How do we cultivate the skills to find inner peace and grounding amid ongoing conflict around us? Maha El-Sheikh join us to share the vision and journey of creation of Palestine's first entirely volunteer-led community non-profit yoga center, Farashe. Farashe, meaning 'butterfly' in Arabic, holds daily yoga and meditation classes, workshops and space for the community to come together in the West Bank to breathe, heal, play, and connect. Farashe Yoga Centre Instagram: @farasheyogaramallah Facebook: farasheyogacenter About Maha El-Sheikh Maha's 20 years of experience working in the international humanitarian and development sector led to her current focus on the social injustices underlying our global humanitarian crises and perpetuated by the modern humanitarian aid system. She partners with relational facilitators and leaders in the economic, racial and climate justice movements, and with international humanitarian and development groups and organizations to reimagine humanitarian aid through compassion-centered, counter-oppressive frameworks. She offers a trauma-informed yoga, somatic, and meditation approach to explore the interconnection of individual and collective healing, social and systemic transformation, and justice. She co-developed Farashe Yoga Centre in Ramallah, Palestine in 2010, a thriving community yoga center in the West Bank, and is currently a core faculty member of Courage of Care Coalition. About Farashe Yoga Center: Farashe's mission is to make yoga accessible for all living in Palestine, as a means to manage stress, improve healthy living, build resilience, and strengthen community bonds. We believe that yoga is a catalyst for transformation and growth within ourselves, families, communities, and the world, whether through physical exercise and healthy nutrition, or through community service and development. Created, built, and run purely through volunteers and donations, Farashe is committed to the principles of “selfless service.” Our yoga teachers are all volunteers. Class fees are reinvested into the yoga center's maintenance, teacher training and education, Arabic-language yoga resource development, outreach yoga sessions in surrounding villages and refugee camps, and to community development projects identified by the communities we work with. (from Farashe's co-founder) Music in this episode by Steve Oxen, Kevin MacLeod and Serge Quadrado

Our founding Director, Charles Raison, MD, is back to share his latest research on pyschedelics - specifically psilocybin, this once-controversial psychoactive fungi's emerging potential as a treatment for major depression and other mental health issues. Also explored in this conversation, psilocybin's potential role in expanding compassion and a rare and special meeting with Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass). Charles Raison, MD is a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health as well as the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families and Professor with the School of Human Ecology in Madison, Wisconsin, and is the founding Director of the University of Arizona Center for Compassion Studies. Dr. Raison is also director of clinical and translational research for Usona Institute, a nonprofit medical-research organization conducting studies on psilocybin.

This brief grounding, centering practice can be used anytime to slow down, be present, and reset. Shared as an offering for our Meditation Mondays community, and all others who may find it beneficial!

Musician EastForest shares the inspiration, process and magic of working with Ram Dass in the last year of his life to set his inimitable teaching style, full of humor, wisdom and grace, to music; a modern way to share Ram Dass' wisdom with a new generation. The result being the EastForest X RamDass project. Samples from this beautiful collaboration are woven through this conversation, courtesy of EastForest.

Trauma therapist and author of 'My Grandmother's Hands' talks honestly and directly about the historical and current traumatic impacts of racism in the U.S., and the necessity for us all to recognize this trauma, metabolize it, work through it, and grow up out of it. Only in this way will we at last heal our bodies, our families, and the social body of our nation. The process differs for African-American, European American, and police bodies. But all of us need to heal our racialized trauma—and, with the right guidance, all of us can.

In this conversation, we are talking about LOVE. Love in its many forms, and in particular, through the lens of the beauty of Islamic Mysticism, and the words of Rumi, Hafez, and the Q'uran. Omid Safi is Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and spirituality. He is a leading Muslim public intellectual who is committed to the intersection of spirituality and social justice. He has been invited by the family of Dr. King to speak at Ebenezer Church on the relevance of Dr. King for today’s America. His most recent book is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (published by Yale). Omid often appears as an expert on Islam in the New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, BBC, CNN and other outlets . He is a recent columnist for On Being, and now has a podcast at Be Here Now.

What happens when 3 college students develop a meditation and yoga practice, and inspired by their teacher, use it to change the world after graduation? The answer is the Holistic Life Foundation in Baltimore, MD. In this conversation, co-founder Andy Gonzalez shares his inspiration, the key elements of bringing mindfulness in schools effectively, and how he, Atman Smith and Ali Smith decided in 2001 to dedicate their lives to healing their community and the larger world in service to their teacher. Pure joy and inspiration - enjoy!

Tiffany Cruikshank is an internationally celebrated yoga teacher, author, acupuncturist, and founder of YogaMedicine, an advanced training program in yoga therapy and anatomy for yoga teachers. She's also a former student of the U. of Arizona. In this conversation, we talk about her early yoga and meditation practice in college, her early career training with Frank Lipman, MD, her time at Nike HQ as the company's yoga instructor and acupuncturist, and her latest endeavor, YogaMedicine. Tiffany shares what sustains her as a healer, and opens up about how yoga became a calling to help bring healing and compassion to communities.

Lama Rod Owens is known for his deep wisdom and willingness to have conversations about things that we're scared to talk about: race, gender, sexuality, identity, and his ability to hold these conversations with love. In this conversation, we get clear about the difference between diversity and inclusivity, what it means to create inclusive spaces of practice, the responsibility we have now as 'ancestors-in-training', and much more. Lama Rod is co-author of the book 'Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation'.

Many of us are seeking community, places to be accepted for who we are, and safe places to explore and express what we're experiencing and feeling in these times, in a fully conscious way. In this conversation, we explore the practice of mindful dance/movement and its power to uncover feelings of deep joy, release feelings of stuck suffering, and fully experience the beauty of human embodiment.

How do we leverage the contemplative community into justice and liberation for all, not just the pursuit of liberation for ourselves individually? In this conversation, we explore issues around uncomfortable topics - race, systems of white dominance and our collective embedded-ness in these systems. We also explore how contemplative practices must look at the suffering created by these systems in order to change them, and how Courage of Care Coalition is engaged in leading workshops, intensives and retreats to help bring us to these difficult and necessary conversations, and the sustained engaged practices of care.

In this conversation, we talk about the beginnings of meditation research in the United States, Al’s courage and pioneering role in leading meditation research in the southwest at the University of Arizona long before it was mainstream, and what we’ve learned about meditation through research so far. We also explore Al’s path of practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition, the role of technology and apps to make meditation accessible, and his ‘second post-academic career’ as a meditation teacher in the Zen tradition.

The Positive Communication movement centralizes the role of everyday talk in facilitating health and wellbeing across the lifespan. We engage compassion for self and other through acts of positive communication. Dr. Pitts introduces the principles of positive communication that allow us to elevate and enhance our daily lived experiences, focusing specifically on savoring communication. Communication savoring brings awareness to the meanings and relationships embedded in talk allowing individuals to increase their presence in everyday encounters. Communication savoring also opens space for compassionate engagement, especially in difficult communication exchanges.

Mary-Frances O'Connor, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Caregivers include family members, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and chaplains. Fatigue and burnout can hit anyone in a caregiver role who takes on this very important task in the lives of loved ones and patients. Dr. O'Connor describes the difficulties faced by caregivers, but more importantly discusses compassion as the overarching motivation for this difficult work. We can't 'run out' of compassion, but we can learn to improve our self-regulation skills in the face of difficult situations in order to decrease fatigue and burnout.

Interview with Sharon Salzberg by Chuck Raison, MD, Founding Director of UA Center for Compassion Studies

Dave Sbarra, Ph.D Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Life often does not work out in the way we expected it would unfold. The human experience is fraught with challenges and pain, and a key question for living a happier existence is 'how to prevent suffering in the face of life's inevitable pain?' Cultivating self-compassion can shape how we respond to life's inherent difficulties and make the most of challenging experiences. Dr. Sbarra shares how self-compassion shapes responses to marital separation and divorce, and how this can inform the ways in which we can move through other challenging experiences.

Al Kaszniak, Ph.D, talks about how helping others expands our own happiness and well-being in this dharma talk.