experiential learning — A Golden Civilization

Yesterday, Shantum Seth joined George Kinder in an inspiring conversation on Facebook Live.

You can listen to their inspiring conversation at the link below. Shatum brings his background knowledge of the wisdom of the Buddha, Gandhi, and Thich Nhat Hanh to the conversation, along with a world of experience of modern culture and ancient, Western and Indian. He and George discuss the education necessary to create a Golden Civilization in a generation.

Shantum Seth is the foremost teacher and guide to the sites associated with the Buddha. A Buddhist practitioner, he is an ordained teacher (Dharmacharya) in the Zen tradition of the Vietnamese Master, Thich Nhat Hanh. He teaches in India and other countries and has been leading well acclaimed pilgrimages "In the Footsteps of the Buddha" since 1988. In the last few years he has been leading inter-faith, educational, cultural and spiritual journeys to diverse regions of India. At the same time, he has been deeply involved with social and ecological development issues for over 20 years.

You can read more about Shantum here: http://www.buddhapath.com/Shantum%20Seth.html

Yesterday, George interviewed Pamela Siegle, a past Golden Civilization Conversation participant about her thoughts on the book A Golden Civilization and the Map of Mindfulness and the growing conversation movement.

Pamela opens with one of her favorite quotes from the book, “you learn to see reality clearly, and in order to see reality clearly, one must keep the mind open, alert, focused, passionate, naive, and engaged,” and the two delve into a conversation about the symbolism and function of open circles, the Quaker tradition of open honest questions, meditation and mindfulness, Parker J. Palmer's Five Habits of the Heart, and kindly speaking truth to power. They close with a discussion of the protest movement in Hong Kong and how social media has been used as a mode of listening.

Pamela is Executive Director of Courage & Renewal Northeast at Wellesley College. She co-developed Leading Together, the Center for Courage & Renewal’s program bringing principals and teacher-leaders together to learn reflective and mindfulness practices and build adult relational trust in their schools. Pamela founded Open Circle® at the Wellesley Centers for Women. Open Circle is a leading provider of evidence-based curriculum and professional development for social emotional learning. Since 1987, Open Circle has reached over two million students and 13,000 educators. Pamela has served on many nonprofit boards, including as a Trustee of the Boston Public Library.

You can read more about Pamela here: https://www.couragerenewal.org/facilitator-profile/?ID=23