Charles P. Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life

Prajna is a space open to everyone, including faculty, students, staff, and community members. You do not have to be spiritual or religious to come. People can feel free to drop in at anytime during the evening. Every meeting is a little different. We start grinding tea at 7:30. At 8, we typically sit in silence together, talk and drink hand-ground chai. No experience is necessary.

Special Guest Lama Rod Owens will join the regular Monday meeting of the Prajna Student Meditation Group (moved for this evening only to Abernethy Reading Room in Axinn). Chai and snacks will be served.

In light of Martin Luther King Jr.’s commitment to nonviolence, Holistic Life Foundation founders Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andy Gonzalez discuss how their work teaching contemplative practice in underserved schools in the Baltimore area is reducing disciplinary problems among students. “The Holistic Life Foundation is doing some of the most positively transformative work happening in our country’s inner cities.

MLK Day 2018 is an opportunity to reflect on what the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., means for our Middlebury community in this challenging historical moment.  King refused to accept racial and economic injustice, oppression, and violence and spent his life fighting for change through community action and nonviolent protest.  In that spirit, we invite students, faculty and staff to join us in reflection and conversation about our commitments and convictions at our MLK Day Community Breakfast.

Join us for Buddhist Dharma teacher Lama Rod Owens’ public lecture. So many of us are grieving and in deep mourning for the suffering that we perceive in the world as well in our own situations. We do not live in a society that is comfortable with our open grieving. Community based grieving is healing and transformative. When we combine community grieving with our deep aspirations to love, then we are able to better transform our grief into wisdom and joy. This is a radical vision of bringing our full selves into the complexity of living.

Attend this student workshop with author, activist, and Lama (Buddhist Teacher) Rod Owens is an author, activist, and Lama (Buddhist Teacher). Stevie Wonder once sang, “Love’s in need of love today.” His words couldn’t be more true as we face a global community struggling with war, poverty, illness, climate instability, and the rise of political authorities and governments who do not seem to be grounded in compassion or kindness.

A walking labyrinth is being constructed Sept. 14-16 at the organic garden (now known as The Knoll). Please join friends of The Knoll, the Scott Center, and the Mindfulness Initiative to welcome renowned master labyrinth designer and builder Lars Howlett for an inspiring and insightful artist’s talk reflecting on ten years of experiments and explorations along life’s winding path. Learn the principles for creating sacred space and how intention, design, materials, site, and alignment benefit the labyrinth and those who walk it.

The Passions of J.S. Bach are among Bach’s most revered and respected music, yet that music is grounded in specific religious context far removed from today. Is Bach’s music truly universal, or is there another way to understand how Bach’s Passions resonate in the modern era? This talk is an introductory event to the Middlebury Bach Festival, in which John Butt will conduct J. S. Bach’s “St John Passion,” Saturday April 28 and Sunday April 29. go/bachfest/