Santa Clara University psychology professor Shauna Shapiro teaches Berkeley Law students about the neuroscience of meditation in a lunchtime speaker presentation.
A core goal of the Mindfulness Initiative is to introduce students to the benefits of mindfulness, and its applicability to law study and practice. To do this, we offer a variety of programs including biannual retreats, drop-in meditation sessions, speaker events, clinical trainings, and both for-credit and non-credit courses. Apart from our overnight retreats, which carry a small fee, all of these programs are free and open to anyone, and we warmly invite you to join us.
We aspire to make mindfulness practice accessible and welcoming to individuals of all backgrounds, orientations, religious affiliations, career aspirations, and levels of skepticism about the practice. Our programs are designed for those with no meditation experience, and we warmly welcome the “Beginner’s Mind” of newcomers.
Getting Started
Students who are new to meditation and eager to experience the benefits often ask how best to begin. The best approach depends on each individual’s learning style and schedule, however one of the following approaches is likely to work for most people:
- Attend one of our courses. If you are a 1L, we encourage you to participate in the non-credit Introduction to Mindfulness for 1Ls. If you are a 2L/3L, we invite you to take the 2-credit seminar, Effective and Sustainable Law Practices: A Mindfulness-Based Perspective in Fall 2014.
- Sign up for a retreat with the Mindfulness Initiative (our next is a free, one-day retreat on October 25, 2014) or at one of the many nearby meditation centers. Recommended centers include Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the International Vipassana Centers. We also recommend the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Courses at the UCSF Osher Center in San Francisco.
- To dip your toe into mindfulness practice, join one of our drop-in meditation sessions, held every Monday at 1 pm during the semester. The session location is announced each week on the Boalt calendar.
- For any other questions, write Dan Carlin, Associate Director of the Mindfulness Initiative at dan.carlin@berkeley.edu.