Publications
Welcome to our Publications section. Here you’ll find articles that explore our journey, delve into our philosophy, our guiding principles, and innovative practices that highlight our ongoing efforts. Dive in to stay informed and inspired by the progress we’re making together.
Awareness, Vulnerability & the Path of Freedom
Lisa Napora, PhD, Founding Director & Rosa D’Bate, PhD, Co-Founder
Using a garden analogy, this article presents a unique approach to the process of growing the Attitudes of mindfulness. This new framework, the Latitudes of Mindfulness, explores the inherent relationship between the cultivation of awareness and vulnerability, and positions vulnerability as a requirement on the path of growing awareness. The word ‘latitude’ is employed not in its geographical sense, but in its liberatory sense – more freedom for thought and action. This model clarifies how awareness gives us more freedom for thought and vulnerability provides more freedom for action. Together, awareness and vulnerability, give us more latitude with the Attitudes.
The article argues that together, cultivating these liberating capacities can free us from the limiting confines of our social conditioning, and to open ourselves to new possibilities. In this way, daring to cultivate awareness and vulnerability is described as the path of freedom.
A Noble Experiment From Me to We
By Lisa Napora, Rosa D’Abate, Layla Providente, Angeline Cooper
Published in The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, vol. 9, no. 2, 2022
This case study shares our learning journey while co-creating The Mindfulness Alliance. The paper explores our contemplative governance development through the lens of the me-to-We journey, the shift from an ego-centric to an eco-centric worldview. We explain the me-to-We journey as a journey toward transformative unity, a new term which explicates the type of interdependent unity needed to change the world, and to introduce The Cycle of Transformative Unity, an emergent awareness-based model which incorporates the concept of toroidal flow to support understanding the interdependent journey from me-to-We. We are each called upon to dare greatly, and to reimagine a just way forward—together.
Awareness and Community as Foundations for Leading
By Lisa Napora
Published in The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, vol. 4, no. 1, 2017
This article asserts that the power of awareness and the power of community are essential ingredients in the recipe for change. We explore how contemplative practices were utilized to build and sustain a contemplative community in Western New York that began in higher education and grew to become a cross-sector regional initiative. The principles, practices, and prototypes that supported our successes, as well as lessons learned, are discussed. As stewards of our future, we are called to take action with unprecedented daring in the movement to transform social systems.
