Peace Ripples: Center For Mind And Community Development Training

OPS Name

Peace Ripples: Center for Mind and Community Development Training

Why this OPS?

I think it would be a nice way to integrate the goals of the school

Objectives

Goals: 1. Resources Center: To create a resource center with information on various methods for “peacemaking” including traditional meditation techniques, and community resources on development, reconciliation, education, justice, media, pastoral care, etc. with the theme along a theme of “peace by peaceful means.” In the long term, this could also play the role of a research center which contributes information on how meditation and traditional methods of personal transformation can help local communities. Connections could potentially develop with centers at UCLA (UCLA Collaborative Centers for Integrative Medicine) and UCSB (Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies). 2. UWest Progams: To develop programs within the school which promote patterns of mindful living. Possible programs can be led in Tai Chi, various forms of meditation, Yoga, etc. alongside opportunities for volunteer service. The volunteer activities can be extensions of the mind training programs and be promoted as further ways of mindful living, i.e. doing good for the community while maintaining peaceful joyous, peaceful states of mind. 3. Community Programs: Offer programs which provide training and tools for individuals and groups in the surrounding community to plan and run their own projects for community development.

How to implement it?

First I am talking to the head of the Buddhist chaplaincy program and the head of the psychology program at the school - I will also forward the proposal to people on the administration and in the department of religious studies to see what they think. This is a bit of a big project and I have to check with all the right people to see if it can be fully started, integrated into the school, and developed, before most programs can actually be run

Benefits

It would provide the school with an established center to run various activities which promote the well-being of the student body and even the surrounding community. It will help to connect the school more to the surrounding community, and it will provide resources for training people in ways that integrate their own mind-body training with projects that help to develop the community around them