Es aquí donde sanamos: It is here where we need to heal
How practice supports showing up to the truth of suffering in ourselves, our institutions and the world

The 2021 Arthur Zajonc Lecture on Contemplative Education presented by Dr. Monika L. Son 

Live via Zoom on Thursday, August 5th, 4:30-6pm EDT (1:30-3pm PDT)

Free ($10 optional, suggested donation)

Registration has Closed

Registration closes an hour prior to the event. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, climate harm and the reckoning of justice we are witnessing, are screaming that the world needs transformative change. We cannot escape the knowing that there is deep suffering in the world. The force of it all has been overwhelming; we are being called to take action. Are we ready?

Contemplative practice invites us to consider that it is not our intellectual or conceptual understanding that causes us to act, but rather the felt sense of knowing that we are not separate from the suffering of the world; we suffer and we contribute to that suffering.  As challenging as it may be to be carried by the force of these waters, when we allow ourselves to be resourced by this truth and surrender to it, we become part of the world, rather than observers.

This talk will invite us into deep inquiry and reflection about where we find ourselves in our practice and how we navigate these overwhelming truths.  How do we cultivate presence and capacity to be in overwhelm? In our personal lives?  In our work and institutions? How do we show compassion to ourselves? How do we contribute to suffering/ harm? How do we relieve it? How do we stay connected to ourselves and one another? How do we generate courage and discernment to free what is true for us in our work? This talk will explore the ways in which practice can really bring us to where we need to heal.

Monika L. Son is an Assistant Professor, Chair and Director of the Percy Ellis Sutton SEEK Department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. A self- proclaimed rejector of roles and categories, Dr. Son is known for walking to the beat of her own drum. Guided by heart-spirit, the ancestors, and palpable connections to suffering in the world, her calling has been grounded in finding ways to be free from the conditions of oppression to discover paths to self- realization, connection to the world and radical love. She is a mind, body, spirit teacher, healer, coach, truth-teller and a fierce loving warrior-leader.

With 20 years of experience in higher education as a justice-centered scholar and teacher, Dr. Son integrates mindfulness and contemplative practices to foster spaces for building community, compassionate engagement and healing oriented strategies that cultivate critical inquiry and action.  As a trained psychologist and expert facilitator, she is skilled at supporting discomfort and ambiguity in challenging dialogues about race, power, privilege, and oppression. In her current role as Chair, she is co-building curricular strategies that center on resourcing resilience and undoing the impact of oppressive and racist pedagogy via critical methodologies such as contemplative, embodied, restorative, and Freirean approaches. She is most passionate about building strategies that support the undoing of internalized oppression and movement towards transformative change.