This weekend’s International Symposium for Contemplative Studies offered impressive testimony to the growing impact of contemplative disciplines on numerous areas of contemporary life.Some 1,700 attendees gathered to listen to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arianna Huffington, and a number of other prominent speakers address the nature of the mind and the relevance of mindfulness to the problems and prospects of our individual and collective lives. My offering was a series of brief meditations.

In our fast paced, digitally powered, market driven world, there is a great need for the calm and clarity that come with mindfulness. There is also a need—though not yet so well recognized—for the rapture, sublimity, and absorption in the Real that come with heartfulness and soulfulness.