Power adds, “Engaging in a finely tuned physical practice with philosophical underpinnings, like t’ai chi or yoga, is a huge benefit in our current times, when attention is scattered and students often feel overwhelmed. The ability to calm down and be fully present for an hour in a studio course—going deeper into one’s own potential as a thinker and a doer—is a challenge, but one with enormous rewards.”

From his standpoint as a dharma teacher and co-adviser to the Trinity Zen group, which he started in 1997, Garret Condon (MA ’87) says, “In the Buddhist view, enlightenment is a view of our lives as they actually are: rich, deep and interconnected with all other beings. The Mindfulness Project aims to bring this clear-eyed perspective to the academy—creating a more enlightened campus and world by integrating practices and intellectual histories from a variety of traditions. And Allison Read’s role cannot be overstated. She has piloted a project that, I think, would be well out of some college chaplains’ comfort zones at many other institutions.”

But Read herself sees the Mindfulness Project as a logical development for spiritual life at Trinity. She says, “In the same way that educators have recognized that strict departmental divisions may not best serve education, I see my role as chaplain as not only being a resident priest to Christians, but also supporting all our students in exploration and expression of the spiritual or faith traditions from which they come and in which they are interested.” In that view, she notes, she is following in a long Trinity tradition of a broad and diverse chaplaincy. Harking back to her first days on campus, engaging students at their lunch tables, Read muses, “We’re constantly asking ourselves, ‘Who are our students, and what do they need?’ ‘How can we help build student community?’”

“Whatever opportunities we can offer students,” Findly adds, “is, in the Buddhist view of teaching, like dropping seeds into a field. The more seeds we can drop, the more likely students are to be broader, better citizens of the world.”

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