Experience how contemplative practices can cultivate the resilience, discernment, and wise compassion that support individual and societal health and well-being, healing, and transformation. Learn evidence-based contemplative practices from secular as well as spiritual traditions to cultivate your capacity to thrive, create, and serve. 

The 2025 Summit offers revitalizing wisdom and practical resources for your daily life to build a better future for all. Delight in strengthening and broadening your reservoir of knowledge and skills that sustain meaningful and purposeful engagement with the complexity of life in ways that renew you and the people with whom you interact. Summit topics include research on contemplative practices for PEACE: Pausing, Exhaling, Attending mindfully, Connecting authentically, and Expressing wise compassion. 

In this talk, Tia Rich, PhD, will provide an overview of the Stanford 2025 Contemplation by Design® Summit’s 57 free sessions, offered in person or online from Oct. 15 - Nov. 27. Taught by leading contemplative science researchers and teachers, medical and educational professionals, and ordained religious leaders from diverse traditions, the sessions illuminate the role of contemplative practices in developing skills fundamental to spiritual maturity as well as to social and emotional intelligence—including self-awareness, deep listening, connection to emotions, empathy, compassion toward self and others, values-based intention and motivation, and authentic, effective communication to evolve relationships and systems. Educators will present pedagogical and administrative processes for effective inclusion of contemplative practices in K12 classrooms and school communities for the cultivation of social emotional learning. Skills for Mindful Parenting and Godparenting will be presented.

Summit speakers include:
Joseph Goldstein, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Caverly Morgan, Rev. Tenzen David Zimmerman, Will Kabat-Zinn and Teresa LaMendola Kabat-Zinn, The Rev. Dr. Joanne Sanders, Christina Hinton, The Rev. Scotty McLennan, Dr. Amy Saltzman, Dr. Mark Bertin, Mark DiPerna, Dr. Mari Kurahashi, Micah Anderson, Karen Van Ausdal, Lakeisha Steele, Atman Smith, Andy Gonzales, Peter Mills, Hannah Block, Charlotte Rotterdam, Oscar Medina, Susan Kaiser Greenland, Justin Kelley, Sunny Wight, Sean Hannafin, Cayla Cole, Christina Costelo, Anushka Fernandopulle, Mark Greenberg, Karma Shenden, Joan Bryant, Alexis Harris and Tia Rich

Guided Contemplative Practices include: 
Embracing Emotions with Will Kabat-Zinn, Mindful Breathing with Peter Mills, Breathing for Mindfulness, Resilience and Well-being with Tia Rich, Breathe, Move, and Reflect with the Community Approach to Learning Mindfully for Educators with Alexis Harris, Resting in Awareness with Karma Shenden, The Practice of Letting Go with Mindfulness with Logan Mitchell, Mindfulness as Relational Practice with Hannah Block, Making Friends with Difficult Emotions with Emiliana Rodgriguez, Directing the Attention and REmembering Who We Are with Janice Martellucci, Cultivating Connection with Teresa LaMendola Kabat-Zinn, Releasing Striving in Your Practice and Your Life with Caverly Morgan, Kindness and Compassion Practice with Mark Bertin, MD, Metta: Loving-kindness Meditation with The Rev. Dr. Joanne Sanders, A Compassion Practice: Tonglen with Charlotte Rotterdam, Roots of Compassion: A trauma-responsive loving kindness practice with Atman Smith, Uncovering the Gold: A guided journey for educators, justice advocates, and community leaders with Oscar Medina, Cultivating Qualities of Heart and Mind for Leadership with Anushka Fernandopulle, and Poetry of the Spirit with The Rev. Scotty McLennan and more skill-building opportunities.

Participants will enjoy experiences of how contemplative practices strengthen our capacity to effectively engage with humility in the complex and inspiring work of creating health and well-being for all individuals, communities, and the planet. Come with your wholehearted questions and curiosity—leave the Summit equipped to sustain growth in your spiritual maturity and social emotional intelligence to meet the moment in history, now and in the future. 

“iPause to Thrive, Create, and Serve” describes the lives of people who integrate the knowledge and skills cultivated by the Stanford Contemplation by Design programs.

This is one of four sessions taught by Tia Rich in the Contemplation by Design Summit. The other sessions are two in-person interactive workshops titled The Power of the Pause offered on Sat. Oct. 18 at 8:30am or at 10:00am, and an online iPause Guided Practice titled Breathing for Mindfulness, Resilience, and Well-being on Thurs. Oct. 16.

Tia Rich, PhD, MA, MSW, is the founder and director of the Stanford School of Medicine’s Contemplation by Design® program. As the principal lecturer for the School of Medicine’s Applied Contemplative Science concentration in Community Health and Prevention Research, Rich teaches and mentors Stanford undergraduate and graduate students. Academic classes she teaches include: Contemplative Science, Applying Contemplative Practices, Contemplative Competence for Sustainability of Public and Planetary Health and Well-being, Contemplative Movement, and Translating Contemplative Science into Timely Community Programming. She also teaches co-curricular classes through the Stanford Healthy Living program, including the "The Power of the Pause" contemplative retreat for faculty, staff, students, and community members. She has been integrating contemplative science and practices into Stanford academic classes and professional development programs since her completion of graduate studies in Social Welfare at UC Berkeley, and in Education at Stanford, after earning her undergraduate degree in Human Biology at Stanford.

This session is part of the FREE Contemplation by Design Summit, Oct. 15-27, 2025.

The full summit schedule is posted at: https://med.stanford.edu/contemplation/summit.html.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stanford-contemplation-by-design-summit-2025-online-oct-15-27-registration-1520413249959