We all long to be happy. We all long to feel at ease, to know that we’re okay, that life is okay, to be at peace. And we’re deeply habituated to look for this happiness outside us, to grasp and scramble for an experience that, at best, ends up being fleeting, then something we long for again. We forget that this experience we long for is already seated in the heart of who we are—and that it’s always here.

Have you ever touched this peace, this contentment, this deep knowing of who you truly are and then struggled because you recognized the degree to which the world around you didn’t reflect this experience of our true nature?

This talk explores how meditation, mindfulness, and contemplative technologies designed for the realization of personal freedom can―and must be―applied collectively. Join us to connect with the deepest truth of who we are, and explore how this understanding can transform our own lives and the world we share.

Recommended reading: The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together by Caverly Morgan

This lecture is one session in the three-part series taught by Caverly Morgan during the Contemplation by Design Summit. You are welcome to attend one or all three sessions. The other sessions include a guided practice titled Releasing Striving in Your Practice and Your Life and an interactive workshop titled Moving Beyond Personal and Collective Conditioning also on October 17th. Caverly also will be co-presenting with Janice Martellucci in a sesison titled Peace with Youth Starts: Insights form Implementing an Inner Curriculum in High Schools. Caverly will be in conversation with Rev. Tenzen David Zimmerman on Oct. 27th.

Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher who blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach, drawing from her eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She is the author of The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together as well as A Kids Book About Mindfulness. Caverly is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. She is also the founder of Realizing Freedom Together, a non-profit organization dedicated to making practices that lead to liberation for all, accessible to all. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001. Caverly leads meditation retreats, workshops and online classes internationally.

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