My name is James Frank, I am a contemplative studies major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and I'm 21 years old.
I first got involved with meditation as a young child by attending Thich Naht Hanh family retreats with my family. As I grew up, I began attending the teen retreats at the Insight Meditation Society. My mother had done the prison Dharma training, and so I started to recognize that my field of study was a fairly new one, and doesn't exist in many places. So that means I've had to go and search outside of the university for other resources in terms of educating myself. And so I decided to become certified and doing some research online, and by virtue of my mother, who is also a Dharma teacher, she turned me on to this program. It's been really wonderful.
I think this is a fascinating period of time in which mindfulness is being spread throughout the world, and one really has to have their eyes open and be discerning about which program to engage with, I think the mission of this program is just really incredible.
More than anything, embodying the practice and really becoming committed to the role as a facilitator is something that strengthens my own motivation to practice and then bring it out into the world.
As I said, it's a fascinating time to be alive and to be working in the midst of all the present conditions. And so I think primarily working with issues of privilege and economic
injustice and using mindfulness as a tool of allowing people to really connect and understand how various levels of privilege allow them to move in the world with ease or dis-ease. And using mindfulness as a way of encouraging and allowing people to go through that process more honestly.
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