CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE
The vast majority of colleges and universities have become hyper-secular. The foundation of Jubilee College, however, rests on the idea that all of us are spiritual beings.
With visiting faculty from various traditions, students are exposed to contemplative practices, texts, and the work of inner development. Through work, study, and practice, we prepare ourselves to meet a changing world, grounded in compassion, clear intuition, and humility.
COMPASSION
How does compassion express itself? In tolerance, in forgiveness, in gratitude.
Our aim is to cultivate an embodied experience of compassion in ourselves through a wide range of:
- service learning projects that have us seeing beyond ourselves and our needs,
- work that has us interacting with people from different world experiences,
- contemplative practices, somatic exercises, reflection & integration circles,
- solo & small group retreats,
- self-directed research assignments
Students are encouraged to pursue what lights them up most and to co-create the conditions for insight, reflection, and the synthesis of these values in their everyday lives. Through the practice of compassion, we seek to embody the spirit of non-violence while meeting the suffering of the world.
INTUITION
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ~ Albert Einstein
It has been observed that the hearts of gifted musicians attune to the subtle energies of their audience, resulting in an intimate experience of music beyond the basic logic of its composition. This mode of creative expression engages the deep wisdom of intuition, a mode of consciousness often unacknowledged by academia and modern culture.
We are in times that require new creation, not only innovation from what we see now. Cultivating the capacity to “listen” to our intuition and to link that to radical creativity is a crucially needed practice today, and a core aspect of the college’s design. By intentionally cultivating a tolerance for mystery and synchronicity, we develop an intimacy with that which lies beyond knowing, and a greater capacity for trust in life.
HUMILITY
To truly meet the world as it is, rather than as a reflection of our own desires, we must nurture and honor the quality of humility.
Acknowledging ourselves as learners when it comes to understanding others’ experiences, humility is understanding that we are a part of creation, equal to one another, and striving for balance with all life, including humans, plants, and animals. At Jubilee College, we also practice to see beyond money-centric systems, which reinforce domination, separation, and violence, and to see from a lens of mutual respect and understanding– from relationships rather than transactions.
The Christian mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “pride makes us artificial, humility makes us real.” In a sense, the truth that arises from humility is marked by the absence of making the world or ourselves different. While we strive to imagine a more just and healthy future, we must also allow for the possibility that everything unfolds without error. In this way, humility is the doorway through which we learn to meet ourselves, each other, and the natural world just as it is.