CBD 2024: What can I do? Responding Effectively in a Time of Crisis: Debugging the Source Code of Our Crises and Craziness with Roger Walsh, MD, PhD

Given our social turmoil and imperiled planet, the gnawing question for each of us has become, “What can I do?” This is an invaluable question but is best viewed as a starting point for a deeper quest. This quest begins by asking still deeper questions to find the responses that are most strategic and call us most deeply. It recognizes our current crises as expressions of underlying patterns that reveal strategic leverage points. It then simultaneously addresses both outer social change and inner healing, both crises and causes, and thereby transforms contribution into the growth practice of sacred service, or as it’s traditionally known, karma yoga. This enables us to go out into the world in order to go deeper into ourselves and to go deeper into ourselves so as to go more effectively out into the world. Dr. Walsh also is leading an Interactive Workshop titled Deepening Meditation For Experienced Meditators on Oct. 28 at 4:45pm.

Roger Walsh MD, PhD, DHL, is a professor emeritus of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California, whose research focuses on topics such as meditation, psychological well-being, wisdom, and the psychological roots of our global crises. His books include Essential Spirituality as well as The World of Shamanism, and his research and writings have received over twenty national and international awards. He is a student and researcher of contemplative practices, an authorized lama in Tibetan Buddhism, and cohost of the podcast Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit with listeners in over 170 countries, www.deeptransformation.io. His more curious careers include having been a circus acrobat, and having had an extremely brief and unsuccessful career as a standup comedian.