How can we bring meditative awareness into what we do for a living and the workplace? A group of Northern California lawyers, law professors from Boalt Hall, Hastings, and Stanford, and judges have been exploring this question in relationship to the practice of law and the American legal system.

This exploration has taken the form of a number of residential retreats for lawyers co-sponsored by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. SIM's Guiding Instructor, Dennis Warren, has acted as part of the faculty for these events. These efforts are the subject of an article in the March 2005 American Bar Association Journal.

The working group that has guided the residential retreats has developed a position paper on "The Meditative Perspective" which serves as the foundation for a new approach to the practice of law. This is defined as "a way of viewing and acting in that world that is inspired and fostered by meditation and other contemplative practice."

The Meditative Perspective emphasizes self-reflection, a greater awareness of the motivational issues involved in dispute resolution, the unification of lawyers' professional, personal, and spiritual values, and a heightened sensitivity to ethical conduct. This perspective is based on the premise that these principles can lead to a new way of handling legal disputes and resolving controversies if they are based in the clarity, calmness, stability, honesty that are developed through meditative and contemplative practices.

Additional one day retreats at Spirit Rock as well as residential retreats are being planned. Efforts are also underway to encourage groups of lawyers to establish ongoing discussion groups exploring the Meditative Perspective in their own communities.