Greetings!
Please plan to join us in the second biannual conference of the Ahimsa Center to be held on Cal Poly Pomona campus from April 28-30, 2006. The theme of this conference is Ahimsa and the Quality of Life.
Ahimsa is nonviolence rooted in courage and compassion, fearlessness and forgiveness. It connotes reverence for all life, promotes trust and civility, and is the key to lasting peace and happiness.
The second international conference of the Ahimsa Center at Cal Poly Pomona will explore how ahimsa enriches life at personal, interpersonal and social levels. The conference will bring together broad range of scholarships and experiences to provide compelling insights from multiple perspectives into the relationships between ahimsa and quality of life.
Presentations and discussions
- How ahimsa promotes human wellbeing in both material and spiritual spheres, and contributes to enduring happiness and joy in life.
- How violence diminishes the quality of life and contributes to unhappiness.
- What role can compassion play in expanding the human potential? How can compassionate behavior positively transform interpersonal relationships?
- How gratitude and forgiveness contribute to human empowerment.
- In what ways is trust central to one’s own sense of security? How can trust reduce tensions and conflict in social settings?
- How reverence for life helps individuals relate to other individuals as human beings transcending ethnic, linguistic, religious, and racial boundaries.
- What is the connection between ahimsa and mindfulness?
- In what ways the reverence for life can be extended to reverence for the environment, and how that can have positive impact on the quality of life.
Conference Speakers
The conference will feature a roster of highly distinguished speakers, and several panels of carefully selected scholars, educators and practitioners. Collectively, they will communicate inspiring visions and innovative ideas about how to enrich the quality of life by embracing the values of peace and nonviolence. The list of our invited speakers includes:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. C.S. and D.J. Davidson, Professor at the Drucker and Ito School of Management and Director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University, CA.
William Drayton. Chairman & CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public—a global association of over 1600 leading ‘social entrepreneurs.’
Padmanabh S. Jaini. Professor Emeritus of Buddhist Studies, University of California at Berkeley.
Prasad Kaipa. Advisor to CEOs and coach for senior executives in Fortune 500 companies.
Satish Kumar. Program Director at Schumacher College in Great Britain and Editor of Resurgence magazine—thoughtful journal of ecology, the environment, new economics, and spiritual values.
Nipun Mehta. The founder of CharityFocus.org, a fully volunteer-run organization that has delivered millions of dollars of web-related services to the nonprofit world for free.
Neerja Raman. Director of the Imaging Systems Lab in the Printing and Imaging Research Center at HP Labs.
Lloyd Rudolph. Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Chicago.
Susanne Rudolph. Professor of Political Science emerita, University of Chicago.
James O’Toole. Research Professor, Center for Effective Organizations, University of Southern California, and Mortimer J. Adler Senior Fellow, the Aspen Institute.
Jagdish N. Sheth. The Charles H. Kellstadt Chair of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, and Chairman and Founder, India China America Institute.
Michael Tobias. President of the Dancing Star Foundation, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation devoted to animal welfare, international biodiversity conservation and environmental education.
Workshops
Two workshops will be held on Sunday, April 30, 2006; 10:00 am - 2:00 pm:
- Ahimsa, Leadership and the Quality of Life - Workshop with Prasad Kaipa
- Nonviolence and Quality of Life: Soil, Soul and Society - Workshop with Satish Kumar
Looking forward to seeing you in April.
For more information about the conference, including early and on-line registration, please visit the following site.