FOUNDER
Chia-ju Chang
Chia-ju Chang is Professor of Global Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Brooklyn College (CUNY) and Director of the Chinese and Zen Contemplative Studies minor. She has long practiced and taught Linji koan Zen, connecting contemplative practice with contemporary philosophy, ecology, media critique, and humanities education. Former Convenor, UN World Contemplative Day – Arts & Humanities Committee.
- Professor, Department of Global Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
- Former Convenor, UN World Contemplative Day – Arts & Humanities Committee.
“Because all beings are ill, I too am ill; when all beings are freed from illness, my illness will cease.”
Founding origins
The Institute for Meditative Humanities Education was not formed as an extension of academic institutions, but as an experimental space generated from within contemporary concerns — practice unfolds within bodily, relational, and social difficulty, not apart from the world.
The 'illness' spoken of here is not simply an individual defect or problem, but the shared condition in which modern people are caught — in dualistic opposition, self-enclosure, and estrangement from the world. Thus, no rigid opposition is assumed here between healer and patient, teacher and student, practitioner and world.
Within the awareness of shared difficulty, teaching, dialogue, online dokusan, and collective practice can all become skillful medicines that open possibilities for awareness and transformation. What the institute seeks is not to cure others, but — through stillness and wisdom, dialogue and practice — to witness one another, and together bear witness to the possibility of awakening.