{{Short description|American author, contemplative educator, and activist}} {{Distinguish|Mirabai}} {{Multiple issues| {{AI-generated|date=December 2025}} {{autobiography|date=December 2025}} }} {{Infobox person | name = Mirabai Bush | image = Mirabai Bush.jpg | alt = | caption = | citizenship = American | occupation = Author, contemplative educator, activist | known_for = Co-founder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society; work on organizational mindfulness and ''Search Inside Yourself'' | alma_mater = Georgetown University; State University of New York at Buffalo }}
'''Mirabai Bush''' is an American author, contemplative educator, and activist whose work has focused on bringing meditation and other contemplative practices into education, social activism, and organizational life.<ref name="OnBeing">{{cite web |last=Tippett |first=Krista |title=Mirabai Bush — Contemplation, Life, and Work |url=https://onbeing.org/programs/mirabai-bush-contemplation-life-and-work-oct2018/ |website=The On Being Project |date=5 July 2015 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MBsite">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Contemplative Activism |url=https://mirabaibush.com/ |website=MirabaiBush.com |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> She co-founded the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and served as its founding executive director, helping to establish the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE) and to promote contemplative pedagogy in colleges and universities.<ref name="CMindMain">{{cite web |title=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |url=https://contemplativemind.org/ |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="ACMHE">{{cite web |title=The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education |url=https://contemplativemind.org/programs/acmhe |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> In organizational contexts she has been described as one of the early figures in workplace mindfulness and as a key contributor to the development of Google's ''Search Inside Yourself'' emotional-intelligence program for employees.<ref name="OnBeingWork">{{cite web |last=Tippett |first=Krista |title=Mirabai Bush — Contemplation, Life, and Work |website=The On Being Project |date=5 July 2015 |url=https://onbeing.org/programs/mirabai-bush-contemplation-life-and-work-oct2018/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MindfulAuthorBio">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Author at Mindful.org |website=Mindful.org |publisher=Mindfulness United |url=https://www.mindful.org/author/mirabai-bush/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="TricycleWWM">{{cite web |title=Working with Mindfulness |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |url=https://tricycle.org/article/working-mindfulness-interview-mirabai-bush/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Bush has co-authored several books with Ram Dass, including ''Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service'' (1995) and ''Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying'' (2018), and has edited and written works on contemplative practice and higher education such as ''Contemplation Nation'' (2011) and, with Daniel P. Barbezat, ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' (2013).<ref name="Dass 1995">{{cite book |last=Dass |first=Ram |author2=Mirabai Bush |title=Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service |publisher=Harmony Books |location=New York |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-517-88500-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Dass |first=Ram |author2=Mirabai Bush |title=Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying |publisher=Sounds True |location=Boulder, CO |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-68364-200-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live |editor-last=Bush |editor-first=Mirabai |publisher=Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4611-1841-1}}</ref><ref name="CPHEbook">{{cite book |last1=Barbezat |first1=Daniel P. |last2=Bush |first2=Mirabai |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning |publisher=Jossey-Bass |location=San Francisco |year=2013 |series=The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series |isbn=978-1-118-43527-4}}</ref> ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' has been described by the University of Virginia’s Teaching Hub as a “classic” text for contemplative pedagogy and has been widely cited in scholarship on contemplative approaches to teaching and learning.<ref name="UVA">{{cite web |title=A Classic: ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' |url=https://teaching.virginia.edu/collections/an-introduction-to-contemplative-pedagogy/470 |website=UVA Teaching Hub |publisher=University of Virginia |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="JUTLPReview">{{cite journal |last=Goswami |first=Rashmi |title=Book Review: ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning'' |journal=Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice |volume=11 |issue=3 |year=2014 |url=https://open-publishing.org/journals/index.php/jutlp/article/download/628/628/628 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
==Early life and education==
===Family background and upbringing=== Bush was raised in a Catholic family in the United States and has recalled that, as a child, Joan of Arc was her hero.<ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="OnBeingPH">{{cite web |title=On Being: Mirabai Bush — Search Inside Yourself: Contemplation in Life and Work |url=https://www.producthunt.com/posts/on-being-mirabai-bush-search-inside-yourself-contemplation-in-life-and-work |website=Product Hunt |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> According to a later profile, she received a lengthy Catholic education before moving into graduate study in medieval literature.<ref name="LEADERS">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Mindfulness: An Interview with Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2022.3_jul/Purpose/LEADERS_Mirabai_Bush_Center_for_Contemplative_Mind_in_Society.html |website=LEADERS |date=July–September 2022 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Education and early career=== After her early schooling, Bush undertook graduate study in medieval literature at Georgetown University and later pursued a doctorate in American literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she completed ABD status.<ref name="LEADERS"/><ref name="AwakinBio">{{cite web |title=Conversation with Mirabai Bush – Bio |url=https://www.awakin.org/v2/calls/246/mirabai-bush/bio |website=Awakin Call |publisher=ServiceSpace |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> She taught writing and English literature at SUNY Buffalo and directed a program designed to diversify the university and prepare students of color for academic study.<ref name="SecularDharma">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Interview |url=https://www.audible.com/podcast/Mirabai-Bush-Interview/B0CRSB5ZZ1 |website=Secular Dharma Foundation Podcast |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Before moving into foundation and non-profit work, Bush worked at Cape Canaveral on the Saturn–Apollo moonflight program.<ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="LEADERS" /><ref name="MBsite" /><ref name="KeyStep">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.keystepmedia.com/authors/mirabai-bush/ |website=Key Step Media |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Political and social activism in the 1960s=== In the late 1960s, while enrolled in the PhD program in American literature at SUNY Buffalo and teaching there, Bush became involved in campus civil-rights work and anti-war activism during a period of political unrest in the United States.<ref name="LEADERS"/> She has said that the intensity of this activism and the difficulty of teaching in that climate led her to take leave from the program and travel abroad in search of a different way of living and being in the world, a journey that eventually brought her to India and to meditation practice.<ref name="LEADERS"/><ref name="OnBeing"/>
==Spiritual formation and time in India== In the early 1970s, after leaving her doctoral program and campus activism at SUNY Buffalo, Bush traveled to India in search of a different way of living and being in the world.<ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="AwakinBio" /> Interviews and profiles report that she became part of the circle around American spiritual teacher Ram Dass, and that through this community she met the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba (often called Maharajji), whose ashrams in northern India became a focal point for Western students exploring meditation and devotional practice.<ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="RamDassBoard">{{cite web |title=Board of Directors |url=https://www.ramdass.org/board-of-directors/ |website=RamDass.org |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="BHNNJourney">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush: A Journey Home |url=https://beherenownetwork.com/mirabai-bush-a-journey-home/ |website=Be Here Now Network |date=2025 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Biographical notes describe Bush as having spent approximately two years in India studying with Neem Karoli Baba and other contemplative teachers.<ref name="LEADERS" /><ref name="MBsite" /><ref name="HeartfulnessContrib">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://heartfulness.org/magazine/contributors/mirabai-bush |website=Heartfulness Magazine |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Her spiritual formation is said to have included meditation in monasteries with Buddhist teachers S. N. Goenka and Anagarika Munindra, practice with teachers associated with the Insight Meditation Society, studies in the Sufi lineage of Pir Vilayat Khan, and training with Tibetan Buddhist lamas such as Kalu Rinpoche, Chögyam Trungpa, Gelek Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, along with several years of Iyengar yoga and Aikido practice.<ref name="LEADERS" /><ref name="MBsite" /><ref name="RamDassSatsang">{{cite web |title=Women's Satsang: Learning from Everything with Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.ramdass.org/event/womens-satsang-learning-from-everything-with-mirabai-bush/ |website=RamDass.org |date=2023 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="IvyFM">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush podcast appearances and mentions |url=https://ivy.fm/tag/mirabai-bush |website=Ivy.fm |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Writers in the Neem Karoli Baba and contemplative-education circles have emphasized that Bush's encounters in India, especially Maharajji's emphasis on ''seva'' (selfless service), shaped her later work in social action and institutional change. An ''Integral Yoga Magazine'' profile notes that Neem Karoli Baba's focus on service helped inspire her to co-found the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, while her memoir ''Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love'' traces a trajectory “from NASA to an ashram in India” and on to her later roles in the Seva Foundation and contemplative higher education.<ref name="IntegralYoga">{{cite web |title=An Interview with Mirabai Bush |url=https://integralyogamagazine.org/tag/mirabai-bush/ |website=Integral Yoga Magazine |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="AlmostHome">{{cite web |title=Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love |url=https://www.amazon.com.au/Almost-Home-Dharma-Social-Change-ebook/dp/B0G1KCWR1X |website=Amazon |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
==Seva Foundation and social activism==
===Founding involvement with Seva Foundation=== Bush was a founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization established to support community-based health and development initiatives, including blindness-prevention and eye-care programs. Sources describe her as working alongside co-founders including Ram Dass and ophthalmologist Larry Brilliant in Seva's early years.<ref name="Wellbeing">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://wellbeing-project.org/mirabai-bush/ |website=The Wellbeing Project |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="TricycleSeva">{{cite web |last=Tworkov |first=Helen |title=Contemplating Corporate Culture |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/contemplating-corporate-culture/ |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=Summer 2001 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="SevaBlog">{{cite web |last=Gilbert |first=Suzanne |title=I Co-Founded Seva in 1978. This Month, I Retired. |url=https://blog.seva.org/i-co-founded-seva-in-1978-this-month-i-retired/ |website=Seva Foundation |date=2024 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Director of the Guatemala Project=== At Seva, Bush served as director of the Seva Guatemala Project, which supports sustainable agriculture and integrated community development in partnership with local communities.<ref name="Wellbeing"/><ref name="MBsite"/><ref name="Omega">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/mirabai-bush |website=Omega Institute |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Kripalu">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.union.fit/orgs/kripalu/teachers/mirabai-bush-47017eb6-2834-422f-ad0f-fb9c2758f74b |website=Kripalu / Union |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Biographical profiles state that the project integrated work on agrarian livelihoods, health, and community organizing as part of Seva's broader public-health and development activities in the region.<ref name="AwakinBio"/><ref name="Shift">{{cite web |title=Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live |url=https://theshiftnetwork.com/node/6328 |website=The Shift Network |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Engagement with environmental and social-justice activism=== In addition to her administrative role, Bush's work at Seva included co-developing “Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth,” a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists that explored the interconnection of contemplative practice and ecological action.<ref name="MBsite"/><ref name="Omega"/><ref name="MindfulnessSummit">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://themindfulnesssummit.com/speaker/mirabai-bush/ |website=The Mindfulness Summit |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Later profiles note that she has continued to teach retreats and programs for environmental leaders, social-justice organizations, and other activists, integrating meditation and contemplative practices with work on social and ecological issues.<ref name="Wellbeing"/><ref name="NYIMC">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.nyimc.org/teachers/mirabai-bush/ |website=New York Insight Meditation Center |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Esalen">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.esalen.org/faculty/mirabai-bush |website=Esalen Institute |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
==Business and entrepreneurship: Illuminations, Inc.== After returning from India and working in social activism, Bush co-founded and directed Illuminations, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based company that produced stickers and other graphic designs drawing on contemplative imagery and themes.<ref name="Omega"/><ref name="Mobius">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness at Work: What Are the Benefits? |url=https://traumainformedcertificateportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Minduflness-At-Work-Mirabai-Bush.pdf |website=Mobius Executive Leadership |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Shift"/> Later biographical profiles report that the company's business practices and contemplatively themed products were covered in business magazines including ''Newsweek'', ''Inc.'', ''Fortune'', and the ''Boston Business Journal''.<ref name="Mobius"/><ref name="Shift"/><ref name="BNAudio">{{cite web |title=Working with Mindfulness: Research and Practice of Mindful Techniques in Organizations |url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/working-with-mindfulness-research-and-practice-of-mindful-techniques-in-organizations-mirabai-bush/1116227719 |website=Barnes & Noble |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Bush has said that her experiences at Illuminations—experimenting with bringing contemplative values into business and observing both the possibilities and limits of that work—helped inform her later decision to focus on integrating contemplative practice into institutions more broadly through the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.<ref name="LEADERS"/><ref name="OnBeing"/> ''On Being'' describes her as working at “an emerging 21st century intersection of industry, social healing, and diverse contemplative practices,” linking this entrepreneurial period with her subsequent roles in contemplative education and organizational consulting.<ref name="OnBeing"/>
==Higher education and contemplative pedagogy==
===Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and ACMHE=== In the mid-1990s, Bush co-founded the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (often abbreviated CMind), a nonprofit organization developed to encourage the integration of contemplative practices into secular life and work.<ref name="CMindMission1">{{cite web |title=Review of ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' |url=https://www.academia.edu/12569501/Review_of_Contemplative_Practices_in_Higher_Education_Powerful_Methods_to_Transform_Teaching_and_Learning |website=Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (via Academia.edu) |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="WorldPeace">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |url=https://worldpeacelibrary.com/speaker/1806 |website=Philip M. Hellmich Memorial World Peace Library |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="CMindMain"/> She served as the center's founding director and executive director until 2008, and later as Senior Fellow.<ref name="Wellbeing"/><ref name="NYIMC"/><ref name="Esalen"/><ref name="AwakinBio"/>
Under Bush's direction, CMind developed programs that introduced contemplative practices into higher education, law, business, environmental leadership, philanthropy, technology companies, the military, and social-justice activism, building a network of people integrating contemplative perspectives into their lives and work.<ref name="NYIMC"/><ref name="Kripalu"/><ref name="CMindWebinar">{{cite web |title=Practice: The Core of Contemplative Education |url=https://contemplativemind.org/archives/1925 |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |date=17 April 2013 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="LEADERS"/> The Center sponsored fellowships, retreats, and workshops for faculty and professionals and developed resources such as the “Tree of Contemplative Practices”, an illustration mapping diverse contemplative methods used in educational and organizational settings.<ref name="CMindPractices">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices |url=https://contemplativemind.org/practices/ |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="TreeChearts">{{cite web |title=Tree of Contemplative Practices |url=https://www.c-hearts.com/tree-of-cp |website=C Hearts |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="TreeMN">{{cite web |title=The Tree of Contemplative Practices |url=https://education.mn.gov/mdeprod/groups/educ/documents/hiddencontent/bwrl/mdm0/~edisp/mde034129.pdf |website=Minnesota Department of Education |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Its reports and projects, such as the “Powerful Silence” study on meditation and other contemplative practices in American life and work, articulated an aim of linking contemplative inquiry with social, economic, environmental, and racial justice concerns.<ref name="PowerfulSilence">{{cite web |title=A Powerful Silence: The Role of Meditation and Other Contemplative Practices in American Life and Work |url=https://contemplativemind.org/archives/834 |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MandalaPS">{{cite web |title=A Powerful Silence: The role of meditation and other contemplative practices in American life and work |url=https://sources.mandala.library.virginia.edu/source/powerful-silence-role-meditation-and-other-contemplative-practices-american-life-and-work-0 |website=Mandala Collections, University of Virginia |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
In 2008, CMind created the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE), a professional association for educators, scholars, and administrators interested in contemplative pedagogy and inquiry in colleges and universities.<ref name="ACMHE"/><ref name="MindEdPaper">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness in Higher Education |url=https://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Articles/Mindfulness%20in%20higher%20education_CB_Bush_2011.pdf |website=Contemporary Buddhism (preprint via ahandfulofleaves.org) |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MindfulCampus">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Higher Education in Contemporary America |url=https://mindfulcampus.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/mbush-contemplativehighereducation.pdf |website=Mindful Campus |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Later biographical notes cite Bush as a co-founder of ACMHE, which has organized annual conferences, webinars, and other events supporting the integration of contemplative practices into higher education.<ref name="BLI">{{cite web |title=Dinner with Mirabai Bush |url=https://lsa.umich.edu/bli/news-events/all-events.detail.html/72477-18009387.html |website=Barger Leadership Institute, University of Michigan |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="Reimagine">{{cite web |title=Daily Dose of Togetherness with Mirabai Bush and Golbie Kamarei |url=https://letsreimagine.org/3610/daily-dose-of-togetherness-with-mirabai-bush-and-golbie-kamarei |website=Reimagine |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="ACMHEConf">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Mind in Higher Education: The 11th Annual ACMHE Conference |url=https://www.academia.edu/42242647/Contemplative_Mind_in_Higher_Education_The_11_th_Annual_ACMHE_Conference |website=Academia.edu |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
In June 2023, the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst hosted an event titled “Contemplating the End of an Era” to mark the conclusion of CMind's operations and the transfer of its archives to the university.<ref name="Bookmark">{{cite web |title=Contemplating the End of an Era: Celebrating CMind at UMass Amherst |url=https://bookmarkmagazine.library.umass.edu/contemplating-the-end-of-an-era/ |website=BookMark Magazine, UMass Amherst Libraries |date=2023 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Bush, described there as CMind's founder and first executive director, characterized the gathering as “a day of contemplation and conversation, inspirational activities and practices,” and speakers highlighted ongoing initiatives in contemplative education and social justice that continue the center's legacy beyond its formal closure.<ref name="Bookmark"/>
===Contemplative pedagogy and publications=== Through the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, Bush has focused much of her work on integrating contemplative practices into higher education. As founding director and later senior fellow of the center, she has been involved in initiatives that support faculty and institutions in incorporating contemplative and introspective methods—such as mindfulness, contemplative reading and writing, and deep listening—into teaching and research.<ref name="Omega"/><ref name="MBsite"/><ref name="CMindMain"/> The Omega Institute describes the center as working to “transform higher education” by encouraging the use of contemplative practices to create active learning environments that look deeply into experience and meaning for students and teachers.<ref name="Omega"/>
In her own writing, Bush has described a wider “movement in higher education” introducing mindfulness and related practices into courses across disciplines and institution types, including state universities, liberal arts colleges, and historically Black colleges and universities, often through the Contemplative Practice Fellows program administered by the center.<ref name="MIHEpdf">{{cite web |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=Mindfulness in Higher Education |url=https://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Articles/Mindfulness%20in%20higher%20education_CB_Bush_2011.pdf |website=Contemporary Buddhism (author manuscript) |date=2011 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MIHEScilit">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness in higher education |url=https://www.scilit.com/publications/51214a56b49bf983d1042a443d1edb2e |website=Scilit |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
In 2013, Bush co-authored, with Daniel P. Barbezat, the book ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning'', published by Jossey-Bass in its Higher and Adult Education series.<ref name="CPHEbook"/><ref name="Wiley">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning |url=https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Contemplative%2BPractices%2Bin%2BHigher%2BEducation%3A%2BPowerful%2BMethods%2Bto%2BTransform%2BTeaching%2Band%2BLearning-p-9781118435274 |website=Wiley |publisher=Jossey-Bass |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="AmazonCPHE">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning |url=https://www.amazon.com/Contemplative-Practices-Higher-Education-Transform/dp/1118435273 |website=Amazon |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> The book outlines ways that contemplative methods can be adapted for use across academic disciplines and institutional types, offering case studies, classroom practices, and reflections from faculty who have integrated contemplative approaches into their teaching.<ref name="CPHEbook"/><ref name="CMindBook">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education |url=https://contemplativemind.org/book |website=The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Beyond the co-authored book, Bush has written on contemplative pedagogy in journal articles and edited volumes. Her article “Mindfulness in Higher Education,” first published in 2011 in the journal ''Contemporary Buddhism'', discusses courses that incorporate mindfulness and related practices across a range of institutions and disciplines and reflects on how such practices can support students’ learning and ethical awareness.<ref name="MIHEjournal">{{cite journal |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=Mindfulness in Higher Education |journal=Contemporary Buddhism |volume=12 |issue=1 |year=2011 |pages=183–197 |doi=10.1080/14639947.2011.564838}}</ref><ref name="MIHEMandala">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness in Higher Education |url=https://sources.mandala.library.virginia.edu/source/mindfulness-higher-education-2 |website=Mandala Collections, University of Virginia |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MIHEpdf"/><ref name="MIHERoutledge">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness in Higher Education |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315874586-13/mindfulness-higher-education-mirabai-bush |website=Routledge / Taylor & Francis |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> The article is indexed in bibliographic databases and appears in ACMHE's “Bibliography of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education” alongside other key works in the field.<ref name="ACMHEBib">{{cite web |title=Bibliography of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education |url=https://www.associazionerime.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/bibliography-of-contemplative-practices-in-higher-education-compiled-by-seth-schoen-phd-3_2019.-the-association-for-contemplative-mind-in-higher-education.pdf |website=Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="PhilpapersMIHE">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush, Mindfulness in higher education |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BUSMIH |website=PhilPapers |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> She has also contributed essays and talks on contemplative higher education more broadly, including a 2008 paper on “contemplative higher education in contemporary America” circulated through CMind's resources for faculty.<ref name="MindfulCampus"/>
===Reception in higher education=== ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' has been reviewed in academic and pedagogical venues and is frequently cited in literature on contemplative pedagogy. A review in the ''Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice'' summarizes and evaluates the book as a resource for enhancing student learning through contemplative practices “across various fields of study and across universities globally.”<ref name="JUTLPReview"/><ref name="JUTLPReview2">{{cite web |title=Issue contents – Book Review: Contemplative practices in higher education |url=https://open-publishing.org/journals/index.php/jutlp/issue/view/68 |website=Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice |year=2014 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion notes that contemplative practices are now used “in just about every discipline” and across many institutional types, and describes Barbezat and Bush as “two of the foremost leaders and innovators” in contemplative approaches to higher education.<ref name="WabashCPHE">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning |url=https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/scholarship/contemplative-practices-in-higher-education-powerful-methods-to-transform-teaching-and-learning/ |website=Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Columbia University's Center for Teaching and Learning refers to the book as a foundational text for contemplative pedagogy, citing it in its guidance for faculty interested in contemplative approaches to teaching.<ref name="ColumbiaCTL">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Pedagogy |url=https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/contemplative-pedagogy/ |website=Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning |publisher=Columbia University |date=2017 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
University resource guides and bibliographies, such as a contemplative-practices resource list from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and reflection/learning guides from other institutions, regularly cite ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education'' as a core text for instructors exploring contemplative or reflective pedagogies.<ref name="UMassDartmouthCP">{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices Resources |url=https://www.umassd.edu/media/umassdartmouth/office-of-faculty-development/ofd/resources/Contemplative-Practices-Resources.pdf |website=University of Massachusetts Dartmouth |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="ReflectionGuide">{{cite web |title=Reflection for Learning: A Scholarly Practice Guide for Educators |url=https://www.learningenvironments.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Reflection%20for%20Learning_A%20scholarly%20practice%20guide%20for%20educators.pdf |website=University of New South Wales |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> These materials typically present Bush as a leading figure in bringing contemplative methods into mainstream higher education, particularly through CMind and ACMHE.<ref name="CMindMain"/><ref name="ACMHE"/>
==Organizational mindfulness and corporate work==
===Early corporate mindfulness work=== From the late 1990s, Bush became known for bringing meditation and other contemplative practices into large corporations and public institutions, extending work she had previously done in activist, educational, and nonprofit settings.<ref name="WellbeingCorp">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |website=The Wellbeing Project |url=https://wellbeing-project.org/mirabai-bush/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MBWebsiteOrg">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Contemplative Activism |website=MirabaiBush.com |url=https://mirabaibush.com/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Biographical profiles describe her as designing and leading contemplative trainings for organizations “from Monsanto to Google,” as well as for lawyers, judges, educators, environmental leaders, activists, students, and members of the armed forces.<ref name="WellbeingCorp" /><ref name="MindfulAuthorBio"/><ref name="MindfulnessAtWorkPDF">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness at work: What are the benefits? |website=traumainformedcertificateportal.com |url=https://traumainformedcertificateportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Minduflness-At-Work-Mirabai-Bush.pdf |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
An early and widely discussed case was a mindfulness program for scientists and managers at Monsanto, then a prominent agricultural biotechnology company. In a 2001 interview in ''Tricycle: The Buddhist Review'', Bush discussed teaching contemplative retreats to Monsanto employees and the tension between working with a company criticized by environmentalists and the aspiration to “change consciousness inside a corporation”.<ref name="TricycleCorp">{{cite web |last=Tworkov |first=Helen |title=Contemplating Corporate Culture |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=Summer 2001 |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/contemplating-corporate-culture/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> A 2019 retrospective in ''Tricycle'' described her as “one of the first to bring meditation to the corporate sector” and revisited her Monsanto work against the backdrop of controversies over genetically modified crops and the herbicide glyphosate.<ref name="TricycleRevisit">{{cite web |last=Biddlecombe Agsar |first=Wendy |title=Revisiting Corporate Meditation |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=Spring 2019 |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/mirabai-bush/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Bush has stated that she understood the work as an experiment in offering serious contemplative practice to individual employees, while acknowledging that structural questions of “right livelihood” and corporate responsibility remained unresolved.<ref name="TricycleRevisit" />
===Search Inside Yourself at Google=== Bush later focused much of her organizational work on technology and knowledge-sector firms, most notably Google. In a profile for ''On Being'', Krista Tippett writes that Bush “helped create Google’s popular employee program, Search Inside Yourself,” which she characterizes as part of Bush's “fascinating narrative” at the intersection of industry, social healing, and contemplative practice.<ref name="OnBeingWork" /> In the same interview, Bush recounts being invited to Google in 2007 by engineer Chade-Meng Tan to help design a course that would frame mindfulness practices in terms of emotional intelligence for young engineers, a program that eventually attracted thousands of employees worldwide.<ref name="OnBeingWork" />
Multiple independent sources describe Bush as a co-creator or key developer of ''Search Inside Yourself''. Mindful.org identifies her as “a key developer of Search Inside Yourself at Google,” noting her broader work training professionals in law, education, environmental leadership, activism, and the military.<ref name="MindfulAuthorBio" /> Mindfulness.com lists her as “the author of ''Working with Mindfulness'', co-creator of the ‘Search Inside Yourself’ program, and co-founder of the Centre for Contemplative Mind and Society”.<ref name="MindfulnessComTeacher">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |website=Mindfulness.com |url=https://mindfulness.com/teacher/mirabai-bush |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> An Awakin Call biography similarly refers to her as “a key contributor to Google’s Search Inside Yourself Program”, and notes her wider efforts to reform secular institutions through contemplative practice.<ref name="AwakinBioSIY">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Reforming Secular Institutions Through Contemplative Practices |website=Awakin Call |publisher=ServiceSpace |url=https://www.awakin.org/v2/calls/246/mirabai-bush/bio |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> An Esalen Institute faculty profile describes her as “a key contributor to Google’s Search Inside Yourself curriculum” in the context of her multi-decade teaching career.<ref name="EsalenFaculty">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |website=Esalen |publisher=Esalen Institute |url=https://www.esalen.org/faculty/mirabai-bush |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
A ''Tricycle'' article on workplace mindfulness notes that Bush became known for her work with “corporate behemoths” such as Google, Monsanto, and Hearst Publications, and that her most recent corporate project at the time involved collaborating with Tan and psychologist Daniel Goleman to develop an emotional-intelligence-based course called ''Search Inside Yourself'' for Google employees.<ref name="TricycleWWM" /> Audio and video materials associated with the program, including an ''On Being'' episode titled “Search Inside Yourself: Contemplation in Life and Work” and publisher descriptions of Bush's later audio offerings, likewise present her as a key contributor to the curriculum.<ref name="OnBeingSIY">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush — Search Inside Yourself: Contemplation in Life and Work |website=On Being Studios |url=https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/mirabai-bush-search-inside-yourself-contemplation-in-life-and-work-1 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="KeyStepYouTube">{{cite web |title=Google's Search Inside Yourself Adviser Mirabai Bush on Working with Mindfulness |website=YouTube |publisher=Key Step Media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHsMan_vauA |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===''Working with Mindfulness'' and workplace programs=== In 2012 Bush released ''Working with Mindfulness'', an audio program of guided mindfulness exercises for the workplace produced by More Than Sound and distributed by Key Step Media.<ref name="KeyStepWM">{{cite web |title=Working With Mindfulness by Mirabai Bush |website=Key Step Media |url=https://www.keystepmedia.com/shop/working-with-mindfulness-audio-exercises/ |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Publisher and audiobook descriptions characterize the program as a set of practices “for the workplace” designed to help reduce stress, increase productivity, and encourage creative problem solving, and credit Bush as a “key contributor” or “key player” in establishing mindfulness as part of Google's ''Search Inside Yourself'' program.<ref name="KeyStepWM" /><ref name="AudiobooksWM">{{cite web |title=Working with Mindfulness |website=Audiobooks.com |publisher=Storytel Audiobooks USA |url=https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/working-with-mindfulness/137463 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> These materials note that she has led trainings at organizations including Google, Monsanto, and Hearst Publications, and include an endorsement from Tan describing her as “deeply experienced in creating a mindful workplace”.<ref name="KeyStepWM" /><ref name="AudiobooksWM" />
Alongside the audio program, Bush co-authored a companion volume, ''Working with Mindfulness: Research and Practice of Mindful Techniques in Organizations'', in which she discusses applying workplace mindfulness research and practice with collaborators such as Jeremy Hunter, Daniel Goleman, Richard Davidson, and George Kohlrieser.<ref name="KeyStepWM" /> Her institutional bios and interviews further note that she has designed and delivered workplace mindfulness and contemplative trainings for a range of sectors, including finance, media, philanthropy, environmental organizations, and the military, often emphasizing emotional intelligence, ethical reflection, and compassionate communication in organizational settings.<ref name="WellbeingCorp" /><ref name="MindfulAuthorBio" /><ref name="OmegaFaculty">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush |website=Omega Institute |url=https://www.eomega.org/workshops/teachers/mirabai-bush |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="EsalenFaculty" />
===Critiques and debates=== Bush's corporate work has also featured in scholarly and journalistic critiques of “corporate mindfulness”. In the ''Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement'', Alex Caring-Lobel's chapter “Corporate Mindfulness and the Pathologization of Workplace Stress” cites Bush's Monsanto program, alongside other corporate initiatives, as an example of mindfulness interventions that may reframe worker stress and ethical tension in psychological terms without directly addressing underlying organizational structures.<ref name="CorporateMindfulnessCh">{{cite book |last=Caring-Lobel |first=Alex |year=2016 |chapter=Corporate Mindfulness and the Pathologization of Workplace Stress |title=Handbook of Mindfulness |editor-last=Purser |editor-first=Ronald E. |editor2-last=Forbes |editor2-first=David |editor3-last=Burke |editor3-first=Adam |publisher=Springer |location=Cham |pages=195–214 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-44019-4_14}}</ref><ref name="HandbookMindfulness">{{cite web |title=Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement |url=https://lib.ugent.be/en/catalog/ebk01%3A3710000000918151 |website=Ghent University Library |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> A chapter on “Awakening at work: introducing mindfulness into organizations” in the volume ''Mindfulness in Organizations'' draws on research conducted by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society between 2000 and 2004, using corporate case studies—including Monsanto and Google—to analyze how contemplative programs are implemented within organizational cultures.<ref name="AwakeningAtWorkCh">{{cite book |chapter=Awakening at work: introducing mindfulness into organizations |title=Mindfulness in Organizations |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/mindfulness-in-organizations/awakening-at-work-introducing-mindfulness-into-organizations/03333848FBBE50DD30BC4FCA9B4A7A40 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="MindfulnessInOrg">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness in Organizations |url=https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11382810 |website=Stanford University Libraries |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Journalistic coverage has raised related concerns. Commenters and writers in venues such as ''Tricycle'' have questioned whether introducing meditation into corporations risks helping employees adapt to ethically problematic work, or allowing “bad people to do bad things better”, even as they acknowledge that individual participants may experience greater self-awareness and moral unease.<ref name="TricycleRevisit" /><ref name="TricycleWWM" /> In response, Bush has argued that well-designed, in-depth contemplative programs can support critical inquiry and ethical reflection among participants, while maintaining that questions about right livelihood and the systemic effects of corporate mindfulness initiatives remain open and need ongoing examination.<ref name="OnBeingWork" /><ref name="TricycleRevisit" /> Subsequent scholarship on corporate mindfulness and neoliberalism has cited Caring-Lobel's analysis in broader critiques of how mindfulness is deployed within organizations.<ref name="CorpMindNeoliberal">{{cite journal |last=Wrenn |first=Mary V. |title=Corporate Mindfulness Culture and Neoliberalism |journal=Review of Radical Political Economics |year=2022 |volume=54 |issue=4 |pages=681–701 |doi=10.1177/04866134211063521 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/04866134211063521 |access-date=14 November 2025|doi-access=free }}</ref>
==Teaching, retreats, and collaboration with Ram Dass==
===Retreat teaching and public programs=== Bush has taught meditation and contemplative practice at retreat and education centers in the United States and abroad for several decades. Faculty and teacher biographies note that she has led workshops and residential programs at institutions including the Omega Institute, the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the New York Insight Meditation Center, and the Insight Meditation Society.<ref name="Omega"/><ref name="Esalen"/><ref name="Kripalu"/><ref name="NYIMC"/><ref name="KeyStep"/><ref name="IMSDharma">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush's Dharma Talks at Insight Meditation Society |url=https://imsrc.dharmaseed.org/teacher/785/ |website=Dharma Seed |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> An Awakin Call biography records that she has organized, facilitated, and taught “workshops, weekends, and courses on spirit and action” at venues such as Omega, Naropa Institute, Findhorn, Zen Mountain Monastery, the University of Massachusetts, San Francisco Zen Center, the Buddhist Study Center at Barre, and the Lama Foundation.<ref name="AwakinBio"/>
Beyond residential retreats, Bush has led public workshops and courses on contemplative practice in “life and work” for professional and community audiences. The Wellbeing Project describes her as having taught workshops on meditation and contemplative practice for leaders in education, law, business, environmental leadership, the military, technology companies, and activism.<ref name="Wellbeing"/> Mindful.org notes that she “has led mindfulness training for lawyers, judges, educators, environmental leaders, activists, students, and the army,” while serving as senior fellow at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.<ref name="MindfulAuthor">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush – Author at Mindful.org |url=https://www.mindful.org/author/mirabai-bush/ |website=Mindful.org |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> These public programs have included courses and talks on topics such as contemplative pedagogy, mindfulness in organizations, and the relationship between spiritual practice and social action, as documented in CMind resources and event listings.<ref name="CMindMain"/><ref name="OmegaArticle">{{cite web |title=Mindfulness Practices in a Diverse Classroom |url=https://www.eomega.org/article/mindfulness-practices-in-a-diverse-classroom |website=Omega Institute |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Collaboration with Ram Dass=== Bush's work has been closely associated with that of American spiritual teacher Ram Dass for several decades. Profiles and reviews describe her as his “longtime friend and sometime co-author” and note that she first met him in India in the early 1970s in the community around Neem Karoli Baba.<ref name="spiritualityandpractice.com">{{cite web |title=Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass, Mirabai Bush |url=https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/28641/walking-each-other-home |website=Spirituality & Practice |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="LEADERS" />
Bush and Ram Dass co-authored ''Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service'' (1995), a book on integrating spiritual practice and social service, and later ''Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying'' (2018), a volume of dialogues about death, dying, and spiritual friendship that has been reviewed in outlets such as ''Publishers Weekly'' and ''Spirituality & Practice''.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite web |title=Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Compassion_in_Action.html?id=KE7QKaap-qUC |website=Google Books |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="publishersweekly.com">{{cite web |title=Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781683642008 |website=Publishers Weekly |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="spiritualityandpractice.com"/>
In the 2010s Bush frequently taught alongside Ram Dass at the Love Serve Remember Foundation's “Open Your Heart in Paradise” retreats on Maui, leading guided meditations and discussions with him and other teachers such as Krishna Das and Trudy Goodman.<ref>{{cite web |title=Open Your Heart in Paradise with Ram Dass, Krishna Das & Friends |url=https://www.propeller.la/rambasshawaii |website=Propeller |date=2018 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Open Your Heart in Paradise: Ram Dass Legacy Retreat 2024 |url=https://krishnadas.com/events/open-your-heart-in-paradise-ram-dass-legacy-retreat-2024/ |website=Krishna Das / Love Serve Remember Foundation |date=2024 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> After Ram Dass's death in 2019, Bush has continued to teach at Ram Dass Legacy retreats and related events organized by the Love Serve Remember Foundation.<ref>{{cite web |title=Open Your Heart in Paradise: Ram Dass Legacy Retreat 2024 |url=https://krishnadas.com/events/open-your-heart-in-paradise-ram-dass-legacy-retreat-2024/ |website=Krishna Das / Love Serve Remember Foundation |date=2024 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
Bush has also hosted the podcast ''Walking Each Other Home'' on the Be Here Now Network, a series of conversations with activists, teachers, and cultural figures that extends themes from her work with Ram Dass on love, service, and mortality.<ref name="BHNNJourney"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Walking Each Other Home with Mirabai Bush – Inner & Outer Activism |url=https://beherenownetwork.com/walking-each-other-home-with-mirabai-bush-ep-6-inner-outer-activism-w-elizabeth-lesser/ |website=Be Here Now Network |date=2019 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Media coverage and movement recognition=== Bush's teaching and views on contemplative practice have been the subject of public interviews and media profiles. In 2015 she was featured on ''On Being'' with Krista Tippett in an hour-long episode titled “Mirabai Bush — Contemplation, Life, and Work,” which explores her life story and the application of contemplative practices in education, activism, and organizational settings.<ref name="OnBeing" /><ref name="OnBeingLib">{{cite web |title=Meditation & Mindfulness (library) |url=https://onbeing.org/libraries/meditation-mindfulness/ |website=The On Being Project |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> ''On Being'' introduces her as someone who “helped create Google’s popular employee program, Search Inside Yourself” and whose life “tells a fascinating narrative of our time” concerning the rediscovery of contemplative practices in secular culture.<ref name="OnBeingWork" />
Mindful magazine and Mindful.org have featured Bush in multiple roles, including as an advisory board member, interview subject, and event leader. A 2019 Mindful.org event announcement described her as a “mindfulness pioneer” guiding an online gathering of “mindful women leaders.”<ref name="MindfulWomen">{{cite web |title=Mindful Women Meditate Together |url=https://www.mindful.org/mindful-women-meditating-together/ |website=Mindful.org |date=17 June 2019 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="mindful.org">{{cite web |title=Mirabai Bush, Advisory Board Member |url=https://www.mindful.org/mirabai-bush-advisory-board-member/ |website=Mindful.org |date=23 January 2013 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> Articles and profiles in ''Mindful'' and ''Tricycle'' often situate her work within broader cultural shifts around meditation and mindfulness and use her projects as examples in discussions of the promises and limits of contemplative practices in institutions.<ref name="MindfulAuthor" /><ref name="TricycleWWM" /><ref name="CorporateMindfulnessCh" />
==Publications==
===Books=== * ''Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service'' (with Ram Dass, 1995). A guide to integrating spiritual practice with social and political service, drawing on Ram Dass's teaching and Bush's experience with the Seva Foundation and other forms of engaged spirituality.<ref name="Dass 1995"/><ref name="books.google.com"/><ref>{{cite web |last=Salzberg |first=Sharon |title=Compassion in Action: Setting out on the Path of Service (review) |url=https://inquiringmind.com/article/0802_19_rvw-salzberg/ |website=Inquiring Mind |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * ''Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live'' (editor, 2011). An anthology in which religious teachers and secular leaders from fields such as law, business, health, and education reflect on the growth and application of contemplative practices in contemporary American life.<ref>{{cite web |title=Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live |url=https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/contemplation-nation-how-ancient-practices-are-changing-the-way-we-live/ |website=Garrison Institute |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Contemplation Nation: How Ancient Practices Are Changing the Way We Live |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Contemplation_Nation.html?id=jqu-ZwEACAAJ |website=Google Books |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * ''Working with Mindfulness'' (audio program and related print materials, c. 2012). A workplace-focused series of guided mindfulness exercises and commentary developed and narrated by Bush, aimed at reducing stress and supporting creative problem-solving and interpersonal awareness in organizational settings.<ref>{{cite web |title=Working with Mindfulness |url=https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/working-with-mindfulness/137463 |website=Audiobooks.com |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Working with Mindfulness |url=https://www.amazon.com/Working-Mindfulness-Mirabai-Bush-2012-05-04/dp/B01FKTA1R2 |website=Amazon |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning'' (with Daniel P. Barbezat, 2013). A handbook on contemplative pedagogy in colleges and universities, presenting theoretical background and case studies of classroom practices such as mindfulness, contemplative reading and writing, yoga, and deep listening across multiple disciplines.<ref name="CPHEbook"/><ref name="CMindBook"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Contemplative Practices in Higher Education |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Contemplative_Practices_in_Higher_Educat.html?id=WU_jAQAAQBAJ |website=Google Books |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=A Classic: Contemplative Practices in Higher Education |url=https://teaching.virginia.edu/collections/an-introduction-to-contemplative-pedagogy/470 |website=UVA Center for Teaching Excellence |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Hopkins |first=Erin A. |title=Book Review: Contemplative practices in higher education: Powerful methods to transform teaching and learning (by D. Barbezat and M. Bush) |journal=Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice |year=2023 |volume=20 |issue=1 |doi=10.53761/1.20.01.18 |url=https://open-publishing.org/journals/index.php/jutlp/article/view/628 |access-date=14 November 2025|doi-access=free }}</ref> * ''Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying'' (with Ram Dass, 2018). A book based on extended conversations between Bush and Ram Dass about death, dying, and spiritual friendship, framed as guidance on accompanying others and oneself through the end-of-life process.<ref>{{cite web |title=Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying |url=https://www.soundstrue.com/products/walking-each-other-home |website=Sounds True |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying |url=https://www.ramdass.org/walking-each-other-home/ |website=RamDass.org |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref name="publishersweekly.com"/> * ''Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love'' (2025). A memoir and reflection on Bush's journey from Catholic upbringing through her time in India with Neem Karoli Baba and subsequent work bringing contemplative practice into social activism and institutional life; published as a trade book in 2025.<ref name="AlmostHome"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love |url=https://www.amazon.com.br/Almost-Home-Dharma-Social-English-ebook/dp/B0G1KCWR1X |website=Amazon Brazil |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Selected chapters and articles=== * “Mindfulness in Higher Education” (2011), a peer-reviewed article in ''Contemporary Buddhism'' that surveys the introduction of mindfulness practices into university courses across a range of disciplines and institutional types.<ref name="MIHEjournal"/><ref name="MIHEpdf"/><ref name="MIHEMandala"/> * Contribution to “Right Speech” (Spring 1999), a symposium in ''Tricycle: The Buddhist Review'' presenting classic and contemporary perspectives on right speech as part of the Noble Eightfold Path.<ref>{{cite web |title=Right Speech |url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/right-speech/ |website=Tricycle: The Buddhist Review |date=Spring 1999 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * “What’s It Like to Take Google’s Mindfulness Training?” (2014), a Mindful.org article in which Bush, as co-developer of Search Inside Yourself, describes the structure and atmosphere of the program for Google employees.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=What's It Like to Take Google's Mindfulness Training? |url=https://www.mindful.org/whats-it-like-to-take-googles-mindfulness-training/ |website=Mindful.org |date=30 July 2014 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * “Why Listening is the Most Radical Act” (2019), an essay on listening, meditation, and compassionate action, published by Mindful.org and subsequently reprinted or adapted on other platforms such as Grateful.org.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=Why Listening is the Most Radical Act |url=https://www.mindful.org/why-listening-is-the-most-radical-act/ |website=Mindful.org |date=29 July 2019 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Why Listening is the Most Radical Act |url=https://grateful.org/resource/why-listening-is-the-most-radical-act/ |website=Grateful.org |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * “The heart is where we experience connection” (2020), an interview-style piece in ''Heartfulness'' magazine in which Bush reflects on connection, guidance, and contemplative practice over five decades of work.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=The heart is where we experience connection |url=https://heartfulness.org/magazine/the-heart-is-where-we-experience-connection |website=Heartfulness Magazine |date=29 June 2020 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref> * “Teaching Meditation Techniques to Organizations” (2013), a ''New York Times'' opinion piece describing Bush's work bringing contemplative practices into corporations and other secular institutions.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bush |first=Mirabai |title=Teaching Meditation Techniques to Organizations |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/meditation-for-real.html |work=The New York Times |date=6 January 2013 |access-date=14 November 2025}}</ref>
===Editorial and advisory roles=== Bush has held a number of editorial and advisory positions connected with contemplative practice and media. Mindful magazine lists her as an advisory board member and notes her role in designing contemplative trainings across sectors.<ref name="mindful.org"/> A biographical note for Kripalu/Union states that she has served as chairperson of the Love Serve Remember Foundation and as an advisor or board member to organizations including Mindful, ''Lion’s Roar'', the Omega Institute, the Seva Foundation, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, Military Fitness Institute, and the Dalai Lama Fellows.<ref name="Kripalu"/>
==See also== * Search Inside Yourself * Seva Foundation
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Official website|https://mirabaibush.com/}} * [https://onbeing.org/programs/mirabai-bush-contemplation-life-and-work-oct2018/ Mirabai Bush — "Contemplation, Life, and Work"] at ''On Being'' * [https://contemplativemind.org/book ''Contemplative Practices in Higher Education''] at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society * [https://www.mindful.org/author/mirabai-bush/ Mirabai Bush] at ''Mindful.org'' * [https://www.leadersmag.com/issues/2022.3_jul/Purpose/LEADERS_Mirabai_Bush_Center_for_Contemplative_Mind_in_Society.html "Mindfulness: An Interview with Mirabai Bush"] at ''LEADERS'' magazine * [https://www.awakin.org/v2/calls/246/mirabai-bush/bio "Reforming Secular Institutions Through Contemplative Practices"] – Awakin Call bio and interview
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