STEPHEN BATCHELOR is a writer, translator, teacher and artist. Born in 1953, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk at the age of twenty-one and spent ten years training in the Tibetan Geluk and Korean Sŏn orders. Since disrobing he has been engaged in a critical exploration of Buddhism’s role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.

From 1990 to 2019, he served as a guiding teacher at Gaia House meditation centre in Devon, England. Since 1992 he has been a contributing editor for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. From 1985 to 1996, he was the Buddhist chaplain at HMP Channings Wood in Devon. In 2015 he co-founded Bodhi College, a European educational project dedicated to the understanding and application of early Buddhism.

He is the author of the bestselling Buddhism without Beliefs (1997). Other books include Living with the Devil (2004), Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (2010), After Buddhism (2015), Secular Buddhism (2017), and The Art of Solitude (2020). His next book Buddha, Socrates and Us: Ethical Living in Uncertain Times will be published by Yale University Press in 2025. His books have been translated into ten languages. He lives in south-west France with his wife Martine.

Mindfulness-Based Ethical Living: Introduction and Overview

Mindfulness-Based Ethical Living (MBEL) is a project-in-development that aims to create a system of practical philosophy, contemplation and ethics for anyone who seeks to care for their own and others’ lives. In particular, it addresses those who seek a philosophical and ethical context for their practice of mindfulness meditation. Founded on a secular interpretation of early Buddhism, MBEL focuses on responding to the present and future needs of this world and age (saeculum).

Mindfulness-Based Ethical Living: A Practical Workshop

This workshop will explore the underlying principles and practices of Mindfulness-Based Ethical Living (MBEL), framed within the context of a “Cartography of Care.” Through a four-fold, phenomenological analysis of care, we will consider how mindfulness cannot be reduced to a single activity but, depending on context, can be seen as existential, therapeutic, contemplative or ethical in nature. Our time will be divided between talks, meditation, and discussion.