What We Fund

Earth Awareness Mindfulness and Meditation

Those of us living in this time in history face many challenges. The BESS Family Foundation is focused on addressing the challenges associated with the ecological crisis, climate change, and environmental justice. We are committed to building an anti-racist community of deep practitioners who use mainstream mindfulness, Buddhist meditation practices, and Indigenous earth-based practices to play a positive role in helping individuals cope with challenges and work toward solutions that benefit all beings.

We support organizations who work with experienced practitioners to explore questions like these:

  • Can mindfulness-based practices include a wake-up call toward relating to our situation skillfully and actively?
  • How can earth awareness help to foster positive tipping points?
  • How can mindfulness and meditation practices help people to cope with the climate catastrophe without succumbing to blame, anger and hopelessness?

Eco-Advisory Groups

We build community and learn cooperatively by bringing together groups of experienced practitioners who are addressing the challenges associated with the ecological crisis.  We have convened two groups of advisors.  

2022-2023

Our first eco-advisory group was composed of 14 senior mindfulness and meditation practitioners who were invited to participate.  Over the course of one year, the advisory discussed ways that Buddhist and mainstream mindfulness practices can most effectively help people meet the intersecting political, social and environmental crises in the world today.

Earth Based Mindfulness and Meditation: An Exploration of Eco Dharma Practices reflects a synthesis of what the 2022-2023 Eco-Advisory group shared with the BESS Family Foundation over the course of the year together. 

Tricycle Magazine published this article describing the Eco-Advisory’s work.

2023-2024

A second eco-advisory group, composed of 24 experienced mindfulness and meditation practitioners, is meeting in 2023-2024.  All are leading efforts at the intersection of mindfulness and meditation and the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.  To learn more about the group and their work, please see this description of projects each advisory member proposed to work on during the advisory year.  

Earth Awareness Community Retreats

The BESS Family Foundation is sponsoring a series of Earth Awareness Community Retreats over the next three years (2025 – 2027). Our primary goal is to foster community among teachers and other practitioners whose work and interests are focused on the intersection of mindfulness/meditation and climate change. One retreat each year will be exclusively for folks actively teaching mindfulness or meditation. 

Retreats will be held at four geographically dispersed retreat centers:  Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center, Seven Oaks Retreat Center, and Big Springs Retreat.

Each retreat will have its own theme and format designed to build and support our earth awareness community. The retreats will provide a space for rejuvenation through practice, ample time for discussion, and opportunities for collaboration.  To attend, participants will apply to the retreat center for each specific retreat.  Once accepted, attendance at the retreat will be free of charge.

Annual teacher-only retreats are for trained mindfulness/meditation teachers who are actively teaching. All other retreats are for mindfulness/meditation practitioners already involved in earth awareness work or who would like to become more involved.

MBSR and Earth Awareness Project

In 2024, we joined forces with experienced MBSR teacher-trainer Margaret Fletcher to explore how Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teachers might address their own and their students’ concerns about climate change and biodiversity loss within the MBSR curriculum.  If you are an MBSR teacher who is interested in adding earth awareness to your teaching, read about the MBSR and Eco Awareness Teacher Development Workshop to see if it could be of benefit to you.

For tips on ways to bring earth awareness into any mindfulness curriculum, including MBSR, read our short Earth Awareness Practice Tips for Mindfulness Teachers

Mindful Funders

We intermittently convene a group of Mindful Funders.  

List of Grantees

This is a list of current and past grantees.