Mirabai Bush is founding director and a senior fellow of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, which transforms higher education by supporting and encouraging the use of contemplative/ introspective practices and perspectives to create active learning and research environments that look deeply into experience and meaning for all.
She has developed contemplative programs and taught leaders in higher education, law, environment, journalism, philanthropy, business, and activism for more than 20 years. With Google's Jolly Good Fellow, Chade-Meng Tan, and Zen teacher Norman Fischer, she developed the original curriculum for Search Inside Yourself. She has taught mindfulness in many organizations, including American Express, Hearst Publications, Google, and Fetzer Institute.
Mirabai Bush is also a founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization. She directed the Seva Guatemala Project, which supports sustainable agriculture and integrated community development. Also at the Seva Foundation, she codeveloped Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists on the interconnection of spirit and action. She also has a special interest in the uncovering and recovery of women’s spiritual wisdom to inform work for social change.
Bush's spiritual studies include meditation study at the Burmese Vihara in Bodh Gaya, India, with Shri S.N. Goenka and Anagarika Munindra; bhakti yoga with Hindu teacher Neemkaroli Baba; and studies with Tibetan lamas Kalu Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and others. She also did five years of intensive practice in Iyengar yoga and five years of Aikido with Kanai Sensei.
Mirabai Bush is coauthor, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. She is also coauthor, with Daniel P. Barbezat, of Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning. Her innovative business approaches, based on mindfulness practice, have been covered in Newsweek, Fortune, and the Boston Business Journal.