Tue, Mar 24 2026, 6 - 8pm (For UVA students)
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! Theme: “Nature and the Built Environment.” The Contemplative Sciences Center's Student Art Showcase invites UVA students to explore the relationship between the natural world and human-made design. How do architecture, landscapes, and everyday structures coexist with, or stand apart from, nature? Where do we find beauty, tension, or harmony in this intersection? Artists are encouraged to reflect on how environments, both organic and constructed, shape our experiences, identities, and ways of seeing the world. Artists are encouraged to interpret this theme in their own way.
Tue, Mar 24 2026
to
Fri, Mar 27 2026
10:00am-7:00pm
Open to AllWhether you'd like to learn American Mahjong or you already love the game and want to sharpen your skills, join us for a variety of curated sessions March 24-27, 2026. (National Mah Jongg League Rules.) Sessions will be led by a certified teacher. All levels encouraged to participate. Free and open to all.
Upcoming
Events
Tuesdays
10 - 10:30am
Open to All
Starting March 10, 2026.
Mon, Jun 22 2026 to
Sat, Jun 27 2026
9am - 3pm
Requires Registration
Mon, Aug 3 2026 to
Fri, Aug 7 2026
9am - 4pm
Ages 11-15
Requires Registration
Mondays to Thursdays
6 - 9am
Open to All
Mondays to Fridays
11:30 - 11:50am
Open to All
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
5:30 - 6:45pm
Open to All
Fridays
6:30 - 8am
Open to All
Fridays
8 - 9am
Open to All
Fridays
1 - 4:30pm
Open to All
Mondays
12:45 - 2pm
Open to All
-
Open to All
Tue, Mar 24 2026
to
Fri, Mar 27 2026
10:00am-7:00pm
Open to All
Special Events
to — Special Event
CARELab™ is a community-based six-day Leadership/AI accelerator. Geared toward college students as well as motivated juniors and seniors in high school, the program equips emerging leaders with the skills, mindset, and ethical foundation to make a difference in their community. Through human-design thinking, mindfulness practice, and AI methodologies, student teams develop insights to address community challenges provided by Mayor Juandiego Wade. Requires Registration.
to — Special Event
Elements of Peace is a Contemplative Sciences Center community partnership program.
The Elements of Peace Summer Program offers youth (ages 11-15) a fun, screen-free experience for rest, reflection, and connection before the next school year begins. Rooted in contemplative and creative practices, we invite participants to slow down, reflect, and engage in authentic community-building and elemental immersion practices with earth, water, fire, wind, and space.
Ages 11-15.
— Special Event
This discussion treats ‘nature’ as both a lived reference point for contemplative practice and a charged, historically overdetermined term—less a stable object “out there” than a scene of negotiation where bodies, concepts, and the more-than-human co-compose what counts as real. Holding this tension, the workshop explores practices of contemplative naturalness in the early Tibetan Dzogchen and Chinese Chan traditions—noncoercive awareness and effortless cultivation alongside the modern need to meet climate grief, guilt, anxiety, and responsibility as weather moving through the nervous system and the elements. Inspired by contemporary eco-poetics and decolonial critique, we follow the genealogies of physis, natura, rang byung, and ziran while foregrounding the claim that the modern distinction between nature and culture sits at the heart of colonial modernity and its enduring ethical, ecological, and technological consequences. Open to All.
to — Special Event
Whether you'd like to learn American Mahjong or you already love the game and want to sharpen your skills, join us for a variety of curated sessions March 24-27, 2026. (National Mah Jongg League Rules.) Sessions will be led by a certified teacher. All levels encouraged to participate. Free and open to all. Open to All.
— Student-Led
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! Theme: “Nature and the Built Environment.” The Contemplative Sciences Center's Student Art Showcase invites UVA students to explore the relationship between the natural world and human-made design. How do architecture, landscapes, and everyday structures coexist with, or stand apart from, nature? Where do we find beauty, tension, or harmony in this intersection? Artists are encouraged to reflect on how environments, both organic and constructed, shape our experiences, identities, and ways of seeing the world. Artists are encouraged to interpret this theme in their own way. For UVA students.
to — Special Event
For UVA Graduate Students and Faculty
UVA Community.
to — Special Event
UVA Rec and the Contemplative Sciences Center are partnering to offer students a retreat under the sun and stars at the Big Meadows campground in Shenandoah National Park. Come experience the awe of the morning and night skies. The retreat includes star-watching, a hike, and morning yoga practice. Registration Full.
— Special Event
The University of Virginia School of Nursing; School of Education and Human Development; and Contemplative Sciences Center are co-hosting a half day pan-University Compassionate Care Research Symposium related to compassion research and scholarship across Grounds. This symposium will explore compassion related research with an interdisciplinary focus and is intended to spark connections and collaborations. Requires Registration.
Drop-in Events
Mondays to Thursdays
6 - 9am
Mysore-style classes provide students the opportunity to expand their experience and knowledge through individualized instruction and allow for traditional ashtanga yoga sequences to be modified to suit individual needs. This is a great class for beginners and those looking to deepen their relationship with yoga and establish a regular, personalized, and sustainable practice. Open to All.
Fridays
6:30 - 8am
In this class, the instructor leads participants through the entire ashtanga primary series, pairing movement with in- and out-breath to the traditional Sanskrit-counted vinyasa. The aim is for participants to flow through the poses and breathe together in a moving group meditation. As time does not allow for the instructor to explain the poses or the flow between them, this class is most suitable for those with experience practicing Ashtanga yoga. Open to All.
Fridays
8 - 9am
We will discuss yoga-related topics from philosophical ideas to questions about poses over a cup of chai. All are welcome. No physical practice required. Led by John Bultman. Open to All.
Mondays to Fridays
11:30 - 11:50am
Learn about and practice mindfulness and meditation in these free, drop-in sessions for all of the UVA and Charlottesville community. Open and accessible to beginners and advanced practitioners alike, these guided sessions are short and provide time for questions and reflection. Open to All.
Fridays
1 - 4:30pm
Join us Friday afternoons for these contemplative activities specially curated to help you reconnect with your body and feel refreshed for the weekend. (Sound Bath, Qi Gong, Yoga, and T'ai Chi) Drop in to any class. All are open to the public. Open to All.
Tuesdays to Thursdays
5:30 - 6:45pm
The Active Series was developed by Sharath Jois and derived from a traditional Ashtanga Yoga practice. It retains all the benefits of the traditional method keeping the linking of movement with breath but includes new more accessible postures for a wider range of students in a modern age and setting. Students from all levels will be able to participate in a non-intimidating inclusive setting. Classes are open to all.
This class is also offered on Monday from 12:45 pm - 2:00 pm.
Instructor: John Bultman
Open to All.
Mondays
12:45 - 2pm
The Active Series was developed by Sharath Jois and derived from a traditional Ashtanga Yoga practice. It retains all the benefits of the traditional method keeping the linking of movement with breath but includes new more accessible postures for a wider range of students in a modern age and setting. Students from all levels will be able to participate in a non-intimidating inclusive setting. Classes are open to all.
This class is also offered Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 5:30-6:45 pm.
Instructor: John Bultman
Open to All.
Tuesdays
10 - 10:30am
As the days grow longer and the earth begins to soften, we’re invited to do the same. Emerging Light is a four-week meditation series designed to gently guide you from winter’s stillness into spring’s quiet awakening. Together we’ll clear what feels heavy, reconnect with breath and energy, tend to what is beginning to grow, and step forward with renewed clarity and intention. Open to All.
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Artificial intelligence is being celebrated by techno-optimists as setting humanity on a glidepath into utopian futures of frictionless choice. Techno-pessimists warn that AI poses an existential threat to humanity and may curtail our abilities to choose our own futures. Distinguishing between AI tools and intelligent technology, this talk by Peter Hershock (University of Hawaii) will take a coevolutionary, "middle path" approach to understanding and responding to developments along the agential frontiers of human-AI interdependence to realize more humane futures for all. Open to All.