As part of the ongoing AMA journey, guest researcher and community member Shyam Wuppuluri—who joined RIFS through the 2023 and 2024 AMA community of practice cycles—hosted a special two-day mindfulness retreat in Potsdam.

Titled “Finding Joy in Difficult Times,” the retreat invited participants to gently turn inward, exploring the deeper significance of inner states like joy, not as self-help concepts, but as powerful foundations for how we live, relate, and even generate knowledge. Set in a quiet and supportive space, participants could engage in silence, reflection, and nourishing practices—free from pressure or performance.

Together, we explored how to meet the complexity of our times with tenderness, how to be with despair without suppressing it, and how to truly embody what we know. The retreat opened a rare and needed space for being—rather than doing—at the heart of a research institute.