7. Learning to Live Differently: Education at the Heart of Unfolding the New Economy with Elizabeth McDougal

This conversation with Dr Elizabeth McDougal explores why education is not a supporting player in economic transition, but one of its deepest foundations. Drawing on contemplative pedagogy and Buddhist approaches to learning as whole-person cultivation, Elizabeth reflects on how modern education systems often privilege cognitive performance and measurable outcomes, while sidelining relational, somatic, imaginative, and reflective ways of knowing. The discussion connects learning to the wider patterns of modernity and extraction, and asks what it would take to cultivate the kinds of discernment, metacognition, and capacity to hold complexity that regenerative futures require. The episode offers a grounded invitation to slow down, rethink what counts as knowledge, and recognise that new economies emerge through the ways we learn to live.Dr Elizabeth McDougal is a lecturer in Contemplative Pedagogy and Applied Buddhist Studies at Nan Tien Institute, where learning is approached as whole-person cultivation. Her work focuses on bridging pre-modern Tibetan contemplative culture with contemporary education and social change, and she has spent many years living and learning within Tibetan Buddhist monastic contexts across India and the Tibetan plateau. Elizabeth’s research explores how cultural change reshapes ways of knowing, and how pedagogies that integrate relational, somatic, intellectual, and imaginative intelligences can strengthen critical discernment and the capacity to navigate complexity. She also serves as a translator and community coordinator supporting the transmission of Tibetan contemplative traditions in the modern world.Check out the NTI’s Conversations series.Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHERA full companion article for this episode is available here.Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInConnect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInGet involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: [email protected]