mark moore, earthling
Living and working internationally since 1994, Mark has accumulated three decades of experience as a global citizen whose travels span the nonprofit sector, the arts, and the fertile field of experiential education.
Vocationally, Mark is an eco-social entrepreneur, holistic educator, writer-editor, composer-producer, designer, natural builder, retreat facilitator, consultant, and catalyst. A common thread uniting these diverse activities is putting compassion into action through joyful service.
The focus of his educational and entrepreneurial work is developing contemplative service-learning programs integrating sustainability with inner development, empowering warm-hearted agents of human and planetary flourishing.
Mark founded the Earthville Network in 2000, cofounded Dharmalaya Institute for Compassionate Living in 2008, and cofounded Earthville Institute in 2023. He continues to serve as Director for all three, and on the faculty of the latter two. In 2023 he cofounded Studio Lungta, an interdisciplinary design lab and consulting firm, the evolution of the creative services business he had started in 1999.
One of Mark’s greatest passions — both in his own projects and in his work to support others’ initiatives — is the art and craft of compassionate cultural container-building: the design, establishment and refinement of purpose-driven communities, organizations, and environments that embody the values and qualities they seek to promote. He draws on both traditional wisdom and fresh creativity to leverage the power of insightfully sculpted organizational cultures to bring out the best in the humans that comprise them and manifest more impactful and harmonious results.
Mark has served on several boards and advisory committees for educational, charitable, philanthropic, and artistic organizations. He also serves as a meditation retreat facilitator and mentor for the Tergar Learning Community, and has volunteered for myriad educational and charitable projects worldwide since 1987.
Mark earned a dual BA in Political Studies (focus on developing nations and international relations) and Creative Production from Pitzer College in Claremont, California, in 1993. He continues his studies of nature, cultures, languages, and altruistic collaboration worldwide, having traveled in over 75 countries and counting, and looks forward to planting roots at Windhorse Village.
Highlights of Mark’s story
In 1995, a green and idealistic 25 year-old had a genuinely, non-hyperbolically life-changing private meeting with the Dalai Lama. Mark shared an inspiration that had arisen with some force while he was studying in Nepal in 1992, and asked for His Holiness’s advice. The vision was far-fetched: a global network of altruistic educational and charitable projects integrating personal development with practical solutions for sustainable and compassionate living. Mark confessed to the Dalai Lama that he had little relevant work experience, even less money, and not a clue how to begin, yet he couldn’t shake the inspiration.
To Mark’s eternal delight (and, frankly, more than a little spiritually star-struck shock), His Holiness was enthusiastically supportive, offering penetratingly insightful reflections, illuminating a clear path forward, and offering help. In a flash, the impossible seemed inevitable. Mark and his friends then launched their first humble project in 1997, a hub for community activity in the Dalai Lama’s exile hometown of Dharamshala, India, which served as the first stepping stone toward the realization of this dream.
In 2000, Mark took the next step, founding the Earthville Network, a US-based nonprofit organization cultivating a global community of local initiatives for a more compassionate and sustainable world. Earthville provides experiential education for responsible global citizenship through service learning, cross-cultural collaboration, and the arts, and incubates charitable projects worldwide.
In 2008, with Earthville-affiliated projects underway in six countries, Mark returned to India to cofound the Dharmalaya Institute for Compassionate Living, an educational and charitable organization in the Himalayas devoted to human and planetary flourishing. Dharmalaya Institute’s programmes empower insightful and effective changemakers, with a practical focus on solutions for sustainable living. Mark serves as Director of Dharmalaya Institute and has been teaching courses and leading retreats and workshops there since 2011, with topics including eco-architecture, organic agriculture, contemplative practice, and personal and professional development.
In 2021, Mark planted the next seed of the long-held dream by initiating two related projects in the US: Windhorse Village, an intentional community in Colorado envisioned as providing a supportive environment for sustainable, contemplative and compassionate living; and a nonprofit educational center based there, the Earthville Institute, which brings the holistic, contemplative programmes for human and planetary flourishing developed at Dharmalaya Institute back to the US, full circle.