MISSION STATEMENT
To provide effective tools through education, research, and clinical practice that teach self-responsibility, promote healing, and preserve the environment.This includes the knowledge and responsible use of Nature's gifts: Plants, water, air and minerals, and encompasses efforts towards preservation of the environment, as well as awareness of ethical conduct towards oneself and others, and the community at large.

VISION STATEMENT
People seeking alternative therapies are confronted by the rigid structure of modern medicine on the one hand and by a paucity of verifiable information on the other. Research supported by Wellsprings applies the scientific method toward frequently overlooked therapies that acknowledge total human potential and the regenerative capacity of Nature. This research serves as a bridge to a new medical paradigm which better equips, and addresses the needs of, an ailing population and planet.

The WellSprings model ties health directly to the resources that promote wellness - sunshine, hot mineral waters, fresh air, and freshly grown and prepared food and herbs - thus enabling participants to conceptualize and realize wellness more readily. Wellsprings provides healthcare that is economically and ecologically sound and which bring man into harmony with his environment and himself.

Honoring the uniqueness of each individual, WellSprings embraces physical health, not as an endpoint, but as a springboard for discovering the important relationship that exists between body, mind, spirit, and environment.

Honoring Nature as the source of life, Wellsprings offers education on Natural Medicine and personal responsibility towards the goals of health promotion and environmental sustainability.

WellSprings offers an environment where concepts of health and economics can be critically analyzed and where new concepts which are kinder both to mankind and the environment can be explored and implemented. The WellSprings campus offers young and old alike an opportunity to participate in rejuvenating and invigorating programs and the opportunity to develop sustainable, healthy lifestyle practices.

VALUE STATEMENT
WellSprings values Nature as the source of health, vitality and life.

Honoring Nature as the source of health and wellbeing, WellSprings values environmental sustainability as an effective means for achieving a sound and affordable health care delivery system.

Promoting a sound and affordable health care delivery system, WellSprings values Natural Medicine as a means for promoting both human and environmental health.

Promoting human and environmental health, WellSprings values man as a synthesis of mind, body, spirit, and environment.

Honoring the uniqueness of each individual, WellSprings values Integrative Medicine - a synthesis of traditional, conventional, and alternative healing modalities - as a means of achieving Optimal Health.

Promoting Optimal Health, WellSprings values the broadness and scope of healing modalities that can be applied to unleash Total Human Potential.

Honoring Total Human Potential and the role each individual plays in affecting change, WellSprings strives to cultivate a sense of personal importance, personal responsibility, and respect for others.

Purpose, Goals, and Directives

Introduction
Despite growing public concern, current economic and health strategies are narrow in scope and fail to address the important relationship between human health and the environment. Economic growth has been subsidized by the environment to a critical point where both environmental and human health are suffering. Education is critically needed if this devastating trend of planetary destruction and human suffering is to turn around. Schools must be established which demonstrate the dynamic and delicate balance between man and environment and curriculums developed which equip participants with the tools necessary for restoring this balance.

Health Research Institute
Health Research Institute is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt educational trust that promotes physical, emotional, environmental, and spiritual health. HRI combines conventional and complementary approaches to health care with a philosophy that human well-being is dependent upon a healthy environment. Through research into the use of nutritional and botanical medicines and the application of a wide range of therapeutic modalities, HRI strives to educate and benefit both local and regional communities on a non-discriminatory basis. Objectives of the Institute include:

1. To provide knowledge and skills that will enable individuals to assume responsibility for personal and planetary health.

2. To provide accurate information that will facilitate proper decision-making regarding the long and short-term status of our biological and social environments.

3. To provide facilities where participants can experience, in didactic and experiential fashions, techniques for personal growth and development and, equally, where participants can acquire and implement fundamental methodologies that promote environmental sustainability.

4. To provide models of health that are economically and ecologically sound and which bring man into harmony with his environment and himself.

5. To provide an environment where traditional concepts of health and economics can be critically analyzed and where new concepts which are kinder both to mankind and the environment can be explored and implemented.

6. To provide facilities where participants can learn to respect Nature as the source of human health and economic stability.

In 1987 the Institute established a multidisciplinary center for the healing arts at the Jackson House in Ashland, Oregon. Eight years later the Institute moved onto a neighboring 29 acre warm springs development known as Jackson Hot Springs. Since 1995 the Health Research Institutes has been executing its goals and directives at the hot springs under the assumed business name WellSprings. The Wellsprings campus is being designed as a botanical park and integrated healing community with a primary focus on human and environmental health education and restoration.

WELLSPRINGS ETHICS

From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
Main Entry: eth·ic
Pronunciation: 'e-thik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ethik, from Middle French ethique, from Latin ethice, from Greek EthikE, from Ethikos
1 plural but singular or plural in construction : the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation
2 a : a set of moral principles or values b : a theory or system of moral values <the present-day materialistic ethic> c plural but singular or plural in construction : the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group <professional ethics> d : a guiding philosophy"

In our daily lives, each of us governs our actions to a greater or lesser extent according to an ethical code. This ethical code differentiates "right" behavior from "wrong behavior", "acceptable" thoughts and actions from "unacceptable" thoughts and actions.

FROM THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH
Hippocrates prescription for ethical behavior applies to a great variety of situations:

"Make a habit of two things -- to help, or at least to do no harm."

Actual Quotation:
"I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."

Adapted Quotation for WS:
"I will govern my behavior for the good of the WellSprings Community and the WellSprings Mission according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."

The Noble Eightfold Path

1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech,
4. Right Action,
5. Right Livelihood,
6. Right Effort,
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
Right Intention
"And what, sirs, is right intention? Intention toward renunciation, intention toward non-harmfulness, intention toward non-injury: this, sirs, is called right intention." (From the First Sermon of the Buddha at Benares)
Right Intention refers to the kind of mental energy that controls our actions.
One could describe Right Intention as a conscious commitment towards the well being of others as well as of oneself, to wishing others well.
This requires a mindful awareness and resistance to feelings of anger and hatred when they arise, and the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

Right Speech
"And what, sirs, is right speech? Avoiding lying speech, slanderous speech, harsh speech, and gossip: this, sirs, is called right speech." (From the First Sermon of the Buddha at Benares)
Right Speech constitutes the first active principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. The importance of speech in the context of ethics seems obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows:
To abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully,
To abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others,
To abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and
To abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth.
Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

Right Action
"And what, sirs, is right action? Avoiding harming living beings, taking what is not given, and sexual misconduct: this, sirs, is called right action." (From the First Sermon of the Buddha at Benares)
Right Action refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind.
According to Buddhist teachings, Right Action means
To abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently,
To abstain from taking what belongs to others, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and
To abstain from sexual misconduct.
Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to act honestly, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others.

Matthew - Chapter 7: 1-5
(KGV, Slightly adapted.)

Judge not, that ye be not judged

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy neighbor's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy neighbor, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [lies] in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy neighbor's eye.

The Power of Rumor

A Proud, but Vanishing American Tradition:
"Innocent Until Proven Guilty"

A quote from Mark Hertzberg:
"They say that in England you are innocent until proven guilty; in France you are guilty until proven innocent; and in America you are innocent until the next edition of the newspaper flies off the presses or the evening news comes on. "
Under which principle should the WellSprings Community Operate? "Guilty until Proven Innocent" or "Innocent Until Proven Guilty"?

"Make a habit of two things -- to help, or at least to do no harm."
Adapted Quotation:
"I will govern my behavior for the good of the WellSprings Community and the WellSprings Mission according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone."