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Mind & Life Summer Research Institute: Day 6 - Final Day

Saturday’s Mind & Life Summer Research Institute continued with presentations from top-tier scientists and contemplative scholars. The First Morning Session featured Adele Diamond, Ph.D., Possible Ways to Prevent or Remediate Executive Function Deficits during Childhood, Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood.

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Adele explained that “executive functions” refer to the cognitive control abilities dependent on prefrontal cortex such as selective attention and self-regulation. These abilities are amenable to training and practice throughout life. They are also particularly susceptible to disruption by stress, lack of sleep, loneliness, or lack of exercise. Conversely, what nourishes the human spirit, it turns out, is also best for the exercise of executive functions.

“You can teach anything at any age,” Diamond said, “if you teach it in an age-appropriate way. The activities you make people do may be less important than how you are with those people.”

The Second Morning Session, Adolescent Neurodevelopment and its Relationship to Behavioral Risk and Vulnerability, by Monique Ernst, M.D., Ph.D., that investigated adolescent emotions and their impact on behavior.

“Adolescence is a time of passion and idealism,” said Ernst, “and yet, the skills to harness these strong feelings are still developing. Understanding how brain development sets the stage for this cognitive-emotional-social landscape of adolescence will provide clarity on how to shape the environment and formulate strategies to keep youths safe. The hope is to turn these neurobiological determinants into opportunities rather than vulnerabilities.”

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“I think neuroscience can be very helpful and hasn’t realized its potential yet,” Ernst said of the neuroscience as a field. “We are beginning to understand what we are finding with fMRI, beginning to understand how the brain works, and now we can focus on a new era when we can really ask the right questions.”

The First Afternoon Session featured Torkel Klingberg, Ph.D., who discussed Computerized Training of Working Memory in Children with ADHD.

“Working memory is the ability to keep information in mind for a brief period of time, typically a few seconds,” Klingberg said. “In daily life, we use working memory to remember plans or instructions of what to do next, and for controlling attention. Deficits in working memory is a key deficit in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).”

Klingberg and collaborators have developed and tested a computerized method for training working memory. Several studies have shown that working memory can be improved by training, and that this decreases the symptoms of inattention. Training of working memory increases brain activity in frontal and parietal regions, and affects the number of dopamine receptors in brain. This indicates training-induced plasticity in the neural systems underlying working memory. Training of working memory might thus be a non-pharmacological way to address the key cognitive function of ADHD and thereby significantly and sustainably reduce the inattentive symptoms of this disorder.

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A Closing Panel of moderators included comments, thoughts and observations about the week.

Rob Roeser, Ph. D., expressed his deep gratitude and appreciation to Adam Engle and Richie Davidson for shepherding the work, and also said he had been thinking about what it meant to be a good teacher. “The ability to have humor and keep it light are important aspects,” he said, “along with the capacity for deep listening, love and humility; patience, precision and the ability to communicate sublime ideas to people from a myriad of backgrounds.”

Mark Greenberg, Ph.D., said that the most interesting points to him were the discussions about calmness, clarity and kindness and the value of neuroscience in understanding these concepts. “Investigation is still relatively primitive, and we could move forward more on the observational side. There are almost no studies on how contemplative practices, broadly conceived, affect how we interact with each other, which would be very interesting.”

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Sharon Salzberg said, “It has been a tremendous week; it has been fantastic being together. I wanted to give a shout out to Jon Kabat-Zinn, not only to his personal genius but also to him as a translator of these practices. A gathering like this is a tribute to that. I also want to acknowledge Will [Kabat-Zinn] because so much of this work is, as Will said, like planting a seed, and we don’t know how or when it will grow.”

Philip Zelazo, Ph.D. said he was very struck by the prospects for understanding our human nature. “We are in an exciting time,” he said. “There is a lot of emphasis I see here on taking a holistic view of human beings, integrating the cognitive, emotional and neural level, and it seems to me that the work we do here has the potential of bringing that holistic view into the research. We have the potential to do good work that helps people not only develop good interventions but also to use these interventions to investigate the patterns and causality in the way that we manifest ourselves.”

Linda Lantieri, M.A., expressed her gratitude for the Garrison Institute and her “incredible awe at the flow of the week,” she said. “This has been a beautiful expression of lots of different things that have created something that is more than the sum of its parts.”

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“One of things that I have seen this week is the importance of the interconnectedness of the various fields. If we are not connecting with each other and communing with each other, progress will not happen as quickly as it can. And in the act of doing this together, our action is addition to the bank of doing this in the world – these acts are very cumulative and this gives us great hope.

David Vago, Ph.D., said, “What happens here is a little bit of magic. We are all these magic beans in a garden. You may leave Garrison tomorrow and you may take some of this into your own practices, but no matter what, those beans that you all are have been planted in this collected garden. We all know what a flourishing plant looks like, and what we are trying to cultivate between us all are flourishing humans.”

Diego Hangartner, Pharm.D., said, “One of the things that, as an organizer, you feel at the end of a week like this is a sense of gratitude. We are extremely fortunate to be able to interact with each other. Who would have thought 15 years ago that someone from education would be speaking with a neuroscientist and bring in a Geshe from India and a Rinpoche from Nepal to create something that everyone can relate to and associate with?”

Offering a comment, Gesha Dorji Damdul said, “Thank you very much; this is a very rich conference. I consider what is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s vision? One, it is from this conference that we bring about a change in ourselves to learn something. But this is not sufficient according to His Holiness. His vision is to share it; to let it be shared by all others who are not privileged, and his vision is to bring about such an interaction into the mainstream of the education system so that this will go everywhere in the world and so that every child will have an opportunity and bring about a better future. With this we can expect a real world peace.”

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Adam Engle, co-founder and CEO of Mind & Life closed by saying that the Summer Research Institute and the Francisco J. Varela Awardees are the future of Mind & Life and the change agents in the culture. “This is not about scientific research, that is grist for the mill,” he said. “What we are really trying to do is create a revolution for humanity in the world. We have created a societal myth in the U.S. that if you have any dissatisfaction you can change that by manipulating it, especially cognitively and especially by buying something. In the process we have developed modalities where we are not cultivating inner resources and because most live in cities we are not connected to nature. So in effect what we are trying to do here is to cultivate inner resources to become whole human beings, and by understanding the true nature of interdependence and connectedness we can work toward the change we need on the planet.”

“The basis of science is skillful means,” Engle said. “Let’s investigate the whole mind to see how it really works. The people who have been looking at the mind for thousands of years are the contemplatives. They have the understanding and the means but their distribution is limited. The big-picture goal here is that everyone has culturally and age-appropriate tools for metal fitness.”

A final Afternoon Session was given by Geshe Dorji Damdul, who introduced the Lojong practice. In essence, he shared that in order to cultivate true happiness, one must have compassion and empathy, and this comes from practicing certain understandings including no blame and causes and conditions. He suggested to the audience the text, How to See Yourself as You Really Are, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: A Concise Discourse on the Path to Enlightenment, by Kyabje Pabongka as appropriate reading to further explore this subject.

The evening featured another Data Blitz by Varela Awardees:

1. Kevin Bickart, Amygdala Volume and Social Network Size in Humans

2. Jessica Creery, A Psychosocial-Educational Intervention for Alzheimer’s Patients and their Caregivers: Preliminary Findings

3. Tim Gard, Regulation of Emotion and Cognition during Mathematical Problem Solving: the Effects of Yoga in an Indian Sample Research Institute

4. Tamar Mendelson, Feasibility and Preliminary Outcomes of a School-Based Mindfulness Intervention for Urban Youth

5. Carolina Menezes, The Relationship Between Meditation and Psychological Well-Being

6. Natalie Rusk, Engaging Students in Reflection on Emotion Regulation Strategies

7. Valerie Saxton, Assessing the Relationship between Mindfulness and Distress Tolerance

8. R. Gina Silverstein, The Role Of Mindfulness In The Treatment Of Female Sexual Dysfunction

9. Ming-Wen Wang, The Huai-Nang Zen Theory and Practice on the Emotionally Disturbed

10. Roisin O’Donnell, The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction as an Intervention Among Middle-Aged and Older Family Caregivers of Persons with Neurocognitive Disorders

11. Marjorie Woollacott, Impact of Concentrative Meditation Practice on the Ability to Override Attentional Capture

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The evening ended again with meditation and silence.

The following morning, participants gathered for breakfast together and goodbyes. Many, many new and old friendships and collaborations were ignited over the week, and all left in good spirits and inspired by the breadth and depth of both information and community.

See you again next year!

Mind & Life Summer Research Institute: Day 5

The scientific exploration resumed Friday, following a day of silence, including contemplative practices of mediation and walking mediation, along with meditation instruction and contemplative instructions from contemplatives Sharon Salzberg, Will Kabat-Zinn, Geshe Dorji Damdul and Tsoknyi Rinpoche.

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The First Morning Session of Day 5 was Teacher-Student Interactions: The Role of Mindfulness, by Bridget Hamre, Ph.D.. which explored effective and ineffective teaching methods v is a vis a teacher’s role in fostering students’ social, self-regulatory and cognitive development.

Hamre talked about the extreme variability in the kind of experiences that children have in classrooms and how that challenges teachers as well as how teachers should be recognized and respected for their work. “Teacher effectiveness is the buzz word of the day,” she said, “and in some ways only measures how well students are doing, but maybe we should also pay attention to what the teachers are doing that’s working.”

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She said that there are three domains of interaction that are important: emotional support, classroom organization and instructional support and that teachers who received consultation in these areas versus just getting information off of a website had increased sensitivity to their students where as the web-only group had decreased sensitivity over time.

The Second Morning Session was a panel discussion on Teacher Programs including Robert Roeser, Ph.D., Patricia Jennings, Ph.D. and Linda Lantieri, M.A.

Jennings is piloting CARE (Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education) under a development grant from the U.S. Department of Education. “We are looking at the mediating factors that are really important in social and emotional competence in teachers,” Jennings said. “We know these contribute to a healthy classroom climate and that, in turn, is related to improved outcomes in kids.

Jennings described interpersonal mindfulness in the classroom as including listening with full attention, present centered awareness, openness, non-judgement and acceptance, self-reflection, open –heartedness and compassion.

Roeser discussed SMART (Stress Management and Relaxation Techniques in education). “It’s amazing how often reforms try to bypass teachers,” he said, “almost like we make teacher-proof curriculum. But in terms of thinking about what makes a quality teacher, we know that content knowledge – what you are teaching – is important, pedagogical content knowledge – how you teach – is important, and developmental knowledge – knowing the developmental characteristics of the students you are teaching is also important.”

Lantieri discussed her long history in education and shared some poignant and illuminating feedback from teachers and students following 911 in part as evidence that the teacher-student system needs to accommodate the dynamic and unplanned experiences in addition to curriculum. “The thread throughout all my time with children is how to have an expanded version of what we mean as an educated person,” she said. “In particular, the dimension of social and emotional learning is key.”

The First Afternoon Session featured Trish Broderick, Ph.D., Sat Bir Khalsa, Ph.D., Mark Greenberg, Ph.D., Kim Schonert-Reichl, Ph.D., and Will Kabat-Zinn, M.A., and was a panel discussion on Developing and Evaluating Contemplative Practices for Children and Youth.

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Broderick discussed the BREATHE program (Body, Reflections, Emotions, Attention, Take it as it is, Healthy mind habits, Empowerment). “The heart of the curriculum is mindfulness,” Broderick said, “as a way of helping young people experience their life in a different way. Kids routinely say, ‘Everyone tells me to stop stressing out but no one tells me how.’ We think that the mindfulness-based curriculum can offer value for many reasons: dealing with the ups and downs, stress reductions, executive function; there is a real advantage to knowing your emotions as they arise.”

Khalsa clarified what truly is yoga versus the perception of it. “To the media and the public image, yogoa is a physical practice,” he said. “But the original yoga is a practice of meditation, mindfulness and awareness. The practices of deep relaxation and the physical postures are all for enhancing the mediation and mindfulness.”

Khalsa’s research is based on bringing yoga to the school curriculum, where he found improved anger control and resilience as well as a stable level of negative affect with conversely increased in the non-yoga control group. “We are really seeing a preventative effect for these kids,” he said.

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Greenburg conceded that he did not get the result he expected from his yoga study, and that they may have to consider investigating different parameters going forward. “I was naïve about what yoga might do and what our population was like,” he said. “For example, many of the kids are overweight and have asthma, and just the breath itself was an issue. It may be that basic health effects may be as important to measure as some of the mental health effects.”

Schonert-Reichl runs the MindUp program in Vancouver which has a current curriculum for grade and middle school, but which she looks to expand to more grades. “The program was designed in 2005 and includes different research and theories in the areas of neuroscience, social and emotional learning, positive psychology and mindfulness training,” she said. “We started in 2005 with 17 teachers trained and now there are 800 teachers trained. Some of the effects on elementary school students are well-being and prosocial behavior.”

Kabat-Zinn talked about his personal background in meditation and the organic evolution of his program of bringing mindfulness meditation to incarcerated youth, first in New York City and then in California. He pointed out that with this population, tactful approaches must be taken. “In the prisons, we also meditate, but that often comes later,” he said. “The relationship comes first and I have found that all of the qualities we are trying to achieve with mindfulness can be present in everything; it has to do with being intimate with what is really at heart, an authentic form of love that is not the soft love rejected by these men. When that shift happens; if there has been a foundation laid or seeds planted, they kind of know where to go when they are ready.”

In a Special Afternoon Session, Geshe Dorji Damdul initiative a comparative discussion between Buddhist studies and modern scientific studies, particularly physics. After giving an introduction to Buddhism as a primer, he explored the Buddhist relative and relational points of view on perspective vis a vis quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

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“So, is there the moon, when no one looks at it?” he queried. “According to quantum theory, we cannot say yes or no, until it comes into contact with an observer. So from this point of view the existence makes sense only in relation to an observer.”

Delving deeper he outlined the structure His Holiness the Dalai Lama uses to explain the interdependent, relational world called Dependent Origination. The three parts are:

1. Causality (causes and conditions)

2. Parts make up the whole

3. Imputation by the mind

“The existence of anything, including the self, makes sense only through dependence on many factors,” he said. “And out of these factors, the most important factor is the factor of the designating mind.”

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After dinner, Francisco J. Varela Awardees presented a Data Blitz, each with three minutes to introduce their current work and findings followed by poster sessions in the auditorium. The presenters and topics this evening were:

1. Maria Molfino, Meditation and Pranayama Breath Training in High School Students: Effects on Self-Monitoring and Self-regulation

2. Jessica Noggle, A Semester-Long Yoga Intervention Maintains Mental Health of Adolescents in a High School

3. Alison Parker, The Moment Program: Mindfulness-Based, Middle School Academic Achievement Program

4. Janis Kupersmidt, Mindfulness Program for Substance Abuse Prevention for Elementary School Students

5. Geoffrey Soloway, Role of Mindfulness Training in Initial Teacher Education

6. Kathryn Byrnes, Contemplative Pedagogy in Teacher Education

7. Karen Davis, A Longitudinal Mediation Model of the Mechanisms of Change Within a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program

8. Irene McHenry, CORE skills + CORE habits of mind = Effective, Accessible Teaching and Learning

9. Angela Wilson, Standardizing a Yoga Intervention for Research: A Preliminary Study

10. Angeline Lillard, Montessori and Mindfulness

11. Ellen Katz, Attending to Clinical Social Work Practice: Mindful Attention as Holistic Competence

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Mind & Life Summer Research Institute: Day 3

L1040885Day 3 opened with the customary yoga followed by meditation. Today’s First Moring Session featured the talk, The Development of Consciousness in Childhood by Philip Zelazo, Ph.D. The talk addressed the development of reflective control processes in childhood, how this development is influenced by language and culture, and implications of this research in understanding awareness, mindfulness and affective experience.

Reflective reprocessing can lead to the development of ‘executive function’ in children – how information is used versus ‘intelligence’ which is the possession of knowledge itself, Zelazo explained.

“Executive function in childhood is tied to a wide range of social outcomes, including self-understanding and school readiness,” Zelazo said. “It is an important predictor, even beyond I.Q., of school readiness and mathematical aptitude from preschool through high school.”

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The Second Morning Session, Development, Education and Contemplative Practice: Crafting a Research Agenda, by Richard Davidson, Ph.D., provided an overview of the key questions that lie at the intersection of development, education and contemplative practice. Davidson said that while science clearly understands the relationship between early experience and language acquisition, we don’t fully understand that relationship in terms of the development of emotional skills.

“There are certain circuits in the brain that are important for the regulation of emotion and attention that are good targets for contemplative interventions,” Davidson said. “But because many of these circuits develop later in life, we may need to introduce contemplative practices to kids in different ways, offering external cues and prompts to essentially replace the endogenous guidance that is possible with the internal system the only develops in late adolescence.”

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The First Afternoon Session, The Origins of Unfolding of Concern for Others: Offerings from Developmental Science, was presented by Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, Ph.D., who said that concern for others is very closely related to compassion and that it is a capacity we have very early in life.

“The origins of compassion are in the early mother-child relationship,” Zahn-Waxler said. “By 23 months, children are typically engaging in prosocial behavior and empathetic concern.” She suggests that plasticity occurs early, and could be an opportune time to augment prosocial potential.

The Second Afternoon Session, Self-Referential Processes and Representations During Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: Implications for Contemplative Education, by Robert Roeser, Ph. D. and David Vago, Ph.D., focused on the development of modes of self-reference and self-representation during adolescence and emerging adulthood, and how mindfulness practice can prevent mental health and education problems that can occur during this developmental period.

“There is a difference between the perceiving self and the self that perceives, and different situations modulate experiential focus,” Vago said.

“During adolescence, the representational self takes on more coherence and form and increasing levels of consciousness,” said Roeser. “The development that starts around puberty and goes through the 20s is dubbed emerging adulthood, but the development of the self is a lifelong task.”

A special ad hoc Afternoon Session featured Geshe Dorji Damdul, translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama inside and abroad India and Deputy Director of Tibet House, Cultural Center in New Delhi, India. Geshe Dorji Damdul talked briefly about Buddhism, seeking to answer the question, “What is Buddhism?” for the scientific community.

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“2500 years ago Buddha came to solve a problem that existed in everyone,” Geshe Dorji Damdul said. “Ultimately all problems are rooted in misperception of the reality outside of misperception of ourselves. This misperception is like a darkness that can be eliminated through introducing the light – the wisdom – so that misperception is minimized and happiness can be brought forth.”

According to Geshe Dorji Damdul, three levels of knowledge exist in Buddhism:

1. Learning – imitating, hearing, discovering, accepting information without knowing it oneself

2. Reflection – seeing the proof or the source of the knowledge and having one’s own knowing

3. Familiarization or Mediation – having the knowledge become wisdom by becoming so familiar that the effects (actions or responses) from the knowing become spontaneous

He further discussed Buddhist Science, the subtleties of the mind, and the key point of interdependency between all things. “Knowing interdependency with others and being concerned with the outcome of others, that is the key to seeing the truth,” Geshe Dorji Damdul said.

An Evening Session by Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Transformation of Emotion and Self through Contemplative Practice, looked at the role of both Shamatha and Vipassana practice in the transformation of emotion and self at different points in life. Tsoknyi Rinpoche discussed the different types of ego and the different levels of consciousness that one must become aware of and understand in order to have the correct view or perception to effectively meditate.

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“In order to achieve the correct meditation practice, you must have the view, and based on that you cultivate clarity through repetition,” Tsoknyi Rinpoche said. “Clarity is not clarity about something, but the background of the awareness of being aware. Rest in that without going into thoughts; rest in the open background not on the immediate feelings or thoughts.”

He closed the session with a short practice, allowing the audience to experience firsthand parts of the processes he outlined.

The last Evening Session featured three Varela Award presentations:

Teresa Hawkes: Differential Effects of Meditation, Tai Chi and Aerobic Walking Training on Attentional Abilities

Tucker Peck: The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Sleep Electrophysiology and Duration

Brandon King & Anthony Zanesco (co-PIs): Initial Findings on Training-Related Changes in Cognitive Control in an Intensive Vipassana Retreat

The evening closed, as customary, with a silent mediation as participants prepared for a full day of silence and contemplative practices on Day 4.

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Mind & Life Summer Research Institute: Day 2

Day 2 started off with 6 a.m. yoga led by Catherine Shaddix, based on Ashtanga yoga, which focuses on breathing, by silent meditation at 7 a.m. The silence from the night before was held through morning breakfast, broken by the morning sessions.

The First Morning Session, Contemplative Practices, Education and Human Development, given by Mark Greenberg, Ph.D. and Richard Davidson, Ph. D considered the hypothesis that the use of contemplative practices in education settings can promote resilience, decrease at-risk behavior and cultivate positive qualities. They suggested that while these practices are gaining in popularity for use in educational settings, more research from a developmental perspective is needed to ground the practices in scientific findings.

Greenberg described how adding contemplative practices to Social and Emotional Learning could add the values of practice and recognizing that we are not our thoughts for children and students, while adding the value of reducing stress for teachers, and that the best way to get these practices into schools and curriculum is to use normative language such as ‘stress-reducing’ and ‘academic performance.’

The Second Morning Session, Professions of Human Improvement, was led by Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Arthur Zajonc, Ph.D., and moderated by Sharon Salzberg. The discussion looked at the unique challenges associated with teaching what it means to be a fully thriving and flourishing human being as well as the differences between teaching contemplative practices in monastic and secular contexts.


“Research that mediation works allows us to step into dialog with administrators to say that the benefits of contemplative practice are legitimate,” Zajonc said. “We use studies by reputable sources to help us craft our practice.”

The First Afternoon Session, Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, presented by Zajonc, gave an overview of the prominent uses of contemplation currently being explored by teachers and students. In discussing contemplative pedagogy, Zajonc said it is important to keep the essence of contemplative practices and traditions as present as the science.

“The Buddha didn’t come to work on the prefrontal cortex,” Zajonc jested. “Sometimes we get distracted by the models and the studies we have, and so coming back to contemplative engagement is important.”

The Second Afternoon Session, Teaching Contemplative Studies: Theory and Practice, was presented by Hal Roth, Ph.D. and Willoughby Britton, Ph.D., and looked at the basic element of teaching a course in this new field of Contemplative Science.

Roth sought to define terms such as ‘contemplative studies’ and contemplation, and asked, “How do we prepare ourselves to become contemplative educators?”

“What is this education all about?” Roth said. “Is it accumulating a lot of facts and going out and getting a job that uses those facts or getting a better understanding of your human being?”

Britton outlined that by integrating 1st and 3rd person studies and research in teaching, academics is now producing practioner-scientist and practioner-scholar hybrids. She also explored how attentional training other than mediation, such as learning and instrument or dancing at a high level, is more or less equally as effective as mediation in terms of attentional training, but much less effective at resulting in empathetic concern for others and emotional balance.

As customary, the afternoon sessions were followed by break-out groups to further discuss presenters’ findings, and then yoga and dinner in the dining hall.

The Evening Session featured three Francisco J. Varela Awardee presentations. The Mind & Life Francisco J. Varela Awards, named after co-founder Francisco Varela (1947-2001), are small research grants given to investigate hypothesis developed at the Summer Research Institute. The evening presentations were:

Sean Barnes: Identifying the Mechanisms of Action in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

Helen Weng: Can Compassion Be Trained?  Behavioral and Neural Evidence.

Ellen Darling & Nathaniel Lepp (co-PIs): School-Based Mindfulness Training as a Novel Delivery-System

Following a rich day of presentations, the day closed with an evening mediation followed by silence until the morning mediation.

Mind & Life Summer Research Institute: Day 1

The 7th Annual Mind & Life Summer Research Institute commenced Monday, June 14, 2010. Participants arrived from as far away as Israel, France, Australia and Canada. More than 160 fellows and faculty are attending this year’s Summer Research Institute: Education. Developmental Neuroscience and Contemplative Practices: Questions, Challenges and Opportunities.

The weeklong event is held again at the beautiful Garrison Institute nestled in the Hudson Highlands across the river from West Point. A former Capuchin monastery, the renovated 77,000 square foot it offers a unique, authentic setting for non-sectarian exploration of contemplative practice and social change.

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The evening began with dinner in the great dining hall, followed by opening remarks from Adam Engle, co-founder and CEO of the Mind & Life Institute. Engle welcomed all the participants and highlighted the unique opportunity and importance in the meeting of science and contemplative practices. He also expressed his thanks to David Vago, Ph.D., Senior Research Coordinator, and Robert Roeser, Ph.D., Senior Program Coordinator, for their outstanding work and commitment over the years supporting and facilitating the Summer Research Institute.

Robert Gabriel, COO of Garrison Institute also welcomed the participants, gave a short history of the Garrison Institute and outlined the ‘lay of the land.’

The opening remarks were followed by three presentations: a viewing of Monte Grande, the life of Mind & Life co-founder Francisco J. Varela, and Introduction to the Emerging Field of Contemplative Neuroscience by David Vago, and an Introduction to Buddhism by Diego Hangartner, Pharm.D., COO of the Mind & Life Institute.

The evening concluded with an Introduction to Meditation by Sharon Salzberg and Will Kabat-Zinn, M.A., and participants were given instructions to maintain silence through the morning breakfast.

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