Adolescents bear the burden of complex global challenges head, yet as recent events have shown, they are also drivers of change. Youth mindfulness programmes (YMPs), now increasingly prevalent in educational and juvenile justice settings, are thought to promote resilience and emotional skills, drawing on neuroscience to inform interventions. Moreover, neurobiological ideas are frequently incorporated into …
Grant Type Archives:
Mechanisms of Meditation and Consequences for Clinical Practice
Mindfulness and meditation are increasingly used in clinical practice to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety and addiction. However, the fundamental mechanisms underlying these practices are not yet well-known and theoretical frameworks are sparse. Two important explanatory mechanisms that will be considered in this workshop are sticky thinking (cognitive fusion) and the sense of self. …
Continue reading “Mechanisms of Meditation and Consequences for Clinical Practice”
Mindfulness Practices as Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Strategies for Preparation, Implementation, and Assessment
This Think Tank will convene a team of teaching and mindfulness experts to explore the science, the benefits, and potential risks of using mindfulness as an anti-oppressive pedagogy—an approach that helps students recognize the ways that most people are variously privileged and oppressed, understanding how both relations perpetuate suffering for others and for oneself. The …
African Contemplative Practices for Healing the Past, for Transforming the Present and for Future Flourishing
There is an urgent need for a rigorous empirical qualitative description of African contemplative practices in terms of the current science and Buddhist frameworks, in order to bring the African academic community into the global research efforts to alleviate suffering and enhance human flourishing. The discussion over the 3-day retreat will center on defining contemplative …
Designing and implementing a contemplative practice-based program for ex-combatants in Colombia’s peacebuilding process
This think tank will develop a meditation-based curriculum for peacebuilding along with guidelines for its implementation as a component of Colombia’s ongoing peacebuilding process. We will draw on Mind & Life’s model to bring together scholars, scientists, and contemplatives across institutional and geographical boundaries for this immediate opportunity to promote individual and societal flourishing in …
Core Measures for Mindfulness Studies
We aim to develop a set of recommended “core measures” for mindfulness-based intervention research that can strengthen individual studies and facilitate pooled data analyses and meta-analyses. While most studies require study specific outcome measures, there are domains that are appropriate to measure across studies. These includes self-report measures of important common outcomes (e.g. stress and …
Concepts and Nonconceptuality in Buddhist Philosophy
This workshop focuses on Buddhist philosophical accounts of concepts and nonconceptuality. Understanding these accounts is crucial for the proper investigation of Buddhist contemplative practices. Buddhist practitioners and contemplative scientists often claim that various meditation practices induce nonconceptual modes of experience. But without a precise understanding of concepts, it is impossible to know what it means …
Continue reading “Concepts and Nonconceptuality in Buddhist Philosophy”
Microphenomenology and Contemplative Experience: Exploring the Intra- and Intersubjective Dynamics of Language and Embodied Experience
We will host a two-day meeting of scholars from the humanities and sciences and contemplative practitioners to explore and develop the use of microphenomenology in the study, practice and application of contemplative practice. The meeting will bring together core members of the PhenoPilot project, with a small group of other scholars and practitioners in order …
Embodiment, Contemplative Practice, and Equality: Developing a Programmatic and Research Agenda for Reducing Ingroup Bias through Embodied Inquiry and Contemplative Practice
Prejudice and discrimination have destructive consequences in contemporary society. Discrimination based on social categorization (e.g., by gender, age or ethnicity) is thought to stem from implicit and explicit expression of in-group bias, a preference for others who belong to one’s own salient social categories. Existing theories are limited in explaining how to limit the effects …
Educating the Heart: Cultivating Compassionate Global Citizens
This Think Tank explores how Critical Pedagogy and Social and Emotional Learning can be synthesised through an Ethics rooted in Compassion. The intention is to develop innovative pedagogy for a ‘Global Education Curriculum’ for students aged 8-15. Traditionally, Global Education nurtures competencies in line with Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy. It is proposed that the nurturing …
Continue reading “Educating the Heart: Cultivating Compassionate Global Citizens”
