For the past two decades, a small but growing number of scientists, philosophers, and scholars of religion have been building a unique community at the crossroads of their disciplines — a place where they can push the boundaries of traditional research to shine new light on fundamental questions about the human experience. What is this …
Continue reading “Promoting Openness and Transparency in the Contemplative Sciences”
Each year, the Mind & Life Institute hosts the Summer Research Institute to bring together scholars, researchers, professionals and practitioners from a variety of fields who share an interest in contemplative research. The purpose of this program is to bring students, recent graduates, junior faculty and postdocs into conversation with established investigators in order to …
ORDER NOW Edited by Wendy Hasenkamp with Janna White (Yale University Press) ISBN: 9780300218084 In 2013, during a landmark Mind & Life dialogue at a Tibetan monastery in southern India, with an audience of thousands of monks and nuns, the Dalai Lama gathered with leading scientists, philosophers and monastics for in-depth discussions on the nature of …
What happens when an experience is described? Does the very effort to find words deepen practice, sharpen awareness, clarify an experience? Imagining a lens through which to deepen access to contemplative experience, these were among the questions that drove the conversation at a Mind & Life-funded Think Tank entitled the “PhenoTank,” held at the École …
To date, the traditions and techniques that have been most substantively researched in the field of contemplative science have largely derived from Buddhism and Buddhist-inspired movements. While there have been tremendous advances and developments due to this collaboration—indeed there would be no field without it—a natural consequence of this specific alliance is that insights from …
Continue reading “An in-depth look at a Mind & Life Think Tank on Abrahamic traditions”
PURCHASE NOW By Valerie M. Bentz, Vincenzo M. B. Giorgino CreateSpace Independent Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1541119147 Contemplative Social Research brings together research and insights from scholars throughout Europe and North America, and from a variety of social science disciplines. The book argues that contemplative-based inquiry is unique in recognizing the deep oneness of humanity, since it …
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An Interview with Mind & Life Fellow, Helen Weng, PhD. Helen Y. Weng, PhD is a Mind & Life Fellow and a postdoctoral scholar at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Helen is interested in how contemplative practices can improve communication within and between individuals, and how this in turn improves …
PURCHASE NOW By Nancy Bardacke Publisher: HarperOne ISBN-13: 978-0061963957 In the book Mindful Birthing, Nancy Bardacke, nurse-midwife and mindfulness teacher, lays out her innovative program for pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, mindfulness meditation, and mind/body medicine, Bardacke offers practices that will help you find calm and ease during this life-changing time, …
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As a Mind & Life Fellow who received the Francisco J. Varela Research Grant in 2007 and the Mind & Life 1440 grant in 2013, Dr. Eric Garland has gone on to become the developer of an innovative, multimodal mindfulness-based intervention founded on insights derived from cognitive, affective and neurobiological science, called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement …
Consider the amazing life of Catherine Kerr, who began her career as an historian, was retrained as a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, and went on to present scientific research on neurophysiology to the Dalai Lama. For those who knew Cathy, this capacity for transformation through focused purpose was just one of her remarkable qualities. …
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