This project will examine how mindfulness training affects dispositional mindfulness, parental monitoring, a child’s effortful control of attention, and the quality of the parent-child relationship. In addition to how changes in these variables are related to changes in problem behavior. Forty families (with children ages 10-12) will be recruited from a Northwestern city, and half …
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Meditation training has been shown to positively affect executive attention function. Moderate aerobic exercise has also been shown to improve executive attention function. Tai Chi requires moderate aerobic exertion, is considered a form of moving meditation, and requires motor learning. Motor learning engages executive function. Thus, Tai Chi can be expected to positively affect executive …
Rhythmic drumming is a common method to induce trance states of consciousness in many cultures around the world. The techniques and drum tempi are highly similar across cultures, and likely developed independently (convergent evolution). In order to study the rhythmic induction of trance, shamanic practitioners with extensive experience using drums to alter consciousness, traveled to …
Continue reading “The dissolution of self during rhythmic motor behavior”
Research on the effects of meditation has focused on understanding both the meditative state as well as characteristics resulting from long-term, regular meditation practice. Understanding these states and traits is of interest because of potential clinical applications and the possibility for better understanding of brain states and function. In particular, this is of interest for …
Mindfulness meditation has been in the limelight recently in Japan. Zen meditation has had a long tradition in Japan and its spirit has greatly influenced arts—“道, or dou—such as tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and the martial arts. There are times when its fragrance is felt in our daily lives. Even so, up to now, ordinary …
This talk explores a well-known writing in the area of meditation in the Japanese Zen tradition entitled Yasenkanna (夜船閑話, or Idle Talk on a Night Boat), one of Hakuin’s autobiographies, written in 1757 by the Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), a seminal figure who occupies a prominent place in the history of Japanese religion today. …
Continue reading “Old Insights for A Hectic World: What Does Hakuin Teach Us Today?”
As the “cultural heart of Japan,” Kyoto is home to longstanding traditions of contemplative practice, philosophy, and scientific research. Inspired by this setting, and its location at the Zen temple complex Myōshin-ji, the theme for this Mind & Life International Research Institute is Contemplative Practice in Context: Culture, History, and Science. This five-day immersive program brings together leading scholars in the sciences and humanities, contemplatives, and artists to examine contemplative epistemologies within a variety of contexts.
Sharon Salzberg and Roshi Joan Halifax will lead a guided practice on kindness and compassion. This practice session will be directed toward cultivating prosocial mental qualities.
Buddhist scholar Andrew Olendzki writes: “It is time for us to evolve…. The problem we now face is that these very instincts, which have served us well in a primitive, competitive setting, have become counterproductive in the interdependent social world we now inhabit and have themselves become our greatest existential threat.” Similarly, Jewish scholar Arthur …
This workshop will involve three methods of engaged contemplation in Islamic Sufism, consisting of silent and vocal forms of “remembrance” (dhikr) and “remembrance in life.” The ultimate purpose of these methods is to retrain the individual’s consciousness to respond — at each moment in one’s daily life — toward one’s consciousness and whatever appears in …
Continue reading “Engaged Contemplative Practice in Islamic Sufism: Vocal, Silent, Living”
