Contemplative Practice Starts with The Body: Understanding Somatic Awareness, Brain Dynamics, and Healing Presence in Mindfulness and Other Disciplines
Topic Archives:
Concurrent Session 4 – Improving Attentional Functions Through Mindfulness Practice
An ever-growing number of studies provide evidence for the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions within a variety of clinical and nonclinical contexts. For the field to develop and solidify, it will be essential to go beyond demonstrating clinical effectiveness and to develop an evidence-based understanding of the psychological, physiological, and neural processes that underpin the reported …
Concurrent Session 4 – Mapping the Mind: A Model Based on Theravada Buddhist Texts and Practices
We propose a functional model based on Theravada Buddhist texts and practices to show how the mind works in relation to our senses, and how we perceive the external world. Our model suggests that the mind acts as a common internal sense organ, receiving all sensory data from the five external senses. It shows how …
Concurrent Session 4 – Merleau-Ponty Reads Francisco Varela
Francisco Varela and his colleagues proffer a provoking conclusion in theirgroundbreaking The Embodied Mind. By relying almost exclusively on introspection, Western philosophy from Plato to Merleau-Ponty is at best proto-cognitive scientific. Oddly enough, the movement out of philosophy and into neuroscience is carried out by mindfulness and meditation. Oddly because forms of discursive rational introspection …
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Concurrent Session 4 – Yoga: A Contemplative Technique for Mental WellBeing
Yoga is an ancient mind-body discipline practiced in various forms in differentAsian countries such as India and Tibet, with important contributions for contemporary society. The number of yoga practitioners in Western society is growing worldwide, in particular in the pursuit of mental well-being. Research shows that yoga techniques can improve emotional balance and strength, especially …
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Concurrent Session 4 – Novel Techniques and Applications for Neurophenomenology: Observing Experience to Understand the Mind and Understanding the Mind to Improve Experience
The methodological program of neurophenomenology arose as an approach to understanding the relationship between neurophysiological activity and conscious experience. Since its inception, a growing research community has further cultivated this method with a focus on developing a rigorous and pragmatic science of consciousness. By drawing from the limitations and successes of existing neurophenomenological studies and …
Concurrent Session 3 – A Neurocognitive Model for Internal Time
In our conventional experience, we experience ourselves as positioned in the present between an ever-receding past and an ever advancing present. The phenomenology of internal time has occupied sages and philosophers for centuries; advanced practitioners are said to experience the flow of time in a radically different way. From a neuroscientific perspective, our internal time …
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Concurrent Session 3 – Integration and Engagement: Personal and Professional Practice in the Lab, the Clinic, and Education
In some visions for contemplative studies, considerable importance is given to the integration of personal and professional practice. How might this work in practice, and what challenges and potentials does this entail in the laboratory, the clinic, and other contexts of research and application? Drawing on examples from our research projects and interventions, we offer …
Concurrent Session 3 – Does Mindfulness Meditation Employ Distinct Brain Mechanisms From Placebo-Related Analgesia?
Growing evidence reveals that mindfulness meditation significantly reduces pain responses in experimental and clinical settings. Recent neurobiological findings confirm that the cognitive state of mindfulness significantly modifies sensory, cognitive, and affective dimensions of nociceptive processing. However, there are likely nonspecific effects associated with mindfulness meditation-related pain relief that are also consistent with placebo-related responses. For …
Concurrent Session 3 – Brain-Network Reconfiguration and Perceptual Decoupling During Rhythm Induced Trance
Shamans often listen to rhythmic drumming to induce trance states. Using fMRI, we examined the brain networks associated with trance. Experienced shamanic practitioners listened to rhythmic drumming and entered a trance state or remained in a non-trance state. Trance was associated with stronger network hubs (i.e., greater centrality) in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), anterior …
