In recent years, significant advances have been made in the cognitive neuroscience of conscious experiences, including contemplative states, sleep, and dreaming. A wealth of evidence suggests that contemplative practices influence processes of attention, emotion regulation, and brain plasticity. On the other hand, sleep and dreaming have been consistently linked to memory, emotion regulation, and brain …
Pilot work (thanks to a Mind and Life Varela grant) found significant symptomreduction following MBCT adapted for combat-related posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD). Our subsequent fouryear, federally funded project developed a novel 16-week PTSD group intervention for veterans returning from Afghanistan (OEF) and Iraq (OIF), utilizing mindfulness and self-compassion meditation (Mindfulness-Based Exposure Therapy, or MBET). PTSD patients …
This panel will explore the medical relevance of contemplative practice, from brain and nervous system function and structure, to the role of positive emotions in boosting immune system function and furthering life satisfaction and meaning. Dr. Barry Kerzin will present experiences as a physician, ministering on the one hand to monks, and on the other, …
Contemplative Practice Starts with The Body: Understanding Somatic Awareness, Brain Dynamics, and Healing Presence in Mindfulness and Other Disciplines Somatic awareness training in mindfulness, Tai Chi, yoga, and other practices change the brain. It also helps us stay “present” to ourselves and the world around us. This talk describes how somatic awareness practice helps us …
Although the study of ethics in the Western academy has been dominatedfor the past several hundred years by two rationalist models, deontology andutilitarianism, there has been a resurgence of interest, especially in the past decade, in more embodied, practice-based approaches such as virtue ethics. In this talk, I will review evidence from various branches of …
The project of mapping the brain is making great progress in our time, butmapping the mind, in contrast, is still in its infancy. All people have an inner life, but the systematic exploration of this terrain, in a manner that can be useful to the scientific investigation of consciousness, is not well developed. Buddhists have …
Overidentification with mental contents, excessive self-reference, and ceaseless discrepancy monitoring perpetuate symptom expression in physical and mental disorders. Mindfulness meditation, among other contemplative practices, enhances access to an alternative mode of processing that is less reliant on these strategies and instead promotes effective regulation through acceptant, present-oriented, and somatically informed states of mind. In recognition …
