Master Lectures: The Missing Link of Leadership Development: Cultivating Awareness in Action

We have arrived at a moment where the world’s circumstances can no longer afford the luxury of ignoring the inner life of the leader. Operating in contexts of accelerating speed and complexity, leaders are pressured to make more and faster decisions with ever-narrower margins of error and greater repercussions. With these come intellectual, emotional, perceptual …

Master Lectures: What’s ‘Critical’ About ‘Critical First-Person’ Perspectives?

Perhaps the hallmark of the distinctive forms of teaching developed at Brown and deemed “Integrative Contemplative Pedagogy” is a method of classroom study of meditation practices called the “Critical First-Person Perspective.” In this method, students try out specific contemplative practices that are linked to a Third-Person study of texts and contexts. In other words, they …

Master Lectures: The Transdisciplinary Study of Contemplative Practices: Challenges and Opportunities

Research on contemplative practices and contemplation-based interventions has grown exponentially in recent years, and many outstanding studies and publications have advanced this emerging field with their excellence. Of the various pathways to success in research, one of the most promising focuses on the notion of transdisciplinarity. Conceptualized as an approach that emerges from the interaction …

Master Lectures: Mindfulness-Informed Acceptance-Based Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety

Compassion is emerging as a major focus in the new field of contemplative science, which integrates scientific research with contemplative practice, exploring its real-world applications such as health, education and general well-being. Standardized protocols, such as Stanford University’s CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), UCSD’s Mindful Self-Compassion, and Emory University’s CBCT (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training), are today offered …