On Day Three, having discussed topics relevant to education practitioners, the Dialogue brings recent scientific findings into conversation with Buddhist understandings of the mind. The first presentation in this session surveys the current scientific research on meta-awareness and attention. References are made to the influence of mindfulness and compassion training in a broad range of …
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Continuing our discussion of social and emotional learning, Day Two begins by illustrating how social and emotional learning (SEL) has expanded over the past decade around the world and is being integrated into the very fabric of educational policy and practice. Education practitioners will explore the important question of how His Holiness’ vision of educating …
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Day One begins with an overview of key insights derived from developmental, affective, and contemplative neuroscience on the processes of change, epigenetic influences on development, early brain development, and the nurturing of social and emotional skills over the first 20 years of life. This will provide scientific background for the Dialogue and raise fundamental questions …
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The “Reimagining Human Flourishing” Dialogue has a central focus on education, especially in light of His Holiness’ longstanding prioritization of secular ethics education initiatives. It includes a mixture of both scientific and practice-oriented discussions to catalyze the synthetic and integrative opportunity provided by the meeting, taking up crucial questions on how to gain better scientific understanding of key constructs like “attention,” “meta-awareness,” and “emotion regulation,” as well as the practical issue of how to expand the Social Emotional Learning framework to incorporate the teaching of compassion and secular ethics more fully.
In a 1984 interview, Francisco Varela stated that “science, in its core, its active living core, is pure contemplation. It has little or nothing to do with manipulation.” In 2018, the utility of engaging in contemplative practice is pervasively promoted as justified by scientific evidence of its benefits. Yet this evidence is often weak, taken …
Mind & Life believes the voices of emerging scholars in the field of contemplative research are critical in helping to shape the direction of ongoing inquiry. This is an opportunity to engage with an interdisciplinary panel of New Investigators whose work stands at the unique intersection of contemplative practice, scholarship, and applications.
Contemplative Studies is an emerging academic field that examines a distinctive subset of significant human experiences through a multi- disciplinary perspective that utilizes the sciences, humanities, and the arts. This field takes as its principal task the study of a continuum of human experiences that involve focusing the attention in a sustained fashion leading to …
This lecture explores the characteristics and significance of the philosophy of Kyoto School, which came to be known widely but is still not fully clear. Kyoto school, unlike ordinary philosophical schools, did not arise from crit- icisms of preceding schools and postulating a certain thesis. Rather, it was a group naturally formed around Kitaro Nishida …
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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.
Mindfulness training is growing in its mainstream popularity. This keynote panel will discuss the promises of offering mindfulness training to cohorts across many major societal institutions such as healthcare, business, higher education and military/first responder communities. Paralleling its popular rise have been growing concerns regarding mainstream dissemination of contemplative training, including the ethical framework within …
