This past winter, it was my honor and pleasure to participate in a Mind & Life Research Workshop convened by the Contemplative Development Mapping Project (CDMP). The CDMP is a group of scholars, scientists, and practitioners who are personally and professionally committed to enriching our understanding of contemplative practices and experiences. This interdisciplinary “think tank” …
Topic Archives:
The Role of Social Relationships and Context in Meditative Practice
We know that high quality social relationships help us live longer, happier, and healthier lives whether we meditate or not. Moreover, research confirms that humans are highly sensitive to context—social, architectural, aural, and so on, regardless of geography or culture. Social baseline theory suggests that even meditation practices should be facilitated by proximity to safe …
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Social Baseline Theory: Health, Well-Being, and the Social Regulation of Effort
High-quality social relationships help us live longer, happier, and healthier lives—facts that hold true, as far as anyone knows, regardless of geography or culture. Although links between relationships and health have been observed for decades (if not millennia), the mechanisms responsible for them remain speculative. For this talk, I’ll first describe our work on one …
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Attachment Theory’s Approach to Fear, Insecurity, and Internal Working Models of Self and Others
Attachment theory, first proposed by John Bowlby, tested in infant-parent relationships by Mary Ainsworth, and now studied in adults by personality/social psychologists, focuses on the ways in which fear motivates people to rely for security on “attachment figures,” beginning in infancy and continuing throughout life. A person’s experiences with sensitive and responsive, or insensitive and …
Diana Chapman Walsh, ACEL Core Faculty
Sharon Daloz Parks, ACEL Core Faculty
Concurrent Session 4 – Exploring the Intersection of Contemplative Practices and Computer Technologies
This presentation overviews a number of projects that are part of a larger research agenda focusing on the intersection of contemplative practices and technology use. Our overarching research goal is to understand how technology is currently being used by contemplative individuals and communities, which, we believe, is a step toward exploring a more balanced, middle-way …
Master Lecture – Secular Ethics
A Call To Care: The Mind & Life Institute’s New Ethics, Education, and Human Development Initiative (Brooke Dodson-Lavelle) Inspired by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s call to design a curriculum and pedagogy in “secular ethics,” the Mind & Life Institute identified an important opportunity to join the growing movement of educators, scientists, and contemplatives engaged …
ISCS 2014 – Master Lecture – Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, Ven. Tenzin Priyadarshi
A Call To Care: The Mind & Life Institute’s New Ethics, Education, and Human Development Initiative (Brooke Dodson-Lavelle) Secular Ethics and Human Values: A Transformative Approach (Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi)
Concurrent Session 2 – The Social Side of Mindfulness: From Lab to Life
Traditional contemplative perspectives emphasize social benefits of mindfulnessand meditation, yet little research has investigated their social implications. Social situations involve distinct challenges for regulating affect, including the involvement of others’ emotions. This presentation briefly summarizes our prior lab-based work demonstrating that trait mindfulness predicts neural and behavioral responses consistent with efficient top-down attention to and …
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