Academic psychology and neuroscience have typically centered viewpoints of the dominant culture (WEIRD: White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic), which has influenced both the process and content of contemplative neuroscience. By incorporating more diverse perspectives through a lens of social justice, Helen Weng will present new lines of work that center viewpoints of meditators who belong …
Is there a way to acknowledge and transform social injustices as we take care of their impact? Inside our mind and body? Marisela Gomez will explore how to engage in social justice work that turns toward its impact on our mind and body. She will share a brief history of serial forced displacement of Afro-descendent …
Conceptual classification and linguistic reification are intrinsic to, if not diagnostic of, humans as a species. These potentiate but do not necessitate what Foucault calls “dividing practices,” which inscribe stigma and prejudicial discrimination weighted by power to effect domination and control of some classes of people by others. These processes entail intrasubjective dynamics, notes Bruce …
As cognitive neuroscience steps up its focus on neurological distinctions between different ‘kinds of people,’ patient populations, cultural groups and social categories have begun to be understood in terms of brain-based differences. These differences are often articulated in terms of structural or functional differences, as visualized through neuroimaging techniques. In this talk, Suparna Choudhury will …
Over the past thirty years with the development of Western Insight Meditation communities and Vipassana practice in North America, there has been a process of collective transformation that has been both painstakingly incremental and incontrovertibly powerful. This presentation reviews some of the history and growth of multicultural mindfulness communities; personal experience of diverse practitioners; visual …
The 2018 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute extends the arc from the 2016 and 2017 programs that addressed themes of context, social connectivity, and intersubjectivity by engaging critical topics relevant to cultural difference and human diversity. The weeklong immersive program will examine social and psychological patterns, both implicit and explicit, to discuss how difference is constructed at personal, interpersonal, and socio-structural levels. Scientific, humanistic, and first-person contemplative perspectives will give attention to processes of othering and how we can overcome conflict by embracing difference.
In late 2019, Helen Weng, PhD was honored with the Mind & Life Institute Annual Service Award. The award is given to individuals who are distinguished by the breadth and depth of their involvement with Mind & Life, and who embody its core values of compassion, integrity, curiosity, inclusion, and excellence. Below is a tribute …
In this month’s Fellow Spotlight we are pleased to share the work of Brooke D. Lavelle, PhD. Brooke is the Co-Founder and President of the Courage of Care Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to facilitating the co-creation of a more just, compassionate world. Together with her diverse, interdisciplinary, and multi-generational team at Courage, Brooke provides training …
Othering and Belonging is the problem of the 21st century. In this talk, the presenter will describe how the changes in the world are creating deep stress and anxiety. This process is likely to increase for the foreseeable future. This stress is both biological and ontological. The way we respond is social. The underlying issue …
From the presenter’s vantage point as a therapist of color, a teacher of courses on race, and a researcher in multicultural psychology, she has been privileged to bear witness to the human struggle to make sense of oneself in a racialized and gendered world. As old narratives are directly challenged by evidence of structural oppression …
