My presentation develops an understanding of the art of traditional healing as one pillar of the lived community experience of Botho/Ubuntu cosmology. Such healing holistically addresses afflictions at multiple levels — self, community, 11 nature and spirit. It signifies the co-agencies of God (creator/life-giver), ancestors (guiding/protecting), spirit-mediums (messengers between spirit/ material worlds), chiefs (custodian of …
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Evaluation and Implementation: Challenges and Opportunities for Human Flourishing
Day Five brings the Dialogue to its crescendo with a discussion about implementation and evaluation of learning in the classroom. The session begins with a presentation on the biological stress response in brains that produce stress hormones that influence memory and emotion regulation. Studies are cited to demonstrate how perceiving a situation to be threatening …
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Meta-Awareness and Attention Training in Education Research
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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Early Childhood Development and Social Emotional Learning
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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Meditation in Japanese Context
Mindfulness meditation has been in the limelight recently in Japan. Zen meditation has had a long tradition in Japan and its spirit has greatly influenced arts—“道, or dou—such as tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and the martial arts. There are times when its fragrance is felt in our daily lives. Even so, up to now, ordinary …
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: Minding Mindfulness: Issues, Models, and Findings in the Scientific Study of Meditation
This talk will describe attentional, emotional and physiological processes modified over the course of three months of full-time training in, and practice of, meditative quiescence (Shamatha) and beneficial aspirations for self and others (loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity). This multidisciplinary longitudinal, randomized wait-list controlled study is known as The Shamatha Project. Scientific measures …
Contemplative peacebuilding in Colombia: A contemplative practice-based psychosocial support program for Colombian ex-combatants
Colombia has recently made unprecedented progress towards ending one of the longest armed conflicts in the world, entering a peacebuilding process which includes the reintegration of ex-combatants into society. However, psychosocial support is currently a small though critical component for ex-combatant reintegration. Our project aims to deliver and evaluate a contemplative-practice based psychosocial support program …
SHAPE JOY: A program to nurture empathic happiness in children through contemplative parenting practices
Young children seem to be wired to notice and enjoy the happy experiences of others, but this tendency to experience “empathic happiness” seems to fade in later childhood when it is replaced by self-doubt, envy, and worry. This process of losing the natural inclination for empathic happiness is exacerbated for some children who become dysregulated …
Can emotional acceptance promote political action? Leveraging contemplative science to promote positive social action
In today’s contentious political climate, we must identify pathways that promote positive social action. Collective political action (e.g., voting, volunteering), in particular, can powerfully shape society for the better – but what can individuals do to promote collective action? We propose that the contemplative strategy of emotional acceptance should allow individuals to harness the power …
