Current theories of mindfulness (Pali: sati) emphasize attention, emotional regulation, and meta-awareness. This interpretation de-emphasizes an original association of sati with remembrance in relation to cultivating virtue. Recovering remembrance reconnects mindfulness with narrative traditions of loving virtue. In practice, this occurs through cultivating both (1) affective awareness of the source of love, or ultimate reality; …
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Concurrent Session 3 – Resilience and Compassion
This paper discusses the relationship between psychological resilience andcompassion. It will begin by looking at a particular set of techniques, drawn from the Tibetan Buddhist mind-training (lojong) tradition, in which the stresses, adversity, and suffering of the subject are the initial focus that eventually inspires empathetic identification with others. This type of compassion meditation training …
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Concurrent Session 3 – Innovations in Mindfulness for Educators: Complementary Approaches and Outcomes
There has been a steady increase in interest in utilizing contemplative practice to improve teaching and learning in schools. At the first International Symposium for Contemplative Studies meeting in 2012, a panel presented preliminary findings from two teacher programs. The current panel will provide a research and practice update on innovative approaches for promoting mindfulness …
Concurrent Session 1 – G.R.A.C.E.: Cultivating Compassion in Interactions with Patients
Compassion is at the heart of medical care for people living with a serious, life-threatening illness. Yet no evidence-based interventions exist to cultivate compassion in nurses, physicians, and other clinicians. The Halifax model of compassion represents a novel approach based on established practices for mind training that targets attention, empathy, and self-regulation based in contemplative …
Concurrent Session 1 – Engaged Compassion: Humanizing the Sacred and Secular
How can we advance true compassion in an increasingly pluralistic society? My paper will examine some possibilities in the light of ideas postulated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his book Beyond Religion, in which he stated that we are born free of religion but we are not born free of the need for …
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Concurrent Session 1 – Is Compassion Good? The Science and the Conception of Prosocial Behavior
Recent social psychological and neuroscientific studies demonstrate that specific contemplative interventions, especially secular forms of Buddhist-based compassion trainings, enhance prosocial behavior. This panel offers a rare opportunity for scientists and humanists to review together recent discoveries and discuss pressing questions. Advocates often assume that practices such as compassion training and its behavioral effects are universally …
Concurrent Session 1 – Dancing Compassion: Using Dance to Cultivate Personal and Social Awareness in the Classroom
This presentation will explore the use of dance and choreographic methodology as embodied practices for guiding classroom explorations of ethical issues and active compassion. Movement is used as the primary medium for discovering mindful awareness expanding from the personal to the relational and then to social justice awareness and engagement. This presentation will use themes …
Concurrent Session 1 – Remote Emotional Memory for Depictions of Human Suffering Following an Intensive Meditation Intervention
Meditation training is presumed to influence individuals’ emotional engagement with others’ suffering. Although evidence is accumulating for the prosocial effects of intensive practice in meditation, little is known about how training may alter primary cognitive representations of compassion-eliciting stimuli. We assessed individuals’ remote (six-year) incidental memory for emotional images viewed both before and after a …
Concurrent Session 1 – Validation of the Perceived Compassion Scale
A self-report scale measuring perceived compassion, in its embodied and functional aspects, will be presented, including preliminary psychometric validation results. There has been some debate as to whether compassion can be measured through self-report. Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale, possibly the most widely used instrument, operationalizes compassion in terms of mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Others (e.g., …
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Master Lecture – Contemplative Inquiry and Science
What Constitutes Compelling Evidence, And For Whom? (B. Alan Wallace) “Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence” is often presented as the heart of the scientific method and as a model for critical thinking, rational thought, and skepticism everywhere. Accordingly, materialists view any evidence that is incompatible with their beliefs as highly questionable at best, for such …
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