During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and “key to building more resilient soldiers.” Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and …
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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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Ethics and Compassion in Education Research
The program continues with the scientific research on education and discussion of the psychology of ethical development, including moral reasoning, compassion, moral motivation, and issues of community and culture. Moving from these theories, there will be examples of how they can be translated into educational experiences. Widening the frame, Buddhist understandings of compassion are presented …
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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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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 …
Healing Through Gratitude: Buddhist Theories of Mind and Self-Transformation in the Japanese Contemplative Practice of Naikan
Naikan is a Japanese contemplative practice that was derived and secularized from a Buddhist self-cultivation method. Naikan means “inner-looking” or “introspection.” The practice focuses on recalling the kindness that one has received from others, what one has given in return, and the trouble one has caused others. Unlike some other approaches, such as mainstream psychotherapies, …
Old Insights for A Hectic World: What Does Hakuin Teach Us Today?
This talk explores a well-known writing in the area of meditation in the Japanese Zen tradition entitled Yasenkanna (夜船閑話, or Idle Talk on a Night Boat), one of Hakuin’s autobiographies, written in 1757 by the Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), a seminal figure who occupies a prominent place in the history of Japanese religion today. …
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Observation of the Mind in Buddhism and Mindfulness
The process of observing the mind in Buddhism is called samatha and vipassanā, and involves placing attention on a certain object (or objects) with awareness. Important facets of this type of observation, also called mindfulness, are noticing objects without using language, and accepting them as they are. According to Buddhism, suffering emerges from a state …
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Neuroscience as a Modern Context for Studying Meditation: How Far Are We, Really?
Meditation practices are increasingly being adapted into secular formats such as “mindfulness.” In these new contexts, the spiritual or soteriolog- ical aspects of meditation have been largely put aside and the putative benefits of meditation in terms of physical and mental health are empha- sized within a scientific (and especially neuroscientific) framework. For instance, invoking …
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2018 International Research Institute
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.
