This keynote lecture proposes that mindfulness includes cultural practices, habits of attending, and ways of using the body in the social and material world. Current neuroscience conceptions of mindfulness as an inner mental state or trait that can be correlated with unique patterns of brain activity are therefore inadequate because they leave out the wider …
Continue reading “Closing Keynote: What is Mindfulness? An Embodied Cognitive Science Perspective”
Sharon Salzberg and Roshi Joan Halifax will lead a guided practice on kindness and compassion. This practice session will be directed toward cultivating prosocial mental qualities.
Mindfulness training is growing in its mainstream popularity. This keynote panel will discuss the promises of offering mindfulness training to cohorts across many major societal institutions such as healthcare, business, higher education and military/first responder communities. Paralleling its popular rise have been growing concerns regarding mainstream dissemination of contemplative training, including the ethical framework within …
This workshop will involve three methods of engaged contemplation in Islamic Sufism, consisting of silent and vocal forms of “remembrance” (dhikr) and “remembrance in life.” The ultimate purpose of these methods is to retrain the individual’s consciousness to respond — at each moment in one’s daily life — toward one’s consciousness and whatever appears in …
Continue reading “Engaged Contemplative Practice in Islamic Sufism: Vocal, Silent, Living”
The implementation of mindfulness-based training programs for school administrators and school leaders, classroom teachers and staff, and Pre-K to grade 12 students has grown rapidly during the past decade and a half. This lecture will present a brief history of the work in education, a summary of the state of the science, and thoughts about …
Continue reading “Master Lectures: School Systems, Educational Reform and Mindfulness Training”
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 …
Professor Magee explores intersecting issues of race, racism and U.S. law using mindfulness- and compassion-based practices. Discussing her work across inter-related sub-fields — transformative education, law practice and community-based work for justice — she highlights ways of enhancing collaborations across categories of real and perceived difference using contemplative techniques for teaching, learning and working together …
I was introduced to the dharma when I was already a rabbi and a student of Jewish prayer and sacred text. From the beginning, when I received instructions or wisdom teachings from the Buddha dharma, I found myself doing a simulcast into the language that I knew so well, Jewish prayer and Torah. Over the …
Continue reading “Practicing Meditation Through Sacred Texts and Prayers”
Romantic relationship quality declines over time for most couples. In addition, most first marriages end in divorce, and divorce rates have doubled during the past few decades among people over 35. Identifying interventions that improve compassionate love, empathy, and prosocial behavior between romantic partners is thus a critical goal. Our overarching aim is to experimentally …
Continue reading “Mindfulness as a novel intervention for improving romantic relationships”
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 …
