Without meaning or purpose, students view higher education and the working world beyond as irrelevant and as overwhelming stressors. Our institutions address academic malaise by creating environments in which engagement can occur. This experiential paper proposes that beyond fostering stimulating environments, educators must teach students how to engage. Through tapping into neuroplasticity, mindfulness, and yoga, …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Yoga and Mindfulness: Engaging the Undergraduate Learner”
This paper explores the Won-Buddhist approach to mindfulness that encompasses several layers of consciousness: the subconscious, the mind, and six sense faculties (preconsciousness). These layers function simultaneously but play distinctive roles depending on the external environment. The proper function of the six sense faculties leads to the weakening of negativity stored in the subconsciousness. This …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Towards an Applied Multiple Consciousness Theory of Mindfulness: With Special Reference to the WonBuddhist Method”
This panel presentation will bring the audience up to date on Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB), a secular emotion regulation and meditation training designed by Drs. Paul Ekman and Alan Wallace at the request of His Holiness the Dalai Lama following the 2000 Mind and Life meeting on destructive emotions. CEB is a 42-hour training in …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB): Training, Research, and Future”
Francisco Varela and his colleagues proffer a provoking conclusion in theirgroundbreaking The Embodied Mind. By relying almost exclusively on introspection, Western philosophy from Plato to Merleau-Ponty is at best proto-cognitive scientific. Oddly enough, the movement out of philosophy and into neuroscience is carried out by mindfulness and meditation. Oddly because forms of discursive rational introspection …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Merleau-Ponty Reads Francisco Varela”
What legitimizes contemplative inquiry in the liberal arts and sciences? Is propagation by technological means at odds with the humanizing purposes of close-knit teaching and learning communities? Do the peculiar benefits cultivated by contemplative communities in the liberal arts and sciences continue to serve alumni in their respective professions and leisure? A panel composed of …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Contemplative Technologies and Liberal Arts and Sciences”
This presentation overviews a number of projects that are part of a larger research agenda focusing on the intersection of contemplative practices and technology use. Our overarching research goal is to understand how technology is currently being used by contemplative individuals and communities, which, we believe, is a step toward exploring a more balanced, middle-way …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 4 – Exploring the Intersection of Contemplative Practices and Computer Technologies”
In some visions for contemplative studies, considerable importance is given to the integration of personal and professional practice. How might this work in practice, and what challenges and potentials does this entail in the laboratory, the clinic, and other contexts of research and application? Drawing on examples from our research projects and interventions, we offer …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 3 – Integration and Engagement: Personal and Professional Practice in the Lab, the Clinic, and Education”
Contemplative studies are integrated into clinical mental health counseling in order to promote one’s natural drive towards self-exploration, self-awareness, and self-actualization. This panel comprises counseling professionals and current doctoral candidates who specialize in various mental health-related topics, including interpersonal trauma, identity and the holistic self, and substance-use treatment. Panelists will create an interactive and discussion-based …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 3 – Mindfulness, Compassion, and the Therapeutic Presence: Utilizing Contemplative Studies in Clinical Mental Health Counseling”
Growing evidence reveals that mindfulness meditation significantly reduces pain responses in experimental and clinical settings. Recent neurobiological findings confirm that the cognitive state of mindfulness significantly modifies sensory, cognitive, and affective dimensions of nociceptive processing. However, there are likely nonspecific effects associated with mindfulness meditation-related pain relief that are also consistent with placebo-related responses. For …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 3 – Does Mindfulness Meditation Employ Distinct Brain Mechanisms From Placebo-Related Analgesia?”
Shamans often listen to rhythmic drumming to induce trance states. Using fMRI, we examined the brain networks associated with trance. Experienced shamanic practitioners listened to rhythmic drumming and entered a trance state or remained in a non-trance state. Trance was associated with stronger network hubs (i.e., greater centrality) in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), anterior …
Continue reading “Concurrent Session 3 – Brain-Network Reconfiguration and Perceptual Decoupling During Rhythm Induced Trance”
