Mind & Life Institute - Mind and Life XIX - Educating World Citizens in the 21st Century: "Public Conference
Mind and Life XIX
Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century:
Educators, Scientists and Contemplatives
Dialogue on Cultivating a Healthy Mind, Brain and Heart
with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, USA
October 8–9, 2009
Overview
How can our educational system evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century? How will we educate people to be compassionate, competent, ethical, and engaged citizens in an increasingly complex and interconnected world?
The urgent challenges of a globalized and interdependent world demand a new vision of world citizenship that is not confined to national boundaries, but encompasses moral and ethical responsibilities to all humanity. People coming of age in the 21st century will need to manifest unprecedented levels of intercultural cooperation, mutual moral concern, creativity, and skill in effectively addressing the challenges of the new century. An education that will prepare children to become compassionate and competent world citizens cannot be measured only in terms of cognitive skills and knowledge, but must address the wider aspects of child and adolescent development such as social and emotional skills, moral values, and embodied virtues that promote both personal and societal health, well-being, and caring.
Mind and Life XIX brings together world-renowned educators, scientists, and contemplatives, with the Dalai Lama presiding, to explore the emerging field of contemplative learning and its [...] "
Thursday, January 29, 2009
TIME SENSITIVE: Applications Now Being Taken for 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute
2009 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute:
"Garrison Institute, Garrison, New York, June 7-13, 2009
Scientific and Contemplative Perspectives on the Self
Applications are now being accepted for the 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) to be held at the Garrison Institute (www.garrisoninstitute.org) in New York from June 7 (mid-aft. to the morning of June 13, 2009, The application period will NOW close on Friday, February 20, 2009.
To apply now, please go to: http://www.mindandlife.org/sri09.ml.summer.apply.html. This is an online only application process -- no paper applications, either mailed or faxed, will be accepted. For a more detailed overview of the MLSRI, including information explaining applicant category (see “Who Should Attend”) please go to: http://www.mindandlife.org/sri09.ml.summer.institute.html.
Please forward this message to anyone you know who might be interested in the MLSRI.
The purpose of the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute is to advance collaborative research among behavioral and clinical scientists, neuroscientists, and biomedical researchers based on a process of inquiry, dialogue and collaboration with Buddhist contemplative practitioners and scholars and those in other contemplative traditions. The long-term objective is to advance the training of a new generation of behavioral scientists, cognitive/affective neuroscientists, clinical researchers, and contemplative scholar/practitioners interested in exploring the potential influences of meditation and other contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain function, and health. This includes examining the potential role of contemplative methods for characterizing human experience and consciousness from a neuroscience and clinical intervention perspective.
The 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) will be devoted to the theme of the self, its development in sociocultural and contemplative contexts, and its implications for human flourishing and social transformation. MLSRI 09 will bring together contemplatives and academic scholars from the social, developmental, and clinical sciences, the neurosciences, contemplative studies, and philosophy to dialogue about a variety of topics pertaining to the self. These topics will include conceptualizations of self and identity in various traditions; the development of self in normative and contemplative contexts; the neurobiology of the self; the processes of self-identification and their effects on life outcomes; the phenomenology of identity, ownership; the concept of “self-regulation” and its relation to issues of mental causation, and free-will; the role of self processes in psychological illness; and finally, self versus no-self views on the fundamental nature of the mind and consciousness.
Best regards,
Angela Teng, MLSRI Project Administrator SRI@mindandlife.org
David R. Vago, PhD, Senior Research Coordinator dvago@mindandlife.org "
"Garrison Institute, Garrison, New York, June 7-13, 2009
Scientific and Contemplative Perspectives on the Self
Applications are now being accepted for the 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) to be held at the Garrison Institute (www.garrisoninstitute.org) in New York from June 7 (mid-aft. to the morning of June 13, 2009, The application period will NOW close on Friday, February 20, 2009.
To apply now, please go to: http://www.mindandlife.org/sri09.ml.summer.apply.html. This is an online only application process -- no paper applications, either mailed or faxed, will be accepted. For a more detailed overview of the MLSRI, including information explaining applicant category (see “Who Should Attend”) please go to: http://www.mindandlife.org/sri09.ml.summer.institute.html.
Please forward this message to anyone you know who might be interested in the MLSRI.
The purpose of the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute is to advance collaborative research among behavioral and clinical scientists, neuroscientists, and biomedical researchers based on a process of inquiry, dialogue and collaboration with Buddhist contemplative practitioners and scholars and those in other contemplative traditions. The long-term objective is to advance the training of a new generation of behavioral scientists, cognitive/affective neuroscientists, clinical researchers, and contemplative scholar/practitioners interested in exploring the potential influences of meditation and other contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain function, and health. This includes examining the potential role of contemplative methods for characterizing human experience and consciousness from a neuroscience and clinical intervention perspective.
The 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) will be devoted to the theme of the self, its development in sociocultural and contemplative contexts, and its implications for human flourishing and social transformation. MLSRI 09 will bring together contemplatives and academic scholars from the social, developmental, and clinical sciences, the neurosciences, contemplative studies, and philosophy to dialogue about a variety of topics pertaining to the self. These topics will include conceptualizations of self and identity in various traditions; the development of self in normative and contemplative contexts; the neurobiology of the self; the processes of self-identification and their effects on life outcomes; the phenomenology of identity, ownership; the concept of “self-regulation” and its relation to issues of mental causation, and free-will; the role of self processes in psychological illness; and finally, self versus no-self views on the fundamental nature of the mind and consciousness.
Best regards,
Angela Teng, MLSRI Project Administrator SRI@mindandlife.org
David R. Vago, PhD, Senior Research Coordinator dvago@mindandlife.org "
Mind and Life XVIII: Attention, Memory and the Mind
Mind & Life Institute:
"Private Conference
Mind and Life XVIII
Attention, Memory and the Mind:
A Synergy of Psychological, Neuroscientific, and Contemplative Perspectives
with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Dharamsala, India • April 6–10, 2009
The Mind and Life Dialogues and the Mind and Life Institute
Beginning in the twentieth century, science has become the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of objective, quantitative measurements, using the instruments of technology. The integration of scientific knowledge and technology has vastly contributed to our understanding of the physical world and to improving the human standard of living. Furthermore, over a much longer time period spanning the past 2,500 years, Buddhism has emerged in multiple cultures throughout Asia as the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of subjective, qualitative observations by way of highly sophisticated meditative training. The integration of Buddhist theories and practices has revealed many important insights into the nature of the mind and its role in nature, while radically transforming and enriching its host societies and improving the quality of life of its adherents. In many ways, the methods and goals of scientific and contemplative inquiry are profoundly complementary, with each of them having enormous potential for enriching the other.
In 1987, recognizing that there was no official orderly way for science and Buddhism to share their findings, and convinced that a rigorous scientific dialogue and collaboration between these two impressive traditions would be beneficial for humanity, neuroscientist Francisco Varela and entrepreneur Adam Engle started the Mind and Life Dialogues with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Since then, the Mind and Life meetings have focused on a broad set of themes ranging from the mind sciences and biology to physics and cosmology. This present meeting on attention, memory, and the phenomenological study of the mind is the eighteenth such Mind and Life dialogue.
What sets the Mind and Life dialogues apart from other meetings between science and Buddhism is the focus on in-depth, cross-cultural dialogue. In this meeting, the morning presentations by cognitive scientists will be 60-90 minutes in duration, followed by up to 90 minutes of discussion; and the afternoon sessions by cognitive scientists and Buddhist scholars and contemplatives will be 30-45 minutes in duration, with the rest of the 2 ½ hours devoted to discussion. These discussions have always been the central focus of each Mind and Life meeting, and in this conference they will play a more predominant role than ever before.
In addition to the Mind and Life dialogues and publications, the Mind and Life Institute has two other programs to advance our mission. One program initiates collaborative research studies between scientists and contemplatives, focused on determining the effects of meditation and other contemplative practices. To date, such studies have been initiated at the University of Wisconsin; UCSF Medical Center; Princeton; Harvard; UC Berkeley; Reed College; Pennsylvania State University; and University of Pennsylvania.
Another program to help promote new research in this emerging area is the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute, which is an annual week-long workshop specifically for young scientists and scholars with an interest in this area. This Research Institute combines scientific and Buddhist presentations, in-depth discussions on how to advance the interface between scientific and contemplative modes of inquiry, and meditation practice.
Overview
The topics of Mind and Life XVIII are human attention, memory, and the mind considered from phenomenological (including contemplative), psychological, and neurobiological perspectives. While the relation between attention, memory, and the mind is a fascinating area of research in psychological science and neuroscience, it is also of particular interest and investigation in Buddhism, because it is through the contemplative refinement of attention and mindfulness that one explores the distinctive characteristics, origins, and potentials of human awareness, of suffering, and of genuine happiness. In short, the contemplative training known as “shamatha” (meditative quiescence) deals with the development and refinement of attention; and this is the basis for “vipashyana” (contemplative insight), which entails methods for experientially exploring the nature of the mind and its relation to the world at large.
Furthermore, sustained voluntary attention (samadhi) is closely related to memory, because in order to deliberately sustain one’s attention upon a chosen object, one must continue to remember to do so from moment to moment, faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it. Likewise, in Buddhism, the faculty of “mindfulness” (smrti) refers not only to moment-to-moment awareness of present events. Instead, the primary connotation of this Sanskrit term (and its corresponding Pali term sati) is recollection. This includes long-term, short-term, and working memory, non-forgetful, present-centered awareness, and also prospective memory, i.e., remembering to be aware of something or to do something at a designated time in the future. In these ways, from a contemplative perspective, memory is critically linked to attention, and both of these mental faculties have important ramifications for the experiential and phenomenological study of the mind, its training, and potential optimization.
The discussions during Mind and Life XVIII will primarily focus on the subjective phenomenology, information-processing operations, and neural mechanisms of attention, memory, and conscious awareness from both scientific and Buddhist perspectives. It is fervently expected that participants in these dialogues, coming from the various disciplines of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and Buddhist scholarship and contemplative practice will especially work toward understanding and incorporating the broad range of each others’ ideas and views about the topics of this meeting. Special attention will be focused on the distinctive characteristics and interactions of attention, memory, and metacognition as seen from diverse viewpoints, including the possibility of multiple dimensions of awareness (not limiting the discussion to the familiar categories of the conscious and subconscious mind), and the relationship between the entire spectrum of human information processing, awareness, and the world of experience (Lebenswelt) as a whole. We anticipate that this exploration will lead to further systematic plans for ground-breaking empirical and theoretical research on meditation and contemplative practice at the interface between science and Buddhism. Participants will be prepared to interact collaboratively toward developing such an exciting research agenda.
Participants
Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama
David E. Meyer, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan
B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., President, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies
Anne Treisman, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Princeton University
Rupert Gethin, Ph.D., Director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Adele Diamond, Ph.D., Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Amishi Jha, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Clifford Saron, Ph.D., Assistant Research Scientist, Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis
Elizabeth Phelps, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, New York University
Shaun Gallagher, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of Central FloridaInterpreters:
Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., President of the Institute of Tibetan Classics in Montreal
B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies "
"Private Conference
Mind and Life XVIII
Attention, Memory and the Mind:
A Synergy of Psychological, Neuroscientific, and Contemplative Perspectives
with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Dharamsala, India • April 6–10, 2009
The Mind and Life Dialogues and the Mind and Life Institute
Beginning in the twentieth century, science has become the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of objective, quantitative measurements, using the instruments of technology. The integration of scientific knowledge and technology has vastly contributed to our understanding of the physical world and to improving the human standard of living. Furthermore, over a much longer time period spanning the past 2,500 years, Buddhism has emerged in multiple cultures throughout Asia as the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of subjective, qualitative observations by way of highly sophisticated meditative training. The integration of Buddhist theories and practices has revealed many important insights into the nature of the mind and its role in nature, while radically transforming and enriching its host societies and improving the quality of life of its adherents. In many ways, the methods and goals of scientific and contemplative inquiry are profoundly complementary, with each of them having enormous potential for enriching the other.
In 1987, recognizing that there was no official orderly way for science and Buddhism to share their findings, and convinced that a rigorous scientific dialogue and collaboration between these two impressive traditions would be beneficial for humanity, neuroscientist Francisco Varela and entrepreneur Adam Engle started the Mind and Life Dialogues with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Since then, the Mind and Life meetings have focused on a broad set of themes ranging from the mind sciences and biology to physics and cosmology. This present meeting on attention, memory, and the phenomenological study of the mind is the eighteenth such Mind and Life dialogue.
What sets the Mind and Life dialogues apart from other meetings between science and Buddhism is the focus on in-depth, cross-cultural dialogue. In this meeting, the morning presentations by cognitive scientists will be 60-90 minutes in duration, followed by up to 90 minutes of discussion; and the afternoon sessions by cognitive scientists and Buddhist scholars and contemplatives will be 30-45 minutes in duration, with the rest of the 2 ½ hours devoted to discussion. These discussions have always been the central focus of each Mind and Life meeting, and in this conference they will play a more predominant role than ever before.
In addition to the Mind and Life dialogues and publications, the Mind and Life Institute has two other programs to advance our mission. One program initiates collaborative research studies between scientists and contemplatives, focused on determining the effects of meditation and other contemplative practices. To date, such studies have been initiated at the University of Wisconsin; UCSF Medical Center; Princeton; Harvard; UC Berkeley; Reed College; Pennsylvania State University; and University of Pennsylvania.
Another program to help promote new research in this emerging area is the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute, which is an annual week-long workshop specifically for young scientists and scholars with an interest in this area. This Research Institute combines scientific and Buddhist presentations, in-depth discussions on how to advance the interface between scientific and contemplative modes of inquiry, and meditation practice.
Overview
The topics of Mind and Life XVIII are human attention, memory, and the mind considered from phenomenological (including contemplative), psychological, and neurobiological perspectives. While the relation between attention, memory, and the mind is a fascinating area of research in psychological science and neuroscience, it is also of particular interest and investigation in Buddhism, because it is through the contemplative refinement of attention and mindfulness that one explores the distinctive characteristics, origins, and potentials of human awareness, of suffering, and of genuine happiness. In short, the contemplative training known as “shamatha” (meditative quiescence) deals with the development and refinement of attention; and this is the basis for “vipashyana” (contemplative insight), which entails methods for experientially exploring the nature of the mind and its relation to the world at large.
Furthermore, sustained voluntary attention (samadhi) is closely related to memory, because in order to deliberately sustain one’s attention upon a chosen object, one must continue to remember to do so from moment to moment, faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it. Likewise, in Buddhism, the faculty of “mindfulness” (smrti) refers not only to moment-to-moment awareness of present events. Instead, the primary connotation of this Sanskrit term (and its corresponding Pali term sati) is recollection. This includes long-term, short-term, and working memory, non-forgetful, present-centered awareness, and also prospective memory, i.e., remembering to be aware of something or to do something at a designated time in the future. In these ways, from a contemplative perspective, memory is critically linked to attention, and both of these mental faculties have important ramifications for the experiential and phenomenological study of the mind, its training, and potential optimization.
The discussions during Mind and Life XVIII will primarily focus on the subjective phenomenology, information-processing operations, and neural mechanisms of attention, memory, and conscious awareness from both scientific and Buddhist perspectives. It is fervently expected that participants in these dialogues, coming from the various disciplines of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and Buddhist scholarship and contemplative practice will especially work toward understanding and incorporating the broad range of each others’ ideas and views about the topics of this meeting. Special attention will be focused on the distinctive characteristics and interactions of attention, memory, and metacognition as seen from diverse viewpoints, including the possibility of multiple dimensions of awareness (not limiting the discussion to the familiar categories of the conscious and subconscious mind), and the relationship between the entire spectrum of human information processing, awareness, and the world of experience (Lebenswelt) as a whole. We anticipate that this exploration will lead to further systematic plans for ground-breaking empirical and theoretical research on meditation and contemplative practice at the interface between science and Buddhism. Participants will be prepared to interact collaboratively toward developing such an exciting research agenda.
Participants
Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama
David E. Meyer, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan
B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., President, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies
Anne Treisman, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Princeton University
Rupert Gethin, Ph.D., Director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Adele Diamond, Ph.D., Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Amishi Jha, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Clifford Saron, Ph.D., Assistant Research Scientist, Center for Mind and Brain, UC Davis
Elizabeth Phelps, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, New York University
Shaun Gallagher, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of Central FloridaInterpreters:
Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., President of the Institute of Tibetan Classics in Montreal
B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies "
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
