Mind and Life Institute 2009 Spring Newsletter - Mind & Life Institute

Building a scientific understanding 

of how to create and maintain a healthy mind 

Mind and Life Institute 

2009 Spring Newsletter

Newsletter 

Spring 2009 

Letter from the Chairman 

The first quarter of 2009 has been 

a very active and productive time 

for Mind and Life, and we expect 

the balance of the year to continue 

at this active and productive rate. 

We began the year announcing the 

2008 Francisco J. Varela research 

awards. You will find the names of 

the awardees and their research 

projects reported in this 

newsletter. Please join me in 

congratulating these stellar young 

scientists who are just beginning 

their research careers. 

In January we held a private pre meeting to prepare 

for our Mind and Life XVIII dialogue with the Dalai 

Lama. Before each ML dialogue, all the speakers and 

panelists come together to coordinate and refine the 

dialogue. Over the years we have learned it is critical 

to do this to insure a productive dialogue and that our 

dialogues improved when we began this process in 

1995. 

In this newsletter Zara Houshmand reports on our 

recently completed dialogue in Dharamsala. 

Hopefully some of you followed the short snapshots 

of the meeting by Rob Roeser and David Vago who 

contributed daily from Dharamsala on our newly 

created blog (www.mindandlife.org/blog). We expect 

to become more proficient in social networking in 

the coming months as part of our effort to improve 

our communications with our growing circle of 

friends around the world who follow and support our 

work. 

In February we held our winter ML Education 

Research Network [MLERN] meeting at the lovely 

home of our dear friends and MLI sponsors, John and 

Tussi Kluge. We have a short tribute to the generosity 

of John and Tussi in this newsletter following Rob’s 

impressions of the MLERN meeting. You will also 

find a brief overview of our public dialogue that is 

being organized by the MLERN members—Mind 

and Life XIX dialogue: Educating World Citizens 

for the 21st Century– which will be held on October 

8-9, 2009 in Washington, DC. This dialogue is open 

to the public and we hope you will join us for this 

historic event. Registrations are now open at 

www.EducatingWorldCitizens.org. Please visit that 

site today for a full description of that meeting and to 

register. 

Diego Hangartner has written a brief update on the 

work we are doing internationally. We are well along 

in our planning for our Mind and Life XX dialogue, 

also open to the public, in Zurich in April 2010. We 

are also planning our first ML dialogue to be held in 

India, later in 2010. 

We are honored to recognize our growing community 

of generous and loyal MLI sponsors in this 

newsletter. Our work would not be possible without 

their support and we are pleased to extend our deepest 

thanks to the individuals and organizations who 

sustained us in the past year. We received an extraordinary 

gift in 2008 from John and Tussi Kluge, who 

made an unrestricted donation of $1 million on top of 

their strong support of the ML Education Research 

Network. This largest single donation in the history of 

MLI gives us even greater stability in times of 

uncertainty in the global economy. If you share our 

passion for bringing science and contemplative 

wisdom into collaborative dialogue to reduce 

suffering in our world, please consider joining our 

family of sponsors. You will find several ways of 

making gifts to Mind and Life immediately following 

the listing of 2008 donors in this newsletter. 

Finally, with anxiety and stress on the rise 

throughout the world in this time of change, we want 

to share some inspiring thoughts from our Board 

member and friend Jon Kabat-Zinn who is the 

founding director of the Center for Mindfulness in 

Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University 

of Massachusetts Medical School. May his words be 

an inspiration to you in keeping your balance during 

difficult times. 

With warmest regards, 

Adam Engle 

Chairman and CEO 

1



Mind and Life XVIII: Attention, Memory, and Mind: 

A Synergy of Psychological, Neuroscientific, and Contemplative Perspectives 

The eighteenth Mind 

and Life conference 

brought together 

scientists, philosophers, 

and scholars of 

Buddhism for an 

extraordinary dialogue 

with the Dalai Lama at 

his home in 

Dharamsala, India on 

April 6-10. The topics of Mind and Life XVIII were 

human attention, memory, and the mind considered 

from the phenomenological (including contemplative), 

psychological, and neurobiological perspectives. 

Dialogue participants represented diverse 

perspectives from Western science and in both 

Tibetan and Theravada Buddhism traditions. The cocoordinators 

of this meeting were David Meyer, a 

mathematical psychologist and cognitive scientist 

from the University of Michigan and Alan Wallace, 

president of the Santa Barbara Institute for 

Consciousness Studies and a former monk who has 

long been involved with the Mind and Life dialogues. 

While the relation between attention, memory, and 

consciousness is a fascinating area of research in 

psychology and neuroscience, it is also a particular 

focus of Buddhism. The mental training known as 

shamatha aims to develop and refine attention, which 

then becomes a tool for contemplative insight into the 

nature of the mind and its relation to the world at 

large. The traditional Buddhist study of the mind sees 

a close relationship between attention and memory: 

sustaining attention on a chosen object involves 

remembering from moment to moment, returning to 

focus whenever the mind wanders away. The close 

analysis of attention, memory, and mindfulness in 

Buddhism has interesting parallels in the scientific 

understanding of attention and working memory. 

Ground-breaking new research correlates the precise 

observations of inner experience from skilled 

meditators with advanced brain imaging techniques 

for a more complete view of how the mind and brain 

interact. For instance, in studies of expert meditators 

who approach advanced levels of refined attention, 

researchers are discovering the extraordinary effects 

of a stable attention and a calm and clear mind on 

physical health and psychological well-being. 

David Meyer introduced models of human 

information processing, multitasking and their 

potential applications for the science of meditation. He 

discussed how his work on attention regulation was 

informed by insights from cybernetics and artificial 

intelligence. We now have precise mathematical 

models of how the mind can control attention on 

multiple tasks through various feedback mechanisms. 

Meyer detailed the cognitive neuroscience of attention 

and multitasking, including the potential dangers and 

inefficiencies of multitasking with an untrained mind. 

He then suggested that these models could be 

fruitfully applied to the study of mindfulness 

meditation, which he viewed as a form of multitasking. 

He asked the dialogue partners if meditation 

made one better at carrying out multiple tasks or not. 

Alan Wallace followed with an overview of how 

introspective analysis can be trained through 

meditation to a degree of skill that leads to more 

accurate and reliable self-reporting of mental 

experience that may calibrate with the classic thirdperson 

methods of the modern laboratory. Such 

methods may lead the way for ground-breaking 

collaborative research where phenomenology, 

Buddhism, and cognitive science converge. 

Anne Treisman, professor of psychology at Princeton 

University, examined different modes of attention. 

Focused attention, she suggested, is what “binds” the 

various features detected in the brain into a coherent 

representation of an object. Distributed attention 

gives more of an “average set of features” to objects 

because it lacks the precise binding of focused 

attention. She also discussed how much of human 

perception, motivation and self-regulation is nonconscious. 

To illustrate this point she described an 

experiment in which participants showed greater 

selfishness in a post-experiment task after being 

tested on another task while sitting in front of a 

computer – unconnected with the experiment – in 

which a screen-saver displayed dollar bills versus 

fish. Dr. Treisman then engaged the contemplatives 

in a discussion of processes that may be accessible to 

conscious awareness through mental training and 

those that are unlikely to ever be so. 

Rupert Gethin, a Buddhist scholar at Bristol 

continued on page 3 

2



University and president of the highly respected Pali 

Text Society, gave a detailed analysis found in ancient 

Abhidamma texts of Theravadan Buddhism—the 

earliest records of Buddhist psychology—of the many 

mental processes related to attention and memory that 

interplay simultaneously, moment by moment, to 

create our experience of the world. The Theravada 

perspective on mindfulness and the mental factors 

associated with it seemed to hold a special interest for 

the Dalai Lama and the senior Tibetan monks in 

attendance, and we witnessed an extraordinary 

session of Buddhist ‘shop talk’ among true experts. 

Their discussion of attention (manasikara), 

mindfulness (sati), and clear comprehension 

(samapajañña) afforded a glimpse into the diversity 

and subtlety of Buddhist thought with a precision that 

the scientists especially could appreciate. 

Adele Diamond, Professor of Developmental 

Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of British 

Columbia, combines developmental, cognitive, 

neuroscientific and molecular genetic approaches in 

her work on cognitive control processes that rely on 

the prefrontal cortex, focusing on attention regulation 

and working memory. Her research has shown that 

children are very different from adults in their ability 

to regulate attention and control pre-potent impulses, 

and that these abilities can be learned to provide a 

stable foundation for academic learning. Dr. 

Diamond highlighted the close intertwining of motor 

and cognitive development at the brain and mental 

levels. She noted that developmentally appropriate 

means of teaching attention control can include 

physical activities as well as more introverted ones 

which are difficult for young children. Very practical 

techniques apply this new understanding in creative 

programs for better success in the classroom. The 

role of play, the arts, and physical education are 

essential in developing children’s skills of attention 

and self-regulation, as she showed in powerfully 

moving video demonstrations. 

Amishi Jha, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the 

University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Cognitive 

Neuroscience, reported on new research using 

mindfulness training to improve attention and working 

memory among medical students and other populations 

including older adults. Working memory capacity is 

fragile, affected by arousal and demand, and it 

degrades with age. Mindfulness training has been 

shown to improve both attention and working memory 

within just weeks of dedicated practice, improving the 

practitioner’s ability to cope with increased demand on 

each system and sustained over time. 

Emotion has evolved to play a crucial role in 

controlling attention for survival and adaptation by 

capturing attention, setting priorities, enhancing 

memory, and exaggerating our confidence in the 

accuracy of memories. Elizabeth Phelps, Professor of 

Psychology and Neural Science at New York 

University, explores the neurobiological interfaces 

between emotion, attention, and memory that explain 

these effects. 

The interplay between emotion and attention holds 

special interest for the collaboration between 

researchers and contemplatives, as Buddhist meditation 

often involves complementary approaches to training 

both emotional and attentional skills. The Shamatha 

Project is an ambitious study of the effects of longterm 

meditation training, combining focused attention 

with contemplative training in compassion and related 

emotions. Clifford Saron, a researcher at the Center for 

Mind and Brain at UC Davis and principal investigator 

on the project, presented preliminary findings, 

including significant health effects of meditation that 

have not been studied before. The audience in 

Dharamsala was privileged to get a first glimpse of 

exciting new data on a fast track for publication that 

will have a major impact on the field. 

Finally, Shaun Gallagher, Professor of Philosophy and 

Cognitive Science at the University of Hertfordshire 

and the University of Central Florida, highlighted the 

need to look beyond the brain to a vision of human 

consciousness as integrally intertwined with the body 

and the other people who inhabit our social worlds. He 

described studies that show how sensory perception is 

deeply informed by bodily aspects such as posture and 

movement, and intersubjective social interactions are 

vital to the construction of our consciousness. His 

contribution served to remind us that phenomenology, 

which was so important in Mind and Life founder 

Francisco Varela’s work, brings a nuanced view that is 

not limited to the discussion of first-person 

observation in scientific research. 

Mind and Life staff and participants blogged from 

the meeting site and have continued a wider dialogue 

with interested readers. Blog posts, images and 

videos from the dialogue can be found at 

www.mindandlife.org/blog. 

3



MLI announces the 2008–09 

Francisco J. Varela Research Award grant recipients 

After a rigorous review and selection process, we are pleased to announce the 

awarding of this year’s Francisco J. Varela Research Grants. This grant 

program was established in 2004 to honor the memory of MLI co-founder 

Francisco Varela by stimulating high-quality research on pressing questions in 

contemplative science. To date 61 awards have been made totaling over 

$750,000 in funding for research fellows who have attended a Mind and Life 

Summer Research Institute and submitted proposals for this competitive grants 

program. Varela awardees have published significant findings in top-tier, peerreviewed 

journals and have been instrumental in advancing our knowledge in the 

emerging field of contemplative science. Please join us in congratulating these 

researchers on their success. 

2008-09 Francisco J. Varela Research Awardees and their projects 

Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, M.A. – Study to design and 

assess the validity of the emory meditation 

practice tradition & experience (EMPTE) scale 

Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, M.Sc. – Meditation and nonlinear 

neurodynamics: from state to trait 

Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, Ph.D. – Changing our 

perception of others through compassion 

meditation 

Lisa Flook, Ph.D. & Brian Galla, M.A. – Mindful 

Awareness Practices for Preschool Children to 

Improve Attention and Emotion Regulation 

Sheila Garland, Ph.D. – An objective comparison of 

cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulnessbased 

stress reduction for the treatment of 

insomnia in individuals with cancer using wrist 

actigraphy: A randomized non-inferiority trial 

Wendy Hasenkamp, Ph.D. - Real Time Dynamics of 

Cognitive Processing during Meditation: A 

Subject-driven fMRI Investigation 

Brandon King, B.A. & Anthony Zanesco, B.A. - The 

Interrelationship Between Cognitive Control and 

Affect in an Intensive Vipassana Retreat 

Teresa Sivilli, B.A. - The FACE Study: Faces, 

Attention, Compassion and Emotion 

Nicholas Van Dam, Ph.D. – Exploring the impact of 

meditation on stress and psychopathology: 

Attentional allocation as a potential mechanism 

of active change following meditation training 

Lepp, Nathaniel, B.S./Ellen Darling, B.A. – Schoolbased 

mindfulness training in middle school and 

college students: Effects on emotion, objectively 

measured sleep and attention; Effects on 

mindfulness, self-compassion and depression in 

women 

Susanne Leiberg, Ph.D. – The neural and behavioural 

correlates of a neurofeedback-based metta 

meditation training 

Sean Barnes, M.S. – Identifying the mechanisms of 

action in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy 

Holly Rau, B.S. – Application of the neurovisceral 

integration model to mindfulness: Implications 

for stress regulation and the development of 

insomnia 

The Francisco J. Varela Research Awards are supported by grants from the Hershey Family Foundation 

and the John Templeton Foundation. 

4



Mind and Life Education Research Network (MLERN) Meeting February 2009 

The Mind and Life Education Research 

Network (MLERN) was formed in 2006 

to create a multidisciplinary intellectual 

forum dedicated to exploring issues at 

the intersection of mind, brain, 

education and contemplative practice. 

The network, directed by Dr. Richard 

Davidson of the University of 

Wisconsin, includes a core group of 

contemplatives and contemplative 

scholars; neuroscientists; cognitive, 

developmental and educational 

scientists, and educational activists. 

MLERN Group at the home of Tussie and John Kluge, West Palm Beach Florida. 

The most recent meeting took place at the home of 

MLERN’s primary benefactors, Tussi and John 

Kluge, in West Palm Beach Florida. Needless to 

say, the sunshine and ocean were omnipresent 

blessings in this setting! This was the last formal 

meeting of the first phase of the Network. 

The meeting began with a reflection on what the 

network had accomplished in its first three-year 

phase. Richie Davidson, the network’s director, noted 

“We’ve brought in a tremendous number of 

educators, scientific experts and contemplatives over 

these years, a very rich array. It seems there is a 

range of things out there in the country at this time 

and my impression is that, although people are 

extremely well-intentioned and likely benefitting 

kids and teachers, there’s precious little research, 

especially regarding the application of contemplative 

practices to children. That’s the bottom line honest 

truth about the state of the art. Launching scientific 

research in the area will allow these interventions to 

be scaled up and that is critical as it is our aspiration 

to transform the world. We’re going to need to have 

this be evidenced-based in a way that can influence 

policy makers and the world at large.” 

In response to these realities, Dr. Davidson also 

noted that the network had funded three pilot 

research projects to date: Amishi Jha was funded to 

develop age appropriate attention and working 

memory tasks for school-aged children that could be 

used in studies of education and contemplative 

practice; Mark Greenberg and Tamar Mendelson 

were funded to do pilot research in inner-city 

Baltimore to look at the effects of a mindfulness 

based yoga program on 4 th and 5 th grade, primarily 

African-American students; and Rob Roeser and 

Kim Schonert-Reichl were funded to do a study of a 

mindfulness-based teacher professional development 

program for stress reduction and resilience in the city 

of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He also 

noted that many of these studies were aimed at 

developing measures of calm, clear, and kind 

individuals of different ages for use in future contemplative 

research. 

In addition to this funded research, the MLERN 

group discussed the next phase of the network and its 

aims. One of the main goals of MLERN II is to 

conduct an interdisciplinary, collaborative multisite 

study of contemplative practices with teachers and 

students. Efforts to develop grant money to fund this 

research are underway. The group also took time to 

work on a “whitepaper” on Contemplative 

Education. In this case, the whitepaper is a collaborative 

work of network members aimed at defining 

this domain of education and focusing on how extant 

research on basic human developmental processes, 

and the development of contemplative adepts, both 

support the viability of further investigation of the 

use of contemplative practices with children and 

adolescents and their parents and teachers. 

MLERN also continued the tradition of inviting wellknown 

scholars in the areas of education, science, 

continued on page 6 

5



MLERN meeting, continued from page 5 

and contemplative practice in to present their ideas and 

research. Guests included Bridget Hamre, Kim Schoert- 

Reichl, Terry Chadsey, Terry Meersman and Trish Broderick. 

These presenters talked about how to assess classroom 

environments that were socially and emotionally conducive to 

learning; how a mindfulness education program for 

elementary school children in Vancouver seemed to show 

positive effects across an array of attentional and stressrelated 

measures; and on how mindfulness-based stress 

reduction can reduce rumination in adolescent females. We 

also heard about work on teacher preparation and were shown 

new materials for parent education that might include a 

mindfulness component in the future. In addition, the meeting 

included rich discussions among the other members present 

including Mark Greenberg, Linda Lantieri, Adam Engle, 

Roshi Joan Halifax, Richie Davidson, Kim Schonert-Reichl, 

David Vago, Thupten Jinpa, Tish Jennings, Tussi Kluge, Trish 

Broderick, Heather Locke and Rob Roeser. 

The members of the Network and the Mind and Life Institute 

would like to express our sincere gratitude to Tussi and John 

Kluge for their hospitality in hosting several MLERN 

meetings, and for their generosity in supporting the network 

and its aims. 

John and Tussi 

Mind and Life Board member 

Richie Davidson sat down with 

Tussi Kluge at the February, 2009 

Mind and Life Education 

Research Network (MLERN) 

meeting held at her Florida 

home. Tussi and John Kluge 

have been strong supporters of 

MLERN and recently made the 

largest single gift to MLI in its 

history. 

Richie: Tussi, thank you for your strong support of the Mind 

and Life Institute and of the MLERN program in particular. Can 

I ask you to share with us your vision of the role of philanthropy 

in our society? 

Tussi: I think that philanthropy is a wonderful way of 

encouraging people to go into deeper knowledge of an organization 

or cause they support. Individuals have an opportunity 

to be early supporters of new ideas that may later be 

supported more broadly – by institutions and public funds, for 

instance. Philanthropy can be most powerful when it focuses 

on nourishing new ideas and solutions, almost in the way a 

collector of art looks for the next big artist before they get 

famous. 

RD: What do you find most appealing about MLI’s mission 

and the work we are doing? 

TK: Mind and Life collects deep knowledge, deep heart and 

insights and seeks to apply it in novel ways that can transform 

society and individuals for the better. It is so beautiful that 

Mind and Life began in the deep heart of a neuroscientist 

(Francisco Varela) who was so much more than a scientist. His 

vision was more like that of a renaissance man. While fully 

present in the modern world of technology and science, he 

also cherished and kept alive so many of the ancestral and 

original things that contemplative wisdom holds. I find it 

beautiful that Mind and Life strives to be true to that vision of 

working at the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern 

science. 

RD: You and John have been strong supporters of Mind and 

Life’s Education Research Network from the very start. Now 

that it is preparing for a second phase can you say a few words 

about your hopes and dreams for the role contemplative 

practices might come to play in our education system? 

TK: It is both amazing and appalling when you see that we 

pay a teacher half what a prison guard gets paid. It says 

something about our priorities. We have to turn society 

around, and I hope that Mind and Life can play a part in that. 

Apart from the salary issue, it is also one of respect and what 

we value for our future. If we can help restore the respect for 

teachers and others who help preserve and promote human, 

kind and compassionate behavior that would be truly 

amazing. The work of MLERN is all about fostering qualities 

of kindness, compassion, resilience and attention in children 

so they will be well-rounded and complete individuals and 

members of society. What a beautiful objective! 

RD: We are going through challenging and stressful times right 

now. What do you do to keep your balance in these uncertain 

times? 

TK: The main thing is not to be too hard on yourself. If I can 

remain somewhat of an observer of my own actions and 

mistakes I can work to shift them into positive steps and learn 

from them, rather than react in unhealthy ways to them. I also 

am constantly renewed by laughter and joy, so I try to make 

space to let that into my life regularly. The ability to be 

physically aware comes with discipline and I find it much 

easier when I teach it. When we teach something to others we 

are more involved, accountable and responsible for them, in a 

way. We enter into a deeper relationship together, at least I 

do. That’s one of the things I like most about the way MLERN 

is developing: it is putting a lot of attention on the role 

teachers play in creating the right conditions for their students. 

RD: Let me just close by thanking John and you on behalf of 

the entire Board and staff for your strong support of Mind and 

Life and MLERN. 

TK: Thank you, Richie! 

6



Mind and Life International: 

Expanding Opportunities for Collaboration 

Mind and Life International was founded in January 

2008 as an Association in Zurich. The goal is to 

catalyze Mind and Life’s presence and activities in 

Europe and beyond, recognizing that the potential for 

collaboration between contemplative and scientific 

knowledge and wisdom knows no geographic 

bounds. ML International is a tax-exempt organization. 

Diego Hangartner is the General Secretary. 

The first event organized by Mind and Life International 

was the Mind and Life meeting in Berlin, 

which was planned to be the 18th meeting with His 

Holiness the Dalai Lama. It would have taken place 

from Thursday, October 16 to Sunday, October 19, 

2006; the topic set was “The Self, Mental Causation 

and Free Will.” Unfortunately, on September 13, His 

Holiness cancelled his travels to Europe on His 

physician’s advice, and preparations came to a halt 

shortly before the event would have taken place. 

At present, we are preparing the next conference in 

Europe: Mind and Life XX “On Altruism and 

Compassion in Economic Systems” in Zurich, April 

2010. This will be a public conference. The goal of 

this meeting is to hold a high level, interdisciplinary 

dialogue with experts in the fields of Buddhism, 

neuroscience, psychology and economics. Participants 

will share their perspectives on empathy, 

compassion and pro-social motivation, discussing the 

relevance of empathy and compassion for the transformation 

of the individual and of large-scale social 

systems (eg, economic, political, etc.) Given the 

current turmoil in the global economy, this is a 

particularly appropriate topic for a Mind and Life 

dialogue. 

His Holiness and eminent scientists will discuss 

central issues and questions such as: 

• How do the concepts of altruism, egoism, empathy 

and compassion in Buddhist Philosophy relate to 

similar concepts in the emerging fields of ‘social 

neuroscience’ and ‘neuroeconomics’ and to 

research on empathy, altruism, fairness, economic 

decision-making and cooperation? 

• Can compassion and pro-social motivation 

influence economic decision-making? If so, how? 

• How can a competitive system such as our modern 

economic system be conceived and constructed in 

such a way that compassionate motives and 

altruism play a larger role? 

A bit farther into the future we are organizing our 

first Mind and Life dialogue in India, scheduled for 

Delhi in late 2010. With this dialogue we will 

expand our outreach to the scientific and contemplative 

communities in India and Asia. The planning 

committees for both dialogues are in the early stages 

of preparatory work and have not yet begun 

soliciting participants for either meeting. 

In addition to organizing these conferences, Mind 

and Life International is investigating the possibility 

of setting up a European arm of the very successful 

Mind and Life Summer Research Institute. Interest 

is growing for this type of gathering outside the 

United States and the current MLSRI is heavily 

subscribed. We are looking into locating an 

appropriate venue and raising funds to support this 

effort. 

7



Mind and Life XIX: 

Educating World Citizens for the 21 st Century 

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 in an increasingly 

complex and interconnected world? 

These questions are at the heart of Educating World 

Citizens for the 21 st Century, a two-day education 

dialogue bringing together His Holiness the Dalai 

Lama with leading educators, scientists and contemplatives. 

The dialogue will take place at DAR Constitution 

Hall in Washington, D.C., October 8–9, 2009. 

This interdisciplinary dialogue will pool new ideas in 

educational theory and practice, philosophy, 

psychology, and neuroscience with the wisdom of the 

world’s great contemplative traditions. The intent of 

the conference is to create a synergy of these 

converging disciplines to inspire a new vision of 

education that focuses on the development of the 

whole child and adolescent within more caring and 

effective schools and communities. Presenters will 

address how to create an educational system that will 

nurture the heart as well as the mind and that will 

create compassionate, engaged, and ethical world 

citizens whose skills and abilities are used not only for 

personal growth and advancement, but also for the 

good of the world. 

The conference is co-sponsored by Harvard 

University School of Education, Stanford University 

School of Education, University of Virginia Curry 

School of Education, Pennsylvania State University 

College of Education, University of Wisconsin- 

Madison School of Education, American Psychological 

Association, and the Collaboration for 

Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). 

Major speakers will include His Holiness the Dalai 

Lama, Marian Wright Edelman (Children’s Defense 

Fund), Richard J. Davidson (University of Wisconsin 

– Madison), and Linda Lantieri (Inner Resilience 

Program). Moderators / Interpreters include Daniel 

Goleman, Joan Halifax, and Thupten Jinpa. The Dalai 

Lama will participate fully in all sessions. 

The panelists scheduled to appear include: 

Peter Benson 

Martin Brokenleg 

Ronald Dahl 

Linda Darling- 

Hammond 

Nancy Eisenberg 

Mark Greenberg 

Takao Hensch 

Ann Carolyn Klein 

Kathleen McCartney 

Nel Noddings 

Matthieu Ricard 

Lee Shuman 

Margot Stern Strom 

“In recent years we have seen evidence that contemplative 

practices can improve attention, emotional 

balance, kindness, compassion and confidence among 

adults who use them,” said Adam Engle, Chairman of 

the Mind and Life Institute. “This dialogue among 

the Dalai Lama, world-renowned educators, scientists 

and policy makers will explore in a public setting 

whether it is possible to bring these benefits to 

children earlier in their lives, especially in the context 

of our educational systems.” 

Registration is now open to the general public and we 

expect demand for seats to be strong for this 

stimulating two-day dialogue. You can find additional 

information on the program and register for the 

conference at www.educatingworldcitizens.org. You 

will also find information on accommodations and 

VIP sponsorship packages. 

8



2008 Donor Recognition Report 

We are extremely grateful for the generous support of our donors in 2008. Mind and Life depends on the 

charitable contributions of individuals and foundations in order to fulfill our mission. Please join us in 

thanking all those whose gifts sustain our progress. 

This listing covers grants and contributions received from January 1 through December 31, 2008. 

$1,000,000 and up 

John and Tussi M. Kluge 

$100,000 and up 

Peter & Alison Baumann 

Ann M. Down 

The Hershey Family Foundation 

The John Templeton Foundation 


Grant Couch & Louise Pearson 

Beat & Regula Curti 

Rip & Jacque Gellein 

The George Family Foundation 

The William James Foundation 

The Lostand Foundation 

Delphine & Jean-Paul 

Resseguier 


The MCJ Amelior Foundation 

Anonymous 

Klaus Hebben 

Ralph & Kathy Robinson 

The Tan Teo Charitable 

Foundation 

The Walker Family Foundation 


The Sager Family 

Foundation/Science Workshop 

for Monks 

The Shapiro Family Foundation 

The Adam J. Weissman 

Foundation 


Victor & Roberta Bradford 

Olivia Hansen 

Greg Jacobson 

Fran & Tim Orrok 

Daniel & Ursula Vollenweider 

The Joni Winston Fund 


Anonymous 

Raluca Moucha 

Ian Paul & Lara Patriquin 

Bradley Richards• 

Roy & Gita Steinbock 

Gifts up to $999 

Doris Berlin† 

Patricia Buchanan 

Ms. George Campling 

Ed Cutrell & Paige Bills• 

Karina Fedko 

Robert Halcomb 

Wendy Hasenkamp 

Shari Herrick 

Cecile Hohenlohe 

Charles-Antoine Janssen 

Feng-Yang Kuo 

Russ Langdon 

Sara Lazar 

Microsoft Matching Gifts 

Program 

Antonio Pinon 

Michael Popper 

Johannes Prins 

Erika Rosenberg 

Karen & Tony Samples† 

Lauren Selig 

Adeline Van Waning 

Deirdre G. Weliky† 

† In memory of Herman Parker 

• Gifts matched by employer 

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to build an understanding of how to create and maintain a healthy mind. Contributions may be made via our 

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9



Overwhelmed 

Excerpted by permission from Coming to Our Senses 

©2005 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. 

One day, I had a phone conversation with 

a professor of religion prior to a visit to 

his campus to meet with a faculty group 

about developing a contemplative 

curriculum in the university for undergraduates. 

In the course of the conversation, 

he told me that he was extraordinarily busy, what with 

all his committee responsibilities on top of his teaching and 

scholarship, travel, and raising young children at home. 

For some reason, my first reaction was to laugh and tease him 

a bit about it. Then I realized that it wasn’t so funny, certainly 

not for him. It was diagnostic, a telltale sign of our age, and I 

found myself feeling sad, and a little disappointed. Somehow, 

deep in the recesses of my psyche, I had been harboring an 

archetype of the Ivy League professor, especially an oriental 

scholar and longtime meditation practitioner, leading a quiet 

and peaceful life on an idyllic campus. I shared with him that 

if he were talking about the medical school, or the law 

school, or the business school, or even the biology 

department, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised. But the 

religion department! The humanities!? 

In saying it, I realized how compartmentalized my own mind 

was. There was still a romantic memory trace of a former 

time, perhaps when I was in college in the early sixties, when 

things really seemed slow and leisurely, with life unfolding 

on a more human scale and at a rate that wasn’t conducive to 

a sense of perpetual overwhelm. Of course, that is, leaving 

out the violence of segregation in the South, the Cuban 

missile crisis, and the lie, but even the missile crisis seemed 

to unfold in slow motion, trapped as we were into being 

helpless spectators at what could have turned into “the end of 

the world.” 

Now though, our inner, first-person experience of things 

happening is so speeded up that we hardly know what is 

happening to us or around us, either individually or collectively. 

Like the proverbial frog put into water and then 

gradually heated, we often don’t realize how fast and furious 

and hot things have become for us until we experience that 

we are already getting scalded; or, in the frog’s case, dead 

without having attempted to leap out, as he would have, they 

say, if dropped into hot water to begin with. Speed itself has 

snuck up on us. It has gradually become a way of life we are 

now addicted to and complacent with without even knowing 

it. We have been entrained into what is now perpetual acceleration, 

with ever increasing expectations to get more done 

sooner, to process endless amounts of information, both the 

desirable and that which we are merely bombarded by, to be 

instantly gratified, even if it is just by the speed at which our 

computer boots up in the morning, if we ever shut it off, or by 

how fast we can get on the Internet. As we have seen and 

know deep in our hearts, we are running so fast to keep up 

with our schedules and to get things done and to acquire what 

we want and run from what we don’t want that a lot of the 

time it feels as if we are running on empty, with no time to 

catch our breath, or just be still with no agenda, or even pause 

to be happy with what we have achieved or attained already, 

or to feel our pain and sadness. 

To maintain our sanity in such an era, we may have to 

become intimate with stillness, every one of us. Stillness and 

quietude may no longer be luxuries, if they were seemed to 

be, nor experiences only suited to monks and nuns who have 

renounced the worldly life, or to adventurers in wilderness, or 

vacationers in national parks. I am not talking about leisure 

time. I am talking about non-doing. About spending deep 

time resting in pure wakefulness, outside of time, with the 

mind spacious and open. If it is healing for us when faced 

with life-threatening and chronic diseases, how can it not be 

healing for us in the face of the dis-ease of feeling totally and 

chronically overwhelmed and bereft, that our lives are 

somehow unfolding faster than the human nervous system 

and psyche are able to manage well. 

I once led a mindfulness workshop at a business conference 

in Chicago. About fifty people in suits showed up. I opened 

our time together by suggesting that we simply sit together 

for a few minutes with no instructions and with no agenda. I 

suggested that we let go of whatever expectations and stories 

we were bringing into the room about the workshop and why 

we were there (after all, something brought them there, no 

one was in the room by accident), put down our coffee cups 

and newspapers, and just take a few minutes to allow 

ourselves to feel how things were for us in that moment, 

however, they were. A few people started crying. 

In the conversation afterward, I asked what the tears were 

about. One executive said, “I never ever do anything without 

an agenda.” Heads nodded in agreement. Just the words, 

“let’s sit without an agenda,” were liberating, releasing 

dammed-up feelings of grief they didn’t know they had. 

It is possible that each and every one of us, in our own way, 

may be starving for no-agenda time, for non-doing, for 

stillness, beyond even the concept of meditation and the 

concept of me doing either something or nothing (such as the 

thought “I am meditating now”). I am not talking about 

distracting ourselves with the newspaper, or snacking, or 

conversing with others or with ourselves, or daydreaming 

either. I am talking of being aware, resting in being, in 

cognizance itself, beyond thought, in being the knowing and 

the not-knowing. In what Soen Sa Nim termed, in his 

inimitable way, “don’t know mind.” 

10



A TWENTY-TWO YEAR HISTORY OF ACCOMPLISHMENT 

Mind and Life Dialogues 

The titles of these dialogues between the Dalai Lama and leading scientists show the range of topics that the Mind and Life 

Institute has explored. For more details on these conferences, please go to www.mindandlife.org. 

■ 2009: Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century: Educators, 

Scientists and Contemplatives Dialogue on Cultivating a Healthy 

Mind, Brain and Heart, co-sponsored by Harvard University 

Graduate School of Education, Stanford University School of 

Education, Pennsylvania State University College of Education, 

University of Virginia Curry School of Education, University of 

Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, the American Psychological 

Association and the Collaborative for Academic, Social and 

Emotional Learning 

■ 2009: Attention, Memory, and the Mind 

■ 2008: Investigating the Mind-Body Connection: The Science and 

Clinical Applications of Meditation, hosted by Mayo Clinic 

■ 2007: Mindfulness, Compassion and the Treatment of Depression, 

co-sponsored by Emory University 

■ 2007: The Universe in a Single Atom 

■ 

2005: Investigating the Mind: The Science and Clinical Applications 

of Meditation, co-sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medical University 

and Georgetown Medical Center 

■ 2004: Neuroplasticity: The Neuronal Substrates of Learning and 

Transformation 

■ 2003: Investigating the Mind: Exchanges between Buddhism and 

Biobehavioral Science on How the Mind Works, co-sponsored by the 

McGovern Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

■ 2002: The Nature of Matter, The Nature of Life 

■ 

2001: Transformations of Mind, Brain and Emotion at the University 

of Wisconsin 

■ 2000: Destructive Emotions 

■ 

1998: Epistemological Questions in Quantum Physics and Eastern 

Contemplative Sciences at Innsbruck University 

■ 1997: The New Physics and Cosmology 

■ 1995: Altruism, Ethics, and Compassion 

■ 1992: Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying 

■ 1990: Emotions and Health 

■ 1989: Dialogues between Buddhism and the Neurosciences 

■ 1987: Dialogues between Buddhism and the Cognitive Sciences 

Mind and Life Books and DVD Sets 

The following books and DVD sets describe discussions between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists. Books in print can be 

obtained from major booksellers; DVD sets are available directly from the Mind and Life Institute. For more information about 

each title, please go to www.mindandlife.org. 

■ The Science of a Compassionate Life, DVD from the Dalai Lama’s 

Denver Public Talk in 2006 

■ The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation, DVD from Mind 

and Life XIII in 2005 

■ Train your Mind; Change your Brain, from Mind and Life XII in 2004 

■ Investigating the Mind, DVD from Mind and Life XI in 2003 

■ The Dalai Lama at MIT, from Mind and Life XI in 2003 

■ Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of 

Reality, from Mind and Life X in 2002 

■ Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, 

from Mind and Life VIII in 2002 

■ The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama, 

from Mind and Life VI in 1997 

■ Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists, 

from Mind and Life V in 1995 

■ Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness 

with the Dalai Lama, from Mind and Life IV in 1992 

■ Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on 

Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health, from Mind and Life III in 1990 

■ Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama 

on Brain Science and Buddhism, from Mind and Life II in 1989 

■ Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences 

of Mind, from Mind and Life I in 1987 

Mind and Life Research Initiatives 

■ 

Mind and Life Summer Research Institute — A week-long residential 

science retreat for 185 scientists, clinicians, contemplative 

scholar/practitioners and philosophers from around the world, 

working together to develop new fields of science and studies that 

examine the effects of contemplative practice and mental training on 

brain, behavior, philosophy, religious studies and the humanities. 

This is an annual program of the Mind and Life Institute and was 

begun in June, 2004, and has continued yearly since then. 

■ Mind and Life Francisco J. Varela Research Grant Program — providing 

small research grants to investigate hypotheses developed at the ML 

Summer Research Institute. 10 to 15 Varela Awards are given yearly. 

■ Mind and Life Education Research Network — exploring how to bring 

the benefits of mental training in clarity, calmness and kindness to 

children. 

Mind and Life Institute • 7007 Winchester Circle, Suite 100 • Boulder, CO 80301 

Phone: 303-530-1940 • Email: info@mindandlife.org • Website: www.mindandlife.org 

© Copyright 2009 The Mind and Life Institute. All Rights Reserved 

11

Mind and Life Institute 2009 Spring Newsletter - Mind & Life Institute

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