Science Informs Mindfulness

All about the Mind. Mindfulness practice recognizes that the mind is the director of life experience and behavior. There is a lot of truth to this and, therefore, it is worthwhile to understand how the mind works.
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Putting it Together. Mindfulness training is on focusing the mind. Such attention has proven to be an effective way to overcome life’s stresses and to cultivate personal happiness, However, sole emphasis on the mind is incomplete and can even be misleading without also taking into consideration the body. Our bodily architecture is determined by our DNA, with a given set of abilities that influences the mind. The linking together of mindfulness literature that draws on traditional Buddhist sutras, with the study of biology, particularly neuroscience, is necessary to understand human behavior fully and the ways we can change for moving towards well-being. These disciplines are like two jigsaw puzzle pieces that fit together to form a complete picture of how the body/mind works. Much like Ying and Yang, these two approaches form a synergistic whole — indispensable and necessary for practicing mindfulness realistically and pragmatically. By understanding the science of how emotions, fabrications, distractions, and illnesses affect our beings, a mindfulness practitioner can become more forgiving of oneself and others and hence become more compassionate. With more acceptance and tolerance, we can overcome personal suffering and cultivate our own happiness.

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“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”

― Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

Spring Offering. In fall 2022, I began a pilot discussion group on mindfulness and the brain science that informs it using a single article “From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind,” published in 2021 in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Participants gained many new insights and wanted to learn more. In response, I launched Integrating Science & Mindfulness in January 2023. This course of study sheds light on our practice of Mindfulness Meditation by reading works in the field of neuroscience from such groundbreaking authors as Nobel Prize laureate Eric R. Kandel, Antonio Damasio, Christof Koch, Jaak Panksepp, Norman Doidge and Jill Bolte Taylor. The aim is to understand what goes on in the body/mind that makes Mindfulness such an effective life practice for dealing with life stresses.

See YouTube video link below to learn more about the class. The next 12-weel session begins on April 12.

​Integrating Science & Mindfulness is offered on a dana (donation) basis so that anyone may attend. To register, visit https://www.mindfulnessmeditation.us/2023-winter-classes.html

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