Mind & Life

Hanne De Jaegher – Making Sense Together

In this episode, Wendy speaks with philosopher and cognitive scientist Hanne De Jaegher. Hanne was influenced by Francisco Varela's ideas from an early age, and has been working to extend enactive theories of mind into social contexts. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• roots in Varela's work and an early interest in thinking;
• sense-making and embodiment as foundational to cognition;
• how our habits and models fit (or don't) with our experience;
• participatory sense-making and the primacy of interaction;
• how interpersonal dynamics can have a life of their own;
• loving and knowing, letting others be;
• over- vs. underdetermining (how our projections of others shape interactions);
• emotional capacity and dementia;
• understanding autistic people from their own side;
• the need for people in dominant positions to listen;
• the importance of silence in dialogue;
• problems with the way social media platforms discourage interaction;
• interactions within one person;
• synthesis and breakdown;
• tension between self and interdependence (creating boundaries);
• and applying these ideas to our relationship with nature.

Full show notes and resources

Grant Jones – Music, Meditation, and Healing

In this episode, Wendy speaks with musician, contemplative, researcher, and activist Grant Jones. Grant is working to develop and implement contemplative and liberatory tools for underserved populations. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• blending music, psychology, contemplation, and activism;
• music and mindfulness for healing race-based anxiety;
• collaborating with Lama Rod Owens, Esperanza Spalding, and others;
• the absence of research on black music;
• music medicine vs. music therapy;
• pleasure activism as a form of disruption;
• balancing structure and freedom;
• the Black Lotus Collective;
• links between psychedelics and meditation;
• potential benefits and harm of psychedelic treatment, and how race plays in;
• the power of music to transcend language and culture;
• balancing identity with non-self;
• and letting go, having fun, and not being too serious.

Full show notes and resources

Linda Carlson – Mindfulness and Cancer

In this episode, Wendy speaks with psychosocial oncology researcher Linda Carlson. Linda has pioneered the application of mindfulness and contemplative practice for cancer patients, focusing on both psychological and biological outcomes. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her path to integrating psychology, mindfulness, and cancer;
• early clinical trials and positive outcomes;
• how and why meditation can help with the stress of cancer;
• problems with battle metaphors related to cancer;
• opportunities to re-evaluate self and identity;
• connecting with boundlessness and interdependence;
• living well vs. living long;
• study design and control groups in meditation research;
• effects of mindfulness on cellular aging (telomeres);
• media coverage of meditation research;
• the power of preference in interventions;
• sneak preview of gene expression results;
• impacts on inflammation;
• increasing accessibility and diversity;
• working towards structural change in health care;
• and building an academic society for contemplative research.

Full show notes and resources

Paul Condon – Relational Meditation

In this episode, Wendy speaks with social psychologist and contemplative researcher Paul Condon. Paul's work integrates psychological theory with the Buddhist contemplative tradition, looking at meditation through the lens of attachment theory. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his long interest in the intersection between Buddhism and psychology;
• measuring compassion in the real world;
• meditation's effects on prosocial behavior and relating to suffering;
• barriers to compassion;
• the relevance of vulnerability and safety to compassion;
• understanding secure and insecure attachment;
• shifting our attachment style:
• how contemplative practice can help develop our secure base;
• security as adaptability;
• limitations of viewing meditation as self-help and individual effort;
• the relational starting point of meditation;
• open vs. closed secular contexts;
• identifying a caring moment or benefactor;
• the power of mental simulation;
• changes he's noticed from practice;
• and what these practices can offer in our current moment as a society.

Full show notes and resources

Marieke Van Vugt – Finding Balance

In this episode, Wendy speaks with cognitive scientist, contemplative practitioner, and ballet dancer Marieke Van Vugt. Marieke is a pioneer in studying mind wandering and meditation through computer modeling, and is also advancing participatory research through her collaborations with Tibetan monastics. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her braided interests in meditation, dance, and cognitive science;
• computer modeling of mind and meditation;
• exploring distraction, mind wandering, and becoming aware;
• how thoughts can get "stuck" in our minds;
• creating a meditating computer;
• the relevance of stuck thoughts to various mental disorders;
• trauma through the lens of predictive models of mind;
• analytical meditation and Tibetan monastic debate;
• collaborating with monastics in research;
• humility and fluidity of mind;
• re-thinking the tasks used in cognitive science;
• the phenomenon of brain synchrony;
• dance and embodiment;
• the roots of thinking in the body;
• problems with abstraction in science;
• curiosity vs. the critical mind in ballet;
• flow, responsiveness, and compassion;
• and advice to young scholars.

Full show notes and resources

Emeran Mayer – Biological Interconnectedness

In this episode, Wendy speaks with gastroenterologist, author, and microbiome researcher Emeran Mayer. Emeran is a world renowned expert in the connections between the gut and the mind, and brings a biological lens to the concept of interconnection. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his interest in mind-body connection;
• microbiome overview & current questions;
• how we've inherited systems of communication from microbes;
• gut-brain connections, and the concept of the "second brain";
• how meditation might affect our microbes;
• gut-immune connections;
• the importance of barriers, and what goes wrong in "leaky gut";
• barrier compromise as common core of nearly all chronic disorders;
• stress and diet as key factors affecting our gut permeability;
• what we can do to protect our gut;
• equity issues around healthy food access;
• the gut as a sense organ;
• reductions in the diversity of microbes on the planet;
• the role of antibiotics and environmental destruction;
• development of the microbiome in pregnancy and infancy;
• implications for our concept of self;
• balance between reductionism and embracing complexity in science;
• and the need for more of the feminine archetype in our world.

Full show notes and resources

Rob Roeser – Transforming Education

To begin our seventh season, Wendy speaks with contemplative educator and developmental psychologist Rob Roeser. Rob has been working to re-envision the educational system for decades, and has been at the forefront of understanding how we can best integrate mindfulness and compassion into school settings. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his initial exposure to integrative school systems;
• educating for life, instead of just participation in the global economy;
• focus on the body, nature, and our inherent "earthiness";
• studying schools in India that integrate meditation;
• integrating science and viewing contemplative practice as building skills;
• applying a developmental lens to contemplative education;
• the key role of educating adults alongside children;
• changing culture and norms;
• how social processes drive the development of attention in children;
• our innate tendencies towards both compassion and othering;
• attention training as a relational practice;
• the relevance of a secure base;
• leveraging developmental "windows of opportunity";
• practices that highlight our shared humanity;
• systems thinking in education;
• and re-enchanting the gift of learning.

Full show notes and resources

sujatha baliga – Healing Through Restorative Justice

In this episode, Wendy speaks with lawyer, activist, and restorative justice expert sujatha baliga. sujatha’s work reimagines our current legal and justice system in the United States, and emphasizes the full humanity of both those who experience harm and those who cause it. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• growing up with sexual abuse, and the impacts it had;
• meeting with the Dalai Lama, and his transformational advice;
• the power of lovingkindness;
• her choice to be a public defender;
• responsibility & causes and conditions;
• holding two competing ideas simultaneously;
• problems with the traditional legal system;
• the paradigm shift of restorative justice;
• integrating contemplative practice into the process of restorative justice;
• the role of the self in the experience of harm;
• how we need to shift our language around labeling people;
• reflections on forgiveness and justice;
• and next steps for the movement.

Full show notes and resources

Fadel Zeidan – Mindfulness and Pain

In this episode, Wendy speaks with neuroscientist and pain researcher Fadel Zeidan. Fadel is one of the leading experts on understanding how mindfulness and other contemplative practices can be used to help relieve physical pain and promote well-being. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his interest in self, consciousness, mindfulness and the brain;
• bringing mindfulness to special education classrooms;
• historical use of mindfulness for pain;
• intensity vs. unpleasantness of pain;
• his early work showing that mindfulness induces pain relief;
• making mindfulness training more accessible;
• looking into the brain during pain;
• using "fake meditation" in research;
• understanding our natural opiate system and its role in pain relief;
• bringing rigor to research with placebo controls;
• the relationship of physical pain to more complex psychological pain;
• working with families of children who were killed by gun violence;
• studying psychedelics for phantom limb pain;
• role of the default mode network in pain and self;
• compassion meditation and increasing our connection to strangers;
• the opioid crisis in the United States;
• and the role of contemplation in larger society.

Full show notes and resources

Brendan Ozawa-de Silva – Embodied Learning

In this episode, Wendy speaks with Buddhist scholar and contemplative educator and researcher Brendan Ozawa-de Silva. Brendan has been studying and teaching mindfulness and compassion for over a decade, and has lately been focusing on integrating trauma-informed and embodied practices into his work. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his interest in contemplation (and an introduction to the Japanese practice of Naikan);
• adapting contemplative training to a variety of settings;
• the capacity of young people for compassion, mindfulness, and conceptual frames;
• what's missing in contemplative research;
• empathy/compassion as something that arises between people;
• the embeddedness of researchers in the systems they study;
• the SEE Learning program;
• trauma in the body & nervous system regulation;
• understanding different forms of trauma;
• healing and forgiveness;
• barriers to compassion, misunderstandings about the meaning of compassion;
• how the world is built on compassion;
• and new teaching endeavors with experiential learning.

Full show notes and resources