Mind & Life

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

Ed Taylor – Leading by Example

In this episode, Wendy speaks with University of Washington vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, Ed Taylor. Ed has made major contributions in the areas of contemplative education and leadership, with a focus on moral and integrative education and social justice. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• growing up embedded in community and giant sequoias;
• learning to be still with the mind;
• teaching meditation amidst anger dysregulation;
• embodying contemplative skills in the classroom;
• the gap between our mind's story and our body in the moment;
• the relevance of contemplation to wise and effective leadership;
• moving from ego-system to ecosystem awareness (systems thinking);
• implementing systems change in university settings;
• normalizing failure and modeling vulnerability;
• letting students lead in defining the community they want;
• imagining the world you want to live in when things are not OK (reflections on the days after George Floyd was killed);
• understanding critical race theory in education;
• and the central role of community in healing.

Full show notes and resources

 

David Creswell – Exploring Equanimity

In this episode, Wendy speaks with social psychologist and contemplative researcher David Creswell. David has been studying the effects of meditation on stress and resilience for over a decade, and has conducted some of the most rigorous studies to date investigating which aspects of mindfulness interventions bring benefit. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• integrating psychology and Buddhism since high school;
• understanding stress and resilience;
• acceptance and equanimity in mindfulness;
• bringing scientific rigor to the study of mindfulness through dismantling trials;
• effects of equanimity on the stress response and positive emotions;
• how contemplative skills spill over from the cushion into daily life;
• how practice changes the brain and why those changes matter;
• a risky study with a president's daughter;
• the promise of apps to deliver mindfulness;
• how acceptance differs from passive resignation;
• and viewing biology and psychology as two sides of the same coin.

Full show notes and resources

Jenny Mascaro – Compassion in Healthcare

In this episode, Wendy speaks with biological anthropologist and contemplative researcher Jenny Mascaro. Jenny's work weaves together meditation, compassion, psychology, and healthcare, and moves us toward a deeper understanding of interconnectedness. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her interest in social cognition in animals - and humans;
• what compassion is, and how it's different from empathy;
• biological basis of compassion, and the role of oxytocin;
• how social factors and context shape compassion;
• training compassion and the skills underlying it;
• understanding self-compassion;
• the under-appreciated role of hospital chaplains;
• compassion training for chaplains;
• preparing for interpersonal interactions;
• how compassion shows up in language;
• how compassionate care can help anxiety and depression;
• responding to healthcare provider stress;
• how meditation has changed her;
• and building awareness of interdependence.

Full show notes and resources

Elissa Epel – Mind, Body, and Stress

In this episode, Wendy speaks with contemplative health psychologist and stress researcher Elissa Epel. Elissa studies how mindfulness, meditation retreats, and breathing techniques can help buffer stress processes, biological aging, and promote both physical and mental health. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her early roots of interest in the mind-body connection;
• bringing contemplation into health and stress psychology research;
• two key aspects of stress;
• learning to deal with uncertainty;
• uncertainty in the body;
• acute vs. chronic stress response;
• why we might want to intentionally induce acute stress to boost our health;
• cell aging systems (telomeres);
• contemplative practices as a way to reduce stress;
• how our minds influence our cells;
• the concept of cellular safety;
• rest, retreat, and vacation;
• how contemplative benefits can transfer to the next generation;
• what it means to have a sensitive nervous system;
• and the importance of focusing on joy and gratitude.

Full show notes and resources

Matthieu Ricard – Compassion and Care

In this episode, Wendy speaks with the renowned Buddhist practitioner and author Matthieu Ricard. Matthieu was integral to the founding of contemplative science, serving as both a participant and co-investigator in many early studies, and has deep expertise in compassion, altruism, and well-being. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his roots in both science and Buddhism, and his appreciation for rigorous inquiry;
• his role as a participant and collaborator in contemplative science;
• lessons from research on compassion vs. empathy;
• how the self shows up (or doesn't) in compassion;
• links between self-focus and vulnerability;
• hedonia, eudiamonia, and self;
• altruism and our current crises;
• reconciling three time scales of concern;
• sentience, life, and interdependence;
• caring for our whole interconnected system;
• the practice of awe;
• using photography to share basic human goodness;
• balancing fame and monastic life;
• and a poignant example of his own personal experience of care.

Full show notes and resources

Jamie Bristow – Policy, Practice, and Planet

In this episode, Wendy speaks with mindful policy advocate and contemplative teacher Jamie Bristow. Jamie co-directs the Mindfulness Initiative in the UK, an organization that bridges contemplative practice and public policy, championing the inner dimension of social change. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• why he first started meditating and the surprise that came with it;
• his commitment to climate work;
• integrating advertising talent into policy work;
• mindfulness in the UK government;
• development of the Mindfulness Initiative;
• the nuts and bolts of mindful policy work;
• policy advances in health, criminal justice, and education;
• mindfulness as a foundational capacity (not just a skill);
• how the mind relates to the climate crisis;
• consequences of our failure to see the interconnectedness in the world;
• how mindfulness and compassion can help with reconnection;
• two modes of operating (holistic intuitive vs. verbal conceptual);
• and where to go from here.

Full show notes and resources

Amy Cohen Varela – The Power of Undoing

In this episode, Wendy speaks with clinical psychologist and contemplative Amy Cohen Varela. In addition to her work as a psychoanalytic therapist, Amy is also the widow of Francisco Varela (co-founder of the Mind & Life Institute), and continues to share his vision and work through the offerings of Mind & Life Europe. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her dual interest in biology and literature;
• the contemplative aspects of psychoanalysis;
• skills learned from listening deeply to yourself and to others;
• how she met Francisco Varela;
• enaction, meaning, and participatory sense-making;
• links between Francisco's ideas and Buddhist philosophy;
• subjective and objective viewpoints, and how we oversimplify Buddhism and science in that dynamic;
• how more than a decade with Francisco has changed her;
• the power of curiosity and openness;
• doing and undoing the self in psychoanalysis;
• Francisco's reflections on the Chilean civil war, and implications for polarization;
• the need for systems to be able to "undo" themselves;
• and Mind & Life Europe's latest offerings.

Full show notes and resources