From its inception Buddhism has probed the nature of mind, using the mind itself as its instrument of investigation, especially with the aid of refined meditation methods. For the past millennium, Tibetan Buddhists have pursued this investigation in monastic universities with rigor and exacting scholarship. Until now, science has been skeptical of this course of investigation because of its subjectivity — the use of the mind to investigate itself. Today, however, especially with the development of new technology, the biobehavioral sciences (neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, biomedicine) are in the process of extending their methods in search of ever-bolder approaches to studying the workings of the human mind. This Dialogue will consist of three sessions that address empirical findings about three aspects of mind that have been addressed by both Buddhism and biobehavioral science: attention and cognitive control, emotion, and mental imagery.

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Participants: Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama; Ajahn Amaro; Marlene Behrmann; Jonathan Cohen; Richard J. Davidson; Georges Dreyfus; John Duncan; R. Adam Engle; Daniel Gilbert; Anne Harrington; Thupten Jinpa; Jerome Kagan; Daniel Kahneman; Nancy Kanwisher; Stephen M. Kosslyn; Dacher Keltner; Eric Lander; David E. Meyer; Matthieu Ricard; Daniel Reisberg; Evan Thompson; Phillip A. Sharp; Anne Treisman; Charles M. Vest; B. Alan Wallace; Arthur Zajonc

Presented by the Mind & Life Institute

Video footage courtesy of Conference Recording Services

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