Mind & Life Institute

10/14/2026

“The body can teach your mind things it does not yet know or believe,” writes meditation teacher and Buddhist scholar Willa Blythe Baker in her Insights essay on embodiment.

In a culture that often prioritizes thinking over feeling, Baker invites us to reconsider the body as a source of knowledge and wisdom. Through mindfulness and embodied awareness, we can learn to listen more deeply to our physical sensations, reconnect with the present moment, and discover ways of knowing that extend beyond intellectual understanding.

Read more: https://www.mindandlife.org/insight/embodiment/

10/10/2026

“Who you are is so much bigger than this.”

In this clip, Jack Kornfield reflects on how contemplative teachings can help us move beyond a limited sense of self and cultivate greater compassion, understanding, and connection.

How can these teachings translate to the digital age? In these remarks from Mind & Life's 2018 International Symposium for Contemplative Research, Jack Kornfield, Acacia Parks, and Darnell Lamont Walker, moderated by Zindel Segal, explore the promises and pitfalls of bringing contemplative practices to mobile apps, online platforms, and digital media, while considering the importance of human connection and mentorship.

Watch the full conversation: https://youtu.be/jMRFA4a1g7k?si=LID-6vyHtvV7v8ZZ

10/07/2026

Looking to explore new perspectives on well-being, flourishing, and the nature of the mind?

Check out these recent books from the Mind & Life community that bring together insights from contemplative traditions, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to explore how we can cultivate greater awareness, resilience, and connection.

⭐ Micropractice by Eli Susman, PhD — Simple, science-informed practices for cultivating well-being in everyday life.

⭐ Thinking Beyond Materialism by Arthur Zajonc — A philosophical exploration of consciousness and the possibilities that emerge when we look beyond a purely material understanding of reality.

⭐ Born to Flourish by Richard J. Davidson and Cortland Dahl — An exploration of the skills and practices that support human flourishing, drawing on neuroscience and contemplative wisdom.

⭐ Quiet Strength by Margaret Cullen — A guide to cultivating equanimity, resilience, and a more balanced relationship with ourselves and the world around us.

⭐ All in This Together by Jack Kornfield — A collection of stories and teachings exploring interconnectedness, compassion, love, service, and the shared experiences that connect us all.

⭐ Change the Wallpaper by Nilanjana Buju Dasgupta — An exploration of how the social environments and cultural patterns around us shape our behavior, relationships, and sense of belonging—and how we can create positive change.

10/02/2026

As questions about artificial intelligence become increasingly urgent, another question sits beneath them: What do we actually understand about the human mind?

Illuminating the Mind: Exploring Buddhism and Science with the Dalai Lama, co-produced by Mind & Life and the Wisdom Academy, explores attention, perception, consciousness, and the nature of self through Buddhist and Western perspectives.
Across eight lessons, scientists, philosophers, contemplatives, and Buddhist scholars invite us to look more closely at our own minds—before asking what machines might become.

Explore the course at your own pace. Tuition is 30% off with code ITMMLI26 through October 9: https://wisdomexperience.org/illuminating-the-mind/

10/01/2026

The 20 seconds before your first sip of morning coffee might be all the time a mindfulness practice needs.

In an initial randomized controlled trial, psychologist Eli Susman found that people who practiced a 20-second self-compassionate touch exercise daily showed reductions in stress, depression, and anxiety on par with programs that take weeks longer. The key? Consistency.

With support from a Mind & Life Varela grant, Susman went on to study how habit-formation tools, like anchoring the practice to a routine you already have, could help people keep practicing. It adds to emerging evidence that practicing regularly may matter as much as the length of any single session. And Mind & Life Research Grantee Rob Klein is pushing the question further: his forthcoming pilot study asks what happens when the communities most excluded from traditional contemplative programs help design these practices themselves.

Explore the emerging science of micropractice—ultra-brief contemplative practices designed to be woven into the moments of daily life—on the blog: https://www.mindandlife.org/media/micropractice/

Discover micropractice: the emerging science behind ultra-brief mindfulness practices—and why consistency, not only duration, matters.

09/30/2026

What happens to the space between us when technology becomes so integrated into our relationships that we no longer notice it's there?

That space is exactly what the technology panel at this year's Summer Research Institute set out to explore. Moderated by social scientist and meditation teacher Eve Ekman, the conversation featured Adam Weissman, Anna Spisak, and Jesse Fleming—three technologists working at very different intersections of contemplative practice and technology.

Spisak approaches the problem from an unexpected angle. "Relational technology is technology that provides structure that supports or expands the possibility space of a relational field," she says, and asks what it would mean to build more of it.

Watch more from their session: https://youtu.be/KrYkbQZHQzY?si=uAzJMiRsfYDbBxNf

09/23/2026

Your attention isn’t broken. But most of us have never been taught to understand it, let alone train it.

Illuminating the Mind: Exploring Buddhism and Science with the Dalai Lama is a self-study online course co-produced by the Mind & Life Institute alongside our friends at Wisdom Publications. Guided by former Mind & Life Board Chair Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., it draws on past Mind & Life Dialogues with the Dalai Lama and concludes with a presentation from His Holiness.

Through contemplative practice, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology, B. Alan Wallace, Amishi Jha, and Anne Treisman explore what attention is, how it works, and how we can cultivate it.

Discover how decades of dialogue between contemplatives and scientists can deepen our understanding of attention, perception, and self.

Learn more and enroll through Wisdom Academy. Tuition is currently 30% off with code ITMMLI26 through October 9, 2026.
Explore the course at your own pace: https://wisdomexperience.org/illuminating-the-mind/?utm_campaign=itm_2026&utm_medium=direct&utm_source=affiliate&utm_content=mli_08-21-26&utm_term=

09/22/2026

“We have all these complex problems that we are facing, and to solve them, we need our attention. We cannot have technology that is undermining those capacities,” shares Randy Fernando, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.

In this episode of the Mind & Life podcast, Randy explores how technology can affect our ability to pay attention, make sense of the world, and make choices as we face challenges like climate change and inequity.

What would it mean to create technology that supports these essential human capacities rather than undermines them?
Explore this topic and more in this month’s Mindstream, our email newsletter. Sign up now to get a copy straight to your inbox: https://www.mindandlife.org/mindstream

09/18/2026

What do we need beyond material wealth to create a happier human society?

In this clip from the 2009 Mind & Life Dialogue, “Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama reflects on the importance of mental well-being, family, community, and other values beyond material development.

In this dialogue, Roshi Joan Halifax, Martin Brokenleg, Daniel Goleman, Jacquelyn Eccles, Matthieu Ricard, the Dalai Lama, and other leading educators, researchers, and contemplatives explore what may be missing from our modern approach to education—and how we might cultivate greater well-being and peace of mind.

Revisit this conversation and explore more archived footage in the Mind & Life Digital Library: https://www.mindandlife.org/dialogue/educating-world-citizens-for-the-21st-century/

09/17/2026

What might happen if, in the middle of a busy day, you simply paused?

In this free teaching from our friends at Shambala Publications and Prajna Studios, Buddhist teacher, author, and nun Pema Chödrön introduces one of her favorite practices: the Pause Practice. This simple practice offers an opportunity to step out of the usual patterns of interpretation and reactivity and experience the present moment with greater awareness, curiosity, and compassion.

As Pema describes them, these brief pauses can offer “glimpses of sacred world”—moments of directly experiencing things as they are, without the usual conceptual overlay.
Whether you’re new to Pema’s teachings or have followed her work for years, this accessible practice can be explored almost anywhere: on a walk, on the train, or even in the midst of a difficult moment.

Learn more and sign up: https://pema.shambhala.com/a-way-through-darkness/free-teaching-sign-up =mindandlife&a_cid=8b47a8a2

Shambhala Publications Pema Chodron