Mind & Life Institute

Mind & Life Institute Bridging science and contemplative wisdom to foster insight and inspire action toward flourishing.
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At the Mind & Life Institute, we bring science and contemplative wisdom together to better understand the mind and create positive change in the world. At this critical moment in history, it’s clear that efforts to address mounting global challenges must take into account our inner lives, and how individual well-being contributes to collective flourishing. At the heart of today’s global challenges

is a profound crisis of disconnection. From loneliness and isolation to racism and tribalism, our disconnection from one another is causing tremendous suffering for people and the planet. Building on our 35-year legacy, we seek to better understand the role of the human mind in creating these problems—and its potential to solve them. Through grantmaking, convenings, and strategic partnerships, we seek to foster healthy human connections. We recognize that Mind & Life is part of a growing global movement for social change. In this spirit, we welcome new partners—as together—we strive to create a world that truly embraces our shared humanity.

“Inner development and outer systems change are integrally related. They are actually inseparable.”That’s how researcher...
06/03/2026

“Inner development and outer systems change are integrally related. They are actually inseparable.”

That’s how researcher and educator Megan Seneque describes the relationship between personal and societal transformation on the last episode of the Mind & Life podcast.

Megan joins Martin Kalungu-Banda, Katrin Kaufer, and guest host Jamie Bristow for a conversation on Theory U, awareness-based systems change, and what it takes to create meaningful change in a complex world.

She goes on to unpack how lasting transformation isn't only about changing systems "out there." It also requires creating the conditions for learning, awareness, and new ways of relating—personally and collectively.

What if inner and outer change aren't separate challenges at all, but part of the same journey?

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how awareness, relationships, and collective learning can help shape more compassionate and resilient futures: https://podcast.mindandlife.org/podcast/podcast-episodes/

Presencing Institute

05/28/2026

“We collectively create results that we individually don’t want.”

That’s how Presencing Institute co-founder Katrin Kaufer describes one of the central challenges facing our world on the latest episode of the Mind & Life podcast.

Katrin joins Martin Kalungu-Banda, Megan Seneque, and guest host Jamie Bristow for a conversation on Theory U, awareness-based systems change, and how we respond to a world where the past is no longer a reliable guide for the future.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how awareness, relationships, and collective learning can help shape more compassionate and resilient futures: https://podcast.mindandlife.org/jamie-bristow-mini-series-episode-4/

05/28/2026

This week we honour the 25th anniversary of the passing of Francisco Varela (September 7, 1946 – May 28, 2001), who remains one of the most visionary and influential figures in the history of cognitive science.

Varela studied biology at the University of Chile, before completing a PhD in biology at Harvard University. In the wake of the 1973 military coup led by Augusto Pinochet, he spent seven years in exile in the United States before returning to Chile as Professor of biology at the University of Chile. During this period, he immersed himself in the practice of Tibetan Buddhism, studying with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and later Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. In 1986, Varela settled in France, teaching cognitive science, epistemology, and neuroscience at the École Polytechnique and University of Paris, and then serving as Director of Research at the CNRS in 1988. In 1987, he co-founded the Mind and Life Institute with Adam Engle and the 14th Dalai Lama, initiating a series of intimate dialogues that unfolded a sustained exchange between Buddhist contemplative traditions and contemporary science.

Through his pioneering empirical research and profoundly transdisciplinary theoretical work, Varela transformed how we think about mind and life. His book The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (1991), co-authored with Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson, introduced the "enactive" approach, proposing that mind and consciousness arise from dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. His earlier contributions, Principles of Biological Autonomy (1979) and The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding (1987, 1998), co-authored with Humberto Maturana, helped establish the concept of autopoiesis and reshaped our understanding of living systems as self-producing and relational.

We remember him with gratitude, not only for a mind that crossed boundaries with ease, but also for a legacy that continues to animate new ways of thinking about consciousness, life, and experience.

05/22/2026

“The work was no longer just out there. The work was on me as well.”

That realization came to leadership and organizational development practitioner Martin Kalungu-Banda while working in the Zambian presidency—and it became a doorway into a deeper understanding of systems change.

On the newest episode of the Mind & Life podcast, Martin joins Katrin Kaufer, Megan Seneque, and guest host Jamie Bristow to explore Theory U, awareness-based systems change, and the role of inner transformation in addressing complex societal challenges.

As Martin shares, meaningful change doesn’t begin only with new strategies or policies. It also asks something of us personally: how we listen, how we relate, and how willing we are to examine ourselves while working to transform the systems around us.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how inner and outer transformation can work together to create meaningful change: https://podcast.mindandlife.org/jamie-bristow-mini-series-episode-4/

Presencing Institute

“The most powerful force for change isn’t policy or technology—it’s the awakened, attentive human mind,” writes environm...
05/21/2026

“The most powerful force for change isn’t policy or technology—it’s the awakened, attentive human mind,” writes environmental neuroscientist Pooja Sahni in her essay for Insights.

She explores how contemplative and ecological education can help prepare today’s students for a rapidly changing world—and why lasting environmental and social transformation requires more than technical solutions alone.

Read more: https://www.mindandlife.org/insight/contemplative-and-ecological-education/

We’ll explore this theme and more in next week’s Mindstream, Mind & Life’s email newsletter—subscribe now and get a copy in your inbox: https://www.mindandlife.org/mindstream/

Artwork by Sirin Thada

05/16/2026

How can contemplative wisdom and modern science work together to better understand the mind?

In this archival clip from the 2007 Mind & Life Dialogue, “Mindfulness, Compassion, and the Treatment of Depression,” the Dalai Lama reflects on the value of integrating scientific research with longstanding contemplative traditions to explore emotions, mental health, and human flourishing.

The conversation brings together perspectives on mindfulness, compassion, and the treatment of depression through both ancient insight and contemporary science.

Watch the full session and more in the Mind & Life Digital Library. https://www.mindandlife.org/dialogue/mindfulness-compassion-and-the-treatment-of-depression/

“When people exercise violence, they’re not exercising power—they’re exercising abuse.”That’s how educator, author, and ...
05/15/2026

“When people exercise violence, they’re not exercising power—they’re exercising abuse.”

That’s how educator, author, and restorative justice practitioner Kazu Haga frames one of the central questions explored on the newest episode of the Mind & Life podcast.
Kazu joins Thomas Hübl, Laura Calderón de la Barca, and guest host Jamie Bristow for a conversation on trauma not just as an individual experience, but as something that shapes our societies, systems, and relationships.

As he explains, violence depends on the belief that we are separate from one another—that some people’s suffering can somehow lead to other people’s freedom or safety.

But what if healing begins when we remember that we belong to each other?

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how healing trauma might help create more compassionate and collaborative futures: https://podcast.mindandlife.org/jamie-bristow-mini-series-episode-3/

Collective Change Lab
Inner Development Goals

05/13/2026

We often think trauma is the event. But it’s not.

“Trauma is how our nervous system responds when we don’t have the resources to process what’s happening,” says psychotherapist and collective healing practitioner Laura Calderón de la Barca of the Collective Change Lab on the Mind & Life podcast.

She joins Thomas Hübl, Kazu Haga, and guest host Jamie Bristow to explore how trauma shapes not only individuals, but our relationships, communities, and systems.

The same experience can affect people differently depending on the resources and support available to them. And trauma doesn’t simply disappear with time—it lives in the body, influencing how we relate, react, trust, and connect.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how healing trauma might help us create more compassionate and collaborative futures: http://mindand.life/OcTL50YWAL1

Inner Development Goals

05/08/2026

What if many of the challenges we’re facing didn’t start with us? “We’ve all been born into a pre-traumatized world,” says renowned teacher and author Thomas Hübl on the newest episode of the Mind & Life podcast.

Thomas joins Laura Calderón de la Barca, Kazu Haga, and guest host Jamie Bristow to explore how trauma lives not just within us—but across our systems, histories, and relationships. So much of what we’re navigating today is shaped by patterns we’ve inherited, not chosen.

But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It means we have the opportunity—and responsibility—to become aware of what we’re carrying, individually and collectively.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to explore how healing trauma might be key to creating meaningful systems change: http://mindand.life/OcTL50YWAL1

Collective Change Lab
Inner Development Goals

“Mind & Life’s work sits at exactly the intersection we need: science that serves human flourishing, and wisdom that kee...
05/07/2026

“Mind & Life’s work sits at exactly the intersection we need: science that serves human flourishing, and wisdom that keeps it tethered to the heart,” shares former Mind & Life Board member and longtime community member Connie Kemmerer.

Read more of her reflection about our event celebrating the Dalai Lama at 90—the community it brought together and the enduring inspiration of His Holiness’s vision for a more compassionate world: https://www.mindandlife.org/media/reflections-on-celebrating-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-at-90/

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