A catalyst for human flourishing

How to understand the mind and cultivate the heart

Every day, we support vital work that transforms our scientific understanding of the human mind and its capacity to develop positive mental states. We believe that when contemplative wisdom and practices are fully integrated into modern day science it has the power to act as a catalyst for human and societal flourishing. This is the promise of what we call contemplative science

Together with the world’s leading scientists, contemplative scholars, and healthcare, educational and management practitioners, we create an open and interdisciplinary dialogue between modern sciences and contemplative practices and share our findings with the world.

The main message, to me, is the importance for human beings to learn how to become experts on their own mind.

(Francisco J. Varela)

To learn more about our current activities and initiatives, click here or on one of the information boxes below.

Community of Contemplative Education

Learn more about the CCE!

Go BEYOND CONFINES!

Joins us for our Contemplative Science Symposium themed "Beyond Confines - Integrating Science, Consciousness and Society" in October 2019.
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MLE Retreat

This retreat is directed towards students and early-career scholars in the field of contemplative studies. The theme is: Exploring Contemplative Life - Integrating personal, profressional and spiritual aspects of our path. Application is now open!
Apply now!

Contemplative Science Symposium 2019

Join us for our pan-European symposium in October 2019 in Fürstenfeldbruck (near Munich, Germany).

With the Contemplative Science Symposium “BEYOND CONFINES – Integrating Science, Consciousness and Society”, Mind & Life Europe will bring together diverse disciplines and traditions of knowledge in order to support the growing community of contemplative scientists, invite new audiences and changemakers and encourage personal engagement in the issues an intercultural, interdisciplinary approach makes visible.

Across a range of innovate formats, you will experience internationally renowned speakers like Dan Siegel, Roshi Joan Halifax and Wolf Singer. Get your tickets now.

Community of Contemplative Education

The Community of Contemplative Education (CCE) was initiated by Mind & Life Europe with the goal of creating a sustainable and vibrant community of the leading pioneers and experts to enhance collective learning and implementation around contemplative education in Europe to cultivate human flourishing through education.

There is a great deal of excellent work on contemplative and mindfulness based approaches happening out there across Europe, in schools, universities, and the community, supported by change makers and even politicians in some countries, but it is at present scattered and incoherent without enough interchange and mutual learning. Learn more about it on our CCE website.

Community of Contemplative Education (CCE)

 

 

Second Workshop: Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology

Thursday , 23.05.2019 , 09:47
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Second Workshop: Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology

 

© Prisca Bauer, MD, Ph.D. Below is a short account of the 5-day workshop on contemplative phenomenology (May 13-17, 2019), organised by Mind & Life Europe’s Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology (ICP). Day 1 What happens when forty-two people from different walks of life (including a documentary maker) spend a week together in an idyllic French farmhouse? It sounds like a reality TV show, but luckily it is not. What we all have in common is an interest in meditation and/or philosophy and we have put our ...
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From Enactive to Enlightened AI

Tuesday , 05.03.2019 , 14:48
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From Enactive to Enlightened AI

 

© Elena Antonova, Ph.D. (Association Member, Mind & Life Europe) The Embodied Mind, a book co-authored by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleonor Rosch, directly engaged with the field of Artifical Intelligence (AI) and robotics by critiquing a cognitive representationalist model of the mind and presenting an embodied and enactive approach as an alternative. It led to the emergence of the new kind of AI robotics, with the embodied enactive robots learning from the experiences of their interaction with the ...
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Understanding the World

Friday , 25.05.2018 , 20:36
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Understanding the World

 

In early May, Mind & Life Europe Board and Association members Elena Antonova, Amy Cohen Varela and Charles-Antoine Janssen attended as observers the second in a series of dialogues entitled ‘Fundamental knowledge: Dialogue between Russian and Buddhist Scholars’ in Dharamsala, India, at the behest of the Dalai Lama. This meeting gathered Russian philosophers and scientists from the fields of neuroscience, genetics and physics with Buddhist scholars under the title “Understanding the World”. The first meeting in ...
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