April 6-10, 2009 – Dharamsala
His Holiness Karmapa attended the “Mind and Life” conference, which took place at His Holiness Dalai Lama’s residence.
Prominent western scientists and renowned academics have gathered for five days of presentation and dialogues as part of a “Mind and Life” conference series, including Buddhist scholar-practitioners.
The conference themed: “Attention, Memory and Mind: A synergy of Psychological, Neuroscientific and Contemplative Perspectives” started with an inaugural talk by the Dalai Lama.
This is the 18th Mind and Life meeting. The first meeting took place in 1987.
The Mind and Life Dialogues, more generally termed “Dialogues between Buddhism and the sciences”, were initially started to experiment whether a rigorous exchange could occur between leading modern scientists and the Dalai Lama.
The 18th Mind and Life Conference aims the primary focus on the subjective phenomenology, information-processing operations, and neural mechanisms of attention, memory and conscious awareness from both scientific and Buddhist perspectives.
A number of scientific research programs collaborated with contemplatives to conduct scientific investigation and one of the primary pursuits of Mind and Life scientists is to study the effects of contemplative practices like meditation and mental training have on brain and behavior, and the translation of this data into effective tools to benefit people.
Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, Hollywood Buddhist star, Richard Gere and, Robert Thurman, Buddhist scholar and author are among others taking part in the ongoing conference.
His Holiness Karmapa attended the “Mind and Life” Conference
