The talk for June 15 will briefly summarize the ideas from two research papers by Cortland Dahl and Richie Davidson, two researchers who focus on the impact of meditation and other spiritual practices on well-being. The talk will be self-contained, so no need to read them, but if you’re interested, the two papers are available here: Cortland Dahl – Integrating Science and Buddhism.
The article “The Plasticity of Well Being” gives their approach for what is needed for well being, and is the model on which they built the Healthy Minds meditation app. The article “Reconstructing and Deconstructing the Self” is where they lay out their discussion of the different forms of meditation and how they contribute to well-being.
The podcast on that page with Cortland Dahl would be a good, brief introduction to some of the ideas they’re working on and that we’ll be discussing this Thursday. If you’re interested in science and meditation, the Mind and Life Podcasts provide really good interviews with top meditation researchers, so you might check out some of the other interviews conducted for Mind and Life by the host, Wendy Hasenkamp.