Joan Halifax & Al Kaszniak & John Dunne & Kalina Christoff & Jonathan Schooler & Jay L. Garfield & Wendy Hasenkamp: Introduction to 2020 Varela International Symposium (Part 1 of 7)

Summary: The Varela Symposium brings together a remarkable faculty to explore cutting edge areas of science, philosophy, and Buddhism. Today, we are in an epoch changing era. In this year’s program, we had the opportunity to explore with leading scientists, philosophers, and scholars insights regarding the nature of our mind and the nature of the world.<br> We explored the nature of awareness that allows us to familiarize ourselves with our mental, physical, social, and environmental experience. We also addressed questions like: Can we be aware without there being any object or content of awareness? How is it that we can be aware of being aware, that is, experience meta-awareness? What is mind-wandering and how does it impact our sensory and cognitive experience? How does the activity of the “default network” affect awareness? What about so-called unusual mental states and mystical experiences? How do we regulate our physical and mental reactivity (including fear and anger) in order to reduce suffering? What happens to awareness in states of “unconsciousness?” How does awareness function in sleep, during anesthesia, in coma, in states of cognitive decline, at the time of death?<br> These are among a set of important questions that are currently being vigorously debated within the fields of Buddhist scholarship and philosophy of mind, and explored within the laboratories of mind and brain scientists. Most of the relevant research has been conducted in only the past few decades, the entire topic of consciousness having been excluded from scientific psychology and neuroscience for most of the 20th century.<br> We examined awareness, and related experiences, such as mind wandering, mindfulness, unusual states of consciousness, and meta-awareness from the diverse perspectives of Buddhist philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience. And explored why understanding the nature of awareness is essential for processing our immediate experience, for making skillful decisions, for working with moral dilemmas, and for social, environmental, and personal well-being.<br> Faculty for the symposium: Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD; Richard Davidson, PhD; Sensei Al Kaszniak, PhD; John Dunne, PhD; Jonathan Schooler, PhD; Kalina Christoff, PhD; Jay L. Garfield, PhD, Elissa Epel, PhD; Wendy Hasenkamp, PhD.<br> == == == ==<br> In the opening session of this Symposium, Roshi Joan Halifax, Al Kaszniak, John Dunne, Kalina Christoff, Jonathan Schooler, Jay Garfield, and Wendy Hasenkamp give an overview of the topics to be covered in the following session, as well as background information about the Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela, for whom the symposium is named.<br> <a href="https://www.upaya.org/resources/varela-international-symposium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Click here for more resources and information</a> about the 2020 Verala International Symposium.<br> <br> For Series description, please visit <a title="Introduction to 2020 Varela International Symposium (Part 1 of 7)" href="https://www.upaya.org/2020/07/halifax-kaszniak-dunne-christoff-schooler-garfield-hasenkamp-introduction-2020-varela-symposium-1-7/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Part 1</a>.<br> To access the entire series, please click on the link below:<br> <a title="Upaya Podcast Series: 2020 Varela International Symposium" href="https://www.upaya.org/2020/07/davidson-dunne-schooler-christoff-garfield-epel-hasenkamp-kaszniak-halifax-2020-varela-symposium-7-parts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Upaya Podcast Series: 2020 Varela International Symposium</a><br>