Podcast Episodes

April 8, 2022

In this episode, Wendy speaks with psychologist, contemplative researcher, and Zen Buddhist teacher, Al Kaszniak. Al has been in the contemplative science space since the earliest days, and his work has shed light on how meditation impacts our thoughts, emotions, and sense of self. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his parallel interests in Buddhism and neuropsychology;
• research on meditation, emotion, and attention;
• how our view of self impacts what seems relevant to us;
• cognitive effort and emotion regulation;
• how his own experience of self has shifted through practice;
• attention and early emotion/affective tone;
• shifting out of the conceptual mind;
• the relationship of attention and emotion;
• how decades of practice have changed his daily life;
• free will vs. free won’t (meditation as inhibition);
• increasing access to contemplative ideas and practices;
• mind as process, interaction, and context—and what that means for science;
• and the value of interdisciplinary dialogue and the “in-between” spaces.

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March 25, 2022

In this episode, Wendy speaks with Buddhist scholar, contemplative teacher, and social activist Brooke Lavelle. Brooke is the co-founder and president of Courage of Care, an organization that seeks to build transformational practice communities rooted in compassion, healing, and counter-oppressive frameworks. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• her trajectory of interest from mindfulness to compassion to relational practice to social justice;
• relationality as the starting point for contemplative growth;
• Courage of Care, and the CourageRISE framework;
• routes to understanding oppressive systems;
• the body as culture;
• the skills needed to build multicultural community;
• applications in climate work;
• the non-dual frame as an antidote to othering;
• and love as an organizing principle.

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March 11, 2022

In this episode, Wendy speaks with addiction psychiatrist and contemplative researcher Jud Brewer. Jud is one of the leading figures in the use of mindfulness for addiction and anxiety, and his work emphasizes the brain’s habit cycle, and how to change it. He’s also developed a number of smartphone apps to deliver contemplative interventions widely, which research is finding to be highly successful. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his own use of meditation to relieve stress, and where that led;
• the failure of willpower for treating addictions;
• the benefits and downsides of the brain’s habit mechanisms;
• commonalities between Buddhist philosophy and modern psychology;
• the key role of awareness in changing habits;
• the basic “habit loop” (trigger – behavior – result);
• anxiety as a habit;
• mindfulness for habit change;
• divisiveness as a bad habit;
• research on the effectiveness of app-based interventions;
• next steps for digital therapeutics;
• insights on communicating science to the public;
• and the power of kindness and connection as the ultimate reward.

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February 25, 2022

In this episode, Wendy speaks with Zen Buddhist teacher and author Roshi Joan Halifax. A pioneer in the field of end-of-life care, Roshi Joan was instrumental in developing the dialogue between science and Buddhism, and has been an advocate for engaged Buddhism, social activism, and compassion in response to today’s crises. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• the birth of dialogues between the Dalai Lama and scientists;
• how our minds are “enactive”;
• compassion as emergent and dependent on context;
• the trainable factors that set the stage for compassion;
• the importance of embodiment in health care;
• non-referential compassion;
• interdependence, compassion, and climate change;
• working with dying people;
• how letting go is safe;
• clinical use of psychedelics;
• and reflections on the field of contemplative science.

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December 17, 2021

In this episode, Wendy speaks with neuroscientist and contemplative researcher Cliff Saron. Cliff is a pioneer in studying the effects of meditation on attention and emotion, and has been deeply embedded in the field of contemplative science since the earliest days. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his winding path into contemplative research;
• drilling down and pulling back;
• conducting research with Tibetan monks in India;
• how brain signals can predict behavior, and implications for free will;
• the importance of context in meditation research;
• effects of intensive meditation on attention, markers of cellular aging, and purpose in life;
• community-engaged participatory research;
• communicating the nuance and uncertainty inherent in science;
• Ubuntu, and living into our interdependence.

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