ABOUT THE SRI:
The Mind & Life Summer Research Institute (SRI), is a weeklong immersive program. Unlike traditional academic conferences, the program provides opportunities for deep dialogue across disciplines as well as inquiry through first-person reflection and contemplative practice. It moves away from hierarchies of knowledge to foster an integrative, richer, and fuller understanding of the mind and society, focusing on current issues and positive actions that lead to real-world outcomes.
Participants refer to SRI as a “unique place,” where it’s possible to “participate without feeling judged, and where every opinion is held and considered.” Many speak to the event as a “life changing experience,” where they feel supported by like-minded peers in a nurturing environment and where lifelong connections, collaborations, and friendships are formed. Through a process of inquiry and dialogue, the SRI is designed to foster collaborative inquiry that encourages inclusivity and targeted action among diverse participants who have a stake or deep interest in individual, societal, and planetary flourishing.
The program incorporates plenary lectures, panel discussions, breakout groups, spaces for relationship building, poster presentations, networking opportunities, and daily contemplative time (meditation, yoga, QiGong, walking in nature, contemplative arts, and silent periods including two half-day retreat periods). Also featured are intentional spaces where participants come together in a safe space to discuss and find support around topics related to specific research interests and/or identities.
With engaging faculty, and a rich and varied format, SRI sparks not only new ideas and collaborations, it fosters intellectual humility, a professional commitment to research aimed at a higher good, and a personal commitment to reflection and inquiry. Participants who attend the SRI as Emerging Researchers become eligible to apply for the Mind & Life Francisco J. Varela Research Grants. Emerging changemaker participants will be eligible for our new Contemplative Action Grants. Other participants may be eligible for other Mind & Life grants.
The goals of the Mind & Life Summer Research Institute are:
To spark new research ideas and interdisciplinary collaborations that explore the mind from an integrative perspective (including first-, second-, and third-person approaches); examine the effects of contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain, and health; and translate this wisdom into action on behalf of the greater good.
To create a space for dialogue that a) embodies a contemplative orientation, b) fosters deep relationship building among a diverse array of participants, and c) creates a safe and welcoming environment for meaningful connections and group cohesiveness.
To foster a new generation of nascent scientists and scholars (undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs), contemplative practitioners, and changemakers interested in innovative and interdisciplinary collaborative research and action to address contemporary challenges.
To catalyze the fields of contemplative research and contemplative action (e.g., through exploring how contextual factors shape the mind, how contemplative practices engender effects on brain, mind, and behavior; and how these effects can support both individual and societal flourishing).
To train participants in emerging methods and best practices, examine future opportunities and challenges within contemplative science, and explore their application to improving social institutions and policies.
Mind & Life is committed to exploring and facilitating in depth and honest discussion around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion during the SRI. We know that these are hard topics and encourage the community to use skills honed during our contemplative practices to engage in this critical work together.
2025 SUMMER RESEARCH INSTITUTE:
Reimagining Contemplative Education: Shaping a Collective Future
This event is for researchers, educational and contemplative practitioners, and policy members who are committed to exploring how contemplation can enrich and reimagine educational systems in the 21st century. Contemplative education integrates academic study with practices that cultivate mindfulness, self-awareness, reflection, and compassion. It is based on the idea that education should not only focus on the development of cognitive skills and knowledge acquisition but on the inner development of individuals—emotionally, ethically, and spiritually.
SRI 2025 advances the idea that the adaptation of premodern wisdom is needed in post-modern educational institutions if we are to rise to the challenges confronting us as a species and a planet. Such premodern wisdom values the cultivation of attentional skills (mindful awareness), social-emotional skills (e.g., empathy, perspective taking, kindness, altruism), systems-thinking skills (e.g., seeing interdependence, our common humanity), and ethics (e.g., fairness, compassion) through targeted practices (e.g., focused attention) and purposeful activities (e.g., service with reflection).
The event will bring together professionals engaged in education in various forms, including within public schools, monasteries, and universities, who are committed to exploring how contemplation can help to enrich and reimagine educational systems in the 21st century. Content will be of particular interest to those working in primary, secondary, and tertiary education systems with educators, students, caregivers, or families. Our faculty features world-renowned contemplative teachers and speakers on educational reform and contemplation, social and emotional learning, contemplative studies in universities, and contemplative education projects involving whole cities.
A developmental theme extends through the five-day program. We will explore how educational systems in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood can be re-imagined around pedagogies that cultivate attentional, social-emotional, systems-thinking, and ethical skills. We will look at how the application of such skills can contribute to a sense of flourishing for oneself and the world. And we will highlight educational research and practice across the first three decades of life.
Ultimately, we seek to envision what a lifelong approach to education—blending scientific and humanistic education, artistic imagination, contemplative insight, and community service—could look like. The notion that positive social change could be affected through such a worldwide educational movement—in ways that address the economic, sociopolitical, and ecological challenges of our age—is the subject of ongoing discussion among nations and governments globally. What are our individual and collective roles in nurturing this movement?
Summer Research Institute
ABOUT THE SRI:
The Mind & Life Summer Research Institute (SRI), is a weeklong immersive program. Unlike traditional academic conferences, the program provides opportunities for deep dialogue across disciplines as well as inquiry through first-person reflection and contemplative practice. It moves away from hierarchies of knowledge to foster an integrative, richer, and fuller understanding of the mind and society, focusing on current issues and positive actions that lead to real-world outcomes.
Participants refer to SRI as a “unique place,” where it’s possible to “participate without feeling judged, and where every opinion is held and considered.” Many speak to the event as a “life changing experience,” where they feel supported by like-minded peers in a nurturing environment and where lifelong connections, collaborations, and friendships are formed. Through a process of inquiry and dialogue, the SRI is designed to foster collaborative inquiry that encourages inclusivity and targeted action among diverse participants who have a stake or deep interest in individual, societal, and planetary flourishing.
The program incorporates plenary lectures, panel discussions, breakout groups, spaces for relationship building, poster presentations, networking opportunities, and daily contemplative time (meditation, yoga, QiGong, walking in nature, contemplative arts, and silent periods including two half-day retreat periods). Also featured are intentional spaces where participants come together in a safe space to discuss and find support around topics related to specific research interests and/or identities.
With engaging faculty, and a rich and varied format, SRI sparks not only new ideas and collaborations, it fosters intellectual humility, a professional commitment to research aimed at a higher good, and a personal commitment to reflection and inquiry. Participants who attend the SRI as Emerging Researchers become eligible to apply for the Mind & Life Francisco J. Varela Research Grants. Emerging changemaker participants will be eligible for our new Contemplative Action Grants. Other participants may be eligible for other Mind & Life grants.
The goals of the Mind & Life Summer Research Institute are:
To spark new research ideas and interdisciplinary collaborations that explore the mind from an integrative perspective (including first-, second-, and third-person approaches); examine the effects of contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain, and health; and translate this wisdom into action on behalf of the greater good.
To create a space for dialogue that a) embodies a contemplative orientation, b) fosters deep relationship building among a diverse array of participants, and c) creates a safe and welcoming environment for meaningful connections and group cohesiveness.
To foster a new generation of nascent scientists and scholars (undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs), contemplative practitioners, and changemakers interested in innovative and interdisciplinary collaborative research and action to address contemporary challenges.
To catalyze the fields of contemplative research and contemplative action (e.g., through exploring how contextual factors shape the mind, how contemplative practices engender effects on brain, mind, and behavior; and how these effects can support both individual and societal flourishing).
To train participants in emerging methods and best practices, examine future opportunities and challenges within contemplative science, and explore their application to improving social institutions and policies.
Mind & Life is committed to exploring and facilitating in depth and honest discussion around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion during the SRI. We know that these are hard topics and encourage the community to use skills honed during our contemplative practices to engage in this critical work together.
2025 SUMMER RESEARCH INSTITUTE:
Reimagining Contemplative Education: Shaping a Collective Future
This event is for researchers, educational and contemplative practitioners, and policy members who are committed to exploring how contemplation can enrich and reimagine educational systems in the 21st century. Contemplative education integrates academic study with practices that cultivate mindfulness, self-awareness, reflection, and compassion. It is based on the idea that education should not only focus on the development of cognitive skills and knowledge acquisition but on the inner development of individuals—emotionally, ethically, and spiritually.
SRI 2025 advances the idea that the adaptation of premodern wisdom is needed in post-modern educational institutions if we are to rise to the challenges confronting us as a species and a planet. Such premodern wisdom values the cultivation of attentional skills (mindful awareness), social-emotional skills (e.g., empathy, perspective taking, kindness, altruism), systems-thinking skills (e.g., seeing interdependence, our common humanity), and ethics (e.g., fairness, compassion) through targeted practices (e.g., focused attention) and purposeful activities (e.g., service with reflection).
The event will bring together professionals engaged in education in various forms, including within public schools, monasteries, and universities, who are committed to exploring how contemplation can help to enrich and reimagine educational systems in the 21st century. Content will be of particular interest to those working in primary, secondary, and tertiary education systems with educators, students, caregivers, or families. Our faculty features world-renowned contemplative teachers and speakers on educational reform and contemplation, social and emotional learning, contemplative studies in universities, and contemplative education projects involving whole cities.
A developmental theme extends through the five-day program. We will explore how educational systems in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood can be re-imagined around pedagogies that cultivate attentional, social-emotional, systems-thinking, and ethical skills. We will look at how the application of such skills can contribute to a sense of flourishing for oneself and the world. And we will highlight educational research and practice across the first three decades of life.
Ultimately, we seek to envision what a lifelong approach to education—blending scientific and humanistic education, artistic imagination, contemplative insight, and community service—could look like. The notion that positive social change could be affected through such a worldwide educational movement—in ways that address the economic, sociopolitical, and ecological challenges of our age—is the subject of ongoing discussion among nations and governments globally. What are our individual and collective roles in nurturing this movement?