Why focus on Contemplative Sciences now

Contemplative science is interdisciplinary and aims to clarify such mind/brain/body changes across cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and perceptual domains. These focus on relating such changes to neurobiology and first-person experience.

Over the past 2500 years, mindfulness practices have been slowly moving from Northern India across most of Asia and finally reaching Western science and culture at the end of the 20th century. This has marked an important event in human history because, for the first time in two and a half millennia, the wisdom of contemplative traditions could be globally shared, understood, and adopted by humans and assessed by science. These mindfulness practices have given birth to a new field of knowledge – contemplative sciences, which goes beyond its starting point (mindfulness) and is devoted to human flourishing.

Mindfulness in Science

The foundations of mindfulness practices were said to have been established by the Buddha, and to this day, they serve as the quintessential guide towards greater peace, freedom, and happiness. There are four mindfulness stages:

1. Mindfulness of body and elements (mindfulness of breath, of our steps while walking, of chewing in mindful eating, mindfulness of our organs, etc.);
2. Mindfulness of feelings (mindfulness of pleasurable, painful, and neutral feelings);
3. Mindfulness of consciousness (mindfulness of the state of our mind); and
4. Mindfulness of mental objects (mindfulness of our thoughts, ideas, and conceptions).

These four significant foundations of mindfulness practices show us how we can begin with something as simple as mindfulness of breath and flourish into deeper levels of ourselves to cultivate greater peace, freedom, and happiness in our lives. To quote the godfather of modern mindfulness, professor Jon Kabat-Zinn: “ Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment,” which is a skill developed through focused meditation.

Mindfulness, and other eastern contemplative traditions such as meditation, yoga, intensive breathing, mantra recitation, eventually gave birth to the contemplative sciences movement in the West. The Buddhist practices incorporated in contemplative sciences include diverse methods for cultivating meditative stillness (Samatha) and contemplative insight (Vipassana). These meditation practices are taught in both Theravada and Mahayana schools of Buddhism, with some minor differences in approach.

What is Contemplative Science?

Contemplative science poses as the bridge between the empirical study of the science of consciousness and its subjective analysis through contemplation. This field of research focuses on the changes within the human mind and body as a result of contemplative practices, such as yoga, mindfulness-based meditation, or tai chi. Contemplative science is interdisciplinary and

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