Mind & Life Institute

The Mind & Life Institute was founded in 1987 through the convergence of three figures:

• Francisco J. Varela (1946–2001), a Chilean cognitive scientist living and working in Paris, one of the founders of the embodied-mind program in cognitive science (his collaboration with Humberto Maturana on autopoiesis; the foundational The Embodied Mind with Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson, 1991).
• R. Adam Engle, an American attorney and philanthropist who had been a Buddhist practitioner since 1974.
• [[dalai-lama|Tenzin Gyatso]], [[dalai-lama|the 14th Dalai Lama]] (b. 1935), who had been increasingly interested in scientific dialogue since the 1970s.

The Dalai Lama had repeatedly expressed his commitment to following empirical evidence even where it conflicted with traditional Buddhist teaching: if science can prove that the doctrine of rebirth is wrong, we Buddhists will need to change our doctrine. This combination of intellectual seriousness, contemplative depth, and openness to empirical challenge made him an unusual partner for sustained scientific dialogue.

The Mind & Life Dialogues

The Institute’s principal initial activity was hosting a series of multi-day Mind & Life Dialogues at the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala (initially) and later at various international venues. The format: a small group (typically 6–10) of leading scientists in a particular field, the Dalai Lama and several senior Tibetan Buddhist scholars and practitioners, several days of structured conversation, full transcription, subsequent publication.

The dialogue topics have ranged widely:

• I. Mind and Life I (1987) — cognitive science and the Buddhist analysis of mind.
• II. Mind and Life II (1989) — neurosciences.
• III. Mind and Life III (1990) — emotions and health.
• IV. Mind and Life IV (1992) — sleep, dream, dying.
• Subsequent dialogues on destructive emotions (Daniel Goleman’s Destructive Emotions, 2003); the ethics of altruism (Worlds in Harmony, 1999); physics and cosmology (The Universe in a Single Atom, 2005, the Dalai Lama’s own book emerging from the dialogue series); investigating the mind (Mind & Life XII, 2003, on [[contemplative-science|the science of meditation]] specifically); and many others through the 2020s.

The published volumes (more than 30) constitute a substantial body of cross-tradition intellectual conversation. They are not always at the highest level scholarly rigor (the format produces conversational clarity rather than academic rigor) but they have been generative.

The expansion

Through the 2000s and 2010s the Institute expanded substantially beyond the dialogue format:

• The Mind & Life Research Awards program (since 2008). Provides research grants for empirical contemplative-scientific work. Has supported work that has produced substantial published research.
• The Summer Research Institute (since 2004). A week-long summer program training graduate students and early-career researchers in [[contemplative-science|contemplative science]]. Has trained a substantial cohort of researchers now working across the field.
• The International Symposium for [[contemplative-science|Contemplative Studies]] (since 2012). A several-thousand-person scholarly conference held every two to three years; the major scholarly meeting of the field.
• Public-facing conferences and dialogues with broader audiences.
• The Mind & Life Europe branch (since 2008), based in Zurich, focused on European contemplative-scientific work.
• Continuing publications through the academic and trade press.

The Dalai Lama’s role

[[dalai-lama|The 14th Dalai Lama]]‘s continuing involvement has been a defining feature of the Institute. Several substantial implications:

• The institutional anchor in Tibetan Buddhism. The Institute has historically had a particular relationship with the Tibetan Buddhist contemplative tradition (which is a substantial and developed tradition, but still one tradition among many). Other traditions are increasingly engaged.
• The eventual transition. The Dalai Lama is, as of 2026, in his ninetieth year. The question of how the Institute will continue after his eventual passing — both because of his personal centrality and because of the political situation around Tibetan Buddhist succession — is an ongoing institutional concern.
• The unusual combination of religious and scientific authority at the Institute’s core.

Honest framing

A few notes for clarity:

• Mind & Life is not the only institutional driver of [[contemplative-science|contemplative science]]. Substantial work also happens at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (since 1995), the Garrison Institute (since 2003), various university centers (the Center for Healthy Minds at [[viroqua|Wisconsin]], the Mindfulness Center at Brown, the Center for Contemplative Research at the Lerab Ling, others), and through individual researchers’ independent programs.
• The empirical research the Institute supports has been mixed in quality. Some has been excellent; some has been weaker. [[0mn1one|The platform]] takes the Institute’s role as substantive without uncritically endorsing every output.
• The non-religious framing has been substantial. The Institute has consistently presented its work as scientific rather than religious; the question of what gets gained and what gets lost in that framing — addressed in the [[secular-mindfulness]] entry — applies here too.

What this gives the platform

Three contributions:

1. A model of cross-tradition institutional building. The Institute represents what is possible when contemplative traditions and empirical science are brought into sustained relationship through deliberate institutional infrastructure.
2. A continuing scholarly community. [[0mn1one|The platform]]‘s commitment to engaging contemplative traditions empirically has substantial resource in the body of work the Institute and its associated researchers have produced.
3. A continuing teaching about the integration of religious-philosophical-scientific work. The Institute’s example — that the contemplative traditions, properly engaged, are not threatened by but enriched by empirical study — is a model.

See also

Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.

• Subset of: [[contemplative-science]]
• Member of: [[organization]]

Sources

1. Mind & Life Institute. https://www.mindandlife.org. Source class: institutional.
2. Daniel Goleman & Richard J. Davidson. Altered Traits. Avery, 2017. (Substantial reflection on the Mind & Life network.) Source class: book / synthesis.
3. The Dalai Lama. The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. Morgan Road, 2005. Source class: book / from the dialogue series.
4. Various Mind & Life Dialogue volumes (Wisdom Publications and other publishers, 1987–). Source class: continuing series.
5. Wendy Hasenkamp & Janna R. White (eds.). The Monastery and the Microscope: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mind, Mindfulness, and the Nature of Reality. Yale, 2017. Source class: book / Mind & Life Dialogue volume.

Lenses still to grow

• The Summer Research Institute as a continuing training pipeline.
• The major published Dialogues in detail, especially the early ones.
• Mind & Life Europe as a parallel institutional development.
• The eventual succession question.
• The relationship to Tibetan Buddhism specifically vs. broader contemplative traditions.