Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/11/2009
6:00 pm

Location
Simmons Hall MPR (229 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139)

Categories No Categories


Speakers: Cilfford Saron and B. Alan Wallace

[Open to General Public]
 
Clifford Saron, Ph.D. is currently an Assistant Research Scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California at Davis (http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu), and faculty member of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999 studying interhemispheric visuomotor integration under the direction of Herbert Vaughan, Jr. Dr. Saron has had a long-standing interest in brain and behavioral effects of meditation practice. He is Principal Investigator of The Shamatha Project, a unique longitudinal study of the effects of intensive meditation training based on the practice of meditative quiescence (shamatha) and cultivation of the four immeasureables (loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity) on attention-related skills and emotion regulation. The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive and multimethod study to date regarding the potential effects of long-term intensive meditation practice on basic mental and physical processes related to cognition, emotion, and motivation. His other primary research interest focuses on investigating brain and behavioral correlates of sensory processing and multisensory integration in children on the autistic spectrum.
 
Alan Wallace, Ph.D. a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, has taught Buddhist theory and meditation throughout Europe and America since 1976. Having devoted fourteen years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai Lama, he went on to earn an undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford.
With his unique background, Alan brings deep experience and applied skills to the challenge of integrating traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with the modern world.
Co-sponsor: Brain & Cognitive Science; The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT