:: Pull quote highlighting how contemplative science illustrates the strong connection between our epistemic problem — our ignorance about the nature of consciousness — and our societal problem — our global mental-health crisis ::
Contemplative science is the empirical investigation of the mind and its functions using the skills of highly refined attention, mindfulness, and introspection. The discipline is practiced by contemplative scientists: professional contemplatives who complete years of rigorous meditative training, on a par with the graduate training completed by neuroscientists, psychologists, and physicists, or with the athletic training completed by the world’s Olympians.
This training refines a person’s attention skills to a degree that is now exceedingly rare: advanced practitioners can remain perfectly attentive, without a moment of distraction, for hours on end. This level of attentional acuity — a form of contemplative technology — enables a variety of research protocols that are simply impossible without it.
Contemplative scientists are therefore not
Investigate two main research topics: (1) the nature and potentials of consciousness, and (2) the nature and potentials of genuine well-being.
Contemplative scholarly communication offers first-person data to be integrated with other first-, second-, and third-person data from other scientists
Collaboration with other scientists
Co-investigators, not simply participants
Acknowledged capacity for genuine insights
