It looks as if I have finally found an academic home, at least for the next two years. If all goes well, I’ll be starting a Master’s Program at Goddard College in August ‘08. My search for a graduate program began in December 2006, almost 4 years into a hiatus that began when I heeded a persistent call to leave my job as a research programmer in the field of bioinformatics. Without having a clear idea of why my work in software was no longer fulfilling me, I began what might be described as a gestational period during which I became an avid armchair student of Buddhism, yogic philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Since then, I have taken two extended solo photo-expeditions to Asia, visiting Nepal, Thailand, India, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, continued to deepen my study of yoga and meditation, and began formal academic coursework at the University of Maryland. During this period, the idea of pursuing graduate studies further germinated, giving me a deeper and increasingly coherent understanding of what ignites my passion to learn.
At the core of my calling is a commitment to gain a comprehensive view of how we as individuals learn about ourselves and our gifts, and thus become increasingly able to place these gifts into service. To understand the formation of individual identity and its subsequent transcendence, one must grasp a wide spectrum of physiological, psychological, and spiritual processes.
In pursuit of this end, I began augmenting my formal education in January 2008 through undergraduate courses in psychology, organic chemistry, and writing while researching graduate programs in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and religious studies. While these areas of interest initially appeared to me to be unrelated, they are each pivotal to the focused field of inquiry I envision centered on contemplative practices, specifically how they can be used as tools for intellectual, psychological and spiritual growth, development, and fulfillment. In designing a proposed program of study, I have incorporated elements of the undergraduate Contemplative Studies curriculum created by the faculty of Brown University. That program clearly articulates the ways in which the study of contemplative practices lies in the area of overlap of these seemingly disparate fields. A more detailed description of my interests in contemplative studies is as follows:
- Attention: the neurophysiology of states of attention and the ways in which contemplative practices direct and, in some cases, manipulate attentional focus. I am interested models of attention including wide-angle vs. narrow focus and narrative experience vs. global focus.
- Embodied Cognition: the means by which the experience of sensation shapes our understanding of self and our environment and our continued revision of these views. I am interested in traditions that explicitly employ sensation in mediative practice such as the tantric branches of yoga and Buddhism.
- Emotion and Cognition: the relationship between somatic experience of emotional states and language. I am interested in meditation techniques that address the implicit learning and explicit revision of emotional patterning in addition to the underlying mechanisms by which these patterns are established and revised.
- Milestones of Meditative Experience: the common experiences encountered after continued meditative practice as described in the teaching texts of Eastern philosophical traditions such yoga, Kasmir Saiivism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism. Specifically, I am interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying the perceived dilation of time and its possible relationship to increased sensory sampling as the result of directed attention.
- Scientific Study Design: the special challenges faced when designing scientific studies examining the mechanisms and/or effects of contemplative practices. I am interested in techniques such as electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and diffusion tensor imaging, as well as in understanding the challenges of studying subjective experience using such techniques as compared to self-report methods.
In an effort to address the physiological mechanisms underlying several of my areas of interest, I’m working to build a foundation in psychophysics, biochemistry, and functional neuroanatomy and I continue to broaden my exposure to contemplative practices of all kinds.
While my graduate program reading list is sure to evolve, here is my preliminary best guess at the texts I’ll be working with as part of my self-designed Goddard Program:
- Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. L. S. Vygotsky , Michael Cole , Vera John-Steiner , Sylvia Scribner , Ellen Souberman. Harvard University Press, 1978
- Experience And Education. John Dewey. Free Press, 1997
- The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding. Kieran Egan. University Of Chicago Press, 1998
- The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. Antonio Damasio. Harvest Books, 2000
- Memory, Brain, and Belief (Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative). Daniel L. Schacter , Elaine Scarry. Harvard University Press, 2002
- The Mind’s Past. Michael S. Gazzaniga. University of California Press, 1998
- The Relaxation Response. M.D. Herbert Benson , Miriam Z. Klipper, HarperTorch, 1976
- Neuroanatomy Through Clinical Cases. Hal Blumenfeld. Sinauer Associates, 2002
- The Meditative Mind. Daniel Goleman. Tarcher, 1996
- Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Farb et al. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience. Volume 2, Number 4, Pp. 313-322
- Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self. Hans C. Lou et al. PNAS April 27, 2004 vol. 101 no. 17 6827-6832
- Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. Mark F. Bear, Barry W. Connors, Michael A. Paradiso. Lippincott Williams & Wilkin, 2001
- Neuroanatomy: An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems Duane E Haines. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2008
- Cognitive Models and Spiritual Maps : Interdisciplinary Explorations of Religious Experience (Journal of Consciousness Studies). Jensine Andresen , Robert K C Forman. Imprint Academic, 2000
- Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. Francis Crick. Scribner, 1995
- The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. Christof Koch. Roberts & Company Publishers, 2004
- The Boundaries of Consciousness: Neurobiology and Neuropathology (Progress in Brain Research). Steven Laureys. Elsevier Science, 2006
- Emotion and Consciousness. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Paula M. Niedenthal, Piotr Winkielman. The Guilford Press, 2007
- A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers. V. S. Ramachandran. Pi Press, 2004
- The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.
- The View from Within: First-person approaches to the study of consciousness. Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear. T Imprint, 1999.
- Hemispheric Asymmetry: What’s Right and What’s Left (Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience). Joseph B. Hellige. Harvard University Press, 2001
- Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain. Anne Harrington. Princeton University Press, 1989
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Harper Perennial, 1991
- The Varieties of Religious Experience. William James. Barns & Noble Books, 2004
- Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development. James W. Fowler. HarperOne, 1995
- Buddhism and neuroscience. Studying the well-trained mind. Barinaga, M.(2003). Science 302, 44–46.
- Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (Columbia Series in Science and Religion). B. Alan Wallace. Columbia University Press , 2006
- Buddhism and Science. B. Allan Wallace. Columbia, 2003.
- The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness. B. Allan Wallace. Oxford University Press, 2000.
- The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind. B. Alan Wallace. Wisdom Publications, 2006
- Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. James H. Austin. The MIT Press , 1999
- Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation. Joseph Campbell. New World Library, 2004
- Sadhana The Realization of Life. Rabindranath Tagore. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC, 2006
- Why Lazarus Laughed: The Essential Doctrine, Zen–Advaita–Tantra. Wei Wu Wei. Sentient Publications, 2004
- Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying. The Dalai Lama. Wisdom Publications, 1997
