contemplate this…

To awaken in us the self understanding that illuminates richness, meaning, and purpose in the lives we are already living.

contemplate this… was created to foster the exploration of contemplative studies - the practices themselves as well as western science’s attempts at understanding how they help us live better lives. The main focus of contemplate this… is teaching news ways of being in the world that honor our individual gifts and unique perspectives. We do this by creating and maintaining this website to provide information on contemplative practices and teaching yoga nidra classes. In addition to live classes we are now podcasting yoga nidra practices as well.

Currently, the only contemplater here is Sue Borchardt. You can contact her via email at info [at] contemplatethis [dot] org or by phone, 443 722 0189.
If our mission and vision overlap with your own, please contact us (”we” are thinking ahead to a time when some of you have joined “us” !) and let us know how you might fit in here. Or maybe you’d just like to know how you can help.

contemplate this…
po box 16391
baltimore, md
21210

My search for a graduate program began in December 2006, almost 4 years into a hiatus that began when I decided to leave my job as a research programmer in the field of bioinformatics and 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. It appears that I have finally found a place to land for the next two years. I am currently studying contemplative practices as a student in the Goddard College Master’s in Consciousness Studies program. Ironically, one of my first projects has rekindled by interest in creating in code and am enjoying learning Flex (the Flash programming interface) to explore the feasibility of developing a 3D functional neuroanatomical map using voxel-based fMRI data.