Welcome to Tibetan Buddhist Meditationin the Modern World. As you know, this is the first of fourcourses that David Germano, myself, and others are offering onBuddhist meditation. In very brief terms, the course hopesto cover several distinct areas. The history of meditation in Tibet,India, and elsewhere. The scientific study of meditation,over the past 50 years or so. And finally, the modern adaptation,mutations and analogues of Buddhist meditation over the past 100years in Europe and the United States. We hope that this makes sense as we movealong, to think of these three things as a whole that expresssomething significant about Buddhist meditation in our contemporary,in our current day, right now. The way that we've chosen to organize allthese lectures is to use a Tibetan scheme. This is a Tibetan scheme that'svery old and it's used to organize the many types of Buddhist thoughts andpractice that Tibetans were heir to. Equally as many practices that they sawcoming in India from Tibet as we see coming in from all over Asia into Europeand America over the last century. This was originally a three-fold scheme. We've developed this into a four-foldscheme, which we feel reflects the ways in which especially later Tibetans understoodthe developmental history of Buddhism. We think it makes sense tounderstand our own closer history of Buddhist meditation as well. So the first course is dedicated towhat Tibetans term the lesser vehicle of Indian Buddhism. The second course detailsthe great vehicle. The third course detailsthe diamond vehicle, what is more commonlyknown as Buddhist Tantra. And the fourth course deals withthe natural vehicle, which tries to, which suggests that there are certain kindsof Tibetan Buddhism, which are unique reinterpretations of Indian Buddhismthat deserve a category of their own. And certainly, how later Tibetansunderstood this developmental history as well. David will get into the distinctionsbetween these four more. This first course, dedicated tothe lesser vehicle has five modules. In it, out of a total of 12 modules. Now each module consists of five differentlessons, and three types of lessons. In each module we have lectures,a contemplative lab, and interviews. The lectures are of three kinds. We have one that explores the history and scope of a particulartraditional form of meditation. These are given by two people,David Germano and whom I'll introduce in a moment. The second kind is on scientificresearch of the particular type of meditation underdiscussion in that module and scientific research on relatedforms of meditation as well. The third is on the historyof adaptations and analogs in the secular spherein contemporary society, places where we see these typesof meditation being adapted for new uses, new wishes,new desires in Europe and North America. Next we have the contemplative lab. This is where you get toexperiment with secular versions of these meditations that are developedby experienced meditation teachers, and I'll introduce those teachersto you in a moment as well. And finally we have interviews. Over the course of developingBuddhist Meditation in the Modern World, we've been very fortunate tointerview many very thoughtful and knowledgeable people aboutthe present state of Buddhism and meditation in especiallythe United States. And we wanted to give you the benefit ofhearing what they have to say about their own work, their own thoughts onmeditation in modern life, at length, beyond the lecture. Before we get started,I need to introduce our team of instructors that have helpedus to create this course. So let's turn to that. Before we get started. With the course, I want to introduce you to the team thathelped make this course in to a reality. We've worked withan amazing group of people. And, it's actually been the best thingabout working on this course is getting to know so many people who are so thoughtful,and creative in their thinking and practice in Buddha's meditation. There are 15 people, other than David andmyself, who you will encounter in this, the first course of Tibetan Buddhistmeditation in the modern world. Let me go through those people. I'll first speak aboutthe lecturers that we have. In these five modules ofpart one of the course. I will then introduce you tothe meditation teachers in the contemplative lab. And then I'll introduce you to the peoplethat we've interviewed over the course. First off, we have Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro. Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro is a Tibetan monk,a scholar and a leader. He the head of the largest monasticestablishment in the world, in Sichuan province in China. He is a prolific author. He has written extensively in Tibetanlanguage on Buddhism and science. He's one of the first Tibetan intellectuals to grapplewith this in a detailed way. Reading extensively through,primarily through Chinese translation, on science and materialistic views thatdrive science research in the West. He offers for us and for you, a complete set of lectures ontraditional forms of meditation. And these offer a wonderful complementto David Germano's introductions to the various forms of meditation as well. Clifford Saron is associate researchscientist at the UC Davis Center for the Study of Mind and Brain. Clifford's going to offerus two types of lectures. The first is focused onthe training of attention and emotion, regulation throughcontemplative practice. And he's going to introduce us to thesetwo themes through a very important project that's he's been involved with,called the Shamata Project. It's perhaps the largest long term, scientific research project dedicatedto the effects of meditation. What he's gonna do as well,which is very helpful for those of us who are not scientists,such as myself, is he's gonna give us a crash course in neuroscience thatgives us the basics to understand both the significance and the potentialof scientific research about meditation. But also the challenges and the pitfallsof doing that kind of research as well. Tsoknyi Rinpoche is anotherTibetan teacher and intellectual who offers lectures for us. He's one of the foremost Tibetanmeditation teachers in South Asia and in the west working today. He's a very prolific author. I encourage you to go look athis books including Open Heart, Open Mind, Carefree Dignity andFearless Simplicity. Tsoknyi Rinpoche has a keeninterest in the ongoing dialogue between western research,especially in neuroscience. What he brings to this courseis a traditional perspective. That also is very acutely attunedto what's happening globally with Tibetan Buddhism on the adaptationof something like Buddhist tradition in a secular context, and he has a veryparticular viewpoint on that, so that'll Be in contrast with someof the things that I say or stand in interesting tension to those. We're glad that we can provideboth of those for you, both two types of viewpoints. Susan Bauer-Wu is botha lecturer in the course and a leader of one of the contemplative labs. Susan Is the Tussi andJohn Kluge Professor of contemplative end-of-life care and director ofthe Compassionate Care Initiative in the School of Nursing hereat the University of Virginia. She also has an appointment here inmy department in religious studies. Susan has been involved along withClifford Saron in the Shamatha Project as a research scientist. But she's also been at the forefront of bringing contemplative practiceinto a health care setting. And that's one of the thingsthat she will be talking about, is both the challenge andthe promise of doing that. She is also a very experiencedmeditation teacher and she will be giving us introductions tomindfulness and mindfulness research as an opening for her meditationinstructions in the [INAUDIBLE] Lab. Jamie Morris is another of my colleagueshere at the university of Virginia, he's an assistant professor inthe department of phycology. His work focuses on normal, andabnormal social behavior, and he uses techniques ofcontemporary brain research and narrow science research,to try and get at these issues. Jamie offers us a tour of one of the tools of the trade in neuroscience that getsa lot of use in meditation research and that's a magnetic resonance imager,which measures, in the case of meditation,blood flow in the brain. He's gonna introduce usto a particular technique of using the MRI that's functionalmagnetic resonance imaging, which is one of the main tools that peopleare using now to try and understand the brain basis of the changes thatwe've seen through meditation. We have a number of instructors whoare working in the contemplative lab. Let me tell you a little bit aboutwhat the contemplative lab is going to consist of. We've asked each of our instructorsto give three sorts of lectures. One is an introduction to the practicethe second is the practice itself. And the third is musings or heartfelt ideas about what this practice might begood for in actual life and live life. So in conceptual overview of the practice,the practice and what are you going todo with that practice. All of our instructors have extensivemeditation instruction experience. Experience andthey've developed these courses that they're giving in Buddhist mediationin the modern world specifically for the contemplative so we are very fortunatethat they are participating with us. So, let me tell you about themSusan Darwoo/b we've already spoken about she's a research scientist,she's a professor of nursing and she's also a well knownmeditation instructor too. We'll be hearing from her and then practicing with her atthe beginning of the course. We'll also be learningfrom John Makransky. John Makransky is an associateprofessor in the theology department at Boston College. He's the author of a wonderful book ofintellectual history called budahood and body he's an old colleague of David's andmyself. He's also the author of a very interestingbook on contemplative practice called, Awakening through Love,in which he argues and shows that meditation practice, specificallythose dedicated to compassion and devotion offer powerful tools torethink how we do social work, how we engage is difficult professions. He's been a much sought after meditationinstructor in the helping professions. And, he brings his expertise to us,and of course as we will see primarily when we're looking at the great vehicle inthe next course and the course after that. Anam Thubten is a wonderful person,he's a Tibetan who has lived in the United States for quitea while now, a couple of decades now. He's a well-known meditation teacherin the San Francisco bay area. He has a very successful Dharma center, called the Dharma Tau Foundationin Point Richmond California. He's the author of some justwonderfully readable books about what you might think are veryabstruse Tibetan ideas, but he brings them down toEarth with humor and wit. So I suggest reading his books, The Magicof Awareness and No Self, No Problem. He also happens to be a great poet,and he's working on being the next Gary Snyder of the California interstate. Autumn Tipton gives lovelymeditation instructions throughout the entire 12modules of this course. And we also were fortunateenough to interview him too, and that'll show up later in the course. Anne Klein, offers wonderfulmeditation instructions again, for the entirety of the course. Anne Klein is professor in the departmentof religion at Rice University. She also happens to be a graduate of the program in Buddhist studiesat the University of Virginia. She's was one of the first and certainly the most prominentgraduates of this program. She's the author of at least a halfa dozen books on British philosophy, British practice,British intellectual history. She's also the cofounder of the DharmaMountain British Center in Houston, where she actively teaches Buddhismmeditation, too, and she does so around the United States as well. So she's developed a set of meditationinstructions in the contemplative lab for us as well. So those are our contemplativelab instructors. We were very fortunate to interviewa number of people throughout the creation of this course. And I wanna tell you who we interviewed. We'll be able to get toknow them very well. The interviews are locatedat the end of every module, if we have interviews thatare relevant to that module. We begin with David Mcmahan. David is the Charles A Dana professorof religious studies at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. He's the author/editor of three books. But for our purposes we wanna highlighthis book the making of Buddhist modernism. The making of Buddhist modernismis probably the most eloquent and well argued book on how Buddhismbecame modern over the last century, specifically in the United States. How Buddhism moved from being something that we reallydidn't know very much about. In 1900 to something thatcan be used in boardrooms with relative ease in the year 2000. We'll interview him about his book,but also about his thoughts on the present stateof things like Buddhist meditation centers around the country,but especially the mindfulness movement. Jim Coan is an associate professor of clinical psychology here atthe University of Virginia where he's the director of the VirginiaEffective Neuroscience Laboratory. He's the author of more than 50 articles. His specialty is the science of emotions. This work has been featured in TV,radio, print media and other popular press venues. We're really lucky tohave him here with us. He gives us a couple lectureslater in the course, and we all also interview him onthe challenges of developing a rigorous scientific programof research on meditation. Tish Jennings is associate professor inthe Curry School of Education here at UVA. Where she's the Director of theContemplative Teaching and Learning Lab. Tisha's work focuses onthe use of mindfulness and contemplative practices both for teachertraining, teacher resiliency, and for student learning and student well being,especially at the K through five level. She's the author of a very recentbook called Mindfulness For Teachers, Simple Skills For Peace andProductivity In The Classroom. She's been one of the most successful andimpactful researchers in this area, and we'll hear somethingabout her current work. Erik Braun is Associate Professor here at UVA in the Departmentof Religious Studies. He's the author of a very wonderfulbook called The Birth of Insight. The Birth of Insight isa history of meditation in Burma from the late 19th centurythrough the early 20th century. And what Eric shows in the Birthof Insight is that what we think of now asmindfulness has a history. And that history can be tracedto the Colonial period, in late 19th century Burma in whichcertain leading intellectuals, especially a person named Lady Saidah, were trying to figure outhow to re-frame Buddhism and how to redeploy Buddhism as a massmovement, as modernization began and colonialism began to deeplyimpact Burmese society. Currently Erik's working on a bookon the globalization of mindfulness, which will take him from the early20th century up to the present. So we talk to him aboutboth of those things. The past in Burma andthe present here in the United States. David Mick is the Robert HillCarter Professor of Commerce and Marketing at the University ofVirginia's McIntire School of Commerce. David teaches courses in wisdom andconsumer well-being. His specialty is marketing, but he has an unusual role inthe world of marketing research. And he and several others withinhis field have been instrumental in creating something calledtransformative consumer research. And he's the editor of a keybook in that field called Transformative Consumer Research ForPersonal And Collective Well-Being. And Transformative Consumer Researchargues that research about consumers should not be geared solelytowards creating profit, but should be geared towards creatingwell-being, among consumers. Consumers are people too, we can usethat as a platitude but in order to make that a reality in educating businessleaders, David thinks that we need to introduce the idea of wisdom into thevery practice of business and marketing. So he teaches a course on wisdom. He uses contemplative methods in class. We interview him about hisclassroom experience and his thoughts on the presentstate of consumer research. You wouldn't think that something like contemplative practice would show upin a commerce school, but it does. And in very powerful ways. And David shows us how. Rhonda Magee is Professor of Law at theUniversity of San Francisco School of Law. Rhonda works primarily on race law andpolicy, as well as on humanizing legaleducation in the practice of law. Her efforts are dedicated towards helpinglaw students and law practitioners cope with the intense pressures they face,both in school and on the job so that they can be more successful,more effective and more humane. To do this she's begun to integratecontemplative practices into her teaching and into her suggestions forlegal practice. She recently edited a volumein the very important journal of higher education calledNew Directions for Teaching and Learning. And, she published an articlecalled Contemplative Practices And The Renewal Of Legal Educationin that journal. She's the author of numerous journalarticles, many of which have to do with contemplative practice, includingrecently educating lawyers to meditate, she tells us how andwhy this might be a good thing to do. Our last interviewee for Buddhist Meditation in the Modern WorldPart One probably needs no introduction. Her name is Sharon Salzberg. She's one of the two or three most influential meditation teachersworking in the United States today. She was there at the beginning of themeditation movement in the late 60s and early 70s, and she's here today,as strong as ever. In 1974, she was the co-founder ofthe Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, and since then she's goneon to author no less than eight books, including several quite famous books, mostprominent of which is Loving Kindness. This is a book that argued 20 years ago orso that compassion and love andkindness need to be objects of meditation. They need to be objects ofsustained contemplation. And this was something that was a littlebit different than had been taught up to that point. And she really turned things around and refocused the contemplative movementin the 70s and 80s towards compassion, and through that towards a discussion ofethics and contemporary society as well. More recently she's written books such asReal Happiness and Real Happiness at Work. We'll talk to her about her amazinglife as a contemplative practitioner and leader and the current states of themeditation movement in the United States. That wraps it up for team in the course.