Sublime

Melanie Boly, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is painstakingly collecting EEG data from long-term Buddhist meditators during a state known as pure presence, an experience with no self, no discursive thoughts, and no perceptual content except for a luminous expanse, an empty mirror. Att

In 1998, Dr. Martin Seligman, incoming president of the American Psychological Association (APA), had challenged the field of psychology to broaden its focus to study and implement interventions that went beyond human problems and pathology to include the study of human strengths and well-being—basically, what’s going right.2 He thus initiated posi

David Barlow. He was (and still is) one of the premiere anxiety researchers on the planet.

Two teams, one led by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, and another by Sarah Lazar at Harvard, were responsible for moving their field from its long marginal status to center stage in the new neuroscience. Lutz and Davidson’s 2004 study showing that Tibetan monks can self-generate high frequency gamma synchrony at will, and Lazar’s 2

out of hundreds of people tested. The research question was obvious: Was this due to meditation practice, or some other difference such as lifestyle? To explore this, the team studied before-and-after brain images on participants who volunteered for an eight-week MBSR class. Davidson and colleagues demonstrated that meditation for forty-five minute