This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dharmalab.coWhat happens to our drive when we stop looking to the next achievement for fulfillment?In our latest AMA, Cortland Dahl explores topics such as how to widen awareness when the mind feels contracted, why the motivation behind a practice matters, and how compassion can become the energy behind an engaged, creative life. Kim brought your questions, and Cort joined us for the hour while Richie was traveling.What’s inside* Three ways to widen the aperture of awareness: the body, the breath, and the mind* Shamatha and loving-kindness: why the same technique can serve different purposes* Meditation, autism, and ADHD: promising research, unanswered questions, and strengths worth recognizing* Career ambition and the shift to a different source of motivation* What we know—and still don’t know—about consciousness* A 2-minute guided practice led by Cort* Practicing with death, impermanence, and the moments before sleepThe full hour mapped below, plus the flashcards and the recording for paid members.Companion Flashcards At BottomYou don’t have to turn ambition offAn anonymous listener asked how to balance “the false promise of desire” with career ambition. If Buddhism teaches being, are we supposed to stop progressing and find contentment in the job we already have?Cort looked to the people who have gone deepest into the practice of being. The teachers he knows are productive, creative, and engaged. Learning to be has not left them sitting on the couch.We are not losing the energy and drive in our life. What we’re doing is we’re changing the energy source.—Cortland DahlHe described the familiar mixture that powers a career: some care and purpose, some competition, some hope that success or status will finally make us feel fulfilled. Practice can change that mixture. We still need to make a living, and we can still want to accomplish things. But caring for our family, our community, and the wider world can become the driving force.There can be an awkward stretch in between. The old motivation has weakened before the new one feels fully available.It’s almost as though they’ve unplugged from the old energy source, but they’re just beginning to find the light socket for the new one.—Cortland DahlCort suggested learning about people who have navigated that transition. Their lives can help us recognize what a different motivation looks like in action. The energy may carry us further along our current path, or it may lead somewhere else.The moment before you start meditatingMary Beth asked what we are actually doing when we “widen the aperture,” and whether there are different ways to practice it.Cort offered three entry points. With the eyes, let attention include the edges of the visual field. With the breath, notice the release that comes with an exhale. With the mind, sit as though you are about to meditate, but haven’t started yet.You are a little more alert because you are getting ready. But you haven’t begun following the breath or running a technique. See whether you can remain in that small space of wakeful presence.So if that feels like nothing’s happening, that’s perfect.—Cortland DahlEven the thought “Am I doing it?” can show up. The invitation is to become familiar with being, without turning it into another task to perform correctly.Cort recommended short doses: five or ten seconds, then return to whatever you were doing. These little moments can happen during meditation or in the middle of the day. With repetition, the opening becomes more familiar.2-MINUTE PRACTICE LED BY CORTIn the recording, 01:25–03:042-minute practice: Wherever you are, if you’re sitting still, let your eyes close or remain gently open. Take a few slow, deep breaths and feel the breath moving in and out of your body. Allow the mind and body to settle. Then bring a little kindness and compassion into the moment. In words or images that resonate with you, form an intention that whatever good comes from this time might ripple outward—benefiting your own life, the people around you, and the wider world. Rest with that motivation for a few breaths.The full hour, mappedRead the gist below, then drop into the recording at any timestamp.01:25 — Begin with a compassionate motivation. Cort leads the opening micro-practice: settle with the breath, then imagine the good from this time rippling outward. He uses this pause before meetings and other activities throughout the day.03:49 — Three ways to widen the aperture. Mary Beth’s question opens a practical exploration of expansive awareness. Cort offers entry points through peripheral vision, the release of an exhale, and the shift from doing to being.09:15 — Before the doing starts. Imagine you are about to meditate, but haven’t begun. Notice the alertness already there. Nothing special needs to happen; try a few seconds, then return to your day.12:07 — Shamatha and loving-kindness. Maya asks whether these practices cultivate different capacities. Cort explains how loving-kindness can support absorptive concentration in some traditions, while others emphasize bringing kindness into everyday life. The motivation and purpose matter alongside the technique.19:08 — Meditation, autism, and ADHD. Brenda asks about different neurotypes and long-term practitioners. Cort describes the research as promising but preliminary, with short training periods and limited longer-term evidence.21:06 — Compared with what? Why a waitlist and an active comparison group answer different research questions. Cort explains why an intervention’s failure to outperform another treatment should not automatically be read as “nothing happened.”25:28 — Strengths deserve attention, too. Cort asks what research might discover by examining how practice supports neurodivergent strengths. After a listener flags his earlier language, he acknowledges the correction and returns to the strengths-focused spirit of his answer.27:46 — Awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. Rachel asks how these capacities relate to nervous system practices. Cort suggests thinking of them as possible ingredients across approaches, while emphasizing that he would need to know the specific method to say more.30:38 — Career ambition and a different energy source. Can we practice contentment and still want to progress? Cort explores the shift from pursuing fulfillment through success to working from compassion, care, and purpose—and the uncertain transition between them.37:24 — Does explaining the brain explain the mind? Dave’s question, prompted by Douglas Hofstadter’s I Am a Strange Loop, leads into competing views of mind and matter. Cort argues for humility and openness about unresolved questions of consciousness.44:28 — How shall I live, knowing I will die? Gwen asks about daily practice with mortality. Cort pairs appreciation for the opportunity of being alive with the recognition that we do not know how long it will last. “Today is the day to be kind.”49:42 — The in-between states. Cort introduces the Tibetan concept of bardos, then describes how observing the transition into sleep and practicing lucid dreaming fit into that tradition’s preparation for death.55:32 — Can someone near death sense our care? Sherry’s question brings a careful answer: Cort says he does not know scientifically. He distinguishes possible awareness without communication from traditional beliefs and family anecdotes about offering love and reassurance.59:19 — A community built through questions. Cort closes with gratitude for the dialogue, the people joining each month, and the generosity that makes these gatherings possible.Upcoming Events:* Quiet the Restless Mind — November: A gifted online week from Dharma Lab and ServiceSpace, November 15–21, exploring how to meet everyday stress, distraction, and overwhelm with greater clarity and ease. Bringing together ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, the week features leading contemplatives and researchers including Robert Sapolsky, Laurie Santos, Mingyur Rinpoche, Judson Brewer, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Picard, Cortland Dahl, and Richard Davidson.Learn more / registerEpisode Companion Flashcards:
In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richie Davidson explore how exercising your body can also become a way to train your mind. We asked Richie why exercise supports neuroplasticity, and why a more changeable brain isn’t necessarily a happier one. We also discuss what makes a workout meditation, and share how we bring these practices into our own biking, walking, and yoga routines.Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Episode Companion Flashcards:Upcoming Events:* From Doing to Being: Effortless Meditation & the Lost Art of Doing Less with Dr. Cortland Dahl and Kasumi Kato, October 9–11 at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. This is an independent Omega Institute program and is not affiliated with Dharma Lab. Learn more / register* Quiet the Restless Mind — November: A gifted online week from Dharma Lab and ServiceSpace, November 15–21, exploring how to meet everyday stress, distraction, and overwhelm with greater clarity and ease. Bringing together ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, the week features leading contemplatives and researchers including Robert Sapolsky, Laurie Santos, Mingyur Rinpoche, Judson Brewer, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Picard, Cortland Dahl, and Richard Davidson.Learn more / registerIn This Episode:00:00 Intro - Is your workout really meditation?01:15 Training body and mind together03:05 Is exercise really meditation?07:51 Why intention matters11:29 Flow versus meditation13:19 Exercise and neuroplasticity16:19 Should you meditate during or after exercise?20:25 Can movement make meditation easier?24:14 How Richie practices while cycling27:26 Cort’s practice: Yoga, jogging, and attention32:12 Interval training for the mind33:32 What the research tells us so farWritten transcript for those who prefer to read:00:00 Intro - Is your workout really meditation?Richie: What I often hear when I give public talks, people often raise their hand and say, my jog is my meditation, or my bicycle ride is my meditation. And my response to that is always, well, maybe, but not necessarily.Cort: It’s not just that your mind was a little more clear or a little more peaceful while you were exercising. In fact, actually that I would say is not at all the deciding point about whether it would or would not be meditation, but rather it’s that you’re doing something very intentional with your mind. You’re training your mind very consciously and very intentionally. So the promise of this all is that you basically can train your mind at the exact same time you’re exercising your body. And not only do you get the benefits of each of those individually, there’s at least the potential that there’s a synergistic benefit that’s greater than the sum of the parts.01:15 Training body and mind togetherCort: Welcome everyone. I am Cortland Dahl, and I’m here with my dear friend and Dharma brother, Dr. Richard Davidson, who of course we all call Richie, one of the most eminent and respected neuroscientists on the planet. And today we’re going to discuss how we can train our minds in the same way that we train our bodies, and especially that we can do this at the same time. So there’s some really interesting science here, but before we get there, I just want to share my own personal experience, which isI’ve been meditating for more than 30, well, more than well over three decades, probably about 35 years or so. And of course, sitting meditation is super important for me. But I noticed at a certain point that bringing meditation into my exercise routine actually has been incredibly powerful. And in some respects, I feel like some of the best meditations I have are when I’m jogging, for example. In the early days, I did yoga every day. I wasKind of very diligently had a yoga routine up until my son was born, and that kind of fell by the wayside. But I was really doing, I was really meditating as part of my exercise routine. And it wasn’t necessarily a replacement for my formal practice, but it was really, really powerful. And I could tell in my own experience that there was some synergy between the physical movement and pairing that up with doing a very intentional training of the mind. So this is a very exciting area of science. I know we’re both passionate about this as one of the frontiers of kind of modern science in this area. But Richie, why don’t why don’t I just turn it over to you to share whether your your kind of opening thoughts or your own experience, and then we can kind of go back and forth both to share a little bit about the scientific promise of this, but also how we actually do it and how we personally do it in our own lives.03:05 Is exercise really meditation?Richie: Yeah. So thank you, Cort, and it’s great to be here together talking about this on this beautiful Sunday morning in Madison. so yeah and I’ve been meditating pretty much every single day for more than fifty years.And I too have been really interested in exploring the relationship between meditation and physical exercise. and before we talk about the science, I think there’s a bunch of th other things to share, some of which just are personal and andTo begin with, I too have figured out ways of combining them for me that are really important and personally very meaningful. But before we get to that, I I wanna begin with what I often hear when I give public talks. Sometimes when we give public talks together, people often raise their hand and say, My jog is my meditation or my bicycle ride is my meditation. and my response to that is always, well, maybe, but not necessarily. and so I think it’s really important to make that very clear. And when we talk about meditation, we’re really talking about the intentional use of our mind in ways that promote human flourishing and if you go into exercise and your mind is all over the place and you’re not intentionally deploying your mind in that way then maybe it’s not so much that your exercise is your meditation and so i think that some people slip into that in a in a bit too cavalier a way. And so one of my aspirations is that in the next few minutes together we really can explore that and we can explore when your exercise might be reasonably thought of as your meditation and when it might not be. And so let me just share something personal that I do regularly. I’m a very avid bicycle rider, and particularly in the beautiful warm weather, I ride outside. And before I ride, I do something that I do before I meditate in the same kind of way, which is I and I do this, I really don’t take any extra time. So, you know, I ride a road bike and it requires you know putting on clothes and putting on special bicycle shoes. So there’s a lot of opportunity to reflect as I’m just engaging in the preparation activities for my bike ride. And during those periods I simply reflect on how riding my bike is beneficial to my health.But it’s not just beneficial for me, but being healthy and having vitality is beneficial for all of those I interact with, for my work, for my for what I do in the world. and it takes on a a kind ofSense of altruism or pro-sociality, that I’m doing it not just for myself. And what happens then is I mostly I ride alone. Maybe one day a week I ride with others, but the other times I ride alone. And particularly when I’m riding alone, I find that that reflection recycles spontaneously as I ride. And I come back to it many times.And it just really energizes me, like I’m riding for humanity. I mean, it sounds a little corny, but you know, I do genuinely reflect on that as I’m riding And although I don’t have any evidence to suggest that it’s beneficial, it feels beneficial to me. and first of all, it motivates me to engage in these activities, which I think is.good thing. know, I’m convinced that it does have other benefits as well, which we can explore later and may even change the biological effects of the exercise when it’s done in that kind of way. And so this is just one example of many of how these can be combined.07:51 Why intention mattersCort: Yeah, so so much to pick up on what you just said. we definitely, and maybe at the end of this, we can talk a little bit more about personally how we do this in our practice. So you gave one a great example of how you’ve linked these two. I should just say from the outset also that that Richie is kind of a legend in Madison for for his bike riding. I know people who ride with you, Richie, and pretty much everybody talk like can’t keep up with you. Like so so there’s a clearlyWhatever’s going on in your mind is you know, paired up with some very rigorous physical training. So it’s not as though you need to be I mean, you can do it while you’re in nice leisurely walk in the in the park, but you can do it with very, very intense exercise. In fact, I think for me as well, oftentimes it’s when it’s it’s most interesting actually, when you’re doing something quite vigorous and intense. But in any case, you can do it with any form of movement or exercise.But one thing I wanted to pick up on goes back to this question that you raised and that we often get asked about this idea of exercise, you know, the the the person who says jogging is my meditation, or similarly people say, being out in nature is my meditation. And you and I, of course, have fielded this question so many times and responded so many times, as you said, together and and alone. But what you just said, I think l sheds some light on that, because in your case, you can see.Perfectly that one of the key ingredients is intention. It’s not just that your mind was a little more clear or a little more peaceful while you were exercising. In fact, actually, that that I would say is not at all the deciding point about whether it would or would not be meditation, but rather it’s that you’re doing something very intentional with your mind, you’re training your mind.very consciously and
In this episode of Dharma Lab, Cortland Dahl and Richard Davidson unpack the difference between experiential fusion, being so absorbed in an experience that awareness narrows, and meta-awareness, the capacity to know what your mind is doing while you’re doing it. They explore why activities like movies, video games, rock climbing, Sudoku, and even doomscrolling can feel good in the moment, how they temporarily suppress the brain’s default mode, and why that does not necessarily translate into lasting change. They also discuss whether meta-awareness actually adds something to positive experiences, how it may increase cognitive and emotional flexibility, and a few simple ways to practice it in everyday life. Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Episode Companion FlashcardsUpcoming Events:* From Doing to Being: Effortless Meditation & the Lost Art of Doing Less with Dr. Cortland Dahl and Kasumi Kato, October 9–11 at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. This is an independent Omega Institute program and is not affiliated with Dharma Lab. Learn more / register* Quiet the Restless Mind — A gifted online week from Dharma Lab and ServiceSpace, November 15–21, exploring chronic stress and human flourishing through ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, with leading contemplatives and researchers including Robert Sapolsky, Laurie Santos, Mingyur Rinpoche, Judson Brewer, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Picard, Cortland Dahl, and Richard Davidson.Learn more / registerIn This Episode:00:00 Intro: Is It Good to Be Lost?01:17 Experiential Fusion vs. Meta-Awareness02:29 What Is Experiential Fusion?04:55 What Is Meta-Awareness?06:45 Why Being “Lost” Can Feel Good09:09 The Default Mode Network and Temporary Relief11:34 What Meta-Awareness Adds13:21 Flexibility, Attention, and the Ability to Disengage14:17 Responding Instead of Reacting16:53 Can Startle Reveal Meta-Awareness?19:39 Ancient Meditation Instructions for Meta-Awareness21:11 How to Practice Meta-Awareness in Daily LifeWritten transcript for those who prefer to read:00:00 Intro: Is It Good to Be Lost?Cort: We don’t like to ruminate. It’s a deeply unpleasant experience. But isn’t it good to be lost? What’s the problem with being absorbed in a good book or a movie? And would it be better if we had meta-awareness? Does that add anything in a moment like that?Richie: My view of this is that it feels transiently good. In the movie theater or doing Sudoku, when it ends, we go back to our neurotic self and the default mode of the brain comes roaring back. And so it’s a transient state. Meta-awareness is very helpful, I think, in disengaging our attention and enabling us to be flexible.01:17 Experiential Fusion vs. Meta-AwarenessCort: Welcome everyone to another episode of Dharma Lab. I’m Cortland Dahl. I’m here with eminent neuroscientist, And we wanted to talk today about a really important question that you and no one else has ever asked, which is what is the difference between meta awareness and experiential fusion? And I guarantee that although you have not asked that question and probably nobody has ever asked that question, it is one of the most important questions you could ask because it has massive implications for mental health, for emotional well-being, and even for physical health. So these are two terms that we use a lot in our research. We publish papers that are defining these and have been exploring ways to measure them, but they’re just very central to a lot of the work that we do on human flourishing. So why don’t we just start off with, I think, the one that most of us are more familiar with, Richie, and maybe you can... Give some practical examples and share your own insights on this, but that would be experiential fusion. This is, I think, where a lot of us live our lives. So what is this and why should people care? Why is this so important?02:29 What Is Experiential Fusion?Richie: Yeah, so experiential fusion is a term that we came up with in a paper we wrote a number of years ago together, and it’s a term that’s used to convey the idea that we can get totally absorbed in an activity that we lose awareness We often call this a flow experience, but we are so completely immersed in the experience that we are no longer aware of our context. So one example of this would be going to a movie and being so engrossed in the movie that you no longer aware that you’re in a movie theater. And in many cases, you’re no longer aware that you’re actually watching a movie. You’re so engrossed in the plot that you’re just in the middle of this plot. That’s experiential fusion.Cort: And it’s an interesting thing because it can be absorbed in an activity like movie theater example is perfect, a perfect example. You know, reading a really good novel or playing video games can be very absorbing. I think a very common one these days is doom scrolling. You’re just kind of totally caught up in this activity. So experiential fusion can be lost in thoughts, right? It can also be rumination where you’re just lost in your own thoughts. But the interesting thing about these examples, the movie theater example, doom scrolling, playing a video game, actually you’re attentive. It’s not as though you You’re distracted in that moment. In fact, you might be very, very focused on what you’re doing, but it’s as though the light of awareness dims a bit. It’s almost your attention is narrowed into whatever you’re doing and you’re absorbed in it and there’s a feeling of being lost in it. And I think the contrast is when there’s this feeling of almost like you’ve woken up from that. And it does almost feel like you’re waking up when you shift out of that state of absorption. So maybe we could just give the contrast now. So this is experiential fusion, which again, can be everything from you’re daydreaming, you’re ruminating, you’re lost in thoughts, or you’re absorbed in some engrossing activities. We gave these examples, but what’s the alternative? And then we can maybe compare and contrast the two.04:55 What Is Meta-Awareness?Richie: Yeah, so the alternative is meta-awareness, and meta-awareness refers to the capacity to know what our minds are doing. And to go back to the movie theater example, how would meta-awareness show up in a movie theater? Well, you might be totally attentive to the movie, completely undistracted, but you’re aware that you’re sitting in a theater, you’re kind of aware in the background. You can think of it as the Penumbra of awareness, the sort of edges of awareness. But you’re aware that you’re sitting in a movie theater, you’re aware that you’re watching a movie, but you’re also completely attentive. There’s no distraction. And that would be an example of meta-awareness. And so as it would apply to everyday life, you can be in a conversation with someone you know well, Be totally in the groove with them, be deep in conversation, but not be lost in the conversation. You can be aware that you’re sitting here, you may have just had breakfast together, and it’s Tuesday, and we’re having this conversation. So that That background is really supplied, if you will, by meta-awareness. Meta-awareness is this faculty of knowing what our minds are doing. And we think, for many different reasons, that meta-awareness is really key to being able to transform your mind. And one of the things I often say is that it’s very difficult to transform our mind if we’re not aware of what’s happening in our mind.06:45 Why Being “Lost” Can Feel GoodCort: So when it comes to experiential fusion, as we said, there’s a spectrum there, right? It can be being engrossed in a good book or a movie, or it could even be a conversation with a friend. You’re just totally absorbed in the moment. To the point that you kind of lose touch with everything else other than, you know, the narrow band of what you’re doing. And then on the other end of the spectrum is rumination, being lost in thoughts. I think most people would say obviously rumination is no fun. We don’t like to ruminate. It’s a deeply unpleasant experience. But isn’t it good to be lost? What’s the problem with being absorbed in a good book or a movie? And would it be better if we had meta-awareness? Does that add anything in a moment like that? When we’re reactive or ruminating, clearly we want some meta-awareness, but why would we want it in these other moments? Yeah.Richie: So those are great questions. And I should just also add that You know, I think we need to ask ourselves the question, why is it that activities that produce this kind of experiential fusion, like going to the movie theater or, you know, some more extreme examples are where flow has been studied. For example, with rock climbers where they’re putting themselves in situations where if there is a lapse in attention, it could potentially be lethal. And they’re doing this voluntarily. And so why do people do these things voluntarily to put themselves in these situations where You know, at least we think most of the time, most people are in this state of experiential fusion. And so my view of this is that it feels transiently good to be in these states of experiential fusion. There are other kinds of states of experiential fusion That are very common as well. So for example, doing crossword puzzles, doing Sudoku, where you’re totally absorbed in an activity that is kind of neutral, is very popular. And so again, I think we need to ask the question, why is that attractive? Why do people voluntarily do that sort of thing?09:09 The Default Mode Network and Temporary ReliefRichie: The reason is, I think, is because it transiently suppresses the default mode. So what does this mean? Well, we know that the default mode is active when our minds are wandering and when we’re ruminating. And just to be clear, the default mode is a network in the brain. This is like a constellation of brain r
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dharmalab.coHow much of what we experience comes from the world itself, and how much comes from our expectations about it? In our latest AMA, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl explore how the brain constructs perception, why the gap between reality and expectation can amplify suffering, and what changes when we begin to notice that process as it happens. We had a few moments of technical issues with frozen screens or background noise, but they don’t last long.What’s inside* Why your brain constructs reality the way it builds a dream* Why controlling the mind backfires* TMS: is it cheating?* Why open awareness loosens pain* The neuroscience of grief and regret* A 2-minute guided practice (free, led by Cort)* A preview of our upcoming November summit* The full hour mapped below, plus the flashcards and the recording for paid membersCompanion Flashcards At BottomYour brain builds reality like a dreamA listener named Linda asked about acceptance, and about the idea, drawn from Anil Seth and Lisa Feldman Barrett, that reality is a construction of the mind. Cort answered first, and reframed where suffering actually comes from.It’s actually the gap between reality and our expectations of what should be happening. However big that gap is, that’s like the size of suffering in that moment.—Cortland DahlCort was clear it is not erasing expectations. It is seeing that they are there and that they are out of step with what is happening, bringing them into the light of conscious experience rather than letting them run under the hood.Then Richie discussed how the brain networks that build our beliefs and expectations are the very networks through which we perceive. He used the dream as proof.Just as in a dream, we can feel those emotions in our body, and there are documented changes in our heart rate and breathing, and yet there’s nothing out there. It’s all in our mind. It turns out that’s actually the way it works with the real world. That’s how our brains construct reality.—Richard DavidsonHis image for the practice came from Mingyur Rinpoche: caught in the middle of a river, you are swept along by the turbulent flow. Become aware of the thoughts and expectations driving your perception, and it is more like sitting on the bank, watching the water move without being pulled in. Cort added a pointer for anyone who wants the science firsthand, calling Anil Seth’s TED talk one of the best he has seen.The picnic and the four police officersVictoria asked why open awareness loosens physical pain. Richie described what his lab calls “stickiness,” the attachment or aversion that makes an emotion reverberate long after the thing that caused it is gone. In open awareness, the reverberation drops away.In some of our own research, the response in sensory regions is actually larger when you’re doing open awareness. It’s not diminished. But there’s no reverberation. It happens and comes back to baseline. We’re not creating emotional zombies.—Richard DavidsonThat fast return to baseline, he said, is a neural signature of resilience. Cort then told a story from the Tibetan tradition that ties to this. Imagine you drive to a park for a picnic, thrilled to be there. Then four police officers walk up and tell you that you are ordered to stay in this park all day, that they will block you if you try to leave.Even though you wanted to go there in the first place, suddenly everybody’s trying to think how they can get out. Life does not like to be constrained and controlled in any way.—Cortland DahlThe mind works the same way. The harder we clamp down on a feeling, the more it strains to escape. Open awareness runs the other direction. Cort called it a practice of trust, close to the opposite of control.FREE · 2-MINUTE PRACTICE LED BY CORT2-minute practice: Wherever you are, settle into a comfortable posture. Let your eyes stay gently open or close them. Take a few moments to simply feel the breath moving in and out of the body. Notice the sounds around you, or the silence. Then open the heart a little by bringing to mind the many challenges in the world right now, the suffering so many are carrying, and form a quiet intention: that whatever good comes from your practice might ripple outward and ease the suffering of others. Rest there for a few breaths, then carry that motivation into whatever comes next.The full hour, mappedRead the gist below, then drop into the recording at any timestamp.03:46 — “Grandpa!” and the end of the sitting.Twelve minutes into an early-morning practice, Richie’s two-and-a-half-year-old grandson opened the door. He let the formal session go and kept practicing as grandpa. Anywhere, anytime meditation; everywhere, all the time.08:32 — Active practice is as powerful as the cushion.The Healthy Minds research finds the benefit of active practices comparable to formal sitting. Cort put his son down for nearly every nap for three years and came to see those as the real practice.09:59 — Acceptance and the gap.Suffering tracks the gap between reality and our expectations. The shift is not dropping expectations but seeing them clearly.13:54 — Your brain constructs reality like a dream.Anil Seth, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and the river metaphor. Perception is built by the same networks that build belief.17:40 — So how do we share a reality at all?Rob from Toronto asks about controlled hallucination and shared social realities. Richie on entrainment, cooperation, and why it remains “a shared illusion of a sort”.”20:18 — Why open awareness loosens pain.Stickiness, reverberation, and the larger-but-faster response that marks resilience. We are not creating emotional zombies.27:00 — The picnic and the four police officers.Why control backfires in a park, in a relationship, and in the mind. Open awareness as trust.29:40 — TMS and the urge to hack the mind.TMS stands for “transcranial magnetic stimulation”, and Richie explains that TMS belongs to a broader family of methods designed to modulate brain function relatively non-invasively. There is growing interest in whether these tools could affect meditation, but he emphasizes that we do not yet know whether they meaningfully support practice. The Center for Healthy Minds has also been exploring neuromodulation and meditation more broadly. Cort shares about neuromodulation as one more entry point into an interdependent system.37:37 — Where does awareness live in the brain?Edith’s question. Visual cortex, anterior cingulate, and the honest answer: no single location, no single switch40:24 — The unresponsive who were actually aware.Melanie Boly’s work: patients thought to be vegetative held more awareness than we credited, unable to communicate it. A communication problem, not an awareness problem.45:18 — The neuroscience of grief that doesn’t fade.Amygdala and hippocampus jammed together, and reconsolidation: a memory is a reconstruction that changes each time it is recalled, not a photograph.51:20 — When grief opened into gratitude.Cort on his father’s sudden death four years ago, holding the feeling fully in the body, and the sadness opening, unbidden, into gratitude.57:38 — A free November summit.A free online gathering through ServiceSpace this November, with Sharon Salzberg, Jud Brewer, Robert Sapolsky, Martin Picard, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Laurie Santos.November 2026 Free Online Summit with Legends of Neuroscience and Practice
Dharma Lab’s First Guided Meditation HourIn Dharma Lab’s first guided practice hour, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richard Davidson took us from talking about wellbeing to actually practicing it. Drawing on the Healthy Minds framework of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, shaped through years of research and practice connected with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Humin (formerly Healthy Minds Innovations), they led participants through four short practices designed to make each capacity directly experiential. The session explored a central idea running through their work: meditation is less about fixing ourselves than learning to recognize and cultivate qualities of wellbeing that are already present.Keep Practicing — Upcoming EventsIf you’d like to continue exploring these practices, the free Healthy Minds Program App offers guided practices and learning across awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, with Cortland Dahl, Richard Davidson, and other teachers.Our next “Ask Me Anything”with Richie and Cort is live on Tuesday, August 25th, 8pm ET. Please send us questions in advance by replying to this email or dropping a comment.We have an exciting lineup of guest speakers for a free online summit in November to explore the restless mind. More details to come, but check out initial info at the bottom of this email and registration details here. Please share widely!Thank you for your support and we hope to see you at these future events.—The Dharma Lab Team This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dharmalab.co/subscribe