Facilitating and Promoting Dialogue
The goal of the foundation is to facilitate and promote a dialogue between sciences, humanities, and contemplative traditions, thus furthering the field of contemplative sciences, with the aim of contributing to human flourishing, well-being, and the common good.
Our Activities
Research and Field Building
Setting up and executing projects in basic research, applied research and field building.
Building Communities of Practice
Promoting and building communities of practice of scientists and professionals
International Conferences
Organising international conferences.
Collaborating
Collaborating with institutions and organisations, which pursue similar activities.
Fundraising
Raising funds for these activities and events.
Internal Business Management
Executing the business and administration of all promotional activities including
publications and dissemination activities.
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Planned Partnership Events 2025
- Caring Minds workshop (13th-16th February, Gomde, Austria
- 9th Pioneers of Change Summit (13th – 25th March, online)
- Varela International Symposium: Experience & self-transcendence: Views from neuroscience, cognitive science, physics, and Buddhism. (23rd – 25th May, online)
- Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday event (date TBC, Brussels, Belgium)
- Dharamsala dialogue 2025 (13th – 18th October 2025, Dharamsala, India)
Partnership Events 2024
- Land Art Event “Road to Montegrande, regarding Francisco Varela” (18th January − 18th February, Elqui Valley, Chile)
- Conference ”The Elephant in the Room. Investigating Consciousness Beyond Reductionism” (21st − 23rd February, University of Padova, Italy)
- 8th Pioneers of Change Online Summit (7th − 19th March)
- Varela International Symposium: “Sentience and Intelligence: AI, the More-Than-Human, and Us” (24th − 26th May, Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, US, hybrid event)
- Training Embodied Critical Thinking and Understanding International Programme (May − December 2024)
- Dialogue Between Scientists and Tsoknyi Rinpoche (24th − 26th May, Brussels)
- 2nd Annual International Society for Contemplative Research Conference (19th − 23rd June, Padova, Italy)
Partnership Events 2023
- The Computational Approach to Neuro-Phenomenology workshop (6th-10th March, The Lorentz Center, Leiden University, The Netherlands)
- Varela International Symposium: Worldmaking/
Sensemaking: Intersubjectivity, Cooperation,
Precariousness (25th-28th May, Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico, US, hybrid event) - Cortona Week 2023: Science and the Wholeness of Life (16th-23rd July, Certosa di Pontignano, Italy)
- Enactive Ethics of Responsibility Workshop (25th September, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic)
- 1st International Conference on Environmental Mindfulness (ICEM) (13th-16th November, Rome, Italy)
Our History
Stichting Mind and Life was founded on the 30th November 2016 in Amsterdam. We have been collaborating with our original founder organisation, Mind & Life Europe (MLE) in Switzerland, to bridge and integrate contemplative wisdom and practices with modern research capabilities and bring a new wave of initiatives into the European science community. After some restructuring between 2021-2023, today we operate as an independent foundation in order to develop collaborations and partnerships with like-minded organisations in the Netherlands and throughout the European Union.1991
Stichting Mind and Life 