Current Announcements
🎨 Call for Art: Democracy in Motion 2026
Ann Moradian (Perspectives In Motion) and Nina Zoie Lam (National Asian Artists Project) at Our Declaration 2026 are making a call for art works, events and projects that explore the challenges and possibilities of coexisting in a shared world.
Open to all media (including new forms and approaches) and all ages, with rolling deadlines through October 31st.
Let your imagination guide you!
Deadline: July 14 & October 31
🧑🤝🧑Community Space: “Mindful Presentations”
The Mindful Researchers will be relaunching the “Mindful Presentations”, a welcoming space for community members and newcomers to share their work, projects, research, ideas, practices, and questions in a creative, authentic and vibrant way. Each 90-minute session begins with a gentle grounding and check-in, followed by up to three presentations and an open collective dialogue.
✨ Sessions resume in November (every 6–8 weeks).
🌟 Call for presentations! If you’d like to contribute, send them a short description of your 15-minute talk or idea by Monday 3rd November, 2025.
🌷 Want to co-facilitate? They warmly welcome those who’d like to help them hold space.
Reach out at contact@mindfulresearchers.org.
📝MLE Member Publication: “Enaction, relevance realisation and wisdom: establishing a theoretical framework for contemplative education” by Dr Sāgaradevī Barratt
We would like to congratulate MLE member, Dr Sāgaradevī Barratt, for her recent publication in Frontiers in Education.
“Enaction, relevance realisation and wisdom: establishing a theoretical framework for contemplative education” explores the diversification in how contemplative practice is applied within educational settings and argues for the importance of establishing a theoretical framework for its development. Using the lens of enaction and drawing on the concepts of relevance realisation and wisdom, the paper proposes a conceptual model of contemplative education that may guide future research and pedagogical integration by explaining how contemplative practices may take effect. It offers fresh theoretical insights to stimulate dialogue on how contemplation can foster wisdom and what this might mean for the future of higher education.
📝EVA Publication: “Tukdam, Different Ontological Bodies, and Making Tibetan Deaths Visible” by Donagh Coleman
Our EVA 2022 awardee, Donagh Coleman, has recently published an article in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry as part of his PhD thesis.
“Tukdam, Different Ontological Bodies, and Making Tibetan Deaths Visible”, explores the postmortem state of Tukdam, a highly advanced state of Tibetan Buddhist meditation achieved after clinical death that disrupts normative Western categories of life and death, mind and body. This article draws upon medical anthropology, history of science, and cross-cultural medicine to examine epistemological theories of perception, showing how ways of conceiving and attending to the body contribute to the production of distinct medical bodies—and deaths. Engaging with Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy and its Tibetan appropriations, alongside science studies and medical and ontological anthropology, Coleman advances an ontological approach and outlines a theory for how such bodies might come into being.
For those who are interested in exploring this further, Coleman also developed, directed, and co-produced a documentary film Tukdam: Between Worlds in 2022 alongside his academic research, which depicts the study up to 2020. You can watch the trailer here.
🎙️Podcast Interview: “Epilepsy, Ecstasy and the Nature of Reality” with Prof Fabienne Picard
We’re pleased to share a recent episode of the science podcast Where the Wild Thoughts Are, hosted by Jo Marchant. The series features conversations with researchers who are exploring new ideas, challenging assumptions, and reshaping how we see the world — with topics ranging from cosmology and quantum physics to neuroscience, archaeology, and ecology.
In the episode “Epilepsy, Ecstasy and the Nature of Reality,” Marchant speaks with MLE member, neurologist, and epilepsy specialist, Prof Fabienne Picard. Together, they delve into the phenomenon of “ecstatic seizures,” a rare condition that offers unique insights into human consciousness and bliss. Drawing on the experiences of her patients as well as the writings of 19th-century novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, Prof Picard explores what these moments can teach us about the nature of the mind.