Exploring Consciousness:
Scientific & Contemplative Approaches

Dr. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness, an ERC Advanced Investigator, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness and a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. He holds degrees in Natural Sciences (MA, Cambridge, 1996), Knowledge-Based Systems (MSc, Sussex, 1996), and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (Ph.D., Sussex, 2001).

He has published more than 200 papers and is listed in the Web of Science ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ index (2019, 2020, 2021).

His 2017 TED talk has been viewed more than twelve million times, and his new book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was an instant Sunday Times top 10 bestseller, a Guardian book of the week and science book of the year, and a Financial Times science book of the year.

Geshe Tenzin Namdak first worked as an environmental researcher having graduated in hydrology from Van Hall Larenstein University, The Netherlands.

He started studying Buddhism at Maitreya Institute in 1993 and took ordination from His Holiness the Dalai Lama before engaging in his formal studies in Buddhist philosophy and psychology at Sera Jey Monastic University, South India, in 1997.

He completed the entire twenty-year Geshe program at Sera Jey in 2017 and the traditional one year Vajrayana study program at Gyume Tantric College in January 2019, the first Westerner to do so. Because of his deep interest and background in science and as a member of Sera Jey’s Education Department he spoke on and organised various dialogues and conferences on contemporary science and ancient contemplative wisdom of the mind and its philosophy. Currently, he is the resident teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London, and a Part-time Tutor at the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford where he delivers courses on Buddhist Mind Science in this dept.

Dr. Elena Antonova is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Brunel University London and a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London. After completing her BSc in Psychology at University College London and her PhD in Cognitive Psychology at the IoPPN, she held a number of postdoctoral research positions and was awarded the Templeton Positive Neuroscience Award, following which she joined the IoPPN as a Lecturer in Psychology. Dr. Antonova is the author of numerous scientific publications on the effect of long-term meditation practice. Her research highlights the positive impact of meditation on mental health and wellbeing, as well as its role in managing and preventing mental disorders.

She has been actively involved in the Mind & Life Institute and Mind & Life Europe, promoting interdisciplinary scientific research into the effects of contemplative practices. In 2017, she was elected a Mind & Life Research Fellow for her contribution to contemplative science.

Dr. John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness .

In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award.

He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century crisis which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

Yangten Rinpoche was recognised at the age of 10 as the reincarnation of the previous Yangten Rinpoche in the Kham region of Tibet.

He began his formal monastic education at Sera Mey Monastic University in South India in 1990, studying Buddhist philosophy, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and monastic discipline under renowned scholars.

He completed his studies with the highest monastic degree of Geshe Lharampa in 2006 and went on to study Tantra at Gyuto Tantric College, where he also served as Debate Assistant to the 17th Karmapa.

In 2008, Rinpoche was personally appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to work in his office in McLeod Ganj, where he currently oversees the Monastic Ordination Section and leads the project to compile the collected teachings of His Holiness. He also regularly supports His Holiness during public teachings by offering short reviews and giving introductory lectures on Buddhism at His Holiness’s request.

Marjorie Woollacott, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Professor and prior chair of the Dept. of Human Physiology, and member of the Institute of Neuroscience, at the University of Oregon. She taught courses in neuroscience and rehabilitation, as well as complementary medicine and meditation. She is President of the Academy for the Advancement of Post-Materialist Sciences (AAPS) and Research Director for the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS). Woollacott has received over 7.2 million dollars in funding for her research in rehabilitation medicine.

Her current research interests are in meditation, spiritual awakening, end-of-life experiences and after-death-communication. She has published more than 200 scientific articles and written or co-edited eight books, including Is Consciousness Primary?. Another book, Infinite Awareness (2015) (winner of eight awards, including the 2017 Parapsychological Association Book Award, Eric Hoffer Book Award and the Nautilus Book Award) pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind’s spiritual power. Her latest book is Spiritual Awakenings: Scientists and Academics Describe Their Experiences. It consists of short essays by 57 scientists about their spiritual awakenings and subsequent transformation, as well as the barriers they encountered when they tried to share these experiences with other academics and scientists.