Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ contemplative science bridging Buddhism, spirituality, and neuroscience • mindfulness, meditation methods, ethics, measurement, harms • compassion training, community care • pain, grief, anxiety, wellbeing, psychotherapy, somatics • consciousness, self, agency, predictive processing • psychedelics, nonduality, end-of-life care • AI, meaning, neurotheology
This podcast explores how contemplative traditions—especially Buddhism and mindfulness—intersect with modern science to explain and cultivate well-being. Hosted by Dr. Mark Miller, conversations move between first-person accounts of practice and third-person research frameworks, bringing in monks, meditation teachers, clinicians, philosophers, and neuroscientists to examine what meditation is doing in the mind and body and how (and whether) its effects can be studied.
Across the episodes, recurring themes include compassion training and its psychological and social dimensions, with attention to measurement, durability, and community impact. Listeners also encounter neuroscientific and computational approaches to attention, agency, goal-setting, belief updating, and predictive processing, often used to clarify experiences such as changes in selfhood, perceptual “boundaries,” and the dynamics of emotional regulation. Several discussions focus on applying contemplative methods in real-world settings like healthcare, psychotherapy, education, and pain treatment, including chronic pain and the role of meaning and awareness in suffering.
The show regularly engages big philosophical questions—what consciousness is, whether meditation can function as a kind of philosophy, and how spiritual aims differ from scientific aims—while also addressing risks and limitations, including adverse or destabilizing meditation experiences and critiques of mindfulness hype. Psychedelics appear as another major thread, examined through clinical research (including end-of-life distress), computational models, and their relationship to non-duality and religious traditions. The overall emphasis is on careful, interdisciplinary inquiry into spiritual development, mental health, and the mechanisms—and ethical stakes—of practices intended to transform human experience.
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Episodes:
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Establishing Right View: Meditation, Meaning, and Staying on Track w/ Nicholas Buscall
2026-Mar-02
48 minutes
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Where Science Meets Silence w/Brother Phap Linh
2026-Jan-12
40 minutes
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Purposeful Behaviour Through a Buddhist Lens w Nadav Amir
2025-Nov-24
45 minutes
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How Compassion Works w/ Paul Condon
2025-Nov-03
50 minutes
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The Inner Science of Pain: Compassion, Contemplation, and Healing w/ Richmond Stace
2025-Aug-20
50 minutes
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Being Deeply Well: Dharma, Discomfort, and the Healing Path w/ Melina Bondy & Arti Mehta
2025-Jul-28
43 minutes
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How Compassion Works w/ Lama John Makransky
2025-Jun-05
39 minutes
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Is Meditation Philosophy? w/ Rick Repetti
2025-May-19
33 minutes
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Science and Practice of Dark Retreats w/ Andrew Holecek
2025-Apr-28
49 minutes
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Neurons, Networks, and the Nature of Freedom w/ Adam Safron
2025-Apr-09
35 minutes
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Breaking Free from Mental Ruts: The Science of Sense Foraging w/ Norman Farb
2025-Mar-19
40 minutes
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The Museum of Meditative Practices w/ Mridula Sathyanarayanan
2025-Mar-03
32 minutes
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Dissolving Boundaries - A Computational View of Body-Scan Meditation w Valeria Becattini
2025-Feb-17
45 minutes
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Rewiring Hope: Computational Models, Psilocybin, and the Science of Optimism w/ Beth Fisher
2024-Dec-15
35 minutes
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Mindfulness in Action: Bridging Healthcare, Education, and Wellbeing w/Elli Weisbaum
2024-Nov-13
44 minutes
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The Dawn of Consciousness w/ James Cooke
2024-Oct-23
46 minutes
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Psilocybin and the Brain: A Deep Dive into End-of-Life Care w/ Stephan Tap
2024-Sep-25
41 minutes
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Exploring the Hype and Harm of Mindfulness w/ John Dunne
2024-Sep-11
39 minutes
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Buddhism, Science and Spirituality w/ Brother Phap Linh
2024-Aug-28
50 minutes
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The Intersection of Psychedelics and Non-Duality w/ Daniel Meling
2024-Aug-16
44 minutes
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Expanding Jewish Spirituality w/ Sam Berrin Shonkoff
2024-Jul-29
51 minutes
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Ayahuasca and the Science of the Sacred
2024-Jul-16
38 minutes
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Surviving Tomorrow: AI and the Human Spirit w/ John Vervaeke & Sean Coyne
2024-Jul-01
49 minutes
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Round Up Episode
2023-Oct-03
25 minutes
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The Enlightenment Hack? w/Jay Sanguinetti
2023-Jun-01
28 minutes
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Death and The Information Gap
2023-May-24
35 minutes
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Speaking in Tongues: w/Josh Brahinsky
2023-May-03
26 minutes
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Your Brain and God: The Principles of Neurotheology w/ Andrew Newberg
2023-Apr-25
29 minutes
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UnBroken: How To Deal With Grief
2023-Apr-19
29 minutes
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Kevin Berryman: The Lessons Of A Buddhist Monk
2023-Apr-04
29 minutes
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Meditation: An Active State?
2023-Mar-07
29 minutes
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Psychedelics, Trauma and Men's Therapy
2023-Feb-28
29 minutes
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Pain Reconceptualized: w/ Alex Jinich
2023-Feb-21
29 minutes
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Our Guided Meditation: Dr Mark Miller x Lama John Makransky
2023-Feb-08
22 minutes
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Why I'm Not a Buddhist
2023-Jan-31
30 minutes
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Cognitive Biases and Emotional Reactions: with Dr Norman Farb
2023-Jan-24
30 minutes
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Meditation and Psychotherapy: with Ian Singer
2023-Jan-10
30 minutes
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Soul and Interconnectedness: Dr Anna Yusim
2023-Jan-03
26 minutes
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How To Be Human: 2022 Pod Review
2022-Dec-21
32 minutes
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The Dark Night of the Soul
2022-Dec-06
31 minutes
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Constructing Our Lives: with Dr Shamil Chandaria
2022-Nov-30
32 minutes
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Spirituality and Psychic Abilities
2022-Nov-22
32 minutes
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Jhāna and Peak Experiences
2022-Nov-09
32 minutes
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Mental Health and Buddhism: with Dr Elli Weisbaum
2022-Nov-01
36 minutes
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The Dark Side of Meditation
2022-Oct-18
29 minutes
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Psychedelics and Spiritual Traditions
2022-Oct-11
32 minutes
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Flow States and Meta-Awareness: w/ Dr Dave Vago
2022-Oct-04
34 minutes
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You are Not Your Brain
2022-Sep-27
31 minutes
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The Mindful College Student
2022-Sep-20
32 minutes
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Understanding Anxiety
2022-Aug-30
31 minutes
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Compassion, Wisdom and Training
2022-Aug-23
31 minutes
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The Self Made Simple with Dr Monima Chadha
2022-Aug-10
30 minutes
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The Equanimity Factor
2022-Aug-02
30 minutes
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Mindfulness and Education: Professor Craig Hassed
2022-Jul-26
32 minutes
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The Podcast So Far: a fireside conversation
2022-Jul-19
25 minutes
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Dr Ines Hipolito: 'The 'Complexity Wanderer'
2022-Jul-05
32 minutes
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How to Deal with Change: lessons from a Buddhist nun
2022-Jun-28
32 minutes
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Getting The Dose Right: how much mindfullness?
2022-Jun-21
33 minutes
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Guidance, hypnosis and Tibetan practice: Dr Michael Lifshitz on well-being
2022-Jun-14
34 minutes
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Well Being and Psychedelics: caution, potential and meditation
2022-Jun-07
30 minutes
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Self Love and Enlightenment
2022-May-31
32 minutes
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Windows of Tolerance: the science of how to practice gently
2022-May-24
37 minutes
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The 5 Contemplative Landmarks
2022-May-17
34 minutes
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Meditation, the brain and meta-cognitive awareness
2022-May-10
32 minutes
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Collective Trauma and Recovery
2022-May-03
32 minutes
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The Black History of Yoga
2022-Apr-25
31 minutes
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The Science of Romantic Love
2022-Apr-19
33 minutes
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Pain, Brains and Reality
2022-Apr-12
31 minutes
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The Authentic Happiness Episode
2022-Apr-05
29 minutes
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The Well-Being Curriculum
2022-Mar-29
30 minutes
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Mysticism and Modern Healthcare: how Psychiatry and spirituality interact
2022-Mar-22
28 minutes
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Why I'm Not a Buddhist
2022-Mar-15
30 minutes
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An introduction to Indigenous Contemplative Science
2022-Mar-08
28 minutes
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The Meaning Crisis - and what we can do about it
2022-Mar-01
44 minutes
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What is the bottleneck to well-being?
2022-Mar-01
44 minutes
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Welcome to the Contemplative Science Podcast
2022-Feb-23
less than a minute
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