Description (podcaster-provided):
What can cutting-edge science tell us about spiritual development? And how are ancient contemplative practices helping us to investigate the nature of well-being? On The Contemplative Science Podcast, host Dr. Mark Miller speaks with the real experts, from Monks to Neuroscientists, to get clear on how contemplative practices work and how they might help us improve our lives. Our diverse range of guests will cover everything from mindfulness and wisdom, to sex, death and enlightenment.
Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ contemplative science bridging Buddhism, meditation, and neuroscience • compassion training, ethics, community care • mind/self, agency, consciousness, nonduality • mindfulness in healthcare/education • pain, trauma, grief, death • psychedelics, end-of-life therapy • AI, predictive processing
This podcast explores how contemporary research intersects with contemplative traditions to explain spiritual development, well-being, and human flourishing. Conversations regularly bring together neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, clinicians, and ordained practitioners to examine what contemplative practices are doing—cognitively, emotionally, ethically, and socially—while staying attentive to the differences between scientific aims and religious or philosophical goals.
A central theme is meditation as an active form of training rather than passive relaxation. Across discussions, the mind is often framed in terms of predictive processing, Bayesian learning, and other computational approaches that attempt to model attention, perception, agency, and the construction of selfhood. Practices such as mindfulness, body-scan meditation, concentration training, and compassion-based methods are considered both phenomenologically (what experiences are like) and mechanistically (how they might arise in the brain and body). The show also treats meditation as a potential philosophical method, probing how it informs questions about self, free will, non-duality, and the relationship between mind and matter.
Another consistent focus is applied contemplative science in mental health and healthcare settings. Topics include emotional regulation, anxiety, depression, grief, chronic pain, trauma, and end-of-life distress, with attention to how mindfulness and compassion trainings can be taught, evaluated, and integrated alongside psychotherapy and somatic approaches. The podcast also addresses risks and complications, including spiritual crisis, “dark night” experiences, and the possibility that meditation is not universally beneficial.
Psychedelics appear frequently as a parallel or intersecting domain, including psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, and ayahuasca. These episodes examine therapeutic mechanisms, belief updating, meaning-making, ritual and community contexts, and the relationship between psychedelic states and contemplative insights, while also discussing hype, ethics, and harm reduction.
Broader questions extend to public engagement and technology, including how meditation can be communicated through educational exhibits, how brain stimulation might interact with practice, and how AI and alignment raise existential and ethical issues relevant to human values and compassion.
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Episodes:
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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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