Two ways of knowing the mind

Mental health has become one of the defining concerns of our time. Across the world, individuals, families, communities, and governments are searching for better ways to understand the mind, support those who are suffering, and nurture the conditions in which human beings flourish. Two great bodies of knowledge offer themselves to this work: the modern medical and psychological sciences, with their remarkable advances in understanding the brain and treating illness; and the world's contemplative traditions, with their centuries of accumulated wisdom about the mind, the sources of suffering, and the cultivation of inner clarity and compassion.

What happens when they meet?

Modern medicine and the contemplative traditions have each spent centuries investigating the human mind. Yet for much of recent history, they have largely worked in separate domains — the clinic and the contemplative seat, the laboratory and the meditation cushion. What happens when…