Kevin Griffin is a meditation teacher in the San Francisco Bay area and former addict who uses meditation, the 12 steps and Buddhist precepts of free will and mindfulness to help addicts recover. He is also one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network.He is the author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve […]

G. Alan Marlatt was a professor of psychology and director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. His major focus was in both research and clinical work is addictive behaviors; he conducted research on Buddhist meditation as a treatment for substance abuse in and out of prisons and wrote […]

Joan Halifax is the author of Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom (Grove Press, 2004). She is the founder of Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, N.M.

Martin Lowenthal is the founder and director of the Dedicated Life Institute in Newton, Mass. He is also the author of Dawning of Clear Light: A Western Approach to Tibetan Dark Retreat (Hampton Roads, 2003).

Kevin M. Trainor is associate professor of religion at the University of Vermont, Burlington. He can discuss attitudes toward animals in Buddhism.

Richard Davidson is a professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has studied the brain activity of meditators and since 1992 has collaborated with the Dalai Lama and Buddhist monks to study the effect of meditation on mental activity.

Satya Dev Negi is a senior lecturer at Emory University in Atlanta and chairman of the Emory-Tibet Partnership. He has written about traditional Buddhist and contemporary Western approaches to emotions and their impact on health, and he has done other research on the mind-body connection and health. He has studied whether meditation can reduce depression […]

The Rev. John Lundin is a Protestant minister. He has studied Buddhist practice in depth and is interested in using it to help others deepen their own religious practice, whether Christian, Jewish or Buddhist. He is co-author of The New Mandala: Eastern Wisdom for Western Living — a book on Buddhism for Christians — with the Dalai Lama.

Mind and Life Institute was created in 1987 to promote neuroscience research on the mind, Buddhism, health and meditation.