CHRONOLOGY: Compassion Research & Compassion Cultivation (Secular & Religious)

 

A) PRE-HISTORY, EARLY NON-CHRISTIAN

1.8 million BC - Dmanisi in Georgia, however, holds the world record for the ancientness of this strange human trait: benevolence. “We found an old individual with only one tooth,” says David Lordkipanidze, a paleoanthropologist and the manager of the Dmanisi site. “Can you imagine how hard it would be to survive with such a condition? So he had to be taken care of.” Lordkipanidze is referring to a mandible catalogued as D3900. It is thick and round-chinned and archaic beyond imagining. It comes from some wandering creature that may have been a Homo erectus. D3900 gummed its last meal, possibly fed into its lips by another’s hairy fingers, 1.8 million years ago. [Paul Salopek, “The Natural History of Compassion: A fossil site in Georgia hints at the evolution of kindness.” Out of Eden Walk, Nov. 10, 2015]

661 - The earliest extant dated text of the Heart Sutra is a stone stele dated to 661 CE located at Yunju Temple. "Form is emptiness (śūnyatā), emptiness is form." It is a condensed exposé on the Buddhist Mahayana teaching of the Two Truths doctrine, which says that ultimately all phenomena are sunyata, empty of an unchanging essence. This emptiness is a 'characteristic' of all phenomena, and not a transcendent reality, but also "empty" of an essence of its own. Specifically, it is a response to Sarvastivada teachings that "phenomena" or its constituents are real. It has been called "the most frequently used and recited text in the entire Mahayana Buddhist tradition.”

1000s? - Lojong, Analytic Meditation - (lo jong; blo sbyong) is a mind training practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition based on a set of aphorisms formulated in Tibet in the 12th century by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje. The practice involves refining and purifying one's motivations and attitudes. Lojong mind training practice was developed over a 300-year period between 900 and 1200 CE, as part of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Atiśa (982–1054 CE), a Bengali meditation master, is generally regarded as the originator of the practice. [SEE BELOW: a) Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Seattle, Wa.; b) CBCI, Cognitively-Based Compassion Training – Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics (CCSCBE), Emory University, Atlanta; Lobsani Tenzen Negi.]

1881 - In the late 19th century, the heyday of both the British Empire and Victorian Orientalism, a British magistrate in Galle, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), with the formidable name of Thomas William Rhys Davids, found himself charged with adjudicating Buddhist ecclesiastical disputes. He set out to learn Pali, a Middle Indo-Aryan tongue and the liturgical language of Theravada, an early branch of Buddhism. In 1881, he thus pulled out “mindfulness” — a synonym for “attention” from 1530 — as an approximate translation of the Buddhist concept of sati. [Virginia Heffernan, “The Muddied Meaning of ‘Mindfulness’,” New York Times, April 14, 2015]

1893 - The Burmese vipassana movement has its roots in the 19th century, when Theravada Buddhism came to be influenced by western modernism [McMahan, David L. (2008), The Making of Buddhist Modernism], and some monks tried to restore the Buddhist practice of meditation. According to James Coleman, the first presenters of a modernistic Buddhism before a Western audience were Anagarika Dharmapala and Soyen Shaku in 1893 at The World Congress of Religion. / The Vipassanā movement, also called (in the United States) the Insight Meditation Movement and American vipassana movement, refers to a branch of modern Burmese Theravāda Buddhism which promotes "bare insight" (sukha-vipassana) to attain stream entry and preserve the Buddhist teachings, which gained widespread popularity since the 1950s, and to its western derivatives which were popularised since the 1970s, giving rise to the more dhyana-oriented mindfulness movement.  / Based on the commentaries, Ledi Sayadaw popularized vipassana meditation for lay people, teaching samatha and stressing the practice of satipatthana to acquire vipassana (insight) into the three marks of existence as the main means to attain the beginning of awakening and become a stream-enterer. It was highly popularized in the 20th century in traditional Theravada countries by Mahasi Sayadaw, who introduced the "New Burmese Satipatthana Method". It also gained a large following in the west, due to westerners who learned vipassana from Mahasi Sayadaw, S. N. Goenka, and other Burmese teachers. Some also studied with Thai Buddhist teachers, who are more critical of the commentarial tradition, and stress the joined practice of samatha and vipassana. The 'American vipassanā movement' includes contemporary American Buddhist teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, Gil Fronsdal, Sharon Salzberg, Ruth Denison and Jack Kornfield.

B) CHRISTIAN TRADITION

200s - Anthony the Great, Egypt (251-356) the father and founder of desert monasticism. Desert Fathers and Mothers. Praying without ceasing, developed “within the first 350 years of Christianity” by desert monastics in the Middle East and North Africa.

300s - Augustine of Hippo (354-430) viewed the imitation of Christ as the fundamental purpose of Christian life, and as a remedy for the imitation of the sins of Adam.

320s? - Macarius of Egypt (300–391) was a Coptic Christian monk and hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great. Legend of the passing on of the grapes.

362 - Julian the Apostate, Emperor of Rome, Letter to Arsacius. “For it is disgraceful when no Jew is a beggar and the impious Galileans [Christians] support our poor in addition to their own; everyone is able to see that our coreligionists are in want of aid from us.”

369 - St Basil of Caesarea – “In AD 369, St Basil of Caesarea founded a 300-bed hospital. This was the first large-scale hospital for the seriously ill and disabled. It cared for victims of the plague. There were hospices for the poor and aged isolation units, wards for travellers who were sick and a leprosy house. It was the first of many built by the Christian Church.” [Rosie Beal-Preston, “How the Christian hospital movement changed the world,” God Reports, February 8, 2016].

400s - The Jesus Prayer, developed in the 5th century by North-African and Middle-Eastern Christians.

400s - Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum.

400s - John Cassian (c. AD 360 – c. 435).

500s - Benedict of Nursia (Norcia), Italy (480-547).

700s - Benedict of Nursia; Lectio Divina was first established in the 6th century by Benedict of Nursia and was then formalized as a four-step process by the Carthusian monk Guigo II during the 12th century.

1100s - Guigo II (died 1188 or 1193), Carthusian monk, 9th prior of Grande Chartreuse monastery, Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse (Isère), France; Scala Claustralium is considered the first description of methodical prayer in the western mystical tradition, and Guigo II is considered the first writer in the western tradition to consider stages of prayer as a ladder which leads to a closer mystic communion with God. The Ladder of Monks.

1200s - Meditations on the Life of Christ, which teaches compassion both for “those people who are dear to us and those whom we might experience as enemies in some respect.”

1200s - Saint Francis of Assisi (1181/2-1226) believed in the physical as well as the spiritual imitation of Christ.

1300s - Nicholas Cabasilas, layman (1319/1323-1392, Thessalonica) Life in Christ; "living one's own personal life" in Christ as the fundamental Christian virtue.

1500s - St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), "Spiritual Exercises."

1500s - St. Teresa of Avila (1515-82), “The practice of Recollection.”

1500s - St. John of the Cross (1542-91).

1500s - The Cloud of Unknowing (latter half of 14th century).

1600s - Francis de Sales (1567-1622) writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) and the Treatise on the Love of God (1616), Counseling on attention (“If the heart wanders…” IDL, 1609), living in the present. The foundation for all of DeSales' writings is the imitation of what Jesus called the "greatest commandment:" to grow in the love of God and neighbor.

1600s - St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) - “The poor have much to teach you. You have much to learn from them.”

C) American (& English) Monks – Contemplative Revival

 ·         Thomas Merton (1915-1968), Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky.

·         David Steindl-Rast OSB (b Jul. 12, 1926), Order of St. Benedict, various monastic communities, including 14 years at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California.

·         John Douglas Main OSB (1926-1982), Order of St. Benedict, Ealing Abbey, West London, England and, later, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

·         Abbot Thomas Keating (1929-2018), Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts.

·         Fr. M. Basil Pennington (1931–2005), Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts.

·         Fr. William Meninger (1932-2021), Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts.

D) GENETICS

1944 - Genetics - Oswald Avery identifies DNA as the 'transforming principle.'

1953 - Genetics - James Watson and Francis Crick discover the double helix structure of DNA.

1977 - Genetics - Frederick Sanger develops rapid DNA sequencing techniques.

E) RELIGIOUS COMPASSION & SCIENCE OF COMPASSION

1890 - Neuroplasticity - The first theoretical notions of neural plasticity were developed in the nineteenth century by William James, a pioneer of psychology. James wrote about this topic in his 1890 book The Principles of Psychology (James, 1890).

1913 - Neuroplasticity & Neurogenesis (denied) – Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934; Nobel Prize 1906) statement of “dogma” in 1913: “Once the development was ended, the founts of growth and regeneration of the axons and dendrites dried up irrevocably. In the adult centers, the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, and immutable. Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated. It is for the science of the future to change, if possible, this harsh decree” [Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Estudios sobre la degeneración y regeneración del sistema nervioso. Tomo I, Degeneración y regeneración de los Nervioso; Madrid: Imprenta de Hijos de Nicolás Moya, 1913 (vol. II, 1914).]

1933 - Christianity – May 1, 1933; Catholic Worker Movement founded - Peter Maurin & Dorothy Day, New York, NY.

1937(?) - Dalai Lama – Upon this recognition, Lhamo Thondup, born July 6, 1935, the fifth eldest of sixteen children born to farmer parents, was renamed Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. These six names described the qualities that the re-born Dalai Lama was to possess: Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate, Defender of the Faith, and Ocean of Wisdom.

1939 - Dalai Lama – born Oct. 8, 1939; Dalai Lama arrives to Lhasa; official enthronement ceremony on Feb. 22, 1940.

1942 - Epigenetics - The term ‘epigenetics’ was first coined in 1942 by Conrad H. Waddington, a British developmental biologist, embryologist and geneticist at Cambridge University. When Waddington first used the term, little was known about genes and their hereditary role.

1944 - Buddhism in the US – The core group of Beat Generation authors—Herbert Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, and Kerouac—met in 1944 in and around the Columbia University campus in New York City.

1948 - Neuroplasticity - The term “neuroplasticity” was first used by Polish neuroscientist Jerzy Konorski in 1948 to describe observed changes in neuronal structure (neurons are the cells that make up our brains), although it wasn't widely used until the 1960s.

1948 - Christian – Thomas Merton (1915-68), Trappist monk; The Seven Storey Mountain, 1948. (later rejected by the author as an immature expression). The book is said to have resonated within a society longing for renewed personal meaning and direction in the aftermath of a long and bloody war (World War II), at a time when global annihilation was increasingly imaginable due to the development of atomic bombs and even more powerful thermonuclear weapons. The book has served as a powerful recruitment tool for the priestly life in general, and for the monastic orders in particular. In the 1950s, Gethsemani Abbey and the other Trappist monasteries experienced a surge in young men presenting themselves for the cenobitic life. Contemplative Prayer, 1969. “While Merton was not interested in what these traditions had to offer as doctrines and institutions, he was deeply interested in what each said of the depth of human experience. He believed that for the most part, Christianity had forsaken its mystical tradition in favor of Cartesian emphasis on "the reification of concepts, idolization of the reflexive consciousness, flight from being into verbalism, mathematics, and rationalization.” Eastern traditions, for Merton, were mostly untainted by this type of thinking and thus had much to offer in terms of how to think of and understand oneself.” [Wikipedia].

1949 - Qigong (Falun Gong) – Liu Guizhen – Starting in the late 1940s and the 1950s, the mainland Chinese government tried to integrate disparate qigong approaches into one coherent system, with the intention of establishing a firm scientific basis for qigong practice. In 1949, Liu Guizhen established the name "Qigong" to refer to the system of life-preserving practices that he and his associates developed, based on Dao yin and other philosophical traditions. This attempt is considered by some sinologists as the start of the modern or scientific interpretation of qigong. During the Great Leap Forward (1958–1963) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), qigong, along with other traditional Chinese medicine, was under tight control with limited access among the general public, but was encouraged in state-run rehabilitation centers and spread to universities and hospitals. After the Cultural Revolution, qigong, along with t'ai chi, was popularized as daily morning exercise practiced en masse throughout China.

1950s - Engaged Buddhism - Finding its roots in Vietnam through the Thiền Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh, Engaged Buddhism was popularized by the Indian jurist, politician, and social reformer B. R. Ambedkar who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement in the 1950s, and has since grown by spreading to the Indian subcontinent and the West. The Neo Buddhist movement (also known as the Dalit Buddhist movement, Ambedkarite Buddhist movement or Modern Buddhist movement) is a religious as well as a socio-political movement among Dalits in India which was started by B. R. Ambedkar. It radically re-interpreted Buddhism and created a new school of Buddhism called Navayana. The movement has sought to be a socially and politically engaged form of Buddhism.  The movement was launched in 1956 by Ambedkar when nearly half a million Dalits – formerly untouchables – joined him and converted to Navayana Buddhism. It rejected Hinduism, challenged the caste system in India and promoted the rights of the Dalit community. The movement also rejected the teachings of traditional Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Buddhism, and took an oath to pursue a new form of engaged Buddhism as taught by Ambedkar.

1959 - Dalai Lama – At the age of 23, took his final examination at Lhasa's Jokhang Temple during the annual Monlam or Prayer Festival. He passed with honors and was awarded the Lharampa degree, the highest-level geshe degree, roughly equivalent to a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy. Names: Tensin Gyatso (24; Jul. 6, 1935), Dalai Lama (1940), Gyalwa Rinpoche, Lhamo Thondup (birth name); Tibetan Buddhists normally refer to him as Yishin Norbu (Wish-Fulfilling Gem), Kyabgon (Saviour), or just Kundun (Presence).

1959 - Dalai Lama – Mar. 31, 1959; Dalai Lama (age 19) flees from Lhasa, disguised as a soldier, from The Norbulingka (Jewel Park, summer palace) to Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India. Travelled 2 weeks.

1960 - Dalai Lama - May 1960 – Dalai Lama moves to Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India.

1962 - Neuroplasticity (rat) – Marian Cleeves Diamond – Rosenzweig, M. R., Krech, D., Bennett, E. L., & Diamond, M. C. (1962). “Effects of environmental complexity and training on brain chemistry and anatomy: a replication and extension.” Journal of comparative and physiological psychology, 1962, 55(4), 429. “In a 1964 paper, Diamond first showed that the structure of the cerebral cortex of young animals could change in response to environmental input.”; Because of her decades of research preceding that of Merzenich, let us consider Marian Diamond to be the “mother of neuroplasticity.” [Joyce Shaffer, Neuroplasticity and Clinical Practice: Building Brain Power for Health, Front Psychol. 2016; 7: 1118. 2016 Jul 26.]

1962 - Neuroscience – The first official use of the word "Neuroscience" may be in 1962 with Francis O. Schmitt's "Neuroscience Research Program", which was hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1962 - Christian – Oct. 11, 1962-Dec. 8, 1965 – The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, addressed relations between the Catholic Church and the modern world. The Council, through the Holy See, was formally opened under the pontificate of John XXIII on Oct. 11, 1962, and was closed under Paul VI on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, 1965.

1964 - Neuroplasticity (in rats) – By 1964, Marian Cleeves Diamond had the data and the first actual evidence in anatomical measurements showing the plasticity of the anatomy of the mammalian cerebral cortex. These results "opened the doors for our experiments to follow for the next 37 years.” – Two main types of neuroplasticity: Functional plasticity: 1) The brain's ability to move functions from a damaged area of the brain to other undamaged areas. 2) Structural plasticity: The brain's ability to actually change its physical structure as a result of learning. Neuroplasticity helps promote: The ability to learn new things; The ability to enhance your existing cognitive capabilities; Recovery from strokes and traumatic brain injuries; Strengthening areas if some functions are lost or decline; Improvements that can promote brain fitness.

1966 - Christian – David Steindl-Rast OSB (b Jul. 12, 1926), American Catholic Benedictine monk, With permission of his abbot, Damasus Winzen, in 1966 he was officially delegated to pursue Buddhist-Christian dialogue and began to study Zen with masters Haku'un Yasutani, Soen Nakagawa, Shunryu Suzuki, and Eido Tai Shimano. He received his MA degree from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Vienna (1952). He emigrated with his family to the United States in the same year and became a Benedictine monk in 1953 at Mount Saviour Monastery in Pine City, New York, a newly founded Benedictine community.

1968 - Christian – David Steindl-Rast co-founds the Center for Spiritual Studies with Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi teachers. “The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth ...and then ...the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it's just rocks. You'd never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that's within it.” [Link TV, Lunch With Bokara, 2005, "The Monk and the Rabbi"]

1968 - Christian / Dalai Lama – November; Trappist Fr. Thomas Merton (53) meets with Dalai Lama (33) for a three-day discussion of religion and spirituality at the Dalai Lama's seat in exile in Dharamsala, India. “In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile [1990], the Dalai Lama described Merton's visit as one of his "happiest memories of this time" and said that it was Thomas Merton who "introduced [him] to the real meaning of the word 'Christian'." Later, in an interview, when asked the three most influential people in his life His Holiness replied his Dharma teacher, Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Thomas Merton.” [The Dalai Lama and Thomas Merton, merton.org]

1968 - Mindfulness – Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, The Power of Mindfulness: An Inquiry Into the Scope Of Bare Attention and the Principal Sources Of Its Strength, 1968, First published in The Light of the Dhamma (Rangoon). Wheel Publication, BPS; Thera (1901-1994) was a forest monk in Sri Lanka; The first English-language book with “Mindfulness” in the title.

1969 - Epigenetics - John S. Griffith and Henry R. Mahler, of Indiana University suggested that modified cytosine might help with memory storage in the brain. This was the first time DNA methylation was linked with a biological function. By 1975 three different groups independently suggested that DNA methylation could play a role in switching genes on and off during biological development. [Lara Marks, “Epigenetics,” What is Biotechnology? Jun. 2017]

1969 - Christian – Book: Thomas Merton (1928-Dec. 10, 1968), Contemplative Prayer, 1969, Herder and Herder. "Monastic prayer begins not so much with 'considerations' as with a 'return to the heart,' finding one's deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being in the presence of God.”

1969 - Secular Buddhism – In 1969, Satya Narayan Goenka (1924-2013) was authorised to teach by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, who died in 1971. He left his business to his family and moved to India, where he started the first Vipassana meditation centre at Kusum Nagar in Hyderabad. Seven years later, in 1976, he opened his first meditation centre, Dhamma Giri, in Igatpuri near Nashik, Maharashtra. He taught meditation on his own until 1982, and then started training assistant teachers. He established the Vipassana Research Institute at Dhamma Giri in 1985. Goenka trained about 1300 assistant teachers to conduct courses using his recordings, and about 120,000 people attend them each year. Upon Goenka's death, Jack Kornfield, noted American author on Buddhism wrote, "In every generation, there are a few visionary and profound masters who hold high the lamp of the Dharma to illuminate the world. Like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, Ven. S.N. Goenka was one of the great world masters of our time. [He] was an inspiration and teacher for Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg, Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman, and many other western spiritual leaders.”  Jay Michaelson wrote in a Huffington Post article titled, "The Man who Taught the World to Meditate", "He was a core teacher for the first generation of 'insight' meditation teachers to have an impact in the United States.” [Wikipedia]

1970 circa - Christian – Centering Prayer movement, Cistercian Order – a “contemplative Reformation”; (Trappist) monks of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts in the 1970s: Fr. William Meninger, Fr. M. Basil Pennington and Abbot Thomas Keating. The creators of the Centering Prayer movement claim to trace their roots to the contemplative prayer of the Desert Fathers of early Christian monasticism, to the Lectio Divina tradition of Benedictine monasticism, and to works like The Cloud of Unknowing and the writings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Cistercian monk Father Thomas Keating, a founder of Centering Prayer, was abbot all through the 1960s and 1970s at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. This area is thick with religious retreat centres, including the well-known Theravada Buddhist centre, Insight Meditation Society. ORIGIN: Fr. Keating tells of meeting many young people, some who stumbled on St. Joseph's by accident, many of them born Catholic, who had turned to Eastern practices for contemplative work. He found many of them had no knowledge of the contemplative traditions within Christianity and set out to present those practices in a more accessible way. The result was the practice now called Centering Prayer. RESEARCH has been conducted on the Centering Prayer program, indicating that it may be helpful for women receiving chemotherapy, and that it may help congregants experience a more collaborative relationship with God, as well as reduced stress. Andrew B. Newberg explained one study that examined the brains of nuns who engaged in Centering Prayer, which is meant to create a feeling of oneness with God. The nuns' brain scans showed similarities to people who use drugs like psilocybin mushrooms, Newberg said, and both experiences "tend to result in very permanent changes in the way in which the brain works." The term “contemplative,” in this usage, carries the idea of “transformative in its meaning. [Keating]

1970 - Buddhism in the US – In 1970, the Shambhala community had its origins with the arrival of the 11th Trungpa tülku, Trungpa Rinpoche, in North America. The first established center of his teachings was "Tail of the Tiger" in Barnet, Vermont (now Karmê Chöling). A second branch of the community began to form when Rinpoche began teaching at the University of Colorado. The Rocky Mountain Dharma Center was established, now known as Shambhala Mountain Center, near Fort Collins, Colorado.

1971 - Neuroplasticity (in rats) – Marian Cleeves Diamond (1926-2017), professor emerita of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley – influenced a paradigm shift for scientists when she was the first to prove that the brain shrinks with impoverishment and grows in an enriched environment at any age. Better brain: diet, exercise, challenge, newness, love. [Joyce Shaffer, Neuroplasticity and Clinical Practice: Building Brain Power for Health, Front Psychol. 2016; 7: 1118. 2016 Jul 26.; ref: Diamond M., Johnson R., Protti A., Ott C., Kajisa L. (1984). Plasticity in the 904-day-old male rat cerebral cortex. Exp. Neurol. 87 309–317.; Diamond M. C., Johnson R., Ingham C. (1971). Brain plasticity induced by environment and pregnancy. Int. J. Neurosci. 2 171–178.]

1972 - Matthieu Ricard – Matthieu Ricard (Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, France, b. Feb. 15, 1946). Ricard worked for a PhD degree in molecular genetics at the Pasteur Institute under French Nobel Laureate François Jacob. After completing his doctoral thesis in 1972, Ricard decided to forsake his scientific career and concentrate on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Ricard then went to India where he lived in the Himalayas studying with the Kangyur Rinpoche and some other teachers of that tradition. He became a close student and friend of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche until Rinpoche's death in 1991. Since then, Ricard has dedicated his activities to fulfilling Khyentse Rinpoche's vision.  [see 2000?, 2002, 2007]

1973 - Richard J. Davidson – Davidson and Daniel Goleman meet at Harvard in 1973. [Barbara Gates, Margaret Cullen, Wes Nisker, “Interview with Richard Davidson, Daniel Goleman & Jon Kabat-Zinn: Friends in Mind, Friends at Heart,” Inquiring Mind, Spring 2009 (Vol. 25, No. 2)]. “I was meeting people who were kind and unusually friendly and I wanted to know what their ‘secret sauce’ was,” says Davidson. “It turned out they were meditators, and I began to recognize that meditation might be a strategy to help people manage stress. My scientific career had started with questions as to why some people are more resilient to life’s slings and arrows than others. It occurred to me that meditation could be a pathway.” [Michael Muckian, “For Richard J. Davidson, personal experience led to meditation mastery,” Madison Magazine (U Wisconsin-Madison), Apr. 28, 2021]

1973 - Dalai Lama – The Dalai Lama met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1973. He met Pope John Paul II in 1980, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1990, and 2003.

1974 - Secular Buddhism – Naropa University founded, Boulder, Col.; Chögyam Trungpa, an exiled Tibetan tulku who was a Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineage holder. Trungpa entered the USA in 1970, established the Vajradhatu organization in 1973, and then in 1974, established Naropa Institute under the Nalanda Foundation. Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein taught a series of classes at Naropa University in 1974 and began teaching a series of retreats together for the next two years.

1974 - Richard J. Davidson - late July-early Aug.  1974 - 10-day retreat with Goenka, Dalhousie, India.

1975 - Neuroscience – Society for Neuroscience, New York, NY; first meeting.

1975 - Christianity – John Douglas Main OSB (1926-1982); Roman Catholic priest and Benedictine monk who presented a way of Christian meditation which used a prayer-phrase or mantra. In 1975, Main began Christian meditation groups which met at Ealing Abbey, his monastery in West London, England and, later, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. These were the origins of the ecumenical network of Christian meditation groups which have become the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) launched 1991.

1976 - Meditation (“Early Buddhist”) – Insight Meditation Society (IMS), Barre, Mass. - Feb. 14, 1976, opened - In 1975, a group of young teachers – Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield – decided to start a meditation retreat center. Having traveled and taught around the country the previous year, they recognized the value and support that a dedicated facility would provide. Until recently the tradition of Early Buddhism was more commonly known as Theravada, or Way of the Elders. In fact, IMS originally considered itself to be a Theravadan center. However, modern scholarship has revealed that Theravada is just one of some eighteen schools of Early Buddhism, each with its own views and foundational texts. Early Buddhists today agree that the discourses of the Buddha (collectively, the Dhamma) and his monastic code (the Vinaya) are authoritative. The Theravadan school also considers the Pali Abhidhamma and commentaries such as the Visuddhimagga to be authoritative, while other Early Buddhists may not. Hence Early Buddhism and Theravada are not synonymous, although there is much overlap.

1977 - Richard J. Davidson - Paper that discusses “trait effects” - Davidson, R. J., & Goleman, D. J. (1977). The role of attention in meditation and hypnosis: A psychobiological perspective on transformations of consciousness. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 25(4), 291–308.

1979 - Mindfulness – Jon Kabat-Zinn – Sep. 1979 - U of Massachusetts Medical School, chronic pain mindfulness treatment: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) – 1965, began meditating; 1971, receives Ph.D molecular biology; Kabat-Zinn was a student of Zen Buddhist teachers such as Philip Kapleau, Thich Nhat Hanh and Seung Sahn and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center (f 1973). “Kabat-Zinn learned Vipassana from S.N. Goenka, verified its medical benefits & renamed it Mindfulness.” “Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein taught a series of classes at Naropa University (Boulder) in 1974 and began teaching a series of retreats together for the next two years.” / His practice of yoga and studies with Buddhist teachers led him to integrate their teachings with scientific findings. He teaches mindfulness, which he says can help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness. MBSR is offered by medical centers, hospitals, and health maintenance organizations. – By 2014, there are nearly 1,000 certified MBSR instructors teaching mindfulness techniques (including meditation), and they are in nearly every state and more than 30 countries. … [As of 2014] there are nearly 1,000 certified MBSR instructors teaching mindfulness techniques (including meditation), and they are in nearly every state and more than 30 countries. [Kate Pickert, “The Mindful Revolution,” Time, Jan. 23, 2014] Research by Kabat-Zinn includes the effect of MBSR on psoriasis, pain, anxiety, brain function, and immune function. MBSR has been adapted for use by the US military to improve combatants' "operational effectiveness.”

1979 - Kabat-Zinn – The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry founded in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the developer of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction; a peer-reviewed journal published by the center. The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

1979 - Dalai Lama – Mar. 9, 1979 – Seven-week visit to twenty-four cities in the United States, the first visit to North America by a Dalai Lama; visits to New York City, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

1982 - Affective Neuroscience – The field of Affective Neuroscience is launched; in paper: Richard J Davidson, Nathan A Fox, “Asymmetrical brain activity discriminates between positive and negative affective stimuli in human infants,” Science, 1982 Dec 17; 218(4578):1235-7.

1983 - Mind & Life – Adam Engle, lawyer from Boulder, Colorado, came to know of the Dalai Lama's interest in modern science and, realizing from his personal Buddhist studies that the concept of a Buddhism-science interface was potentially an important new scientific field to be researched, he contacted the Dalai Lama's office in India offering to arrange a dialogue for him with selected western scientists. In 1984 Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela heard about this. Having participated in a conference on consciousness attended by the Dalai Lama in 1983, and like Engle a Buddhist practitioner since 1974, he was interested in further exploration of the interface between science and Buddhism and contacted Engle, offering to assist. [Wikipedia]

1983 - Neuroplasticity – Michael Merzenich experiments on owl monkeys.  Paper: MM Merzenich, et al., “Progression of change following median nerve section in the cortical representation of the hand in areas 3b and 1 in adult owl and squirrel monkeys,” Volume 10, Issue 3, October 1983, Pages 639-665. Concept of Neuroplasticty was rejected by most. MM: “Few people grasped the implications.”

1984 - Christian – Contemplative Outreach, Ltd. – Thomas Keating, along with Gustave Reininger and Edward Bednar, co-founded Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., an international and ecumenical spiritual network that teaches the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina, a method of prayer drawn from the Christian contemplative tradition. Contemplative Outreach provides a support system for those on the contemplative path through a wide variety of resources, workshops, and retreats.

1986 - Dalai Lama – May 27(?), 1986 – meets with Francisco Varela PhD. For more than an hour, in Paris; discuss neuroscience. DL tells Varela that when visiting West there is insufficient time for discussion, invites him to home in Dharamsala and suggests that he bring anyone he would like to. This is the origin of the Mind & Life Dialogues.

1987 - Dalai Lama – Sep. 27, 1987 – announcement of founding of Tibet House US, New York, NY; Tibet House US was founded by scholar Robert Thurman, actor Richard Gere and composer Philip Glass. Menla Retreat & Dewa Spa in Phoenicia, NY. Menla, a retreat space is an offshoot of Tibet House US.

1987 - Dalai Lama = Oct. 23-29, 1987 - Mind & Life Dialogue I: Dialogues Between Buddhism and the Cognitive Sciences; Dalai Lama residence, Dharamsala, India. Western science dialog. – Dalai Lama: “You scientists have done a remarkable job mapping the pathologies of the human mind. But you have done little or no work on the positive qualities like compassion, let alone their potential for cultivation. Contemplative traditions, on the other hand, have developed techniques to train our mind and enhance the positive qualities like compassion. So why not use your powerful tools now to study the effects of these contemplative practices? Once we have better scientific understanding of the effects of these trainings we can offer some of them to the wider world, not as spiritual practices but as techniques for mental and emotional well-being.” – Newcomb Greenleaf, Ph.D., Prof. Computer Science, Columbia U; Jeremy Hayward, Ph.D., Director, Naropa Institute, Boulder, Co. [Buddhist-inspired, ecumenical, and nonsectarian school]; Robert B. Livingston, M. D., Prof. of Neurosciences, UC  San Diego; Eleanor Rosch, Ph.D., Prof. Cognitive Psychology, UC Berkeley; Francisco J. Varela, Ph.D., Prof. Cognitive Science and Epistemology, Ecole Polytechnique and Institute of Neuroscience, Paris. Luigi Luisi, PhD., Prof. Of Chemistry, Polytechnic Institute, Zurich. [BIOS BELOW]

1987 - Christian – The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies was founded in 1987 in order to continue interactions between Buddhist and Christian scholars and practitioners that began at several large international meetings in the early 1980’s. John B. Cobb, Jr. (born 9 February 1925) is an American theologian, philosopher, and environmentalist. Cobb is often regarded as the preeminent scholar in the field of process philosophy and process theology, the school of thought associated with the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.

1989 - Dalai Lama – 1989 Mind & Life Dialogue II; “Dialogues Between Buddhism and the Neurosciences.” At the 1989 conference, Sharon Salzberg (co-founder, 1974, Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein) introduces the notion of Western self-loathing to Dalai Lama, to his great surprise. He had never heard of such an idea. [Goleman, Altered Traits, 2017, p. 104]

1989 - Dalai Lama – Dec. 10, 1989 – Dalai Lama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He announced that he was accepting the award, in part, as a tribute to Gandhi. The Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a non-profit organization established with the Nobel Peace Prize money, SEK 3,000,000 ($455,000). "The Foundation brings together men and women of different faiths, professions and nationalities, through a range of initiatives and mutually sustaining collaborations.

1990 - Genetics – The Human Genome Project begins.

1990 - Neuroscience – Research Network on Mind-Body Interactions at MacArthur Foundation from 1990 to 1999. The network’s goal was to help us understand how our perceptions and thoughts about the world are manifested by specific changes in brain activity, and to use that knowledge to examine how the mind affects the physiological systems that influence health. 1999: MBSR study at U Wisconsin-Madison.

1990 - Mind & Life – Adam Engle with co-founders Dalai Lama Francisco Varela registered and funded the Mind and Life Institute in 1990 in the US as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organisation dedicated to exploring the interface between science and Buddhism.

1991 - Christian – John Main (see 1975) – World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) launched 1991. The roots of the WCCM lie in the desert tradition of the early Christianity of the 4th century. By recognising the way of ‘pure prayer’, ‘prayer of the heart’ or ‘meditation’, that he found in this tradition John Main (1926-1982) brought to countless people in ordinary life the possibility of a contemplative practice in their following the Christian way of life. As a Benedictine monk, he taught how restoring this lost dimension of prayer to the life of the churches, Christianity itself could be renewed and society as a whole benefit from its spiritual awakening. He started the first Christian Meditation Centre in London in 1975. The first of the weekly meditation groups of which there are now some thousands around the world began to meet then. He was assisted from the beginning of this movement by Laurence Freeman.

1992 - Dalai Lama, Davidson – Richard J. Davidson meets Dalai Lama in Dharamsala in Spring 1992. Dalai Lama challenges Davidson to direct scientific research to study compassion.  Davidson: “closet meditator for 20 years.” Davidson is invited to 1995 Mind and Life Dialog V, Dharamsala, India. [Davidson: see 2002, 2008].

1992 - Christian – Father Thomas Keating (1929-2018), Open Mind, Open Heart, The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel (1992), “The method [of centering prayer] consists in letting go of every kind of thought during prayer, even the most devout thoughts.” “The great battle in the early stages [of the spiritual life] is with thoughts.”

1992 - Neuroscience - “Mirror neurons were discovered in area F5 of the ventral premotor cortex of macaque monkeys by researchers at the University of Parma, Italy, in 1992.” [“Are Mirror Neurons The Basis For Communication?” McGill University, undated].

1996 - Analytic Meditation (Lojong) - Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche founded Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, Seattle, Wa.; The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop (Karma Sungrap Ngedön Tenpa Gyaltsen, born 1965) is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, founder and spiritual director of Nalandabodhi, founder of Nītārtha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, a leading Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and a meditation master. He is one of the highest tülkus in the Nyingma lineage and an accomplished Karma Kagyu lineage holder.

1996 - Neuroscience - Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London; Professor Emeritus Tim Shallice founded Europe's first Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

1997 - Neurogenesis (rodent) – Bruce Sherman McEwen – tree shrew experiment; diminished dendrites. “That an experience of any kind could leave its mark on the brain had, until then, been unthinkable. [E Gould, B S McEwen, P Tanapat, L A Galea, E Fuchs, Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the adult tree shrew is regulated by psychosocial stress and NMDA receptor activation, J Neurosci, 1997 Apr 1;17(7):2492-8.]. Negative experience – complements MC Diamond’s experiment on positive experience (1971).

1998 - Neurogenesis (human) – Fred H. “Rusty” Gage (Salk Institute), expert on age-related neurodegenerative disease, brought science another paradigm shift with the proof of neurogenesis in humans (Eriksson et al., 1998).  [Joyce Shaffer, “Neuroplasticity and Clinical Practice: Building Brain Power for Health,” Front Psychol. 2016; 7: 1118.]

1998 - Dalai Lama – Emory-Tibet Partnership, Emory U, Atlanta, Ga.; The ETP was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 1998 as an affiliation between Emory University and one of Tibet's most esteemed academic institutions and Negi's  alma mater,  Drepung  Loseling Monastic University; Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD  (former monk; legal name Satya Dev Negi), is the co-founder and Director of the Emory-Tibet Partnership (now called the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, CCSCBE), a multi-dimensional initiative launched in 1998 to bring together the foremost contributions of the Western scholastic tradition and the Tibetan Buddhist sciences of mind and healing. – Dalai Lama, Emory-Tibet Science Initiative: “For the last 30 years we Tibetan Buddhists have been in contact with modern scientists. This began as a personal interest of mine, but when it became clear that there was a more universal purpose to be served we began to involve others. I’m happy to tell you that we now have monks and nuns who have studied science with Emory University in Atlanta (the Robert A. Paul Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI)). Scientific textbooks have been prepared in Tibetan. And, most important, science has been formally incorporated into our monastic training curriculum.” [“His Holiness the Dalai Lama Teaches about the Essence of Buddhism to the Mongolian and Tibetan Communities of New York and New Jersey,” Dalai Lama .com, Oct. 22, 2012] Negi’s 1999 Emory PhD interdisciplinary dissertation centered on traditional Buddhist and contemporary Western approaches to emotions and their impact on wellness. –" Compassion-based ethics, also known as "secular ethics," simply means an ethics that explicitly values and promotes an orientation toward kindness and compassion.” [Marcia Ash et al., “A model for cognitively-based compassion training: theoretical underpinnings and proposed mechanisms,” Social Theory & Health volume 19, pages 43–67 (2021)].

1998 - Compassion – Compassion-Based Resilience Training (CBRT) – developed in 1998 by Dr. Joseph Loizzo M.D., Ph.D. It has been offered continuously since then at New York Hospital, the University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, as well as a range of area schools and businesses including two underserved NYC public schools, The Calhoun School, The Rebecca School, Appnexus, and the New York Public Library. – Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, New York, NY founded in 2004. The first United States mind/body center that offered programs based on Tibetan health and mind sciences. This center eventually joined Weill Cornell College of Medicine's Center for Integrative Medicine, which led to the opening of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science in 2005, New York, NY.

1998 - Mind & Life -- Adam Engle, broadens his institute's initial mission in 1998 to include carrying out formal scientific research in order to optimize the potential for societal benefits.

1999 - Neuroplasticity - Article: Lowenstein, D.H. & J.M. Parent, “Brain, heal thyself,” 1999, Science 283(5405): 1126-1127. Abstract: “The mammalian central nervous system (CNS) may have a far greater potential for producing new neurons and repairing damaged regions than previously believed. Many of the components of a system for regeneration after injury are present, but most brain areas do not normally use them. The writers discuss the recent research on the ability of the CNS to repair itself.”

1999 - Richard Davidson & Jon Kabat-Zinn – Sep. - Nov. 1999 – First randomized controlled study of MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), Wisconsin-Madison. [Richardson & Begley, The Emotional Life…, 2012,200-5] MacArthur Foundation grant: $250,000.

2000 - Christian – decline in US – 2000: 71% tipping point, precipitating steep decline following stability with some mild decline since 1940.

2000 - Christian – A Network for Grateful Living, Hadley, Massachusetts; founded by Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk.

2000 - Dalai Lama - Mar. 20-24, 2000 – Mind and Life VIII: “Destructive Emotions” – Richard Davidson. Dalai Lama challenges Davidson: “His own tradition … had a wide array of time-tested practices for taming destructive emotions. So, he urged, take these methods into the laboratory in forms freed from religious trappings, test them rigorously, and if they can help people lessen their destructive emotions, then spread them widely to all who might benefit.” [Daniel Goleman Richard J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, Sep. 5, 2017, Avery].

2001 – Matthieu Richard – May 20, 2001 – first MRI exams with Richard Davidson, U Madison-Wisconsin; “And what we saw in Matthieu‘s data first impressions that engaging in specific forms of meditation evokes dramatic changes in brain function that our tools could measure.” [194]; “birth of the field of Contemplative Neuroscience.” [Richardson & Begley, The Emotional Life…, 2012, 194, 196]

2001 - Dalai Lama - May 21, 2001 – The Dalai Lama’s deep interest in scientific knowledge that intersects with the spiritual aspects of Buddhism will bring him May 21-22 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the world’s foremost centers on emotion research. [Brian Mattmiller, “Dalai Lama coming to UW to probe science of emotions,” W News (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Apr. 17, 2001]; May 22 conference “Transformations of Mind, Brain, and Emotion.”

2001 - Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley – sponsored by Thomas and Ruth Ann Hornaday. UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner, Philip and Carolyn Cowan, and Stephen Hinshaw.

2001(?) - Matthieu Ricard – Paul Ekman tests Matthieu Ricard (b Feb. 15, 1946), Human Interaction Laboratory, UC San Francisco. Ricard is a French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. PhD degree in molecular genetics at the Pasteur Institute under French Nobel Laureate François Jacob. Ekman sponsored the first Mind and Live Dialog. [see 2002, 2004, 2007].

2002 - Compassion – Richard J. Davidson tests meditation practitioners (EEG): Matthieu Ricard. In Sep. 2002, Mingyur Rinpoche (62,000 hours of practice) is studied with EEG and fMRI , U Madison, Wi., cultivating compassion. The results represented “a critical inflection point in neuroscience history” [Goleman, Altered Traits, 219]. Mingyur Rinpoche also studied in 2010, Jun. 2016. [Davidson: see 1992, 2008].

2002 - Mindfulness - Book: Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: A new approach to preventing relapse. New York (NY): Guilford Press. (2002).

2002 – Neuroplasticity – concept “Directed Mental Force” explained in: Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Susan Begley, The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, HarperCollins, Oct. 15, 2002. – It is argued that Directed Mental Force operates in a quantum manner, with the mind selecting a selected manifestation of a full range of probabilities, resulting in a “self-directed neuroplasticity.” This view is supported by quantum physicist Henry Pierce Stapp (in several books).

2003 - Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies - Dr. B. Alan Wallace, founder.  In 1987, Wallace obtained a B.A. in physics, philosophy of science and Sanskrit from Amherst College, followed in 1995 by a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University.  [See other orgs. Wallace founded: Moscow 2014; Tuscany 2020].

2003 - Dalai Lama – Sep. 13-14, 2003 – First public Life & Mind conference: “Mind and Life XI: "Investigating the Mind: Exchanges Between Buddhism and the Biobehavioral Sciences on How the Mind Works." MIT, McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Audience of 1,100.

2004 - Neuroplasticity – Feb. 2004 – Michael Merzenich (UC San Francisco), TED talk titled “Growing evidence of brain plasticity.” Monterrey, Ca.; Researchers have referred to Michael Merzenich (b 1942) as the “father of plasticity” because he enjoyed a long career that established that the human brain is highly plastic and that led Merzenich to develop science-based novel interventions to drive improvements.  Because of her decades of research preceding that of Merzenich, let us consider Marian Diamond to be the “mother of neuroplasticity.” [Joyce Shaffer, Neuroplasticity and Clinical Practice: Building Brain Power for Health, Frontiers in Psychology, 2016; 7: 1118. 2016 Jul 26.].

2004 - Compassion – launch of CBCT, Cognitively-Based Compassion Training – based on Lojong (“mind training”), secularized; protocol developed in 2003; Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics (CCSCBE), Emory University, Atlanta; Lobsani Tenzen Negi.

2004 - Empathy Neuroscience– Tania Singer, empathy research – Tania Singer et al, “Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain,” Science, 20 Feb 2004, pp. 1157-1162. [Goleman, Altered Traits, 113].

2004 – Compassion - Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB); designed by Paul Ekman (Psychology Prof. UCSF) and Alan Wallace, San Francisco. “In March of 2000, the Dalai Lama met with behavioral scientists, Buddhist monks, and other scholars at the Mind and Life Institute in Dharamsala, India. The meeting focused on destructive emotions and how these emotions become obstacles for everyday life. One outcome of the meeting was a plan to create accessible, secular training to help people manage their destructive emotions. Dr. Paul Ekman, Dr. Alan Wallace, Dr. Mark Greenberg, Dr. Richard Davidson, and Dr. Eve Ekman were all involved in the early discussions of this training. From these discussions, CEB training was created.” Product of 2000 Mind and Life Dialog VIII; 2005 University of California San Francisco CEB Study: $800,000 was raised to conduct a thorough research trial on the first CEB training designed by Paul Ekman and Alan Wallace offered by Alan Wallace and Margaret Cullen with a large research team. The 8-week intensive (42 hr) meditation/emotion regulation training intervention was designed by experts in contemplative traditions and emotion science to reduce “destructive enactment of emotions” and enhance prosocial responses. / 2004: After retiring from his work as a professor, Ekman's next goal was to translate his research into helpful resources for the general public. To do so, he formed the Paul Ekman Group (PEG) to provide online training tools and formed Paul Ekman International (PEI) to deliver in-person workshops.

2004 - Mind & Life -- Adam Engle announced the launch of the annual Summer Research Institute, a weeklong immersive program, at the Garrison Institute (Garrison, NY) offering a new curriculum on contemplative neuroscience to graduates, post doctorates and members of the science faculty. He also launched the annual Francisco J. Varela Research Awards, to provide pilot study funding to suitable applicants.

2004 - Neuroplasticity - Oct. 18-22, 2004 Mind & Life Dialogue XII; Dharamsala, India; ”Neuroplasticity: The Neuronal Substrates of Learning and Transformation.” Participants: Adam Engle, JD, MBA, B. Alan Wallace, PhD, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Richard J. Davidson, PhD, Fred H. Gage, PhD, Thupten Jinpa, PhD, Michael J. Meaney, PhD, Kazuo Murakami, PhD, Helen J. Neville, PhD, Matthieu Ricard, PhD, Phillip R. Shaver, PhD, Evan Thompson, PhD. / M&L text: “Neuroplasticity refers to structural and functional changes in the brain that are brought about by training and experience. The brain is the organ that is designed to change in response to experience. Neuroscience and psychological research over the past decade on this topic have burgeoned and are leading to new insights about the many ways in which the brain, behavior, and experience change in response to experience. This basic issue is being studied at many different levels, in different species, and on different time scales. Yet all of the work invariably leads to the conclusion that the brain is not static but rather is dynamically changing and undergoes such changes throughout one’s entire life. The scientists assembled for this meeting represent the various levels of analysis in which these questions are being pursued. Research on structural plasticity will reveal how the literal composition of the adult mammalian brain is constantly changing, and will show the factors that influence these changes.” Monograph on neurogenesis, documenting the 2004 Mind & Life XII - Sharon Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves, Ballantine, 2007, p. 5

2004 - Mind & Life -- Adam Engle announced the launch of the annual Summer Research Institute, a weeklong immersive program, at the Garrison Institute (Garrison, NY) offering a new curriculum on contemplative neuroscience to graduates, post doctorates and members of the science faculty. He also launched the annual Francisco J. Varela Research Awards, to provide pilot study funding to suitable applicants.

2005 - Dalai Lama – “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.” [Dalai Lama XIV, The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, 2005] “Passionate about science his entire life, the Dalai Lama describes himself: ‘My body, this person, half Buddhist monk, half scientist.’” [Elizabeth Fernandez, “Dalai Lama And Science: His Holiness’ Scientific Side, Now Streaming,” Forbes, May 20, 2020] “If science proves some belief of Buddhism is wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” [Tenzin Gyatso, “Our Faith in Science,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 2005].

2005 - Dalai Lama – When Richard J. Davidson invited the Dalai Lama to participate in the "Neuroscience and Society" program of the Society for Neuroscience meeting in 2005, over 500 researchers signed a petition in protest. Some of the petitioners were Chinese researchers, who may disagree politically with the Dalai Lama's stance on Tibet. The controversy subsided quickly after most scientists attending the talk found it appropriate.

2005 - Mind & Life -- Nov. 8, 2005; Mind & Life Dialogue XIII; second public M&L, held in Washington DC, “The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation”, co-sponsored by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Georgetown University Medical Center. 

2005 - Epigenetics - Forty years since the initial discovery of neurogenesis in the postnatal rat hippocampus, investigators have now firmly established that active neurogenesis from neural progenitors continues throughout life in discrete regions of the central nervous systems (CNS) of all mammals, including humans. Significant progress has been made over the past few years in understanding the developmental process and regulation of adult neurogenesis, including proliferation, fate specification, neuronal maturation, targeting, and synaptic integration of the newborn neurons. The function of this evolutionarily conserved phenomenon, however, remains elusive in mammals. Adult neurogenesis represents a striking example of structural plasticity in the mature CNS environment. Advances in our understanding of adult neurogenesis will not only shed light on the basic principles of adult plasticity, but also may lead to strategies for cell replacement therapy after injury or degenerative neurological diseases. [Ming GL, Song H., "Adult neurogenesis in the mammalian central nervous system.” Annu Rev Neurosci. 2005;28:223–50.].

2005 - Christian – Michael Spezio, “Trust and Christian contemplative practice: A social neuroscientific study of spiritual capital in a contemplative tradition,” 2005 Varela Grant, Mind and Life Institute. Spezio is associated with CEC.

2005 - Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science – founded in 2005 by Joseph Loizzo, M.D., Ph.D., New York City. Available training types: Local Training (New York), Distance Training, Satellite Training (Toronto, Barcelona). Compassion-Based Resilience Training (CBRT). Nalanda’s system of contemplative and active insights and methods, called the gradual path, has been tailored from methods developed and evolved at Nalanda University in ancient India and preserved in Tibet to better fit life in the modern world. (see: 1998).

2006 - Compassion – The Compassionate Mind Foundation, Derby, Derbyshire, England - Professor Paul Gilbert and colleagues including Prof Deborah Lee, Dr Mary Welford, Dr Chris Irons, Dr Ken Goss, Dr Ian Lowens, Dr Chris Gillespie, Diane Woollands and Jean Gilbert. (CMF) Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT); Compassionate Mind Training.

2006 - Dalai Lama – Dalai Lama awarded US Congressional Gold Medal.

2007 - Neurogenesis – Fred H. “Rusty” Gage (Salk Institute), demonstrates how humans can increase neurogenesis (ability of the brain to grow new neurons) (Pereira et al., 2007). Later challenged (2018) and re-established (2020).

2007 - Matthieu Ricard – Compassion neuroanatomy isolated. Tania Singer, Matthieu Ricard, Rainer Goebel's neuroscience laboratory in Maastricht. fMRI-rt (functional magnetic resonance imaging in real time). “Lama Oser” is a pseudonym for Matthieu Ricard. “Experienced Buddhist meditators have reported that when they focused for some time on what they called "stand-alone empathy" (visualizing intense suffering affecting someone else and resonating empathically with that suffering) without allowing compassion and altruistic love to grow in their minds, they soon experienced burnout.” [Matthieu Ricard, “Is Compassion Meditation the Key to Better Caregiving? (VIDEO),” Huffington Post, Oct. 5 / Nov. 17, 2011] [see 2000?, 2002].

2007 - Mindfulness – Mindful Schools, UC Davis – Our program began in 2007, when educators at an independent school in Oakland, California, noticed many of their students were “living with a lot of turmoil.” A small and passionate team gathered their experience in mindfulness, education, and social-emotional learning to develop a response with one requirement—the program must also support students at a neighboring public school. With the green light and a local school partnership in place, planning for classroom implementation began. The founders knew that the format needed to be short, interactive, and woven into the school day. With these principles in mind—compassion for others, respect for school contexts, and a commitment to equity—a Mindful Schools curriculum was born. Within three years, the program expanded to fifty schools and was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

2007 - Mindfulness – Search Inside Yourself – born at Google in 2007, when one of Google’s earliest engineers, Chade-Meng Tan, gathered a team of leading experts in mindfulness techniques, neuroscience, leadership, and emotional intelligence to develop an internal course for fellow Google employees lovingly called Search Inside Yourself (SIY).

2007 - Mindfulness – Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MBMFT); Elizabeth Stanley, Army Intelligence Officer; Amishi Jha – By 2007, after generating interest at the U.S. Department of Defense, Stanley found her first neuroscientist collaborator, Dr. Amishi Jha, secured funding for a pilot study. Stanley created Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, blending mindfulness and body-based self-regulation skills into a wider didactic framing for individuals in high-stress environments. 2009, founded Mind Fitness Training Institute to support the research, development and broad dissemination of MMFT. [Elizabeth Stanley, “Cultivating the Mind of a Warrior,” Inquiring Mind, Spring 2014, Vol. 30 #2].

2007 - Neuroplasticity – Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, San Rafael, Ca., founded in 2007; Co-founders: Richard Mendius, MD., Rick Hanson Ph.D, neuroscientist; Affiliated: Andrew Dreitcer (CEC, Christian). Wise Brain Bulletin, bimonthly periodical.

2007 - Compassion - "Project Compassion" - Dr. James R. Doty -- Following a sabbatical, Doty returned to Stanford University in 2007 and began collaborative research explorations into the neuroscience of compassion and altruism with Stanford colleagues. What had begun as an informal research initiative called "Project Compassion" was later, in 2008, formalized within the School of Medicine by then Dean Phil Pizzo as the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE).

2008 - Compassion - Dr. James R. Doty - Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) founded at Stanford University Stanford University School of Medicine was founded in 2008 with the explicit goal of promoting, supporting, and conducting rigorous scientific studies of compassion and altruistic behavior. Dalai Lama made largest donation ever to a non-Tibetan institution.

2008 - Dalai Lama – Seeds of Compassion, Seattle – April 11-15, 2008, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other influential thinkers came together for an unprecedented five-day gathering in Seattle to engage the community in an in-depth conversation on compassion. 150,000 attended the event, and 44 million interacted with the Seeds of Compassion online broadcast. Compassion-based projects soon began appearing in local classrooms, businesses, and communities, and Seeds organizers recognized that support was needed for these “Sprouts” to succeed. In 2009, organizers joined with like-minded leaders, forming the Compassionate Action Network 501(c)(3) to incubate the most promising projects. CAN Sprouts are a thriving example of the positive impact compassion can have in our communities.

2008 - Neuroscience – The ReSource Project – initiated by Prof. Dr. Tania Singer based on a research grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in Zurich in 2008, a unique, large-scale study on Eastern and Western methods of mental training. Over a period of eleven months, participants practiced a wide range of mental exercises that are designed to enhance attentional control, body- and self-awareness, healthy emotion regulation, self-care, compassion, empathy, and perspective taking.  Prof. Dr. Tania Singer is the Principal Investigator of the ReSource Project which she continues to date as scientific head of the Max Planck’s Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin. Project ended in 2016.

2008 - Compassion – Karen Armstrong (former religious sister, b 1944), TED Prize awarded Feb. 28, 2008, acceptance speech, TED2008, The Big Questions, Monterey, California, Feb. 27-Mar. 1, 2008. Conceives “Charter for Compassion” (established 2009). SEE Charter chronology below.

2008 - Davidson – Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (later named: The Center for Healthy Minds), founded, Waisman Center at UW-Madison, Wi.; Dr. Richard J. Davidson. “Our mission is to cultivate well-being and relieve suffering through a scientific understanding of the mind.” [Davidson: see 1992, 2002].

2008 - Christian Compassion Training – Triptykos School of Compassion - founded - 400 Morton Street, Ashland, Oregon 97520; Co-founders: Andrew Dreitcer, Frank Rogers Jr., Mark Yaconelli; changed to The Hearth (established 2010), Yaconelli; Triptykos superseded in 2010 by Center for Engaged Compassion.  – Aug. 2008 – Frank Rogers Jr.; Sausalito, Ca. retreat; “The Compassion Practice crystallized at the retreat.” “The Compassion Practice was birthed in a white-walled apartment by the San Francisco Bay in Sausalito.” [Rogers, Practicing Compassion, 2015, p. 7]; Triptykos School of Compassion receives $300,000 grant from Don Morrison (COO of RIM (Blackberry)) [attended Sausalito retreat?].

2008 - “Neuroscience & Spiritual Practice: Transforming the Embodied Mind,” conference, October 12-14, 2008, in Claremont, California.; event associated with Triptykos School of Compassion; Speakers: Fr. Thomas Keating - ( St. Benedict’s Monastery), B. Alan Wallace - (Santa Barbara Inst. for Consciousness Studies), Evan Thompson - (University of Toronto), Daniel J. Siegel - (Center for Human Development, UCLA), Richard Davidson - (University of Wisconsin), Nahid Angha - (International Association of Sufism), Michael Spezio - (Scripps College), Monica A. Coleman - (Claremont School of Theology), Shauna Shapiro - (Santa Clara University), Thandeka - (Meadville-Lombard Theological Seminary), Cassandra Vieten - (California Pacific Medical Center), John B. Cobb, Jr. - (Claremont School of Theology; Center for Process Studies), Clifford Saron - (Center for Mind & Brain, UC Davis), Andrew Dreitcer - (Claremont School of Theology), Steve Padilla - (L.A. Times), Frank Rogers, Jr. - (Claremont School of Theology), Roland Faber - (Claremont School of Theology; Center for Process Studies), Rick Hanson - (Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience & Contemplative Wisdom), Martinez Hewlett - (University of Arizona), Petr Janata - (Center for Mind and Brain, U.C. Davis), John Buchanan - (psychologist), Ben Johnson - (Columbia Theological Seminary), Richard Mendius - (Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience & Contemplative Wisdom), Steve Odin - (University of Hawai’i), David E. Roy - (Center for Creative Transformation, Fresno), Mustafa Ruzgar - (California State University, Northridge) Marvin Sweeney - (Claremont School of Theology), William S. Waldron - (Middlebury College).

2009 - Davidson – Richard J. Davidson, lecture: Sep. 23, 2009, “Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain,” Google TechTalks.

2009 - Compassion – Compassionate Action Network, Seattle – In 2009, organizers joined with like-minded leaders, forming the Compassionate Action Network 501(c)(3) to incubate the most promising projects. CAN Sprouts are a thriving example of the positive impact compassion can have in our communities.

2009 - Compassion Training – Compassion Cultivation Training™ CCT©; Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D. (translator of Dalai Lama); developed at Stanford U., Ca.

2009 - Compassion – The Charter for Compassion was unveiled by Karen Armstrong and the Council of Conscience on Nov. 12, 2009. National Press Club in Washington, DC. “In fall 2008, the first draft of the charter was written by the world, via a multilingual website that allowed all to comment. In February 2009, the words were given to the Council of Conscience, a gathering of religious leaders and thinkers, who crafted the final document based on global input. The Charter was officially launched in November 2009.” [TED].

2009 - Compassion – Book. The Compassionate Mind Foundation, Derby, Derbyshire, England; Book: Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges. London: Constable & Robinson. Gilbert identifies the “mechanisms of compassion-resistance.”

2009(?) - Compassion – The Center for Compassion Focused Therapy; New York, NY; CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Dr. Paul Gilbert); Dennis Tirsch PhD.

2009 - Neurocardiac Coupling – CCARE at Stanford University, Defining Compassion, Empathy & Altruism Scientific, Economic, Philosophical & Contemplative Perspectives, which took place March 4th to 5th 2009, was put on by CCARE. This part of the conference was the session on Compassion Research in Neuroscience. The speakers of this session were: Brian Knutson, PhD, Richard Davidson, PhD, Tania Singer, PhD, and Bill Mobley, MD, PhD.

2009 - Mindfulness / Mindsight - The Mindsight Institute, Santa Monica, Ca. - co-founded in 2009 by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel (Mindful Awareness Research Center, UCLA), and Caroline S. Welch, J.D., is an educational organization offering online learning and in-person workshops that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. Interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) or relational neurobiology is an interdisciplinary framework associated with human development and functioning. It was developed in the 1990s by Daniel J. Siegel who sought to bring together a wide range of scientific disciplines in demonstrating how the mind, brain, and relationships integrate to alter one another. Book: Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, Bantam, Jan. 12, 2010.

2009 - Cognitive Dissonance – [Van Veen V, Krug M, Schooler J, Carter CS. (2009) Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance. Nature Neuroscience. 2009 Nov;12(11):1469-74.] author Vincent van Veen, who is now at UC Berkeley. "It shows that the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance is real and is not just a figment of the imagination of social psychologists.”

2010 - Compassion (Christian) – Center for Engaged Compassion (CEC), Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, Ca.

2010 - Compassion – Flourish Foundation, Hailey, Idaho - programs that nurture life skills and transformation through ethics and values, meditation and experiential inquiry. Compassionate Leaders Program, an intentional youth community dedicated to altruism and compassion.

2010 - Compassion Training – Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) – First called “Innate Compassion Training”; John Makransky: “I taught Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) in an earlier form for the Foundation for Active Compassion [location? Portland, Oregon] and for Natural Dharma Fellowship (NDF) [location? Springfield, New Hampshire] from 2010 onward, and helped NDF incorporate SCT into their Marga training program at that time. From 2010 until now, I also taught SCT about twice a year at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. From 2010 to 2020 (before the pandemic), I also taught SCT as invited to health care providers (doctors, nurses, social workers, etc.) in various medical institutions, including Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Med. School.  I also taught it at various colleges and universities over those years as invited.  (Harvard, Boston College, Brown University, Denison University, Ithaca College,...). From 2013 to 2016, I taught SCT within the Mind and Life Institute (MLI), with Brooke Lavelle.  I worked with Brooke and others in MLI at that time, incorporating SCT and social emotional learning into education programs for teachers and students. Brooke now directs Courage of Care, which has incorporated elements of SCT into its trainings for social service and activism. More recently, since 2018, I have been teaching SCT with Paul Condon, a professor of social psychology at Southern Oregon University.”

2010 – Compassion – Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) – created by John Makransky. Natural Dharma Fellowship, Springfield, NH.

2011 - Compassion (Christian) – Center for Engaged Compassion (CEC) convocation; St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado; Thomas Keating (a founder of the Centering Prayer movement), contemplatives, academics, and neuroscientists. Conversation between Christian contemplatives and neuroscientists in hopes of designing future research projects. (article: Jul. 17, 2011).

2011 - Compassion (Resistance To) – Academic paper: Paul Gilbert, Kristin McEwan, Marcela Maros, and Amanda Rivis, “Fears of Compassion: Development of Three Self-Report Measures,” Psychology And Psychotherapy, 84, no. 3 (2011): 239-55. – Objectives: There is increasing evidence that helping people develop compassion for themselves and others has powerful impacts on negative affect and promotes positive affect. However, clinical observations suggest that some individuals, particularly those high in self-criticism, can find self-compassion and receiving compassion difficult and can be fearful of it. This study therefore developed measures of fear of: compassion for others, compassion from others, and compassion for self. [Also: Jinpa, 2015, 54].

2011 - Neuroplasticity – A recent Harvard study [published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Jan 30, 2011, senior author Sara Lazar] showed that through meditation, a mainstay of mindfulness, the brain was able to create new gray matter. Increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection was discovered in this study. [Christopher Shea, “A Brief History of Mindfulness in the USA and Its Impact on Our Lives,” Psych Central, Oct. 28, 2016].

2012 - Compassion – Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC); Center for Mindful Self-Compassion; Kristin Neff, Chris Germer, PhD, San Diego, Ca.; founded.

2012 - MAP Training (Mental And Physical Training) – Tracey Shors, Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers U, New Jersey – Tracey Shors is a neuroscientist and distinguished professor in behavioral neuroscience, systems neuroscience, and psychology as well as a member of the Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University. She is currently vice chair and director of graduate studies in the department of psychology. Shors was involved in the initial studies on neurogenesis. Also, she developed MAP Training (Mental And Physical Training), which combines mental training with meditation and physical training with aerobic exercise. Based on her research, she developed MAP Training (Mental And Physical Training). MAP Training combines mental training with meditation and physical training with aerobic exercise. Since 2012, her lab has been providing MAP Training to people with depression, trauma history, anxiety and HIV, as well as those living with the stress and trauma of everyday life.

2012 - Mindfulness – Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH 13th District), book, A Mindful Nation; Mindful Magazine, launched in May 2013. In 2013, Ryan secures $1 million federal grant to teach mindfulness in schools in his home district.

2012 - Contemplative Science – Apr. 6, 2009; Adam Engle (Mind and Life Institute (MLI)), establishes the new field of Contemplative Sciences. He initiates an International Symposium on Contemplative Studies in Denver, Colorado (Hyatt Regency), with 700 representatives from Contemplative Science and Studies research bodies in attendance. 

2013 - Compassion Research – Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; “Our fundamental question was, ‘Can compassion be trained and learned in adults? Can we become more caring if we practice that mindset?’” says Helen Weng, lead author of the study and a graduate student in clinical psychology. “Our evidence points to yes.” [Alison DeShaw Rowe, “Brain Can Be Trained in Compassion,” Neuroscience News.com, May 22, 2013] [Helen Y. Weng et al., “Compassion Training Alters Altruism and Neural Responses to Suffering,” Psychological Science (Association for Psychological Science), May 21, 2013].

2013 - Neurogenesis – Jonas Frisén from the Karolinska Institute has exploited this radioactive legacy to essentially carbon date living tissues, and work out how old they are. And in 2013, he concluded that the adult hippocampus does make new neurons—around 700 every day. [Ed Yong, “Do Adult Brains Make New Neurons? A Contentious New Study Says No,” The Atlantic, Mar. 7, 2018]

2013 - Epigenetics & Meditation – Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice.”- Richard J. Davidson. [Jill Sakai, “Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation,” W News, Dec. 4, 2013].

2013 - Compassion (Christian) – Center for Engaged Compassion (CEC) receives Grant from 1440 Foundation (Scotts Valley, Ca.).

2013 - Dalai Lama – The 14th Dalai Lama had become the joint most popular world leader by 2013 (tied with Barack Obama), according to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive of New York, which sampled public opinion in the US and six major European countries.

2013 - Dalai Lama – Science & Spirituality – Upon Dalai Lama’s instigation, Emory U develops a Tibetan language science curriculum for use in monasteries to teach monks. Presented at Mind & Life 26.

2013 - Emotional Intelligence – The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence - research center at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 2013 by research psychologist Dr. Mark Brackett.  YCEI has been referred to as "home to the original scientific theory of emotional intelligence". It offers free trainings in social-emotional learning to grade school teachers and students, with the goal of designing "effective approaches for supporting school communities in understanding the value of emotions, teaching the skills of emotional intelligence, and building and sustaining positive emotional climates in homes, schools, and workplaces. " Its research focuses on four research categories: assessment; school and the workplace; creativity; and RULER, the center's defining approach to social emotional learning.” [Wikipedia] RULER: the five skills of emotional intelligence (recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating). Origins: In a pivotal paper published in 1990, Prof. Peter Salovey (Yale U) Prof. John Mayer (U New Hampshire) described emotional intelligence as the ability to reason with and about emotions to achieve personal and social goals.

2014 - Neuroplasticity – Review article – Within the last four decades, our view of the mature vertebrate brain has changed significantly. Today it is generally accepted that the adult brain is far from being fixed. A number of factors such as stress, adrenal and gonadal hormones, neurotransmitters, growth factors, certain drugs, environmental stimulation, learning, and aging change neuronal structures and functions. The processes that these factors may induce are morphological alterations in brain areas, changes in neuron morphology, network alterations including changes in neuronal connectivity, the generation of new neurons (neurogenesis), and neurobiochemical changes. Here we review several aspects of neuroplasticity and discuss the functional implications of the neuroplastic capacities of the adult and differentiated brain with reference to the history of their discovery. [Eberhard Fuchs and Gabriele Flügge, “Adult Neuroplasticity: More Than 40 Years of Research,” Neural Plasticity, 04 May 2014].

2014 - Foundation for Contemplative Studies – Moscow, Russia - Dr. B. Alan Wallace. Established April 2014.

2014 - Compassion Training – The Center for Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics (CCISE), Life University, Marietta, GA;  Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT); The Center was created on Oct. 16, 2014, as a result of an enabling resolution of the Board of Trustees of Life University.

2015 - Compassion – The Center for Mindfulness and Compassion (CMC) is an interdisciplinary center within Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA). Mass. Christopher Germer, PhD, Co-Founder. John Makransky, Buddhist, prof. [Makransky developed Innate Compassion Training (date? 2015?) (ICT), later renamed as Sustainable Compassion Training (date? 2016?) (SCT)].

2015 - Contemplative Science -- With the early roots of this project dating back as far as 2012, the concrete vision for a “CERN-inspired research infrastructure for Contemplative Science” was born in 2015 with the question: How can the experience, expertise, and model of international scientific collaboration at CERN be merged with state-of-the-art research in the nascent interdisciplinary field of Contemplative Science, for mutual benefit as well as for the wider benefit of society, humanity, and all living beings? [CERN: European Organization for Nuclear Research]

2016 - Compassion – Tania Singer – Anita Tusche, Anne Böckler, Philipp Kanske, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein and Tania Singer, “Decoding the Charitable Brain: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Attention Shifts Differentially Predict Altruistic Giving,” Journal of Neuroscience, 27 April 2016, 36 (17) 4719-4732. [Goleman, Altered Traits, 183-4].

2016 - Compassion Training – Courage of Care Coalition, founded in 2016; co-founder Brooke Dodson-Lavelle Ph. D., Brooklyn; SCT (developed by Makransky, 2010); founded by a family of facilitators and spiritual activists committed to dedicating their lives and work to collective liberation. Based across the United States—and with a growing network of international colleagues—our diverse team has decades of experience in organizational and systems change, educational and health equity, contemplative and somatic practice and trauma-informed care.  //  Brooke D. Lavelle Ph. D. is the Co-Founder and President of Courage of Care. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Cognitive Science from Emory University, an M.A. in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism from Columbia University and a B.A. in Religion and Psychology from Barnard College. Brooke was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany, where she co-developed a climate justice program for ecological sustainability researchers. She served as a lecturer at San Francisco State University where she taught a contemplative-based course on compassion and social justice. She was a consultant to Teacher’s College, Columbia University's new initiative on Spirituality and Education and was the Senior Education Consultant to Mind & Life's Ethics, Education, and Human Development Initiative. Brooke served on the core curriculum team for the Student Flourishing Initiative, a collaboration between the Universities of Virginia, Wisconsin-Madison and Penn State, and previously co-led the Summer Institute for Educators at the Greater Good Science Center. Brooke recently completed a book manuscript on courage and spiritual activism and is co-writing a book on compassion and equity in education with a collaborative she founded in Oakland.

2017 - Mindfulness – Kaleigh Isaacs; Awake Network, founded Jan.2017; producer of the Mindful Relationship Summit. Isaacs aspires to create a platform that encourages collaboration and allows people around the world to access wisdom teachings for free.

2017 - Compassion – Compassion Institute (CI); Half Moon Bay, Ca.; Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D.

2017 - Dalai Lama – Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics (CCSCBE), Emory U, Atlanta, Ga.

2017 - Compassion (Christian) – Compassionate Presence, Calgary, Evanston, Illinois; Rolf Nolasco (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (Founding grant, Templeton Religion Trust, awarded Nov. 2017). Derived from Sanford CCT.

2017 - Compassion – Creating Compassionate Identities (CCI) co-developed by Lobsang Tenpa and Christian Howard and offered to the first engaged Buddhism community in Moscow.

2018 - Neurogenesis – [See 2020] In a new study [Nature, Mar. 7, 2018], and one of the biggest yet, a team led by Arturo Alvarez-Buylla at the University of California at San Francisco completely failed to find any trace of young neurons in dozens of hippocampus samples, collected from adult humans. “If neurogenesis continues in adult humans, it’s extremely rare,” says Alvarez-Buylla. “It’s not as robust as what people have said, where you could go running and pump up the number of neurons.” [Ed Yong, “Do Adult Brains Make New Neurons? A Contentious New Study Says No,” The Atlantic, Mar. 7, 2018].

2020 - Neurogenesis – Looking forward, we can conclude that following yet another dynamic phase in this field’s development, the occurrence of adult neurogenesis in the human brain has been (re-) established. [Paul J. Lucassena, Carlos P. Fitzsimonsa Evgenia Saltabc Mirjana Maletic-Savaticd, “Adult neurogenesis, human after all (again): Classic, optimized, and future approaches,” Behavioural Brain Research, Vol. 381, 2 March 2020].

2020 - Center for Contemplative Research, Tuscany, Italy – Dr. B. Alan Wallace is the motivating force behind the development of the Center for Contemplative Research in Tuscany, Italy as a community of contemplatives and scientists, to integrate first person meditative experience with third person methods of science.

2021 - Christian - Survey: 75% of Millenials (born 1984-2002) say they lack meaning and purpose in life. George Barna, “New Insights into the Generation of Growing Influence: Millennials In America,” Arizona Christian University, Cultural Research Center, Oct. 2021, 62 pages].

2021 - Compassion Education Alliance (CEA), Bend, Oregon - founded by Aly Waibel, PhD, Senior Certified CCT Teacher and began teaching in 2013. She helped co-create the online CCT Teacher Training program.

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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SECULAR COMPASSION CULTIVATION TRAININGS

1979 – MBSR – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – Jon Kabat-Zinn – Sep. 1979 - U of Massachusetts Medical School. Secular precursor to secular compassion cultivation protocols.

1998 – CBRT – Compassion-Based Resilience Training – developed in 1998 by Dr. Joseph Loizzo M.D., Ph.D., used at New York Hospital, Columbia University Hospital, Cornell University Hospital. In 2004, Nalanda Institute for Contemplative science founded.

2000 – Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - John D. Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal (U Toronto); based on Kabat-Zinn, MBSR (1990).

2004 – CBCT – Cognitively-Based Compassion Training launch – based on Lojong (“mind training”), secularized; protocol developed in 2003; Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics (CCSCBE), Emory University, Atlanta; Lobsani Tenzen Negi.

2004 – CEB – Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB); designed by Paul Ekman (Psychology Prof. UCSF) and Alan Wallace, San Francisco.

2006 – CFT – Compassion Focused Therapy; The Compassionate Mind Foundation (CMF), Derby, Derbyshire, England - Professor Paul Gilbert and colleagues including Prof Deborah Lee, Dr Mary Welford, Dr Chris Irons, Dr Ken Goss, Dr Ian Lowens, Dr Chris Gillespie, Diane Woollands and Jean Gilbert.

2006 – CMT – Compassionate Mind Training. - The Compassionate Mind Foundation (CMF), Derby, Derbyshire, England.

2008 – CP – Compassion Practice - Triptykos School of Compassion (Christian), Ashland, Oregon (?); Andrew Dreitcer, Frank Rogers Jr., Mark Yaconelli. Closed in (year?); superseded (?) by Center for Engaged Compassion (?).  $300,000 Grant from Don Morrison (COO of RIM (Blackberry))— later (2010), Center for Engaged Compassion, Claremont School of Theology, Ca.

2009 – CCT – Compassion Cultivation Training™ CCT©; Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D. (translator of Dalai Lama); developed at Stanford U., Ca.

2010 – SCT – Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) – John Makransky. Natural Dharma Fellowship, Springfield, NH.

2012 – MSC – Mindful Self-Compassion – Center for Mindful Self-Compassion; Kristin Neff, Chris Germer, PhD, San Diego, Ca.

2012 – MAP Training – (Mental And Physical Training). MAP Training – Tracey Shors, Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers U, New Jersey.

2017 – Compassionate Presence – Calgary, Evanston, Illinois; Rolf Nolasco (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Christian practice derived from Stanford CCT. (Founding grant, Templeton Religion Trust, awarded Nov. 2017).

2017 – CCI – Creating Compassionate Identities (CCI) co-developed by Lobsang Tenpa and Christian Howard and offered to the first engaged Buddhism community in Moscow.

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[Updated 1/1/22; 1/5/22; 1/29/22; 3/3/22; 3/10/22; 3/20/22; 3/21/22; 4/21/22; 6/18/22 --- 21-10/10/22]

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