#108: The Ethics of Meditation - Nicholas Van Dam, PhD

24:43You know, so something like 30 minutes. Now, the challenge, and we've only just started looking at the data from the randomized control trial. The big challenge there is there's a tradeoff between how much people are willing to do and the amount they may need to get benefits. So people are quite willing to do very short amounts. and as you sort of suggested them to do something longer, they kind of go, oh, I don't really want to sit for 30 minutes. So it then gets hard to tell, well, if they're not actually doing the practice, how do we know whether or not they're benefiting? So this is kind of what we're grappling with right now.

25:13How do we analyze data when the people who get allocated to the lesser amount of practice are much more willing to do it, right, whereas the people that are allocated to longer amounts of practice are much less willing to do it? And so you get very different results, but how do you know whether it's the amount you told them to do or the willingness or desire to actually do it. So that's one, I think, really important line of research that we've been studying. Another one has been along the lines of really challenging experiences.

25:46And the reason or the motivation for looking at these challenging experiences is largely sort of challenging experiences that have historically been treated, and historically, I mean, probably in the last 10 years. Like, previous to that, we haven't really talked about them at all. has been sort of thinking about, well, either they're really terrible and bad, like people are having psychotic breaks or dissociative experiences and like, you know, anything that is challenging or difficult is psychiatric, right? And so that's one line of thinking. The other extreme is, no, no, these are like, you know, transcendental people are, you know, connecting with the higher power, they're leaving their bodies.

26:23So there isn't a whole lot of kind of range in that, you know, it's sort of either one extreme or the other. And so what we're really wanting to know is, so, okay, for the average everyday practitioner who does have some challenging experience, what does that actually look like? You know, what do they encounter? What do they do about it? What does it mean for them with respect to their practice? How do they make sense of it? And the kinds of things we've been finding sort of are, you know, lots of people have difficult, challenging experiences. In fact, the majority of people, most people seem to be able to address them.

26:55so the kind of the lasting harm is there is only there for a very small percentage of people and it seems like as you know probably is obvious but people who kind of have a are given a framework or a context to make sense of it do a lot better right so if you're kind of coming into it in a particular tradition that goes yeah look you have these crazy experiences it's kind of part of what happens um we'll help you through it you kind of need to expect it might come and when that happens you know, this is what you do, right? You're given guidance, you're given explanation, you're given a, it may just be part of a bigger picture, or in some traditions, it's even pay no attention, you know?

27:32It's just a, it's like anything else, it's like a passing thought, like don't get too excited about the fact that, you know, you think you've connected to God, like maybe you haven't, it's a distraction, don't get lost in it, right? So those kinds of frameworks are really useful, because people then go, oh, I have a way of explaining why I had this, I don't know, dissociated with that, I disconnected from my body. Whereas for the people who don't have that, it's shocking. Like, you know, well, this isn't supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be calm. I'm supposed to be relaxed. I'm supposed to feel great.

27:58I'm disconnecting from my body, right? Like, so a big conclusion from that research, from my perspective is it's not that I'm wanting to tell people you need to be terrified of meditation or meditation sort of is dangerous. It's more that there are these challenging experiences that do arise. And if you're going to commit to it, if you want to commit to the practice, you need to be prepared for it. If it happens, you know, you need to know what to do. And as a clinician, if I'm working with you or a teacher working with you, I need to know what to do. But as the person who wants to engage in the practice, much like the dose amount, it's kind of contractual, which is to say, I want to be able to tell someone, this is what you're going to need to commit to.

28:36And these are the kinds of things that might happen. Are you it? Right? If they're in and they agree and they've consented, great. You know, like, look, some crazy things may happen. It's going to be hard, but it could be the thing that transforms or changes your life fundamentally. And you may be a completely different person at the end of it. Now, if you're cool with those terms of conditions, I'm cool to take you through it. But I think that kind of conversation historically hasn't necessarily happened in this space, because it was one of more student and guru, more than student and teacher even.

29:03And so I think the idea from my perspective is, if it's going to happen in more clinical contexts, in hospitals, in psychotherapy settings or sessions, if it's going to happen in schools, we do need to have that informed consent there where people kind of have to go, you know, am I really willing to kind of engage in this level of difficulty? And these are the kinds of things that may happen. And this are the potential benefits, right? Like these are the kinds of things that could happen. And so that you kind of know what you're in for and you know what your committed to are. And particularly if it's your kids, you know, you similarly know, well, you know, they may get a bit upset or a bit sad.

29:36And this is the policy or protocol we have in place for how to deal with that. And this is what the benefits might be that they might get from doing it. But if you don't tell anybody that, that it just doesn't seem right to me, right? Like you tell people it's going to be wonderful and it's going to be like looking at clouds and petting puppies all the time. And that's not the reality. Thank you so much for listening so far. I just wanted to take a quick moment to jump in and give you an update from the FitMind team. So we recently launched an incredible new course, which is free in the app, which is the preferred approach and also on YouTube.

30:06It's called 30 Days of Meditation, Science and Bliss. And this has combined what we feel is the most effective contemplative practices with what we feel is the most important of the science. Honestly, I can't believe the course is free. It's genuinely incredible and has changed my life. Also, FitMind recently transitioned to an NGO. So if there is any way that you can help us at all, we now survive entirely off donations. And even if you can't afford to help out financially, if you could just give us a like or share this podcast or the course with anyone that might help, Our goal here is simply just to help as many people as we can.

30:46We thank you so much. Now, back to the episode. Yeah, that's a good point, actually. Is there learning and, like, is it a good thing to go through those, like, kind of adversities, like the dark night of the soul, as they would often call it? Is that generally an opportunity for growth or can it also go the other way? I mean, I think the unfortunate answer is we don't know. I think we're at this phase sort of now where we're just starting to look at that. I mean, I think there is quite a lot of sentiment that it's necessary. So within a lot of the traditions, there is this idea of that has to happen.

31:29You kind of have to break things down. You have to tear things apart before you can do the work of rebuilding it, right? Or that things do have to get really hard before they get better, right? And that sort of is this kind of, I don't want to say prevailing wisdom because that would suggest that it's true. We don't know that. But there is this kind of prevailing sense of that's what has to happen. As I said, the unfortunate reality is we just don't really know. There's no real data that sort of has looked at trajectories over time. So we don't really know whether the people who kind of have these incidents or experiences go on to kind of be better off.

32:03And again, sort of part of it is that the kind of study you need for this, and we're actually doing a study just like this at the moment, is longitudinal. You need to get people that are relatively new meditators, new to a tradition, and you need to kind of follow them for like a year or more to kind of find out, well, what's going on? You know, what's happening in the practice? How do they respond to it? Does it lead to them stopping the practice? Does it lead to significant gains or growth in their practice? And it's just not really the kind of thing that's happened in the field. You know, the field has largely focused on, for good reason, really experienced meditator, right?

32:36Part of the motivation for that has been, and I think Richard Davidson's always said it best, essentially, if people that have been doing these practices for 30 or 40 years don't show anything, you know, on brainstands and other measures or blood tests or whatever, there's really no point in us trying to teach anybody to do this, right? Because if someone has been doing this for 40, 50 years, 30, 40 years, whatever, it looks no different to the average person. We're wasting our time, right? But if we actually can see things in these individuals, which we have, we know these monks or nuns that have been doing this for ages.

33:05They look quite different remarkably. So that sort of goes, okay, there's something there. So then the other side has been trying to teach people who've never done it how to do it. And now what we're really missing is everything in between, which is sort of after you spend eight weeks or whatever doing the thing, you've been learning how to do the thing. What happens then? And so there's this big gap in what we know of like, cool, you finished your eight week program or you've done your 30 day online introductory training. But what comes next? And so that's where there's all these questions. And I think one of our goals has been that's actually where we need to be in conversation with the traditions because certain traditions have maps.

33:40They talk about these are the stages. This is the progress. This is the way it's meant to look. Now, many of these things were written hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. So there's a really interesting question of how do we translate those terms and how do we make sense of the way that it was talked about in a time and a place where the worldview was fundamentally different, right? They may not make sense for today's world. Maybe they're useful though, right? So it's an open question to us. And we've been trying to talk with teachers to go, okay, well, how would you explain this experience if it happened?

34:10And what do you think we would, how would you make sense of it and kind of using modern contemporary language? And, you know, if you were to put that in a stage of insight, as an example, you know, Mahasi Sayada style, which one would it be? And like, what would be the psychological, contemporary psychological correlates of that? So I think that kind of work is really important. We don't know whether the maps help or not, but it would be nice to have them. And it's certainly given that there's a whole bunch of these maps existing. Why not give them a try? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the maps are extremely interesting.

34:41Have you also found, you hear often that meditation is dose dependent. is that in line with your thinking? I mean, certainly the data that we have looking at this sort of suggests, yes, that when you look at the average person, you do see sort of a dose response curve, right? And again, we've done it cross-sectional. We've done it with a longitudinal study as well. But people do seem to show more benefit with more practice. Now, the interesting thing to note in our studies, One of the things we have found is that beginner meditators tend to benefit more. So the growth curves are steeper earlier on in practice.

35:21I don't know that that's necessarily a function of the actual growth so much as it is a function of how we measure it. So our measures typically in psychology are mental health, kind of psychological well-being, right? the challenge of course being that when you're when you get to the zero point of a depression measure you can't go any further right like so once you're not depressed you're not depressed it's not like you sort of get super not depressed it's just depressed is as negative as a zero you know it's as low as it gets right and a lot of our well-being measures you know they're not talking about equanimity right or you know like being the most blissed out person you've ever met they're kind of like you're really doing well like you're you're flourishing and that's about as far as we get so i think there is an interesting question of like well those are the measures we tend to use i mean the traditions often talk about benefits that look you know much more like something like equanimity you know you i mean there's these amazing studies um that paul eckman did with matthew ricard right where he had a starter pistol held next to his face and you know could fire it and basically show that matthew ricard actually had a an altered startle response which i remember at the time when that paper came out, everyone was just like, we didn't even think it was possible.

36:35We thought that that was such an ingrained physiological response. We didn't think anybody could alter it. So clearly this guy who's been practicing for this period of time can show this alteration to his physiology. And I think that raises a lot of challenging questions. I was just like, well, this is not a normal guy. This is someone who's been practicing for a very long time, is incredibly intelligent, has had very unique life circumstances. So again, that gap is really interesting, right? But it raises questions for us of what should we even be measuring? You know, when we're talking about people who have had, you know, 5 ,000 hours of practice or training, our traditional measures probably aren't all that useful or workable.

37:14And so, yeah, so that's something we've been thinking about. What will we even measure at that point? And the only way you can really know is to talk to the people from the traditions at that point. That's exciting. How would you define equanimity in a clinical setting, actually? And is that how you understanding the response being different that he was in some level of equanimity. Yeah. I mean, look, in the clinical context, I typically think of it more as like an emotional balance or sort of, you know, the equipoise of sort of you probably don't get knocked over as far and sort of your ability kind of to come back or recover is better, right?

37:52So like any kind of intense stimulus or, you know, either positive or negative sort of doesn't necessarily impact you as much. You know, you're not, you don't get as caught up or stuck in the bad and you don't cling as much to the good, right? So you don't, you kind of just let things come and go. And so it's not like they don't impact you. They do. They just don't impact you as much. And certainly in the Buddha's sense, right? That's the way that I understand it. I mean, now many people, it's interesting. I think, you know, that conceptualization, you might hear and go, but I want the good to be really good, right?

38:23And like, that's where there's some interesting conflict, I think, between the kind of traditions and how they think about this. There's this idea of like, well, no, but that actually not clinging to the good actually is freeing. That allows you to experience the reality of life. And, but I think in the Western sense, a lot of us hear that and go, yeah, but that doesn't sound good. Like I really want to experience the highs. But it's a similar problem in bipolar disorder, which is to say, you know, you have people with bipolar disorder who, you know, they don't want to deal with the lows. They're prepared sort of to consider medication to manage the depression, but they want the mania, right?

38:56The mania is amazing, right? They don't want you to take the mania away. And so a lot of the problems that we have in psychiatry and mental health treatment with bipolar disorder is getting people to take medicine, knowing that it's going to blunt both sides of the equation. So I think it raises some really interesting questions that probably fall outside the purview of kind of academic research into mental health and wellbeing, which is, you know, if we're kind of blunting both sides, what does that mean is that a good thing is that a bad thing is the kind of equanimity or balance that you get from meditation i suspect it's very different to what we're talking about with you know affective wanting with medication um but you know again this is sort of an area where it's often a bit outside of the norm of what people are studying or exploring yeah definitely i think it's interesting you say actually there was one retreat in particular where i experienced a deep equanimity and i remember feeling it was like a subtle thought of if a nuclear bomb goes up next to me i don't think i would move right now um so yeah it's just a level of peace and kind of unmovability that seems and that's so it's an interesting challenge right because it's something i talk about a lot with when i when i train sort of um psychologists right or when i'm talking to kind of everyday audiences about what are these practices for and how are they best used I often kind of give the example of, you know, very experienced monks or nuns may demonstrate sort of incredible levels of equanimity and skill.

40:24I wouldn't necessarily want them to be my taxi driver in the center of Times Square, right? Because my guess is sort of that level of equanimity is probably not all that adaptive in the middle of Times Square. So it is important to, I think, acknowledge that there are contextual factors. And so your average everyday person sort of may not necessarily find themselves more capable of performing their day-to-day tasks as a function of developing those levels of skills. So it raises some really interesting questions of the kinds of things that may happen when you go through these practices may be at odds with some of your goals and some of the things that modern or contemporary society expects us to do, right?

41:03So if you're a CEO of a major corporation and you engage in a lot of meditation, it may actually in some ways undermine your ability to be ruthless, some cutthroat. Now, I would arguably say that's a good thing, but a lot of people would say, yeah, but it's not making you better at your job. So I think that's where these things do come into conflict. In theory, these practices are advocating for a particular view and approach to the world that is not always consistent with the way that we think of it in Western society. So interesting kind of challenges. And as you said, you know, I could imagine scenarios where sort of the building catches fire and sort of you feel so at peace that maybe it doesn't matter so much.

41:40But arguably, you need to get out as quickly as possible. Definitely. Yeah, I was actually chatting to Tanya Singer yesterday. And yeah, she was talking a little bit about that, like moving from the current economic system into something more ethics based. And I think it's a really important conversation. I think, I mean, my sense sort of is, and this is the sort of, you know, not my area of expertise, more just, you know, informed conversations I have with people. I don't know what the alternative is. Like, it feels like there needs to be an alternative to our current systems of government, our current kind of economic system.

42:10But it just feels like, I don't know, whatever that is, feels to just be a bit out of reach. I know there are very smart people that are thinking about this. And I really hope they have something that's not what we currently have, because it doesn't seem like the thing we have now is working. I'm not quite sure what that looks like. But I'm glad that people smarter than me are thinking about it. Yeah, I agree. And it just seems like such a big, big problem. and it probably is something that has to happen kind of at a grassroots level. So what you're doing is, I'm sure, affecting that. I would hope so.

42:39I mean, there's always this question as well of sort of, you know, getting kind of advanced leaders to kind of engage in these practices. You know, will that make a difference? I don't know. Like, again, I'm agnostic in a sense of like, I'm willing to give it a try. I always do worry sort of with those kinds of scenarios of, you know, who is it serving or who's rubbing off on whom? You know, like my worry a little bit sort of is, are we going into these major forums, the World Economic Forum or Global Leaders Summits? Are we influencing them or are they influencing us? And I suspect it's a bit of both.

43:10And so the question then becomes, well, as people who are trying to potentially advocate for a more empirically based way of approaching life or more balanced approach to life or a more ethical, kind way of life, is that what we're encouraging them to do? Or are they kind of coaching us as to how to be more cutthroat, you know, and more in a line with sort of neoliberal capitalist values, right? And so I think we've seen examples of that where a lot of versions of meditation practices have kind of conformed to expectations of this is a product you have to sell and the way you have to sell it is this, right?

43:44It has to look like this. It has to promise this. And that's not very well aligned with the traditions, right? And what they originally, like these things were free. You know, you were meant to do it as part of a community towards a greater good not for personal benefit you know so so that i think that creates really difficult challenges that we need to be grappling with more definitely yeah we personally grappled with that like fit mind that we um with was previously a like a paid app and then um the founder became a monk and and then decided to make it a free so now it's an ngo but yeah even from our perspective If you look over, you know, paid apps and like the funding and the way that they can deliver more content and whatever it might be and even funding research and, yeah, the wider kind of perspective.

44:33It is a challenge of modern life. Well, and again, I think one of the big challenges you have in that context sort of is, you know, the traditional models had baked in this idea sort of of you engage with a teacher or, you know, I mean, you know, I grew up Christian, right? the idea sort of that you had pies, right? A certain amount of your salary went to support the church that you were a part of. And, you know, in a lot of meditation-based communities, right, you kind of monks and nuns were supported by the community, right? They performed a service for us and we supported them. So I think the challenge in the modern world sort of is if you want to do, you want to fulfill that kind of a sense of obligation or commitment, you want to provide it for free or on a Donna basis.

45:12But people are kind of, they've been, we've been kind of socialized out of that model, right? But there's a sense of, well, but I want a service and you're going to provide it. So what do I have to pay you to get it? So the sense of, oh, it's free, you know, and so it is a challenge, I think, for a lot of people that I know sort of that try to provide things on a dominant basis. They get a lot of pushback. And if they don't kind of say, well, this is an indicative price, you know, people just really struggle to even get their heads around it. Right. So I know people that run, you know, not for profit app companies and meditation companies.

45:41And it's always a struggle going like, you know, we want to keep offering this in an accessible way or for free. But if we can't maintain the facilities or employ the people or keep the lights on, then we can't offer anything. So I think it is a really important balancing act or going, you know, things cost money. And so like if we can't, you know, if the old structures for which that money wasn't given, it's unaccessible to us, then what is the new structure that we can use to, you know, offer it on accessible terms? And it's a similar challenge. It's been a learning process for sure, but yeah, so far it's working well.

46:16So how can rigorous science and wisdom traditions work together without losing depth? I think it's always a challenge. I think people want simple answers. And I think, you know, the minute you bring nuance into the conversation, many people tune out. You know, many funders turn out, turn out many, you know, government individuals tune out, many corporate execs tune out, even some academics tune out, right? Because sort of they know that, you know, the nuanced, complicated answer of it depends is not going to be a headline. You know, that people want to, will this practice turbocharge my sex life?

46:55Yes or no? You know, like, and the answer is, oh, well, like, it depends. Like, what do you do? You know, and nobody really likes that. So I think to my mind, sort of though, being more honest about what the practice actually entails and what it looks like is the way forward in the sense that it's truth in advertising, right? Sort of like, I think there's a real risk sort of that if you take the shortcut and you sort of offer somebody a quick fix, it can't possibly be true. And people will realize that. And so, you know, you may get more people to try it. And I think that's actually happened in the wider space of mindfulness.

47:32A lot of people have tried it as a function of the fact that we've made it part of everyday life. But now we've got a situation where people actually think they don't like it. The version of the thing they don't like, though, is nothing like the version that many of us would like them to try, which is to say it's very simplistic, poorly defined. Mindfulness can be whatever you want it to be. Look at the clouds, have a nap, go for a walk, play golf. You know, like, so it's like, well, those things are all nice, but they're arguably a little bit different than what I think of as mindfulness meditation.

48:04So I think that there is room for that nuance. But now, unfortunately, we have a bit of work to do where sort of because people have had exposure to a version that most of us sort of don't necessarily think of as a legitimate or helpful version, they've had a superficial version. And a lot of people have a negative opinion of that superficial version. We've kind of got to undo that. So I do think part of the undoing that is actually having conversations with traditions. It's just saying, what do you use it for and what's the purpose? I think where you do see a clash is in scenarios where people who are advocating for these practices presume that everyone ought to do them.

48:41And I think my strong perspective is they're not for everyone, which is not to say it's very possible that a lot of people could benefit. but I think my position sort of is if you come in with the mindset that everyone has to do this you're potentially going to be prepared to get that conclusion or result no matter the cost and the cost is often I think the integrity of the practice of nutrition because you're going to have to keep simplifying it to reach more and more people so I think there is something to be said for just saying look this is the version of the practice that we offer we're prepared to sort of adjust or adapt it to make it as accessible as we can but there's a certain point at which we've adapt it or adjust it as far as it can.

49:20Like, and then it's no longer this practice. It's a different practice entirely. And if you want to do that other practice, that is fine. Like, it's your call. It's your life. It's not my, you know, it's not my role to make those choices for you. But there does have to kind of be this line in the sand, I think, of like, look, if you don't have at least these core elements, it's no longer this practice, right? And I think being clear about those kind of lines in the sand, as it were, with the traditions as you're having these dialogues It's really important, right? I mean, I've often had to have conversations with people from different traditions of, I'm willing to kind of do a study that looks at this.

49:54And if I get this evidence, I'm willing to conclude this and I will go on the record stating this, but I need you to be willing to state this, or at least be comfortable with me stating this. So in other words, if I don't find the evidence for the thing that you think is deeply true, are you okay with me saying that I didn't find evidence for it? Not saying that it's not there, just that I didn't find evidence for it, right? And those can be deal breakers. And so I think it's really important sort of as traditions and teachers and practitioners are getting together with academics and researchers to kind of lay out the map as it were.

50:25Well, this is what we're trying to do here. And this is the line for us. You know, if it's going to be used for this purpose, we're not interested. Right. Or if you're not prepared to sort of test this idea, then no deal. Right. If you're not open to the possibility of whatever it is, the influence of past lives and present lives, if you're not willing to test that, then that's a deal breaker. And I've heard conversations about that with various Buddhist groups. They want to go, we want to look at the influence of past lives and current lives. My response is always, I don't know how to test that.

50:55It would be fascinating. I don't rule it out. I just don't know a good scientific method to actually test whether or not that's true. and so to me that's kind of a deal breaker because i don't know how to test it then i'm not prepared to do a study on it yeah absolutely it yeah that would be extremely difficult to test for and have you found um we talked a little bit about like heart-based practices versus say like shamatha or like uh calm abiding would be another way to to label that have you found any differences between those types of practices and like one thing that we look at is just some people, at least within my friendship group, might try the kind of like mindfulness or shamite and they just get bored.

51:39So whereas, say, like heart-based practices can be quite a nice experience, not always, but they can be. And that might make them just return more. Is that something that you found as well? Yeah. I mean, look, it goes back to when I was talking about dose response, I talked about this kind of trade-off. And we talk about that as the efficacy engagement trade-off. So efficacy sort of is, you know, what works and engagement is what people will do. And there's a tradeoff essentially in that the amount that people likely need to do for it to be efficacious is probably more than what most people want to do.

52:11So we kind of increasingly think of it as it's probably good kind of to think about practices at the beginning that are engaging and sort of eventually that might lead to them engaging with practices that are efficacious. Right. But the trade-off really is quite real, I think, in that people are probably not necessarily going to jump straight into the practices that really work or the amount of practice that really works. So I think there is a challenge that needs to be overcome there. We've done a little bit of work looking at different practices, but I think the challenge largely is that the average sort of individual, what they do is so variable.

52:45And so, you know, definitions about how do you practice or what tradition do you practice in are just all over the place. You know, the kind of link to a particular teacher or a particular tradition, particularly in a country like Australia that, you know, by relative measures is quite small. It's a lot harder to find someone sort of who only engages in shamatha and has a particular teacher, say Alan Wallace, right? So it makes it a lot harder to do that research because, you know, finding, you know, a few dozen, let alone a few hundred people who engage in that particular practice is quite challenging.

53:16um that said i mean you know there are some indications that people you know may benefit more particularly early on from kind of the cultivation practices right i mean there is a sense i think for a lot of people who are highly self-critical um that it's an that that's an important first step like and so i hear this from uh teachers that i've worked with as well so there's one particular person that i work with who does a lot of work for well-being of medical professionals and has found in their career sort of that, whereas it used to be kind of acceptable to do a more shamatha-based mindfulness, you know, early on, you know, several decades ago, that that's not really very accessible for contemporary practitioners.

53:58That there's something going on, something has shifted where there's much more kind of an inability to sit still, an inability to focus, an inability to kind of be with what's going on inside. And because of that shift, the cultivation practices may need to be front-loaded more than they used to be, that you may need to be comfortable with yourself and more patient and kind to yourself first before you can actually sit with anything. Yes. I think likewise, you know, one thing we have observed sort of is if you skip ahead, for example, which is to say, you know, if you jump into more of an open monitoring style practice, Or as another example, you know, we've seen, you know, difficulties with particularly like early practitioners, you know, engaging in Zogchin, you know, Sam Harris's headless way of practice.

54:47You know, certain people like Sam Harris, as an example, are big advocates of particular styles of practice that arguably, you know, historically were really not meant for beginners. Right. These ideas of your deep kind of questioning of your existence of the nature of who you are. It's probably not an entry level practice. And so there is some indication that giving these kinds of practices to people that will fundamentally unravel the way they think of reality may not be a great starting point. That it'd be better to give them sort of some basic stuff first. And one of the things I always love is, you know, I've talked to a couple of monastic community, Buddhist monastic communities about this and particularly around kids.

55:22Right. And what are your thoughts about our efforts to bring these practices into schools? And they've often said, you know, look, in the kind of Buddhist traditions in history, we didn't really do much, you know, beyond kind of basic cultivation, loving kindness, you know, practices until 16 or later. The idea being sort of, you know, deep examination of, you know, the interior world and thoughts and attention is just kind of beyond what is probably accessible to people before they're at least 16. And having a nine-year-old son, I could say, you know, that seems to be true, you know, trying to get him to kind of examine what's going on internally.

55:56It's not so much I don't think he's incapable of it. It's just honestly sort of not sure that the brain has developed sufficiently to allow for that to happen. Yeah, definitely. I have looked at that a little bit as well. And I remember, I think Minya Rinpoche was introduced because he kind of begged his mom quite early. And yeah, I remember reading that it was unusual to be introduced that early. and that was with a kind of somewhat at least in their culture he was a legendary uh meditation teacher yeah much like you know we were having a conversation earlier offline about athletes right and i think there's probably similar examples of some people probably just have certain proclivities where for whatever reason sort of you know whether it be genetic whether it be um temperamental you know they have the capacity to engage in versions of practice earlier on than kind of other people do.

56:43So, you know, if we know that about athletes, of course, that would also probably be true and apply for, you know, mental development and mental capacities and skills, right? Some people just have naturally are going to have more ability to engage with a certain level of focus or, you know, awareness of their interior than other people will. Definitely. And where he grew up was probably a much simpler environment. I think he actually said he was just trying to repress his dad. Like You would be sat in the cave with one eye open, just like, you know, just kind of. I totally think that's true. And I, you know, it's like go back to this idea of like, I think it was important to think about and acknowledge sort of, you know, what is the goal?

57:18Right. What, you know, there are certain environments that are not conducive to certain styles of practice, you know. And I'm always clear sort of, you know, if an exec from a company or an HR person, you know, comes to me and says, we'd like you to run this for our organization. You know, the first thing I often say is, well, what is it that you actually want your employees to do? Right. If I kind of do what I what I think to be good, they may question the capitalist structures of the organization. And maybe that's not quite what you want. You know, if if all your senior management quits, you know, I mean, from my perspective, it wasn't a good match.

57:53That's not a bad outcome. But that may not be, you know, what you want to happen. Right. So I think it's an important conversation to have. definitely so for someone new to meditation or looking to deepen their practice what's one practical tip you would encourage them to start with i think i mean one of the things i quite like sort of within the the mindfulness place program tradition and i think a lot of this is drawing on um you know teaching say with the way that take nan han teaches things um and sort of certain you know south korean zen there's this commitment sort of to take an amount of time um nothing that is sort of, you know, don't, don't sort of commit to 45 minutes, right?

58:31I mean, just, just 10 minutes, right? But that amount of time, no less and no more. And I really, the idea sort of of, if, if you get to eight minutes and it feels unbearable, just, just, just ride it out, you know, just, unless something's going horribly wrong, right? And you're having a panic attack or something, but just try to get to the 10 minutes. Cause I think if you give in your sort of experientially, the lesson you're going to learn is I couldn't do it. And you're not learning that you couldn't do it because you actually found out whether or not you could do it. You gave up before you could find out if you could do it.

59:01So you're reaffirming the idea that you couldn't do it rather than the reality, right? So what most people I think find is that they can actually do 10 minutes and it wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but it's fine. Likewise, on the other side, if you're really enjoying it, you still stick to the 10 minutes. And that's the other side of the coin, which is if you're really loving it, right, it's really important actually to go, So now I said I was going to do 10 minutes and sort of much as bad experiences come to an end, so do good experiences. And I think that can actually for some people be a motivation to come back to it and go, that was really nice, you know, or I really liked it.

59:34And so I want to give it another go or the bad experience can be as well. Like today was quite hard. So and that's the other thing I would often recommend of like come into it with realistic expectations. You know, I think it's rarely as blissful and wonderful as anybody thinks it's going to be. what I kind of almost always can guarantee is you'll probably learn something interesting about yourself, right? It may not be what you want to learn, but it'll probably be something interesting, right? Which is, you know, I didn't realize how distracted I am. I didn't realize how tired I am. I didn't realize how hard it was for me to focus.

1:00:03I didn't realize that that's what my mind tends to do. Whatever it is, there will be something needy and interesting there. And if you come in and kind of letting go of the idea of it's going to be a particular way, it's a lot easier to really engage with it, right? Just kind of turn up with curiosity and see what happens. And, you know, if you give it a bit of time and try it out and see where it goes, you know, you may be surprised what happens. But likewise, you know, if it's not your thing and it doesn't work for you, you know, well, that's okay too. Just give it a try, see what happens, you know?

1:00:32But I think there is this tendency for people, I think, to go in with really strong expectations and then those expectations aren't met and then they give up. And I think that disappoints me because I think it's not so much that I'm disappointed in the person. I think a lot of people have been told to think that this is the way they're going to fix everything, and I don't think that's actually true. But as I said, it disappoints me partially with us, with the people who have done this and promoted it and suggested it, because we haven't been real enough about what's going to happen. And so people have these unrealistic expectations of what's going to happen.

1:01:05And I think going in with curiosity, if you're open to what could arise, the things that can arise are pretty amazing. but you do have to be prepared to sort of sit through some boring, unpleasant sessions to get to that point. Yeah, I remember the saying that expectation is the foundation of failure. And I think that it's even more true of a meditation retreat. It's interesting when you tell someone you're going on a retreat, and you're like, oh, that must be nice, like 10 days. I mean, people think sort of that a retreat sort of is a holiday, right? And it's really interesting. I remember there was a study done a few years back that actually compared holidays and retreats and found, you know, it's an entirely different experience, right?

1:01:48I mean, what's interesting to me sort of is, you know, in many ways, a retreat is, a meditation retreat is work. It's mental work. Like, at the end of it, you're probably pretty exhausted, at least I often have been. You may feel kind of a sense of renewal, right? But it's after a period of kind of intense work. A holiday sort of is interesting because like physically you may be very relaxed, but mentally all the problems that you left behind are still waiting for you when you get back. So it's a very different kind of experience and orientation. And I agree, most people kind of just presume, you know, a meditation retreat is a holiday.

1:02:22It's not a holiday. It's going to be really hard work, but I'm going to feel renewed or potentially, I hope, have some sense of clarity at the end of it. And I think for many people it can be, it can almost be like a booster session, you know, like. I really needed that time to just get my head around what this practice is and what it means to me and why I'm doing it. It can be a way of kind of reaffirming what it can allow me to achieve because we don't really have spaces in our day-to-day lives that allow for us to really focus on dedicated practice for, you know, several hours, you know, without a lot of distraction.

1:02:53So I think for a lot of people, I think it can really create that connection back to, well, this is why I do this in the first place. Definitely. That's interesting. Actually, I remember, I think it was in Richard Davies' book that he said that certain changes in the brain they're only found in people that had done retreats. Have you got any insight or research relating to that? Say if you did 100 hours and you were doing 30 minutes a day versus say you did 100 hours in 10 days across a retreat or 10 months. Yeah, no, unfortunately that hasn't really, again, this question of dose response hasn't, it's not only been not been looked at in terms of amount, but it's not really been looked at in terms of the type.

1:03:34And so not only do we know how much you should do, which, you know, we'd love to be able to say, oh, you should do 100 hours or whatever. That's the point at which you'll achieve X. We also don't know the best way to get there. So like, you know, whether it's sort of, you know, 10 minute sessions spread out over a year or whether it's one retreat. I mean, it's kind of an open question. You know, it's possible sort of that one retreat is equivalent to 10 years worth of practice. I don't know. I think a lot of people that commit to practice or are in these traditions would say, you know, that a retreat is worth more than, you know, a lot of, you know, home practice.

1:04:05But again, sort of from an academic or empirical perspective, we just really don't know. And again, this is the kind of question we're really interested in because many people do go from introductory courses to more engaged practices to retreat. And so it's kind of a natural progression, as it were. And some people, kind of those challenging experiences are most likely to arise in retreats. And I think it is actually really important to understand more about what happens in these settings, because it is likely sort of that that's where a lot of really profound stuff can arise. And I think that can be good or bad.

1:04:36So I often do advise people sort of where it can start to start with a kind of more regular practice as opposed to jumping into the retreat. I know people, some people will, you know, say the exact opposite and say jump in the deep end. And some people, you know. will swear up and down that that has forever changed their life, the better. my concern sort of is the risk ratio which is you know the number of people that will probably have really challenging experiences is just quite a bit higher i think in the retreat context if you're willing to tolerate the risk of that that's fine like it's not my decision to make for you but generally speaking you know the kind of daily practice stuff is less likely to result in that kind of experience yeah i mean it's a huge jump as well i think i did like 10 minutes a day and then increase the minute a day to 20 and then stay there for many years so to then go to 10 hours a day or i mean it's it's you know huge i mean i think what you what you can observe i mean many teachers sort of would suggest that you know 15 to 20 minutes should actually be the minimum right like a lot of the particularly the insight um the the side are kind of burmese insight tradition really argue this it takes about 15 minutes for the mind to settle right and so if you really are not practicing 15 or 20 minutes, you haven't had enough time to actually, you know, get the cobwebs out as it were.

1:05:50Like, you know, you're really only just getting to the point where sort of things are starting to stabilize after 15 or 20 minutes. So it's quite interesting from that perspective of, you know, people on average are doing five to 10 minute sessions. They're not getting anywhere near the kind of the arguably this 15 to 20 minute threshold that a lot of teachers suggest is necessary. And then sort of, you know, there's interesting recommendations or ideas around, you know, the type or the amount of practice you do as well and how that relates. So I've had a lot of conversation with teachers where they say, you know, these practices are really energizing or invigorating, right?

1:06:20And so I would never recommend someone do this style of practice before going to bed, right? And whereas this kind of practice is really relaxing or calming. And there seem to be those trade-offs there as well, where there is a suggestion, at least again, this is based on conversation with meditation teachers, that often the longer practices can be more arousing or energizing, and the shorter practices can be more relaxing. So there's some interesting kind of trade-offs of like well if you're doing a practice for bedtime or trying to help you relax or calm down maybe a slightly shorter practice if it's seated practice i should say it's probably better whereas that longer practice you know may be the one that really kind of inspires you or gives you energy um so that's an interesting perspective and i i definitely agree there are certain practices that can also seemingly and potentially i know this is talked about i don't think it's studied yet but can affect the amount of sleep that you need yeah it's certainly one of the things um there's a paper by some colleagues of mine that um willoughby britain and jake davis i think was one of the authors that says awakening is not just a metaphor um and they sort of looked at sort of changes in need for sleep or perceived need for sleep among meditation practitioners and found that you know that there is this very real result of you know people who engage in quite a lot of meditation sort of have this substantially decreased need for sleep now why that is i have no idea.

1:07:35It could be related to some kind of neurobiological mechanism of they're getting more rest or relaxation or something's happening in the brain that is resetting or refreshing in the practice. And so not as much of it needs to happen in sleep. It could be something else about the practice, but there definitely does seem to be an effect where amongst some people who do these practices for longer, they just don't need as much sleep, which is quite interesting. What about the nervous system effects? Is that possible and has that been studied? I mean, there has been quite a lot of research. I think one of the things that I caution against or talk about quite a lot is the way that term neuroplasticity gets used, right?

1:08:12Because it's often talked about as if it's inherently a good thing, right? From an evolutionary perspective, the brain is plastic. And that's a good thing because it means that we can adapt to our context, right? The challenging thing sort of is an adaptation to a particular context is not always a good thing. So an example I'll give or often give sort of is if you think about someone with PTSD, right, the adaptations that people develop in the context of, say, being in a war zone, right, I've had friends that were deployed overseas during war, conflicts, things like that. They make sense in that setting, right?

1:08:46You should be on high alert. You should be looking around. You should be prepared for anything to happen because anything could happen, right? And so in that setting, it's a very functional adaptation. It's good that you are at that level of alert. You need to be. You get back home, if you're at that same level of arousal and alertness in the grocery store, that's not so functional anymore. So it's an interesting sort of thing to be aware of is that flexibility, that neuroplasticity, it can kind of cut either way, which is to say, you know, our brains and our bodies have the ability to adapt to our context and our settings.

1:09:18And that's kind of a baked in feature of evolution, right? We have this really basic neural equipment. And then, you know, we had this kind of, I like to talk about the brain as basically being duct taped together, right? We had this sort of thing coming later going, well, how do you work with a basic, you know, stop-start system? Well, you superimpose a module on top of it that creates complex rules about when do you press stop and when do you press start, right? And you give it the flexibility to change those rules. And that's kind of the higher areas of the brain. I think that's kind of how I like to think of them in that, you know, we have these very simplistic lower kind of circuitry or systems, you know, in our physiological system.

1:09:57And yet we have this very flexible adaptive higher order system that allows us to do a lot more with this very simple system. So, you know, all of that said, yes, there are these interesting results about things that change in the brain, about how the brain is connected, how it wires, how rigorous, how lasting they are. It's a bit hard to say. Some of the biggest challenges sort of in these studies are when you put monastics in a scanner, an MRI machine, for example, have very different lifestyles than most people. They're often sedentarian. They often don't own a lot of stuff. They often don't have a lot of fiduciary responsibilities.

1:10:33So that's already sort of a really different thing. The fact that they've committed their life to a spiritual or religious practice is probably different than your average person. right? So there's a lot of differences in terms of their makeup and their composition. We don't know whether their brains might look that way to begin with. Now there's the issue of actually putting them in the scanner, right? Which is to say, if you put a monk or a nun in a scanner, they're probably going to meditate, right? So they kind of naturally go into the state of sort of just watching their breath or breathing and relaxing or whatever.

1:11:01And, you know, whereas you take an average person and you put them in a scanner, they're probably going to fidget and be a bit uncomfortable. So that simple kind of movement or head motion can create artifacts. There's other things like how hydrated you are, right? How well you look after your body. So the amount of fluids you consume can create artifacts in terms of brain measurement as well. So I guess it's really hard to say sort of, you know, with particularly with those kinds of case control studies, is what we're seeing a function of the practice or is it a function of the people? Now, there have been other studies where we, you know, we look at people completing an eight-week MBSR course, And we do see some differences.

1:11:35I think one of the challenges, and particularly in the last probably five, 10 years, one of the things we started to realize is many of our neuroimaging approaches or measures are probably not as accurate or reliable as we hoped they might be. And so it raises some interesting questions of how often is the brain changing? And if we catch people at the right or the wrong time, will we see different things? So one of the things we noticed, for example, is that if you look at the same person over a period of time, you see a lot of change within that person. So a given individual may have a particular way in which their brain is connected.

1:12:11The functional connectivity, the way that parts of the brain speak to other parts of the brain, that changes massively within a given person over a period of a year or so. So the challenge starts to become if there's that much change within one person, it then gets hard to compare across people. Because if you pick two people and you compare them at different points across the year, it's possible at some point in the year they looked exactly the same. But if you catch them at points where they look really different, it could just be an artifact of where they were in that kind of adaptation of change.

1:12:40So this is one of the challenges. So I guess the short answer is, yes, there's evidence that it causes change. And some of these changes may be beneficial. But I think anything that you do kind of changes the brain. And I think that's, you know, the kind of comment that I made at the beginning of studying the brain, I think is really interesting. But I'm not convinced that it's actually going to tell us what we really want to know about meditation or mindfulness practice in the sense that it's cool and we may see something interesting. But I'm not sure that that necessarily translates into the kinds of change in your day to day life that most people are looking for.

1:13:18what about and you're like neurofeedback in terms of like technology with devices that are you know like they're letting you know when your mind is wandering or i think that's still pretty like elementary and um do you think that that would be useful what could be useful um so we've we've i've been involved with people who have done different types of neurofeedback um i had a phd student I worked with here at the University of Melbourne where we did a neurofeedback study, people certainly seem to benefit from it, which is to say neurofeedback from particular parts of the brain seems to result in changes that seem helpful.

1:14:01There's a number of challenges though, which is to say that the level of benefit or help that people seem to get that might be over and above a placebo, right? So there's some amount of benefit sort of that is just present to the, as a result of the fact that you, you think even whether or not you actually are getting feedback, there's a minimal amount of benefit. It's just like, I know I'm tracking myself. And you can think of it if you don't believe in sort of, you know, you probably have an app on your phone, or you maybe you have a smart ring or a smartwatch or something that tracks, just tracking it, you know, just knowing that you're monitoring how you're going can give you some benefits because it gives you either a sense of control or it may give you the recognition of, oh, my heart rate is elevated.

1:14:42I need to take a few deep breaths, right? And so there is a benefit. Now, whether that's a real benefit or a placebo is an interesting question. So I think that's one challenge. Now, the challenge over and above that is that kind of marginal benefit that you get just from getting feedback becomes harder to exceed with less sophisticated equipment. So most kind of commercial neurofeedback or physiological feedback devices, don't have a level of precision that is going to give you signal from the depth or the parts of the brain that you really potentially would need signal from, right? So using a three or a four or five channel EEG, or even a one channel EEG, which is I think kind of what a lot of standard devices are, it's just not enough signal to actually give you anything useful.

1:15:27I remember there was a randomized control trial not that long ago actually comparing a popular neurofeedback device for meditation to a sham, just putting a headband on and telling it, and it didn't do any better, right? Which is to say sort of that level of feedback, it's just probably not enough to exceed that kind of baseline of expectation of thinking, oh, I'm getting some help. Now, the more advanced forms or versions do seem to help. The question I always have is, to what end? And my concern is always with these kinds of things. and I have the same conversation when I've worked with people developing VR devices.

1:16:01I think it's fascinating. My concern sort of is, will people become dependent on that into practice? I think one of the benefits of doing the practice on your own is you learn how to deal with your interior world. Now, I can imagine a scenario where, and I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of colleagues about this, as an example in VR, where you help the person in a way that is additionally optimal, right? So you give them their ideal setting to learn, and you gradually and slowly basically make them more in the actual world. Does that make sense? So like you start off going, what's your perfect place?

1:16:36You know, oh, you're on a beach in Bali. Great. That's the place that you feel most at peace. You start there and then sort of over time you take away elements of the beach and you actually make them in the room that they're in, right? So gradual, gradual, gradual, you start dropping away the idea that they're at a beach. You remind them that it's VR and you end at a point of going, you're just wearing a headset in a room, right? and maybe what they're looking at is a projection of themselves. And I think that could be really useful in the sense of it could be like training meals, and it could help people sort of in the optimal or ideal conditions, because it is a really hard practice, right?

1:17:07And most people give up because the initial sort of elements of it are too challenging, or they find that they're not getting enough from it. So I do think there could be benefit to this idea of how can we give people a more comfortable, easier start. whether or not that requires fancy expensive equipment. I don't know. I mean, particularly in the Australian context, getting to an MRI machine to get neurofeedback, I suspect for most people, that's not a reality. Similarly, even the kind of more sophisticated EEG headsets, the cost of using them, maintaining them, processing the data is pretty high.

1:17:39So I'm not really sure that kind of commercial grade EEG is all that viable even, or are there even that EEG is enough of a signal for really good beneficial neurofeedback? It's not to say there aren't people that are trying and might be, you know, they're smarter than I am and may be able to figure out a benefit. Again, my concern will always be, you know, will people become dependent on that device? And will they be then ultimately just looking to use that device rather than engaging in the practice? And to be honest, I feel somewhat similarly about psychedelics, which is to say I'm on the fence.

1:18:11I don't have a definitive position as to whether or not they work or not. To be honest, I've seen some problems with the data and the research that's being done. I think they show a lot of promise. I mean, I can't write off the data that's there. It's pretty impressive. but I do have some concerns about this idea of it's essentially a quick way to something you might take you know years of meditation to get to my concern sort of is that what about all the stuff that you want along the way and why would anyone bother to engage in the regular day-to-day practice if they could just have a session with a drug or a shaman and that would get them to the 10-year point so it's kind of like to my mind it's not just where you end up it's also how you get there because the how you get there is ultimately then a major contributor to what you do after that and i think it's important for us to consider that of like okay people want quick solutions and quick fixes there's a real risk i think if we give them to them you know if we give you that we're kind of feeding into this narrative of um it's easy to fix your problems you know if you just spend enough money or go somewhere and do this thing you know you can pay somebody to take you on this experience or guide you through this or put you in this fancy piece of equipment and that'll make it all go away.

1:19:23And the reality is that's not how life works. You know, I mean, whatever you make go away in that particular thing, there will be other things that come up that you can't make go away. Eventually you'll run out of money, time, resources, whatever. So I think there's a bit of an ethical imperative, I think, to have this conversation and go, well, what is it we're trying to get people to do here? You know, what's the end state? I think the answer then to that question as well is sort of is very different of if you got someone who's really struggling or suffering with a pretty terrible condition and you go, I can help them with this intense form of very expensive equipment or medication, maybe the answer is, yeah, absolutely, get them to the end point as quickly as possible.

1:19:58But if you're talking about someone who's dealing with everyday struggles, I'm not really sure that the faster route is the better route. Yeah, I agree. And there was, I keep mentioning this, but nobody else knows about it, so I'm a bit apprehensive to even mention it. But in the book I was reading about, they're trying to use machine learning to decode, like, well language. and they mentioned that in development, I think somewhere in Florida, and it was under like NDAs and stuff, so they couldn't really talk about it. Apparently they were developing an fMRI that didn't need the, it was like a room fMRI because they were saying they could potentially get a whale in it and apparently it was working.

1:20:38I've been chatting to some of my friends that are neuroscientists and they're like, I just don't understand how that could possibly work. So I need to reread that book and then, yeah, try and find out a little bit more. But from that sense, that could be a really interesting way to do it. If you could do your meditation room, you might be able to. Well, I mean, the challenge with those things, like I can, I mean, I know a couple of, I have a couple of friends who sort of looked at, you know, more accessible, scalable ways of doing MRI, for example. The challenge is sort of like, it's, you know, I don't see how that would be beneficial in terms of, you know, it would help one person in that room.

1:21:09So if you want to really know multiple people in the room, like localize into the one person, I don't know that that would necessarily work. I mean, it's interesting, right? Because like in the space of AI or machine learning as well, There is this sense of like, we can get really good at predicting things, right? And we can get really good at personalizing things. One of the concerns that I have, though, is, you know, we're really good at kind of predicting data, right? But are we good at sort of helping people plan a path, which is to say, when we look at sort of, you know, prior to the current generation of AI, what we were really good at sort of taking data sets and training algorithms on them.

1:21:44and we could throw brain scans or whatever at them and say, classify this, tell us what's going on. And they could do it really well. But then you would say, okay, here's a person in an actual scanner, tell us what they're thinking. And it wasn't very good, right? And like that, that was the reality. Now with the advent of kind of LLMs progressing to where they are, that has actually gotten a lot better. But to what extent is it just generalizing to this is the normative experience? And I guess the point sort of being for a given individual, like how likely is the generic kind of on average this is what people seem to be experiencing or thinking in this sort of circumstance how much does that pertain to that particular individual and i think that's kind of the problem of where we're at right like the models that are built are not models that are built around individuals per se they're models that are largely going to be built around kind of average responses and so i think that there is a lot of scope for personalization, right?

1:22:35I think the challenge though, in particular with AI and LLMs is they're designed to give people what they want. And what people want is not necessarily what's good for them, right? So like, again, going back to the like, you know, don't quit before you get to 10 minutes. What you really want is for the session to end. That's not necessarily what is best for you, right? Because you learn, oh, the session's done now. You know, that might be nice, but you don't have the opportunity to learn, oh, I actually could tolerate 10 minutes, right? And that kind of experiential insight of like, oh, maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was, is actually quite helpful.

1:23:10I mean, that's the way that sort of exposure therapy works. Like, you essentially have a realization and a connection of, oh, I actually could tolerate that experience. Like, we avoid it like crazy, right? Because we don't want to be around the thing we're terrified of. But if we can find a way to decouple the emotional reaction from the thing we go oh i actually can be in the same room as a spider i mean that that's amazing right like it all of a sudden go oh wow maybe i can do this right like and over time you repeat it instead of you keep decoupling the emotional response from the stimulus and bang like now you can actually you know hold the spider like so i think kind of this there is this challenge of like you know what is it that people want in the moment versus what do they want in the longer term and again i'm not sure those two things are related yeah or at least not always related definitely and that's a huge relief and i think a huge insight that you can um yeah you can tolerate a higher amount of discomfort and often your predictions about what the thing was is not what you what you thought it was yeah or it's completely different um so is there any recent research in the field that excites you and and could shape the future of mental fitness i think look there's been some really interesting work um Antoine Lutza's group has been trying to develop more sophisticated systems for coding experience and so he's done this really interesting work where um he was looking at practitioners on retreat and he found a way sort of to and I know a couple other groups that have been doing this well they're looking at ways of kind of like somehow querying people about what's going on without being too invasive right so sometimes you just have to do it retroactively if you do it retroactively you need people or you trust are pretty reliable but i know other people that are kind of coming up with ways of going you know we'll give you a button clicker right and you click it a certain number of times or you know um in one case of study i saw a presentation on not that long ago you know so the idea was um the minute you become aware that your mind wandered right click the button right and people are able to integrate that into the routine fairly easily and they did a lot of pilot testing as to what kind of device is least invasive so i think that kind of stuff is super interesting.

1:25:19I think it's super interesting because, you know, while I think the kind of the neuroimaging findings and things like that are flashy and exciting and maybe suggest something really transformative, I think these kinds of things get much closer to what most people actually care about, which is what's the internal experience in a practice and in day to day, right? And so being able to kind of look at, well, what's the trajectory or the change or the shifts in the experience during practice and being able to kind of map that I think is actually really useful. If we kind of have a set of a kind of map of phenomenology as it were of what happens for people in their interior as they're practicing and how does it impact their body, that gets us a lot closer to starting to look at that alongside some of these maps within certain traditions.

1:26:08And they may not match, but it may allow us to use these two pieces of information to build new maps, which are a little bit more empirically based and based on, you know, best contemporary knowledge, but also to draw from, okay, well, you know, in the traditional maps, there's often antidotes, you know, if there's a particular problem, there's a clear antidote, you do this. So I think what we could then see is sort of a scenario where we can actually start to coach people better through, oh, you're having this experience. Here's what we, you know, here's what we would recommend you might do as a result of that.

1:26:39To be honest, I think lots of good teachers already do this. It's not rocket science. The problem, I think, is one of scale. As we're sort of trying to get to more and more people, it's very challenging for us to get expert teachers to connect with individual participants. And so I think these kinds of measures, I think, actually might be a way in which we start to make use of advanced algorithms or modeling in a way sort of that could do something like bringing the expertise of a teacher closer to the person right um so i i think yeah having these more developed maps of of experience and behavior i think that that's what gets me really excited yeah i like that and i agree the scalability is difficult because historically it would have been a teacher that would prescribe these different like you look at the buddha and he seemingly was prescribing different techniques at different times for different individuals yeah and based on, you know, what's going on for them, or, you know, there was, you know, ideas about sort of different temperaments and types and sort of allocating practices based on different temperaments within Buddhist traditions.

1:27:44And I think that that's the challenge we face of, you know, as you go from a one-to-one relationship to a one-to-many relationship, you don't get the same level of, you know, and even worse than that, now we've got a lot, most people sort of these days, I mean, are learning, you know, via video or recording. So there's really no engagement with any teacher whatsoever. So it's kind of all based on the idea of like, in theory, this works for people. And so, you know, whether or not an algorithm could ever play the role of a teacher, you know, whether or not sort of an AI sort of could ever replace the expert, I don't know.

1:28:15Like, I'm not ready to say yes, absolutely. I think there's room for the algorithm to help. I still think the teacher or the clinician or the therapist should be involved. To my mind, sort of the smartest way for it to happen is much as sort of is happening in some parts of medical practice where, you know, the AI is playing a supportive role, right? It's essentially making the menial work easier. And I think I hear everyone, we talk about AI, sort of everyone always says, we don't want AI painting pains for us, you know, writing poetry, writing music, right? We want it to figure out how to mow the lawn.

1:28:48Like we want it to do things that we don't like doing to make our lives better so that we're freed up to do the thing. And here I sort of go, look, But teachers have a certain amount of expertise based on a lot of time, dedication, and experience. You don't want them pressing buttons, right? That's a waste of their time and their talent. But if these algorithms can help summarize some of what's going on for the person and get them quicker to the idea of, okay, what are they actually experiencing? It might then be easier for them to go, oh, here's the thing that you should be doing. Here's the antidote.

1:29:18And that may free them up to engage with more people. And some people may not even need that level of, you know, they may need just. somebody looking at something quickly and pressing a button, or maybe eventually it trains an algorithm to kind of, for low level problems or issues, it gets trained to do it itself, right? And so I think there's a lot of potential in that space. Yeah. Getting it right though, that's the million dollar question. Yeah, agreed. And you would think maybe with enough volume of like teachings, plus if there was some device at home where you could see, you know, maybe you need a specific practice, it might be able to fill some of the gaps, maybe.

1:29:55I just, you know, look, I worry about the quality of what is out there, which I think sort of a lot of people, what the majority of kind of the stuff that is available, like, I mean, essentially we're in the age where everybody gets to have a quote unquote expert opinion, right? It's as easy to, you know, hear the opinion of my neighbor, Bob, online. In fact, it's easier to hear Bob's opinion that it is sort of, you know, the leading expert in, you know, brain surgery, right? So like if I can hear from Bob more easily than a brain surgery and Bob is presented to me as an equivalent expert, like that's a problem.

1:30:30So that's one of the things that worry me is that many of these algorithms are trained using really bad data. And similarly, I think, you know, a lot of the guided practices and sessions out there are not necessarily linked to a tradition and they're not necessarily evidence based or empirically tested either. And so I think it just adds noise, which is to say, we don't really know what they're doing. We don't really know what practice they're engaged in. And we don't really know what the goals of that practice are, because maybe there aren't any, you know, maybe it was just thrown together as something that sounds good.

1:31:02So I think that's a challenge we have to deal with, which is that there's a lot more noise in terms of, you know, if you, if we, if we survey a group of people and we say they're meditating, the amount of variability we get in what they actually say they're doing is wild, right? And that's partially just there's so much stuff and people are mixing and matching all these different practices. Whereas historically, you would have found one teacher. You would have spent five to ten years with that teacher. If that didn't work or you didn't like it, after five to ten years, maybe I need to try something else.

1:31:34Nowadays, it's 30 seconds. I don't like the person's voice. What they do isn't relaxing enough. I don't like the way they dress. Or they cost an extra$10 to pay for this person's package. you know like yeah definitely i myself even suffer with that occasionally and it can be hard right because it's sort of there is often i well how do i know which practice is best for me right and it's sort of this problem of like you know i kind of think about it as the netflix problem like you're overwhelmed by the number of options and so you spend more time trying to figure out what to do than doing anything at all you know that kind of experience where you spend an hour with your partner on the couch when what should we watch and you spend you know an hour flicking through things and you get to you know 9 45 and you go you know what it's too late now for us to watch anything let's just go to bed right it's sort of it's like so at some point i think there is a a risk trade-off kind of in that scenario you know a risk return where you got to go at some point we just have to commit doing something because if you spend hours trying to find the thing you're not gonna you're not really going to engage in that thing if you're changing your practice constantly, you're not really giving any given practice enough time to actually potentially have any benefits.

1:32:44So again, that's sort of where I also go, like I always encourage people to go look, look for practices sort of that are tradition informed and if possible evidence based. That gives you the best bet of getting something useful, you know? Yeah. The other stuff may seem nice and sound nice, and I'm not saying it doesn't work, but you know, if I had to make a bet, I would always bet on the tradition based, you know, empirically backed stuff. Yes. And it's a little bit in the land of speculation, I guess, but I remember Shinzen Yang was talking about that he felt he might have some obscure mathematical formula to create an AI that was like compassion based.

1:33:20Do you have any, do you know about that or have any thoughts on that? I mean, I'm not aware of that thing in particular. I mean, I know of Shin Jin-young, and I know people who work with him quite well. I've met him a few times. Look, one of the things that worries me about this argument about compassion or empathy in AI again goes back to the, is it what we think is compassionate and empathic as opposed to what is actually empathetic or compassionate? And the best example that I can give, there was a study that many people talk about It was published in JAMA, maybe not the main JAMA journal, but quite a high JAMA journal, Journal of the American Medical Association.

1:34:01And it was comparing perceived empathy of responses from doctors versus a chatbot. So these patients would go on and kind of post complaints or they were engaging in a chat or whatever. And the conclusions were the compassion-based chatbot does a much better job than the doctors. And my big issue with this is the doctors are busy. They have very limited time, right? They're probably dealing with the people in front of them rather than the people that are online. So you've got an AI that has unlimited time, right? Unlimited resources. And its objective is to make these people feel as if they've been seen or heard, right?

1:34:41So are they actually being seen or heard or do they just feel as if they have? Now, is there a difference? I don't know. Maybe there's not. Maybe feeling that way is the same as actually having been. I think this is where we start to get into a philosophical space, though, because there's a number of philosophers, one in particular at Yale, I'm blanking on the guy's name, he wrote a book called This Life. And one of his arguments sort of is that one of the ways in which we determine the value of something is by sort of the sacrifice that is made for it, which is to say, if someone is spending their time with you, that is a sacrifice on their behalf.

1:35:15Now, you may be paying them, but they could have equally spent that time with somebody else. And you know, for example, they can only see eight patients in a day if they're a psychologist or psychotherapist, right? So something about that may actually give that thing value. It may convey to you, wow, this person is spending their time with me when they could be playing a video game, going to the movies, spending time with their kids. Yes, I'm paying them, but there is value in that, whereas the AI could be with anybody, right? So I think it comes down to a really interesting philosophical question, which is, is the perception of the thing the thing itself?

1:35:47And I don't know that I don't have the answer to that. I just said it's well outside my realm of expertise. My personal position, though, is that I'm not prepared to concede to the AI thing that seems empathetic, right? Yeah. Because the way that I think of empathy or compassion is it's actually it's a human thing. Right. And like, I'm not sure that things that, you know, that don't have limited resources can convey it in a meaningful way. It might be nice to be acknowledged and heard. And certainly I'd rather that than, you know, your average call center worker. Right. Or, you know, the person that you engage with when you stand in the queue at, you know, the Vic roads, whatever, you know, I mean, they're they're tired, exhausted, whatever.

1:36:26so i think in those scenarios it may be great but you know as somebody that you engage with in terms of helping you with meditation i don't know yeah i mean we're already there aren't we if you chat to chat dbt is already like seemingly you know it's very it's a good great listener very uh but again the problem sort of this is really coming out now right in sort of the amount of kind of delusions and hallucinations that sort of it's i don't want to say causing but certainly it's um it's supporting or fueling. The problem is it's kind of giving you what you want, right? And so what you want may not make sense.

1:36:58It may not be logical. It may not even be good for you. And so I think you get into the same scenario of it. It may be overly, I mean, again, I sort of think there's an ethics route in here sort of of, there are certain circumstances in which, you know, yes, you can be kind, compassionate, but sometimes you actually need to be told that what you want or what you're doing is not white or not okay or not acceptable. And, you know, if you have these sort of programs set up to not do that, to only give you what you want. I think there's a real risk and there sort of isn't that kind of loving, you know, discernment, right?

1:37:30So I really like that word discernment. I feel like it's a really important word that we don't talk about that, but like when are things helpful and when are they not? Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. So as we start to, this will do my final question actually. So what's your long-term vision for the future of contemplative science and how could organizations like fit mind contribute look i think um i mean i think the the field sort of has grown a lot um it's still a really young field i mean you know when you think about it um the kind of first real legitimate research into meditation was in the 70s with tm um there wasn't a whole lot before that um the mindfulness movement really started in the 80s.

1:38:13So, I mean, relative to a lot of other areas, you know, the kind of scientific academic study of this is pretty young. I think there's lots of room for growth. I think, you know, we focus really heavily on a very limited number of practices from a very limited number of traditions. So I think there's the scope and possibility of kind of really broadening the number of traditions, the number of practices, the styles of practices. I think a lot can be learned from the model that has been used to date, which I think, you know, most of the practices have been largely Buddhist. And I think, you know, Buddhist instructions are pretty articulate, at least in many Buddhist traditions.

1:38:51And they use language that I think a lot of people would agree is sort of largely amenable to scientific inquiry, which is not to say the practices and suggestions are necessarily scientific, but the descriptions and the terms are pretty easily pinned down. There are other traditions, for example, where the supposition is actually you have a lot of, say, scriptural knowledge as a pre-existing condition. So in many of the Christian practices, for example, you have to know a lot about theology and religious ideology and things like that before you can even begin to engage with the practice. And that sort of presents for a lot of people an insurmountable gap because it takes them so long potential to get up to speed before they can even engage with the basic instructions.

1:39:35So I think there's a possibility where other practices in dialogue with practices that have been studied, we can start to kind of figure out how do we map these things and make them more accessible. My fear, my concern, and the thing that I think needs to happen is that we do need to be nuanced. You know, we do need to be pragmatic. We need to recognize that not everyone's going to engage in our practices in the way that we want them to. and I think that also entails then a level of honesty sort of that maybe we don't love because it sort of requires us to acknowledge the limitations of what we're offering and I think with that honesty sort of the reality sort of is some people could really really benefit the trade-off will always be sort of that that level of honesty sort of will be perceived as many as undermining our reach or our ability sort of to engage.

1:40:28But my sense is, you know, if you don't have it, then the engagement is not meaningful, right? You may be engaging people, but you're certainly not retaining them. So I think that there is that potential, right, for us to recover from, you know, an excessive kind of aggressive level of marketing to actually, there's a legitimate opportunity here for people to engage with something very meaningful in a way that kind of fits the work for them. And I think particularly in a time and a context where many people, I think, are experiencing considerable deficits in purpose and meaning, with a push away from traditional religious orientations, I think people are really looking for how do I reconnect?

1:41:08How do I find purpose? How do I find meaning? I think self-reflection meditative practices really have a potential to fill an incredible gap in society, It gives people the skills and the ability to just be with themselves and to figure out what it is they want and how they want to be in the world and how to explore frameworks that make sense for them. But it's going to require some challenging, difficult conversations to navigate that. I think organizations like FitMind, I think one of the best things that can be done is figuring out ways to actually work with the data that is accessible and available.

1:41:45I think one of the things that's hardest around various kind of tech or digital platforms is they represent an incredible amount of potential access and data. But the thing that I was just talking about, right, sort of acknowledging the flaws and the warts, you know, some companies and organizations have found sort of they fear too much that identifying where things have gone wrong will undermine their marketing. and as a result they just don't want to engage with any kind of evaluation. And so I think my position on this is that identifying things that aren't working is a good thing, not a bad thing.

1:42:24And as any organization that has any level of ethical commitment and framing, it's a really good thing. You want to be doing for the people that are engaging with your product. You want to know when something isn't working such that you can advocate more for the things that are and help people when they aren't. You can only do that when you're actually examining what's going on, Like you're using the information you have available to you. You're looking at what people engage most with. When people are kind of saying this doesn't really work, you know, you're actually going, how do we actually figure out whether it's working?

1:42:55You know, maybe it's not that it's not working. Maybe it's just that it takes longer than we thought. Or maybe the instructions somehow aren't resonating with them. So I think there's huge potential for that. I think there's also a lot of potential on exactly these kinds of platforms to connect more with teachers. I've talked to a lot of teachers who I think are just kind of busily doing their thing. And, you know, they don't, to be honest, like a lot of them kind of, they've been teaching meditation for so long. They're not necessarily putting their hand up or looking for an act that they can feature on.

1:43:26Yeah. But they have an incredible amount of knowledge. And often their spirit and their generosity is unparalleled. And like, they're often willing, like I've talked to a few where they're just like, I would happily give guided practice sessions to any app that wants them as long as they make them available for free. And so I think that represents an incredible rich source of guided practice. But it's finding a way to work with these people, which is to say, you know, they may not have the nicest sounding voice, or they may not be willing to record it in a studio, and they may not do 10 takes, right?

1:43:59But I think sort of recognizing that again and sort of noticing sort of that, you know, working with imperfections is part of the process. It's all about sort of how I think we present this to the consumer, which is to say it's not always going to be perfect. And I think, again, when we think about a lot of commercial platforms that are for profits, I think there's so much emphasis on it being a really wonderful, pleasant, polished experience that I think it can be misleading. right and it can maybe even imply or suggest that the inner experience ought to be that polished and pleasant and that's certainly not the reality for a lot of people so i think overall i think there is this possibility that we can do what was kind of originally outlined in plan you know when cabot's in and others got together and said we really need a revolution you know we need a we need things to fundamentally change and shift and contemplative practices sort of present that opportunity, I think that's still true.

1:44:51I think we've got waylaid in the appeal of certain approaches and ideas, but I still think it's possible for us to regain momentum and have a real good hard look at what we're doing and how we're doing it and go, these can do a lot of good in the world and we need them now more than ever. It was true 30 years ago when I recently read a white paper that had been written in the early mindfulness movement. I thought the most of what is written here applies even more today than it did in the 90s right things are more broken now than they were then but the realization of this stuff just hasn't quite happened yet so we really have to figure out why not they had a lot of foresight then um so for anybody that wants to find out more about your work um or what you're doing at the center but where would you recommend them to go google contemplative study center yeah uh unimail um and it'll be the thing that comes up amazing and yeah thank you so much i think your view is very balanced and refreshing and and yeah really appreciate the work you're doing thank you so much for joining forever thank you so much for listening to the episode if you enjoyed it please if you could give us a like a subscribe and hit the notification bell that would really help us out or just share this episode with a friend share the course with a friend anything would go such a long way thank Thank you so much and I hope to see you soon.