The Importance of Critical Thinking in Mind and Life

In this episode, Wendy speaks with Buddhist scholar and contemplative educator and researcher Brendan Ozawa-de Silva. Brendan has been studying and teaching mindfulness and compassion for over a decade, and has lately been focusing on integrating trauma-informed and embodied practices into his work. This conversation covers many topics, including:

• his interest in contemplation (and an introduction to the Japanese practice of Naikan);
• adapting contemplative training to a variety of settings;
• the capacity of young people for compassion, mindfulness, and conceptual frames;
• what's missing in contemplative research;
• empathy/compassion as something that arises between people;
• the embeddedness of researchers in the systems they study;
• the SEE Learning program;
• trauma in the body & nervous system regulation;
• understanding different forms of trauma;
• healing and forgiveness;
• barriers to compassion, misunderstandings about the meaning of compassion;
• how the world is built on compassion;
• and new teaching endeavors with experiential learning.

Full show notes and resources