Mindfulness and Education: Cultivating Emotional Intelligence

In his best-selling 2012 book The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, describes his initiation into vipassana meditation as a young Harvard graduate student living in India in the early 1970s: “I had directly experienced a tectonic change in how I perceived the world, shaking off the concept of pain as if it were no more than a speck of lint on my shirt, and cultivating a deep and lasting sense of contentment in the moment.” With this realization decades ago, Davidson, a pioneer in the field of affective neuroscience studying emotion and emotion regulation, set his feet to the path of linking mindfulness to science.

Davidson’s identification of the neural bases of emotion and emotional styles, along with his development of the hybrid discipline of contemplative neuroscience, places him squarely at the “Center for Investigating Healthy Minds,” which is the name of his University of Wisconsin research facility, The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (CIHM) is the first research facility in the world to house both a brain imaging lab and meditation space under one roof. CIHM opened in 2010, blessed and funded by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

Davidson’s work on the brain mechanisms underpinning compassion, empathy, and altruism has led to groundbreaking forays into “kindness curriculum” research and development. His work is at the leading investigative edge of using mental training to lessen emotional reactivity while enhancing attention and pro-social behavior.