Foreword to Advances in Meditation Research: Neuroscience and Clinical Applications

摘要

It is my great privilege to introduce this volume of Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and highlight the unique scientific dialogue borne of the remarkably successful conference series "Advances in Meditation Research" (AMR). For these accomplishments I must first thank the speakers for their dedication and work; my co-organizers, Rael Cahn and David Vago, for endless hours of preparation; filmmakers Susan Finley and Bruce Bailey; Vassia Alaykova for her inspired design; and the conference participants for their contributions, persistence, and positive feedback that has prompted early planning for the next AMR conference in 2015. The simple goal of this meeting was to create meaningful clinical and educational applications for meditation practices by scientific inquiry and technological invention. I will briefly discuss the essence of these meaningful applications in the context of specific studies that are leading translational meditation research.