Online conference on "Bridging esoteric Vajrayana Buddhist practices with science to enhance human cognition"

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From March 26 to April 4 2021, we organized an international scientific conference on bridging Vajrayana esoteric practices with science to enhance human cognition.

This event was originally planned as a small workshop, but it has become of much larger scope with 13 speakers (including two highly recognized Tibetan lamas from Bhutan and Tibet, and 11 internationally renowned academics) in addition to 8 panelists who were leading discussions and panels during the conference. We had enormous interest from all over the world, we had over 60 academics in the audience from many universities (including Stanford, Harvard, McGill, Univ of Virginia, University of Hong Kong, and others) selected from a much larger pool of those who were interested in attending.

This was a highly interdisciplinary event, and the team of speakers and panelists was composed of psychologists, neuroscientists, medical scientists, historians, and philosophers, working together with Vajrayana scholars and practitioners to examine the effects of mind-body practices of Vajrayana (Himalayan Buddhist tradition) on enhancing human cognition.