Dharma Lab

In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richie Davidson explore how exercising your body can also become a way to train your mind. We asked Richie why exercise supports neuroplasticity, and why a more changeable brain isn’t necessarily a happier one. We also discuss what makes a workout meditation, and share how we bring these practices into our own biking, walking, and yoga routines.

Enjoy!

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In this episode of Dharma Lab, Cortland Dahl and Richard Davidson unpack the difference between experiential fusion, being so absorbed in an experience that awareness narrows, and meta-awareness, the capacity to know what your mind is doing while you’re doing it. They explore why activities like movies, video games, rock climbing, Sudoku, and even doomscrolling can feel good in the moment, how they temporarily suppress the br...

How much of what we experience comes from the world itself, and how much comes from our expectations about it? In our latest AMA, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl explore how the brain constructs perception, why the gap between reality and expectation can amplify suffering, and what changes when we begin to notice that process as it happens. We ...

Dharma Lab’s First Guided Meditation Hour

In Dharma Lab’s first guided practice hour, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richard Davidson took us from talking about wellbeing to actually practicing it. Drawing on the Healthy Minds framework of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, shaped through years of research and practice connected with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Humin...

In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richard Davidson explore why attention feels harder to control than it used to, how modern technology exploits basic mechanisms in the brain, and what we can do to regain more choice over where our attention goes. They discuss why we may be more distracted than we were 50 years ago, how novelty and emotion capture attention, and why simple acts of intentionality can function ...

(The full AMA recording plays in the video pane above, for Dharma Lab members.)

In our 11th AMA, Kim read your questions while Cort made his way back from a retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche. Richie spoke to a study where strangers could tell who the meditators were, from a photo alone.

What’s inside

* Full recording and transcript for paid members

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For years, headlines claimed that meditation could actually grow parts of the brain. But what if that’s not the most interesting question?

As the science has evolved, researchers have shifted their focus. What changes in the brain? Which changes matter most? And why might some structural changes grow, then recede, as expertise develops?

In this conversation, Richie and Cort explore what decades of neuroscience have taught us, w...

Sharon Salzberg joins Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl for a conversation about loving-kindness, connection, and the quiet ways our lives are supported by others.

At a time when many people feel lonely, cut off, or pulled into habits of criticism and competition, Sharon offers a simple experiment: pause, notice who makes your life possible, and see what happens when appreciation becomes part of daily life.

Sharon Salzberg is a medit...

Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl explore how stable differences in brain activity may shape personality and the ways we engage with the world. They discuss introversion, anxiety, approach and withdrawal styles, what meditation can change without erasing our natural dispositions, and how meta-awareness can help us find the strengths in our own brain style.

This is the third part in a series on Brain Asymmetry:

Part 1: Your B...

We now live in a world where boredom is almost optional. The moment there is a gap in the day, we can reach for a device and instantly distract ourselves.

In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl explore boredom and restlessness from both a scientific and contemplative perspective. Richie explains why boredom often brings us face to face with the “default mode” of the brain, the self-refe...

In this episode, Richie and Cort continue their conversation on brain asymmetry by revisiting one of the most popular neuroscience ideas of the 1990s: the divide between the “left brain” and the “right brain.” Was the right hemisphere really the creative side of the brain, and the left hemisphere the logical one? Richie explains where that idea came from, what it got right, and why it was taken too far. Alon...

In this episode, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl unpack a very misunderstood molecule in popular culture: dopamine. Often blamed for craving, scrolling, distraction, and the endless loop of wanting more, dopamine is not something we can “detox” from or simply turn off. It is essential to motivation, aspiration, learning, and even the desire to practice meditation. Together, Richie and Cort explore what dopamine actual...

In this episode, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl deeply explore the science of the emotional brain: why the mind is a storyteller, what split-brain research reveals about consciousness, how brain asymmetry shapes emotion, why some people approach opportunity with optimism while others withdraw, and what meditation may do to the brain and immune system. Enjoy!

See below for FLASHCARDS, Full Transcript Below

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Relationships can be one of the most powerful parts of the spiritual path because they reveal the parts of ourselves we cannot easily see alone. In this episode of Dharma Lab, Cortland Dahl and Richie Davidson are joined by meditation teachers and authors Devin and Nico Hase to explore how Buddhist practice can help us navigate love, conflict, vulnerability, appreciation, and repair. Drawing on their new book, This Messy, Gorgeous ...

Dr. Richie Richard Davidson, Cortland Dahl, Dan Goleman Discussion

Chapter Summary:

00:05:51 — Dan Goleman returns from India and meets Richie Davidson at Harvard00:06:38 — Studying meditation in academia when the field dismissed it00:07:11 — Their careers diverge: journalism at the New York Times and neuroscience research00:08:08 — The Mind & Life Institute and first meetings with the Dalai Lama00:09:20 &...

We are so honored to welcome Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche to another episode of Dharma Lab.

In today’s conversation with Cort and Richie, Rinpoche shares practical ways to stay present in a busy life: a powerful metaphor (“time is like a rubber band”), an “inner sky” teaching for working with anxiety and emotional storms, and a simple micro-practice you can try in under a minute.

They also explore why medita...

Jon Kabat-Zinn joins Richie and Cort for a wide-ranging conversation on mindfulness, science, and what it means to fully inhabit your life.

From the launch of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in a hospital basement in 1979 to more than 1,000 scientific papers a year on mindfulness today, this episode traces how a simple practice entered mainstream medicine and reshaped the way we understand stress, healing, and human potent...

Flourishing is multi-dimensional. In today’s episode of Dharma Lab, we apply the four dimensions of flourishing (awareness, connection, insight, and purpose), to something we all experience: anxiety.

When these skills are at our fingertips, we can deploy different ones in different contexts, or bring several to bear at once. Together, they form a rich set of practices to enhance well-being in everyday life.

Our discussion exp...