The Center for Contemplative Research was founded in 2002 to advance interdisciplinary research on consciousness through collaboration between scientists and contemplatives. The research will study meditation, attention, mindfulness, and their effects on the brain, aging, and well-being. Phase 1 of constructing the research center's facilities in Tuscany, Italy is complete, but $2.8 million is still needed to finish construction and begin research aimed at transforming fields like education, health, and business.

2. The Center for Contemplative Research is a project of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, founded in
2002 by Alan Wallace. The Santa Barbara Institute is dedicated to interdisciplinary research and education to advance
understanding of the nature and potentials of consciousness. It was established as a nexus for advancing interdisciplinary and
cross-cultural understanding that joins scientific knowledge and spiritual practice. It is a non-sectarian organization that reaches
out to the scientific and academic communities, a variety of contemplative traditions, and the general public.
The research at CCR will be a collaboration between internationally renowned scientists and contemplatives. The purpose of
this research is to fathom the nature and potentials of consciousness, the origins of the human mind and the nature of death, and
the inner sources of both mental well-being and unhappiness.
Our aspiration is to help catalyze the first true revolution in the mind sciences. Insights gained from this research will be
applied to the fields of education, mental health, business, and government.
The scientific study of the nature and potentials of consciousness

3. The initial emphasis of the contemplative training at the Center will be on the achievement of shamatha, a deep state of
meditative concentration in which the meditator’s psyche dissolves into a primal continuum known as the substrate
consciousness.
As meditators in our Center progress along these stages, shifts in their neurophysiology will be monitored with EEG
(electroencephalogram) and fMRI, magnetic resonance imaging used to demonstrate correlations between physical changes (as in
blood flow) in the brain and mental functioning (as in performing cognitive tasks). Other physiological tests will be conducted,
included measurements of immune cell telomerase activity, which are related to the aging process. In addition, psychological
studies will be made regarding the influence of this meditative training on attention, mindfulness, and emotional balance. As
meditators progress in their practice, they will share their own subjective experiences and insights with the scientists so that close
correlations can be made between these first-person and third-person perspectives.
This will be the first true collaboration between advanced contemplatives and scientists in the study of meditation.
Discoveries made by means of such research will then be applied to the fields of education, mental health, and so on.
The largest scientific study of meditation conducted to this day

4. Jerome Engel, M.D., Ph.D
Director of Reed Neurological Research Center; David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Professor of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and a member of the Brain Research
Institute at UCLA. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University, his advanced degrees from Stanford
University, and completed his training in neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
The Team | Scientific and Contemplative Excellence
Paul Ekman, Ph.D
Dept. of Psychology at UCSF. Dr. Ekman was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine and
ranked fifteenth among the most influential psychologists of the 21st century.
“The center Alan Wallace proposes would be of great benefit in bringing together diverse scientists with experienced
contemplative practitioners to help us better understand attention and consciousness. I am glad to not only endorse this
proposal, but would do what I can to help bring it into existence.”
Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD
Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009. She was named to the TIME 100 in 2007,
the magazine’s yearly list of the most influential people in the world. She is a member of numerous prestigious scientific
societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the Royal Society of London.

5. His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. Nobel Peace Prize.
“I am delighted that the Center for Contemplative Research, under development in Tuscany, Italy, has taken up the challenge in
not only offering opportunities for rigorous mind-training, but also in supporting collaborative research by practiced
contemplatives and scientists. Together they seek to explore the inner sources of mental conflict and distress, the roots of
genuine wellbeing, and the origins, nature, and potentials of the mind.”
The Team | Scientific and Contemplative Excellence
B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. Stanford University.
Alan Wallace is a prominent voice in the emerging discussion between contemporary Buddhist thinkers and scientists.
In 1971 and moved to Dharamsala, India to study Tibetan Buddhism, medicine and language. He was ordained by H.H. the
Dalai Lama, and over fourteen years as a monk he studied with and translated for several of the generation’s greatest lamas.
In 1984 he resumed his Western education at Amherst College where he studied physics and the philosophy of science. He
then applied that background to his PhD research at Stanford on the interface between Buddhism and Western science and
philosophy.
Since 1987 he has been a frequent translator and contributor to meetings between the Dalai Lama and prominent scientists,
and he has written and translated more than 40 books. Along with his scholarly work, Alan is regarded as one of the West’s
preeminent meditation teachers and retreat guides. He is the founder and director of the Santa Barbara Institute for
Consciousness Studies and is the motivating force behind this project.

6. Over the past two years, more than US$1.2 million dollars has been raised, thanks to the generosity of supporters from many
different countries.
This has enabled us to purchase the 5 hectares of land in Toscana, Italy and a building for CCR’s headquarters and the
science lab. Eighteen meditation cabins will be built on that land. All design have completed. Our cabins are designed specifically
to support meditators in long-term retreat providing comfortable and healthy conditions for months and years of solitary practice.
Local city council formally approved our project. On July 30, 2019 the local city council formally approved our project to build
18 cabins, therefore, we expect to be permitted to begin construction of the cabins by the autumn of 2020.
Site development status | Phase 1: Fully funded

7. To complete all the cabins, bring water and electricity, build the access and internal roads, plant the garden and orchards,
and renovate the headquarters house will require another US$2.8 million.
We already collect US$ 400 000 among our community. All around the world we have 29 regional advocates of the CCR and
more than 5,000 recipients of our newsletter, most of whom are students of Alan Wallace.
We are going to run fundraising auction in Santa Barbara on March 7, 2020. The auction will be combined with an event, a
dinner cum conference. The auction will be both online and live.
Please help us to reach our goal, so that we may begin this unprecedented research as swiftly as possible!
We believe it can transform our world.
Site development status | Phase 2: Fundraising

8. Our aspiration is to help catalyze the
first true revolution in the mind
sciences.
8

9. Modern science and
ancient contemplative practice
will fuse into a
new science of the mind.
9

10. Our civilization need to develop a
truly scientific understanding of
consciousness, and how to harness
it for the benefit of all.
10

11. Insights gained from this research
will transform our world in
the fields of education, mental
health, business, and government.
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12. www.centerforcontemplativeresearch.org