R. Adam Engle

R. Adam Engle (born February 17, 1942, in Yonkers, New York, U.S.) is an American social entrepreneur who initiated and developed the Mind and Life Dialogues between the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and panels of prominent scientists in the 1980s.

[6] Over the next 25 years Engle organized dozens of international conferences between meditators and scientists and oversaw the publication of 11 top-selling books in a successful strategy to establish and popularize the new field of the contemplative sciences.

His two other co-founders were Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, who would chair the dialogues, and Francisco Varela, the late Chilean neuroscientist, who until his untimely death in 2001 would coordinate the teams of scientists with relevant specializations for each conference according to its theme.

[2] At the next dialogue in 2000 Engle proposed that a series of scientific investigations should be carried out under laboratory conditions with the aim of establishing whether Buddhist contemplative practices could be of significant benefit to modern society.

[18] By the time Engle retired from Mind and Life Institute in 2012 he had directed the organization of 27 international dialogues, both private and public, between the Dalai Lama and other meditators and prominent scientists.