About Us
The Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom is a nonprofit corporation with 501c3 (tax-exempt) status. Its mission is to offer skillful means for changing the brain to benefit the whole person – and all beings in a world too full of war. It draws on psychology, neurology, and the great contemplative traditions for tools that anyone can use in daily life for greater happiness, love, effectiveness, and wisdom.
At the Wellspring Institute, we bring together the best of modern psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative wisdom to help you cultivate greater happiness, resilience, and inner peace. Founded by Dr. Rick Hanson and Dr. Richard Mendius, our work is rooted in the understanding that lasting well-being is not just a matter of circumstance but of training the mind—rewiring the brain for more joy, calm, and emotional strength.
The Institute aims to accomplish this mission through:
Highlighting discoveries and methods
found in the intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice
Addressing a range of needs
from psychological healing and well-being to spiritual realization
Respecting the unique path of each person
through offering a diversity of tools that you can systematically individualize
Collecting, organizing, and distributing resources
for psychological and spiritual growth; actively supporting the work of others aligned with the Institute’s mission
Maintaining an empirical, ecumenical, and pragmatic attitude
—not privileging science over spiritual wisdom (or vice versa), and not privileging any particular contemplative tradition (or school within a tradition)
Taking a particular interest
in adapting methods from the monastic traditions for lay people committed to contemplative practice
The major activities of the Institute include:
- Sponsoring and developing the Your Skillful Means Website – an expanding resource of psychological, interpersonal, and spiritual methods; unlike most wikis, which focus on content, this one offers tools
- Publishing the Wise Brain Bulletin bimonthly
- Maintaining and expanding the Wise Brain website, a hub of resources for psychological well-being and spiritual depth
- Supporting the dissemination of useful information and skills through lectures, classes, workshops, etc.
Founders
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author. His seven books have been published in 33 languages and include Making Great Relationship, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture – with over a million copies in English alone. He’s the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as the co-host of the Being Well podcast – which has been downloaded over 9 million times. His free newsletters have 260,000 subscribers, and his online programs have scholarships available for those with financial needs. He’s lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, his work has been featured on CBS, NPR, the BBC, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide. He and his wife live in northern California and have two adult children. He loves the wilderness and taking a break from emails.
Rick Mendius, M.D., is a neurologist, author, and teacher. He trained at UCLA as an epileptologist under Jerome Engel and as a neurobehaviorist under Frank Benson and Jeff Cummings. He has been on the teaching faculty of UCLA, Oregon Health Sciences University, and Stanford University. His meditation practice began in the 1980s with Shinzen Young in Los Angeles, and continues at Spirit Rock with Jack Kornfield, Phillip Moffitt, Ajahn Amaro, and Ajahn Sumedho.
Rick leads a weekly meditation class at San Quentin Prison, and teaches daylongs at Spirit Rock, Sati Center, and other organizations. He has authored numerous articles for the Wise Brain Bulletin, and he has a particular interest in the long-term effects of meditation on aging, and in longitudinal research on contemplative practice. He played an instrumental role in Buddha’s Brain, and co-authored Meditations to Change Your Brain.
With Dr. Hanson, he co-founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. Rick’s daughters, Courtney and Taryn, and his son, Ian, are three of his main teachers and companions on the path.
You can contact Rick at jrichardmendius@aol.com
Board of Directors
James Baraz has been a meditation teacher since 1978.
He is creator and teacher of the Awakening Joy course (since 2003).
He leads retreats, workshops and classes in U.S and abroad.
Co-founding Teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA.
Co-author of Awakening Joy, the book based on the course
(with Shoshana Alexander) and Awakening Joy for Kids (with Michele Lilyanna).
He is a Guiding Teacher for One Earth Sangha, a website devoted to expressing a Buddhist response to Climate Change.
James lives in Berkeley, California with his wife, Jane.
He has two sons and three grandchildren.
Jane Baraz has been meditating since 1976, is a founding board member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and a co-founder of the Spirit Rock Family Program. She completed both the Dedicated Dharma Practitioner’s Program and the Heavenly Messenger Program at SRMC.
She is a mentor for The Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program taught by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. This two-year program trains people to teach mindfulness and compassion in various settings.
Jane teaches Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at the University of California San Francisco. She has taught Mindful Self-Compassion for the MBSR staff at the University of Wisconsin, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the Women’s Cancer Resource Center. She enjoys teaching Awakening Joy workshops and weeklong silent meditation retreats in Europe and at Spirit Rock.
Dr. Andrew Dreitcer is a distinguished scholar and spiritual leader with extensive experience in academia, ministry, and contemplative practices. He currently serves as the Dean of Faculty, Professor of Spirituality, and Co-Director of the Center for Engaged Compassion at Claremont School of Theology. Dr. Dreitcer's research focuses on exploring contemplative practices across religious traditions and their relationship with neuroscience.
As a Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute, Dr. Dreitcer investigates the connections between spiritual practices and neuroscientific understandings, as well as how contemplative practices foster compassionate actions and attitudes1. His background includes serving as a Presbyterian pastor for 15 years and co-founding a seminary program in spiritual direction.
Dr. Dreitcer's diverse experiences also encompass working in Restorative Justice with San Quentin prison residents and training as an organizational and relationship systems coach. His time spent at the ecumenical monastic community of Taizé significantly influenced his spiritual life and academic perspective on contemplative studies.
Daniel Ellenberg, Ph.D., is a leadership coach, licensed therapist, seminar leader, and group facilitator. He is prinicpal in both Rewire Leadership Institute® and Relationships That Work®. He leads workshops on Strength with Heart®, Courageous Conversations, and Self-Compassion, and is a past prsident of the APA’s division on men and masculinities. He is co-author of Lovers for Life, has delivered resilience trainings for NASA, and is a board trustee at the Wellspring Institute of Neuroscience and Contemplative Practice.
Jan Hanson, M.S., L.Ac. is an acupuncturist and nutritionist whose private practice focuses on nutritional medicine, neurochemistry, women’s health, and temperament issues in children. She is co-author of Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships (Penguin, 2002), as well as numerous articles on evidence-based approaches to complementary medicine.
While working in the Neurochemistry Research Laboratory at the Veteran’s Hospital in Sepulveda, California, Jan co-authored a study that was published when she was 18 years old. She went on to receive a B.A. from UCLA and an M.S. from the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences, in addition to extensive training in clinical nutrition, laboratory assessment, and homeopathy. Jan’s personal interests include her young-adult children, as well as playing the piano, doing arts and crafts, and going for walks with good friends.
For more information, please see Jan’s website at http://www.janhealth.com. You can contact her at janhealth@comcast.net.
We would be deeply grateful for any contribution you might like to make to the Institute, from simply your good wishes to written feedback, letting us publish your work, telling us about great resources, volunteering a little time, or making a donation. (Your contributions are tax-deductible, and the tax ID is 26-0328057.)
Because of the leveraged nature of the Institute’s work, any support you offer will make a real difference in the great undertaking of helping individuals gain greater control over their brain’s reactive patterns, for the sake of their own happiness, and for the sake of a planet poised on the edge of the sword. The way our world tips will depend largely on whether a critical mass of people become more skillful with their own minds – and thus their own brains.