The Wellspring Institute
For Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom
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.
The Institute aims to accomplish this mission through:
Highlighting the 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:
Publishing the Wise Brain Bulletin twice each month
Sponsoring focused, low-overhead research activities, such as literature reviews of the neurology
of meditation, pilot studies of peak states of mind, and the first longitudinal study of the effects of
long-term contemplative practice
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.
Putting on conferences, often with other organizations, such as the annual interfaith conference:
"This Is Your Brain on . . . God?"
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.) We invite you to learn more about the Institute's recent and
upcoming activities, and how you might support its longitudinal study and its interfaith conference.
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.
