Tomorrow Talks: Virtual Reality Meditation: The Way of the Future?
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
June 11th | 6 - 8 pm
Contemplative Commons, 403 Emmet Street S.
Meditation is getting a firmware update. In this delightfully mind-bending session, a contemplative sciences scholar, a tech-savvy inventor, and a meditation facilitator join forces to chart the strange and numadelic future of inner peace—now in Virtual Reality. Together, they’ll unpack how age-old practices are being reimagined through immersive tech, all within the dreamy digital vistas of the aNUma aesthetic. Expect philosophical provocations, pixelated serenity, and just maybe, a glimpse of enlightenment through a headset. VR demos included—third eyes optional.
All tickets are donation based on a sliding scale ($15 - $35). Please pay what you can to support the series.
FACILITATORS
Michael R. Sheehy, PhD is a meditation researcher and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. He is a Research Associate Professor and Director of Research at the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia where he is principal at the CIRCL, Contemplative Innovation + Research Collaborative Lab and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Contemplative Studies.Â
Michael studies how meditation works – how the generative, dynamic, and ever-evolving processes of contemplation advance our understanding of being human and enhancing life. His research gives attention to historical contemplative practices in dialogue with contemporary discourses in the humanities, cultural psychology, and the cognitive sciences. In the CIRCL lab, their research investigates practices and experiences of contemplation through myriad lenses, including cultural, historical, phenomenological, and neurophysiological.Â
Michael has authored dozens of articles on topics ranging from models of mind to cognitive illusion and lucid dreaming to mindfulness and nondual meditation. He is a lifelong honorary Mind & Life Research Fellow and co-chair of the Contemplative Studies unit at the American Academy of Religion. His work has been featured in Psyche magazine and National Geographic.
David Glowacki, PhD, MAÂ is a cross-disciplinary researcher, artist, and author whose interests span computer science, nanoscience, aesthetics, cultural theory, and neuroscience. He has worked extensively in scientific simulation, and more recently in the use of VR to interactively visualize real-time simulations.Â
He is the Founder and Director of the Intangible Realities Laboratory, a research group based in Northern Spain at the CiTIUS Intelligent Technology Research Center in Santiago de Compostela, working at the immersive frontiers of scientific, aesthetic, computational, and technological practice. He is also a co-founder of aNUma, which has developed the technology to support numadelic experiences which dissolve our conventional representation of self into light.Â
He is the recipient of several prestigious scientific research awards from organizations including the Royal Society of London, the European Research Commission, the Philip Leverhulme Trust, and the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. His immersive digital artworks, which are designed to dissolve our sense of separated individual identity by re-imagining our interconnectedness to the invisible networks in which we are embedded, have been experienced by more than 200,000 people on four continents. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, several of which have been highlighted in prominent international media outlets.
Lama Karma (Justin Wall) is a teacher in the Karma Kagyu and Shangpa Kagyu lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the spiritual director of the Milarepa Retreat Center in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He also serves as lead designer and facilitator for aNUma, a company specializing in offering virtual reality experiences for persons and their families facing a terminal diagnosis.
CO-HOSTS
The Contemplative Sciences Center’s mission is to explore how higher education can better and more centrally facilitate the flourishing of students as whole individuals. We think of flourishing as a process of realizing well-being by achieving deep states of health and actualization of potential in all aspects of life—physical, social, emotional, cognitive, academic, and professional. This means actively contributing to the well-being and flourishing of other people, other communities, and the natural world. We pursue our mission at the University of Virginia and beyond through academic, co-, and extracurricular programming, transformative technologies, research, scholarship, and social innovations.
CIRCL: Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab, is a dynamically experimental collaboratory at the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center. CIRC investigates carefully how contemplative practices work in bodies and minds, cultures and ecologies, ourselves and our worlds. In the lab, we understand contemplation to be both a diverse suite of artful practices that can be learned and experiences that can be curated to enhance and transform lives. Our cutting-edge research leverages the humanities, sciences, arts, and technology to generate novel solutions to advance human flourishing. https://csc.virginia.edu/research/circl/virtual-reality
aNUma, Inc. is a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC) with a mission to help people in all phases of life embrace mortality and through that, live and die well.
We are committed to the emergence of ethical technology that nurtures awareness, promotes psychological flourishing, and elevates consciousness.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Tomorrow Talks are a year-long series that picks up critical themes from our April Festival and continues the conversations to create impact in Charlottesville. Each session is facilitated with an emphasis on participation, connection, and new collaborations.Â
Tomorrow Talks begin with a connection exercise or meditation, and proceed into a presentation and breakout activities. They aim to impart knowledge that is practical and relevant to people's lived experience; combining academic or theoretical insights, alongside pragmatic tools, and experiential and somatic learnings.