Mindful Research Retreat (1-2 weeks) - July 20, 2025

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[More info on our 1-2 week retreat July 20, 2025: INTP - Mindful Research Retreat 2025]

Research is somehow frustrating by nature – we try to solve unsolvable problems, and fail often. A friend of mine even said that a good scientist is depressed most of the time. I don’t like this.

Another practice that is arguably even more frustrating is meditation – e.g., Buddhist monks try to solve the unsolvable problem of enlightenment with long hours of focused daily practice and study – and yet they aren’t depressed.

I’ve had a dream for the last 10 years to create a Research Monastery somewhere in the mountains, with similar deep daily practice and study – just working on our science instead of the Zen koans (which aren’t so different). Can research create joy and wisdom instead of frustration?

Now, this is becoming a reality – together with INTP institute in the Pyrenees mountains (border of France and Spain), we’re putting together a 1-2 week retreat to try just this! I’ve been hosting workshops where I teach how to turn intellectual work into a mindfulness practice, and got remarkably positive feedback – which inspired me to make the retreat.

I believe that this really is at the core of all problems we see in academia: if we feel frustrated, stressed and rushed while doing our work, then our discoveries will only create more frustration and stress in the world. Thus to save the world, we begin with ourselves: can we truly enjoy our work and let ourselves be transformed by it?

Check out this blog post for a deeper discussion.

Curious to hear any thoughts, feedback, discussion!

and reach out to me at pchvykov@igdore.org about the retreat

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Hello. Do you about the Mind & Life Institute (https://www.mindandlife.org/)? They have a similar approach about contemplative methods and research, although they are more focused on cognitive science. They also hold retreats (I went to a few of those, in North America). Where is your proposed retreat in the Pirineos?

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Thanks for your note - I’d be curious to hear about your experience at their retreats. I’ve only seen work on doing research of mindfulness, but never research mindfully – and I’ve felt like that’s sorely missing from their work to “walk the talk.” Our retreat is at INTP institute - you can read about them in the link above. If you’re thinking about these topics, let’s have a chat and share ideas!

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Indeed a lot of research has been done on mindfulness; we also were investigating brain coordinated activity during meditation, for a while, but found nothing significant. Their retreats were, I guess, the typical meditation retreats but with some discussion on the neuroscience of meditation and consciousness. And by the way, research, of all types, has to be done mindfully, otherwise one makes mistakes! I’ll check out that INTP, sounds interesting, and since I live in Northern Spain I may consider visiting…