From the archive: this Head First conversation with Shinzen Young was recorded in 2018. Shinzen breaks meditation into three trainable skills: concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. We get into pain and suffering, the structure of attention, long-term practice, consciousness, and the places where contemplative experience reaches beyond the available neuroscience. One dated detail matters. Near the end, Shinzen mentions a first human study planned for a few weeks after this recording. That is a 2018 project update, preserved here as part of the original conversation. Shinzen Young developed the Unified Mindfulness system and wrote The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works. Links from this conversation: Life Practice Program: https://www.lifepracticeprogram.com/ Home Practice Program: https://homepracticeprogram.com/ Unified Mindfulness: https://unifiedmindfulness.com/ Shinzen's website: https://www.shinzen.org/ The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781683642121/thescienceofenlightenment/ Later work on the research Shinzen describes with Jay Sanguinetti: https://semalab.arizona.edu/ Host: Dr. Andrew Hill, cognitive neuroscientist and founder of Peak Brain Institute. Learn about QEEG brain mapping and personalized neurofeedback training: https://www.peakbraininstitute.com/contact-us/locations