Inspired by the vision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the University of Pisa has developed a long-term collaboration with Tibetan Buddhist institutions to investigate consciousness through a neurophenomenological approach. Since 2018, research campaigns at Sera Jey Monastic University in South India have brought portable neuroscience laboratories into the natural environment of highly trained meditators, some with tens of thousands of hours of contemplative practice. Beyond showing how different types of meditation affect the brain, this work proved something deeper—Tibetan monasteries aren’t just subjects to be studied but can be real scientific partners. In this article, Istituto Lama Tsongkha (ILTK) board member Prof. Bruno Neri highlights the bridge being built between Western technologies and the ancient contemplative technologies of training and exploring the mind.

More than thirty years ago, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama articulated a clear and far-sighted vision: the dialogue between Buddhism and modern science should not remain an occasional exchange of ideas but should develop into genuine collaborative research. Although their methods differ, both traditions share a fundamental aspiration: to deepen our understanding of reality and, above all, of the nature of the mind.

At the University of Pisa, this vision became an opportunity not simply to study meditation, but to reconsider how consciousness itself should be investigated. Neuroscience has achieved extraordinary success in describing the brain’s electrochemical activity in physical terms. Yet the relationship between those processes and subjective experience remains one of science’s greatest unresolved questions.

Since the 1990s, growing recognition that first-person experience cannot be excluded from consciousness research has encouraged collaboration with people trained over decades in the systematic observation of their own minds. The story that follows is therefore more than that of a research project. It is the account of a long-term partnership between the University of Pisa and Tibetan monastic institutions, above all Sera Jey Monastic University, made possible by the bridge created by FPMT through its Italian center, ILTK.

Looking back, I realize that the most valuable outcome of these years has not been a particular result or publication, but the gradual construction of trust between two communities that might initially seem to belong to very different worlds.

Encouraged by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the University of Pisa began developing partnerships with institutions that have preserved the Tibetan contemplative tradition. The Lama Tsong Khapa Institute played a decisive role in extending this relationship to Sera Jey in South India. More broadly, the FPMT’s international network created a cultural and organizational environment in which Western researchers and Tibetan practitioners could meet as partners rather than as observers and subjects.

Why conduct consciousness research in a Tibetan monastery rather than in a conventional laboratory? Neuroscience can measure electrical signals, blood flow, and functional connectivity with remarkable precision, but these measurements do not by themselves reveal what a person is experiencing. Francisco Varela [1] proposed addressing this limitation by combining third-person neurophysiological observation with disciplined first-person descriptions from trained observers of their own mental states. He called this approach Neurophenomenology.

For this methodology to be scientifically meaningful, first-person reports cannot be improvised. They require practitioners able to recognize subtle changes in consciousness, describe them consistently, and use a shared conceptual framework developed through sustained training. This is what makes Sera Jey an exceptional research environment. ù

Prof. Neri together with two geshes in the retreat area of Sera Jey Monastery

Since 2018, our team traveled regularly to the monastery with portable neurophysiological equipment, bringing the laboratory into the setting where contemplative practice naturally takes place. At Sera Jey we found a community sharing a common educational background, philosophical framework, contemplative vocabulary, and decades of disciplined practice. Some volunteers had accumulated more than 40,000 hours of meditation during long-term retreats.

Interviews before and after each recording helped us interpret not only what was occurring in the brain, but also what the practitioner reported experiencing. The monastery thus became more than a site for data collection: it became an active scientific partner in a genuinely neurophenomenological investigation of consciousness.

After several years of field research at Sera Jey, I am often asked what we have actually discovered. The most important answer is not the confirmation of a single hypothesis, but the demonstration that this collaborative model is scientifically feasible. Rigorous neurophysiological research can be conducted in a Tibetan monastery while respecting contemplative practice and preserving its natural setting. The first results have appeared in leading journals, with University of Pisa researchers and geshes and monks from Sera Jey Monastic University working together as co-authors [2-4].

Geshe Gonpo during an EEG recording session at Sera Jey.

Our studies have focused mainly on concentrative and analytical meditation. Using portable EEG systems, we combined physiological recordings with structured interviews before and after meditation, documenting intentions, methods, experiences, and possible disturbances. These reports were an essential part of the protocol, allowing physiological and phenomenological data to be interpreted together. A detailed description of these findings can be found in references [2–4].

One recurring observation is that the two forms of practice are associated with different neurophysiological patterns. Concentrative meditation frequently showed a progressive increase in alpha-band activity relative to baseline, whereas analytical meditation displayed a different temporal evolution. These findings do not explain meditation or consciousness, but suggest that distinct contemplative practices engage different functional brain dynamics.

These results matter because they show that dialogue between neuroscience and contemplative science can generate meaningful, testable questions. Individual EEG findings will inevitably be refined or superseded. The more durable achievement is the research platform itself: a stable relationship in which contemplative practitioners contribute not merely as participants, but as knowledgeable collaborators.

EEG recording result

The evolution of the energy distribution of brain activity during a concentrative meditation session lasting more than 2 hours. Blue line represents the initial condition (0-5 min), whereas different colors represent the evolution (a color each 5 min. window) up to the red line.

What began at Sera Jey as an experimental collaboration has become a stable platform for consciousness research, grounded in the trust and shared understanding that now make more advanced studies possible. Sera Jey will remain at the center of this program, while recent contacts with Thiksay Monastery in Ladakh may open opportunities for work with practitioners engaged in advanced training and in practices concerning the subtle relationship between mind and body.

More than any single experimental finding, this collaboration demonstrates how the vision encouraged by His Holiness the Dalai Lama can become concrete scientific practice: not by reducing one tradition to the other, but through a disciplined partnership in the study of consciousness.

Perhaps the FPMT’s most distinctive contribution has been to sustain a bridge between two technologies developed across very different historical timescales: the advanced instruments of Western neuroscience and the ancient, highly refined technology of training and exploring the mind preserved in the Tibetan contemplative tradition. 

With grateful thanks to Prof. Bruno Neri, who authored this blog and shared the results of this research.

Prof. Bruno Neri is Full Professor of Electronics at the University of Pisa. He also teaches in master’s and advanced professional training programs on Mind Sciences, Contemplative Practices, and End-of-Life Studies. He serves as Director of the Summer School “Consciousness and Cognition.” These initiatives arise from the collaboration between the University of Pisa and the Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, where he served on the Board of Directors since 2025.

The story of this encounter between modern science and the Tibetan contemplative tradition is told in the documentary Clearlight, by Prof. Bruno Neri and Letizia Renzini, produced with support from Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

References

[1] Varela, F.J., 1996. Neurophenomenology: a methodological remedy for the hard problem. J. Conscious. Stud. 3, 330–349.

[2] Neri, B., et al. (2024). Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1348317. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348317

[3] Rho, G., et al. (2026). Dynamic causal modeling of low-density resting-state EEG in long-term meditation practitioners. Scientific Reports, 16, 8691. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-41310-y

[4] A. Callara et al. “Integrated central and autonomic signatures of concentrative and analytical meditation in expert practitioners” to be published on Scientific Reports

Is your center also working to bring Science and Buddhism into dialogue? We would love to hear about your initiatives and celebrate these efforts by sharing them with the wider FPMT community.

Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.