Minding The Gaps: A New Look At Happiness

Google Tech Talk August 28, 2012 Presented by Aditya Prasad. Aditya Prasad is a software engineer with Google Maps. Prior to joining Google, he spent 3 months meditating full time in a monastery. Just following this talk, he's going to do it again. Why would a scientifically-minded individual get involved in something like meditation? In this talk, Aditya explains how gaps in our awareness are the primary cause of our own anxiety and unhappiness, and why closing those gaps doesn't just help us become happier, but opens our eyes to our own lives and the greater human condition. As a result, it is the most scalable and robust solution for "saving the world." Thousands of these gaps occur every day without our noticing them, and can be patched only with precise, careful practice -- also known as meditation. Aditya's background includes work at the Stanford Psychophysiology Lab, where he worked on analyzing fMRI (brain imaging) data, as well as a lifelong passion for mind science and exploration.