Loch Kelly + Piet Hut

“Time is the greatest concept of all, hiding the dynamic open nature of experience under the garments of the concepts past, present, and future,” wrote Princeton astrophysics professor Piet Hut in a recent blog post. At what point can we disrobe time? Hut joins in conversation with prominent Buddhist teacher Loch Kelly to untangle philosophical questions that have deep practical implications. This session will also include a short meditation.

This program is co-presented with YHouse, a nonprofit institute in New York City devoted to innovative and transdisciplinary research, intellectual partnership, and public discourse tackling humanity’s greatest questions on awareness, consciousness, and the future of intelligence.

A book signing of Kelly’s Shift into Freedom and new CD, Effortless Mindfulness, will take place after the program.

Brainwave is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

About the Speakers

Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is a graduate of Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, where he received a fellowship to study meditation in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal, where he studied with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. His book Shift into Freedom: The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness, was awarded “Top 10 Best Books of the Year” by Spirituality & Health Magazine. Loch is a contemplative psychotherapist and internationally recognized meditation teacher. Loch has worked in community mental health and addiction recovery, and he has counseled family members of 9/11. He is the founder of the nonprofit Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch collaborates with neuroscientists at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University to study how awareness training enhances compassion and well-being. For more information, visit www.effortlessmindfulness.org.

Piet Hut is Professor of Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he is also Head of the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies. His current research interests run from large-scale simulations of the stellar dynamics of dense stellar systems to questions about the origins and nature of life, and the origins and nature of cognition, in the areas of complex systems, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. He is also a Principal Investigator and Councilor of the Earth-Life Science Institute, which he helped found at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In Manhattan he is the President of YHouse, a new institute for research and outreach.