In this conversation, we sit down with Dr. Nicholas Van Dam, founding director of the Contemplative Studies Center at the University of Melbourne. We talk about the gap between authentic contemplative practice and what the West has turned mindfulness into. Nicholas shares hard-earned insights about navigating institutional resistance, the need for discomfort in real growth, and why dialogue is essential in this field. We explore the tension between academic research, lived experience, and traditional wisdom, and why commodified quick fixes are failing us. This one’s for anyone questioning the surface-level stuff and yearning for a deeper, more honest, and more human perspective from a scholar-practitioner lens.

Associate Professor Nicholas Van Dam is the inaugural Director of the Contemplative Studies Centre in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Melbourne. Nicholas is a highly regarded global leader in contemplative research and practice with a strong commitment to interdisciplinary dialogue and empirical rigour. His research explores the ways that meditation and mindfulness practices can support wellbeing, in pursuit of a better understanding of the human condition. He completed a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University at Albany, SUNY (USA), and has worked at New York University, the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, and the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.