“Why do we suffer? Why do human beings suffer, why do I suffer? What’s the source of suffering in my life?” asks Jordan Kohn, 28, a research fellow at Emory University. This question is certainly a weighty one, but it drives Jordan to seek ways to reconcile his beliefs in the power of contemplative meditation with the scientific method. “It’s an ongoing investigation, and I think it’s never going to end,” he says of his search.

Jordan has always felt a pull towards connecting experience with science. As an undergraduate at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, he chose to major in biology. “I felt more of a connection to biology because it’s about sentient beings, and about living things, and so it seemed like it had more vitality,” he says. “I was more captivated by it, by the questions people were asking, because they involved the natural world.” He says that despite this draw, his path wasn’t always so clear. Before going to college, he spent ten months in Israel in search of a meaningful community to join; afterwards, he hoped to enlist in the army. Under pressure from his family to go to school, he did. It turned out to be a positive move. “I found my community at Reed that I think I was looking for,” Jordan says. “I found many communities in Portland and at Reed, so I kind of got what I was looking for there.”

Upon graduating from Reed, he didn’t know where to go next. “I had no clue, I had no idea where I would be,” says Jordan. Within six months of graduating, Jordan decided to enter western Oregon’s Zen Buddhist monastery, Great Vow. His interest in meditation was sparked at the age of nine, upon reading Roald Dahl’s book, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. The main character, Henry, learns to see through objects through meditation, after reading a book about a yogi who can do the same. At first Henry uses this power to cheat at cards; later, he begins donating his casino earnings to charity. “I was intrigued by meditation,” says Jordan, “By the transformative power of it, how it changed this guy’s character in a pretty profound way—he became a philanthropist, whereas before he was just kind of a materialist.” Though he engaged with meditation some in high school, Jordan continued to practice meditation more seriously in college. He founded a club at Reed that is now an accredited PE class, and would often go on retreats during school. “Meditation became the most important thing in my life,” says Jordan. “It gave me the ability to transform my state of mind and to generate insight about my own patterns of thinking, patterns of acting. I think that’s what sets us apart as human beings from all other animals, is that we have this unique capacity for self awareness. You might call it meta- awareness or meta-cognition; it’s the ability to simply observe the thought stream rather than just impulsively act on anything that comes into our minds.”

Jordan spent four months in the monastery, but he soon began to consider the wider implications of his contemplative practice. “I was starting to have questions about the biological underpinnings of the experiences I was having, about how contemplative meditation practices alter the human brain and the body,” he says. In his free time, he started researching the topic, and learned that many scientists were investigating the connection between meditation and neuroscience. Jordan also began to question the ways in which he could most effectively expose others to the benefits of meditation. He decided to leave the monastery, thinking that pursuing a scientific understanding of meditation’s benefits would be more effective in helping him help others achieve greater well-being. “The two options that I saw were to either continue on as a monastic and perpetuate meditation practices through that strategy,” he says, “Or to be a contemplative slash scientist and to use the language and vocabulary of modern western science, particularly neuroscience, to communicate to the public that contemplative practices have lots of benefit and are worth investigating and exploring as part of cultivating health and well-being.”

“That’s why I think meditation practices are so compelling and exciting and powerful. They allow us to make changes in our perception of how we are in relationship to the world without having to really change the external world at all.”

Jordan found a neuroscience graduate program at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia that aligned with his interests. Now, he works in one of Emory’s primate labs, studying the effects of psycho-social adversity on the brain, neuroendocrine, and immune systems through observing monkeys. He doesn’t think he will pursue a research career, but is set on finishing his PhD. “The angle that I’ve taken with my research program has been mostly to look at the effects of social stress on the body, and to see how the alleviation of that stress can lead to improvement in the functioning of physiological systems,” he says. “I’m also interested in not only the external environment but also the internal psychological and emotional state of the animals and how that affects the outcomes, for instance, inflammation or cortisol regulation. And I see that that ties into my meditation interests really nicely because we know that stress is not good for the body.” He says that he sees the application of his research beyond the lab. “I see it as an empowering message, that emotional regulation and cognitive reappraisal of situations in life can have just as powerful if not more powerful effects on physical and psychological well being, as the external environment, which sometimes we have very little control over,” he says.

Jordan now feels settled in his community in Atlanta, but when he initially started at Emory he attests to feeling isolated. “I think that there’s a healthy degree of loneliness that we can feel, just the existential loneliness that we can feel of, ‘I am someone separate, being from you and everyone else,’ and I think that’s ok,” he says. “That’s a kind of healthy line of inquiry and discomfort, but I think that there’s also maybe a more pathological loneliness that can arise, feeling detached and isolated from community support.” He now has many communities and peers that support him in his pursuits of competitive cycling, growing and cooking food, playing the drums, and of course, meditation. “I think that healthy, positive social interactions are something that have characterized my twenties,” he says.

Jordan also notes the effects that meditation can have on reshaping feelings of loneliness into a more positive experience, and how meditation helped him sit with feelings of social discomfort in times of transition. “One of the things I see through teaching meditation is that it allows people to feel more socially connected, it improves interpersonal relationships,” he says. “Contemplative practice can foster a sense of inclusion and a sense of being with others. I’ve had many experiences of being alone but feeling at one, feeling unified or like I’m a part of something bigger.” For Jordan, this feeling has wider implications about how we relate to the world and our circumstances. “The point that I want to make is that it’s not about the objective external environment that necessarily dictates how included or excluded someone feels or perceives themselves to be,” he says. “It’s more about what’s happening internally, about our perception of our social standing and social inclusion or exclusion, that really matters. That’s why I think meditation practices are so compelling and exciting and powerful. They allow us to make changes in our perception of how we are in relationship to the world without having to really change the external world at all.”