about

Academic bio

Ruben is a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford. He is director of the Flourishing Intelligence Program (FLIP) and co-director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing. Ruben is also fellow at Linacre College and Senior Researcher within Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry. Ruben has made significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, meditation, and insight. His work also reveals a pathway towards more efficient and safer artificial intelligence based on brain dynamics, consciousness, and contemplative wisdom. His work has been featured widely, including The New York Times, TIME, Scientific American, TEDx, Vice, ABC, Aeon, VOX, New Scientist, and in the Nature collection. Ruben’s research is supported by major grants from the Medical Research Future Fund, The Peregrine Foundation, The Consciousness Foundation, and philanthropic donations from the Cillo family. Ruben has an eclectic contemplative background, including Zen, Advaita, and Theravada, and his interviews and writings have attracted millions of views.

Personal bio

I was raised in a Christian family that immigrated from Finland to Australia in 1989 where I attended school in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in my state. Somewhere around my 16th birthday, between suspensions from school, I decided to seek truth regardless of the consequences, assuming that “all roads lead to Rome”. A few months later I could no longer hold onto my religion, which catalysed a deep-dive into science, philosophy, and rationality. In parallel I spent most of my afternoons practicing martial arts. After competing in Muay Thai Kickboxing semi-professionally for three years, my body started to give out. I found myself with two broken ribs, a torn chest muscle, and two ruptured discs in my lower back (not exactly but almost at the same time), which made me rethink my trajectory. Then, at the age of 19, I had a revelatory experience that once again shook my worldview: I discovered that there was another way to “know” and that deeper insights and wisdom could be uncovered through direct experience. I transferred all my classes from geology to psychology and neuroscience, founded two businesses, started a daily meditation practice and attended regular retreats, often with Ordinary Mind Zen teacher Gregg Howard but also Shodo Harada Roshi. I began to see the emptiness of intellectual insights and focused on non-dual practices. 10 years later, in a final desperate and disillusion-fueled sprint for the finish line, I spontaneously determined: “I will not stand up from the cushion until this is over“. A few minutes later an ineffable shift occurred and I could no longer find any hint of a problem with life. There was no finish line but there was also never a race. In an effort to clarify what I had learned, I began practicing sutta-based Vipassanā meditation under the guidance of Prof. Henk Barendregt. Although I remain a simple student of life itself, in 2024 I was given permission to teach Vipassanā by Henk Barendregt who was the student of Kobun Chino Roshi (1938-2002) and Phra Khru Mettavihari (1942-2007). Nowadays, I spend my time researching the mind—both mammal and machine—with the goal of flourishing intelligence at large.

…

beyond self and no self
we sit perched on a branch
made of air
our wings spread wide
our minds untethered
the dhamma runs free

…

from the beyond
the dhamma-eye turns to witness the forms
with impeccable indifference
seeing that the mist is impermanent
seeing that the mist is suffering
seeing the mist is not-self
one passes through the gateless-gate
never to return
and proclaims:
Aha! The Buddha was right!

…

the tender way
is the way of fearless humility
meeting life through the body and heart
forgetting aboveness
forgetting belowness
forgetting even beyondness
at home with things
and people