Toward a Unified Model of Advanced Meditation, Human Development, Meditation Maps, and Transtradition Metaphors: Facing Impermanence, Suffering, and Death

Advanced meditation can lead to a transformative process resembling a metaphorical death and rebirth, where an old identity dissolves and a new one emerges. This process, described in detail by the Burmese meditation master Mahāsī Sayādaw, is associated with access to bliss, peace, wisdom, and the reduction of suffering—states regarded as ultimate aims of human life. While scientific research has measured certain aspects of human development, inner development related to advanced meditation has been neglected. The authors propose an outline of this death-and-rebirth process to provide a foundation for scientific investigation of meditative development and a deeper understanding of human potential.

Study at a glance

Abstract

While there exists a large body of research on the possibility of measuring certain aspects of human development, what might be called inner development has mostly been neglected, in particular as it pertains to advanced meditation. A central aspect of this kind of development, which we call meditative development, is associated with access to bliss, peace, wisdom, and the reduction of suffering, which have been regarded as highly desirable or even ultimate aims of human life. The potential for such development is currently being scientifically studied and developmentally mapped. While the use of maps to guide meditation during practice has been criticized, the conceptualization of a transformative process involving a metaphorical death and rebirth, or the dissolution of an old identity and the emergence of a new one, is common across various wisdom traditions. In the meditative traditions, some maps, such as the one described by Mahāsī Sayādaw, describe this process in a way that is both highly detailed and grounded in experience. Here, we propose an outline of the process of metaphorical "death and rebirth" in advanced meditation, which may form a foundation for the scientific investigation of meditative development and support a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.