Meditation and Awakening in the American Vipassana Network
American Dharma February 26, 2019 DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300215809.003.0005 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | American Insight meditation network teachers and communities |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that two distinct currents within the American Insight network—one relational and psychotherapeutic, the other systematic and text-based—reflect different strategies of legitimation and understandings of enlightenment, shaping Buddhist modernism in the United States. |
Abstract
Certain patterns have developed around meditation and enlightenment, or awakening, as many prefer to call it, in the American Insight network. Network here is defined as a loose affiliation of individuals and communities that prioritize Vipassana meditation as their central practice and trace their immediate Buddhist roots to Burmese and Thai Theravadin lineages. One current network emphasizes a more relational and integrative orientation toward meditation and draws significantly on psychotherapeutic discourse. The other stresses a more systematic and goal-oriented approach to awakening and relies heavily on traditional Buddhist canonical and commentarial literature. This chapter traces these currents, across both first- and second-generation convert teachers, highlighting the orientation toward meditation, the preferred style of practice, the gendering of meditation, the understanding of enlightenment, and the strategies of legitimation advanced within each before reflecting on their significance for the unfolding of Buddhist modernism in the United States.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |