Meditation and Cultural Repertoires
Rethinking Meditation September 14, 2023 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197661741.003.0006 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that meditation is best understood through a constructivist model in which sociocultural templates—narratives of progress, path maps, models of enlightened persons, and instructions—shape both the interpretation and the actual character of meditative experiences, rather than meditation being an objective ascertainment of private internal contents. |
Abstract
Abstract Rather than understanding meditation as an objective ascertainment of private internal contents of consciousness, this chapter theorizes meditative experiences as a systemic part of the ecology of a sociocultural system. Like patients and their doctors, meditators negotiate the significance of their experiences with teachers, texts, and traditions. This dialogue shapes not only the interpretation of their experiences but also the experiences themselves. Inchoate and unconscious impulses, impressions, and notions emerge into consciousness to take the shape of available categories. Narratives of progress, maps of the path, models of enlightened persons, and meditation instructions constitute templates that shape how meditation works in configuring consciousness. These templates guide meditators toward attending to certain features of their experience, interpreting their significance, categorizing them in certain ways, acting on them according to prescribed purposes. This is a constructivist model of meditation, in which practitioners try to cultivate states and culturally available ways of being.
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 |
Citations in the library
Cites 14
- Intensive meditation training improves perceptual discrimination and sustained attention. Psychological Science June 1, 2010
- What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
- On some definitions of mindfulness Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
- Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience Numen 1995
- The Mindful Brain and Emotion Regulation in Mood Disorders The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry February 1, 2012
and 9 more in the library