Meditation in the Pali Social Imaginary II
Rethinking Meditation September 14, 2023 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197661741.003.0005 (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 early Buddhist meditation on the body was not bare, nonconceptual awareness but a culturally embedded practice of highlighting foulness and vulnerability to cultivate detachment. Contends that meditative insight involves constructing alternative concepts, dispositions, and values, and reconditioning habits of mind and body rather than simply deconditioning them. |
Abstract
Abstract: Contemplations of the insides of bodies and of corpses in early meditation literature show that seeing the body “as it is” was not bare, nonconceptual, value-neutral awareness but a matter of highlighting the body’s vulnerability and foulness and creating a sense of detachment and distaste toward it. Other meditations in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta present Buddhist taxonomies through which practitioners learn to see the world and practices to habituate the mind to seeing it this way. Meditative insight, on this model, is not simply matter of nonjudgmental, nonconceptual attention to the present moment, nor does it yield an unmediated, objective knowledge stripped of all cultural conditioning. Rather, it is a complex, embodied, and culturally embedded affair that entails constructing an alternative system of concepts, forming alternative dispositions, creating different bases of valuing, and reconditioning—not just deconditioning—habits of mind and body.
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