Fear and Terror in Buddhist Meditation
Jared R. Lindahl, Willoughby B. Britton, David J Cooper
Journal of Cognitive Historiography December 24, 2022 DOI: 10.1558/jch.22807 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Qualitative Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation teachers (qualitative data used illustratively) |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Citations | 7 |
| Key points | Argues that cognitive historiography, supported by cognitive and affective neuroscience models of meditation, can plausibly interpret references to fear and related changes in Buddhist texts as meditation-related experiences, while also identifying limitations in the neuroscience of meditation and methodological difficulties in reconstructing religious experiences from other cultures and distant times. |
Abstract
This article explores the extent to which cognitive historiography can be employed to comment on debates concerning the interpretation of meditative experiences in select Buddhist texts. In particular, this article considers references to meditation-related fear and other associated emotional, perceptual, and cognitive changes. Qualitative data from Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation teachers are employed to further illustrate the range of fear-related experiences and how they are interpreted. To account for why certain references to fear in Buddhist literature could plausibly be read as representative of meditation-related experiences, this article develops cognitive models based on neuroscientific research on meditation as well as from cognitive and affective neuroscience more broadly. However, this process reveals some current limitations in the field of neuroscience of meditation as well as other methodological difficulties faced by cognitive historiography when attempting to account for religious experiences from other cultures and from distant times.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 7
- Prolonged adverse effects from repeated psilocybin use in an underground psychedelic therapy training program: a case report BMC Psychiatry February 28, 2025
- Childhood trauma and subclinical PTSD symptoms predict adverse effects and worse outcomes across two mindfulness-based programs for active depression. PLoS One 2025
- Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy Frontiers in Psychology July 10, 2024
- Five Hundred Monks in Crisis: Meditation-Related Difficulties and Prescriptive Responses in the Pāli Commentarial Tradition Religions March 20, 2026
- “I was trying to save the world”: delusion-like ideation and associated impacts reported by Western practitioners of Buddhist meditation Frontiers in Psychology October 24, 2025
and 2 more in the library
Cites 30
- Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness Neuroreport November 7, 2005
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
- Mindfulness meditation training alters cortical representations of interoceptive attention Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience June 11, 2012
- Investigation of mindfulness meditation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience December 3, 2007
- The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists PLoS One May 24, 2017
and 25 more in the library