From spike to baseline: distance-collapse in Buddhist contemplative practice and durable wellbeing
Frontiers in Psychology November 3, 2026 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1902805 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation Buddhism |
| Keywords | Embodiment Equanimity Eudaimonia Liberation mathematics Phenomenology quotient |
| Key points | Proposes that contemplative maturation is the collapse of a single distance parameter D between practitioner and the object of practice, producing a shift from amplitude-seeking to baseline elevation. Argues that durable wellbeing is a baseline phenomenon rather than a peak phenomenon, and that this account yields falsifiable predictions about the affective signatures of long-term practice. |
Abstract
BackgroundAcross contemplative traditions, the most experienced practitioners describe an endpoint in which devotion is no longer confined to particular times and places but becomes a continuous, featureless condition scarcely distinguishable from ordinary living. Positive psychology, approaching the same terrain from a measurement perspective, distinguishes fleeting hedonic states from durable eudaimonic wellbeing and finds that repeated contemplative states can consolidate into stable traits. What has been missing is a single structural account of the mechanism that carries the first into the second.ObjectiveThis study proposes that contemplative maturation is, at root, the collapse of the separation between the practitioner and what the practice orients toward, a single distance parameter D whose fall toward zero generates the rest. As D → 0, the duration of each contact contracts and its frequency rises toward continuity; their product (the devotional throughput) acts as a compensatory trade-off rather than a conserved quantity; the amplitude of the sacred–profane oscillation falls to zero; and the baseline of consciousness rises to absorb it. The endpoint is a straight line, embodiment, in which the separation has vanished: one no longer visits the temple or performs the prayer but is the temple, is the prayer. The practitioner is flat relative to their own elevated baseline and elevated relative to the ordinary world.ApproachThe argument is developed within the Liberation Mathematics program, joining a wave-mechanical description of practice to the Phenomenology Quotient (PQ) and Threshold Modulator (τ) constructs. Theravāda insight practice (the sustained observation of arising-and-passing, udaya–vaya, toward the unconditioned, asaṅkhata) provides the structural backbone; jhānic factor-dropping, equanimity (upekkhā), and the brahmavihāras supply the operational detail; and a cross-traditional comparison finds structurally analogous trajectories in dhikr, the Jesus Prayer, japa, and nembutsu.ConclusionDurable wellbeing is a baseline phenomenon, not a peak phenomenon. Buddhist contemplative practice enhances wellbeing by shifting from amplitude-seeking into baseline elevation, a reading that recovers what the traditions have long described and yields falsifiable predictions about the affective signatures of long-term practice.
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
Cites 17
- Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology October 27, 2008
- Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences June 28, 2007
- The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin May 14, 2012
- The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists PLoS One May 24, 2017
- Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
and 12 more in the library