Cheetah House

Course description

Meditation is often described in terms of internal mental states that presumably arise in anyone who practices them diligently, whether they are an ancient monk or a contemporary professional. Scientific models of mindfulness and meditation often attempt to isolate the specific practice from other factors and, ideally, from all surrounding cultural context in order to see how meditation in and of itself “works.” Some investigators believe that the states meditation produces can be tracked on brain-scanning machines that could, in theory, take the guesswork out of meditation’s effects. But meditative practices are inevitably embedded in a context of ideas, ideals, cultural sensibilities, and taken-for-granted assumptions. Much of the work these practices do, therefore, may be quite different in divergent contexts. This talk analyzes the role of culture in meditation and theorizes contemplative practices as methods of cultivating ways of being in particular cultural contexts that include repertoires of concepts, attitudes, social practices, ethical dispositions, institutions, available identities, and conceptions of the cosmos. Taking greater account of the way meditative practices interface with these cultural contexts is essential to understanding their potential benefits and problems.