Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context

Behind the stereotype of a solitary meditator closing his eyes to the world, meditation always takes place in close interaction with the surrounding culture. Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context explores cases in which the relation between meditative practice and cultural context is particularly complex. The internationally-renowned contributors discuss practices that travel from one culture to another, or are surrounded by competing cultures. They explore cultures that bring together competing practices, or that are themselves mosaics of elements of different origins. They seek to answer the question: What is the relationship between meditation and culture? The effects of meditation may arise from its symbolic value within larger webs of cultural meaning, as in the contextual view that still dominates cultural and religious studies. They may also be psychobiological responses to the practice itself, the cultural context merely acting as a catalyst for processes originating in the body and mind of the practitioner. Meditation and Culture gives no single definitive explanation, but taken together, the different viewpoints presented point to the complexity of the relationship.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Contributors Introduction 1 Meditative Practice and Cultural Context, Halvor Eifring Section 1 Traveling Practices 2 The Daoist Adaptation of Buddhist Insight Meditation, Livia Kohn 3 Ignatian Visual Meditation in Seventeenth-Century China, Nicolas Standaert 4 Modern Meditation in the Context of Science, Øyvind Ellingsen and Are Holen Section 2 Competing Practices 5 Mindfulness and Mindlessness in Early Chán, Robert H. Sharf 6 Reverence and Quietude in Neo-Confucianism, Rur-bin Yang 7 Meditative Pluralism in Hanshan Déqing, Halvor Eifring Section 3 Competing Cultures 8 The Hindi Sants’ Two Yogic Paths to the Formless Lord, Daniel Gold 9 Inner Islamization in Java, Paul D. Stange 10 Cinnabar-fi eld Meditation in Korea, Don Baker Section 4 Cultural Mosaics 11 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche, Hanna Havnevik 12 Vedic Chanting as a Householder’s Meditation Practice in the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta Tradition, M. D. Muthukumaraswamy 13 Spontaneous Thoughts in Meditative Traditions, Halvor Eifring Notes References Index

About the Author :
Halvor Eifring is Professor of Chinese at the University of Oslo, Norway. He teaches Chinese language, literature and culture and directs an international research project on the cultural histories of meditation. He is General Secretary of Acem International School of Meditation.

Review :
Eifring’s edited volume is an extraordinarily rich collection of essays, by some of the most prominent scholars of meditation theory and practice worldwide, which accomplishes even more than the book itself promises. Meditation emerges here as not simply a crucial influence on its ambient cultural contexts but as one of human civilization’s greatest cultural achievements in its own right. This innovative volume brings together a group of excellent essays that illustrate the diverse ways in which meditative practices from a range of religious traditions are embedded in their cultural contexts. It is a must-read for anyone interested in better understanding the complex interplay of religious thought, meditative practice, and the socio-cultural environment, and who wants to explore meditation as a cross-cultural and cross-religious concept.