Table Of Contenti
Meditation, Buddhism, and Science
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Meditation,
Buddhism, and
Science
Edited by
DAVID L. McMAHAN
ERIK BRAUN
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Contributors ix
1. Introduction— From Colonialism to Brainscans: Modern
Transformations of Buddhist Meditation—D aviD L. McMahan
and Erik Braun 1
2. How Meditation Works: Theorizing the Role of Cultural Context in
Buddhist Contemplative Practices—D aviD L. McMahan 21
3. Looping Effects and the Cognitive Science of Mindfulness
Meditation—E van ThoMpson 47
4. Buddhism, Happiness, and the Science of
Meditation—W iLLiaM EDELgLass 62
5. Reflections on Indian Buddhist Thought and the Scientific Study of
Meditation, or: Why Scientists Should Talk More with Their
Buddhist Subjects—W iLLiaM s. WaLDron 84
6. “Mind the Gap”: Appearance and Reality in Mindfulness-B ased
Cognitive Therapy—J oanna cook 114
7. “Wherever You Go, There You Aren’t?”: Non- Self, Spirits, and
the Concept of the Person in Thai Buddhist
Mindfulness—J uLia cassaniTi 133
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8. “Mindfulness Makes You a Way Better Lover”: Mindful Sex and the
Adaptation of Buddhism to New Cultural Desires—J Eff WiLson 152
9. Mindful but Not Religious: Meditation and Enchantment in the
Work of Jon Kabat- Zinn—E rik Braun 173
10. Is Mindfulness Buddhist? (And Why It Matters)
— roBErT h. sharf 198
Bibliography 213
Index 239
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Acknowledgments
DAVID MCMAHAN WISHES to acknowledge with gratitude that his work on this
volume was completed with help from a Mind & Life Contemplative Studies
Fellowship. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed
in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Mind & Life Institute.
He would also like to thank Karen Sattler for her love and support.
Erik Braun would like to acknowledge the institutional support he received
to work on this volume from the University of Oklahoma and the University
of Virginia. And, above all, he thanks his wife, Britt Wahlin, whose support
ensures the very possibility of such work.
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Contributors
Erik Braun is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at
the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Birth of Insight: Meditation,
Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (University of Chicago
Press, 2013). He focuses primarily on Burmese Buddhism in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, though he also works on matters related to
Pali literature and to globalizing forms of meditative practice that stem from
Burma.
Julia Cassaniti is an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at
Washington State University. Her first book, Living Buddhism: Mind, Self,
and Emotion in a Thai Community (Cornell University Press), received the
American Anthropological Association’s 2016 Stirling Prize for Best Published
Book in Psychological Anthropology. Dr. Cassaniti examines the social articu-
lations of religious ideas in the psychology of everyday life in Southeast Asia
and around the world, with special attention to their implications for health
and well-being.
Joanna Cook is an anthropologist at University College London. She is the
author of Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai
Monastic Life (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and the co-e ditor of The
State We’re In: Reflecting on Democracy’s Troubles (Berghan Books, 2016),
Detachment: Essays on the Limits of Relational Thinking (Manchester University
Press, 2015), and Southeast Asian Perspectives on Power (Routledge, 2012).
William Edelglass is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Environmental
Studies at Marlboro College in Vermont. His research is primarily in the areas
of Buddhist philosophy, environmental philosophy, and twentieth-c entury
French and German thought. He served as co- director of the International
Association of Environmental Philosophy and is now co- editor of the journal
Environmental Philosophy. He is also co-e ditor of Buddhist Philosophy: Essential
