The American Academy of Religion held its 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA, November 23-26. The Contemplative Studies unit sponsored or co-sponsored three panels exploring contemplative practices, experiences, and traditions. Topics ranged from Confucian contemplations for college students, to comparative theology, ethnographies of lay healers and nuns, accounts of adverse effects of meditation, and textual studies of contemplative medical interventions and theories.

Confucian Contemplation: Historical Landscape and Contemporary Significance

The Contemplative Studies unit’s first panel, Confucian Contemplation: Historical Landscape and Contemporary Significance, sought to fill a lacuna in the field on Confucian (Ru) forms of contemplation, and, in particular, quiet-sitting meditation. The panel argued that contemplation is deeply integrated in Confucian practice and literary traditions. It explored the works of prominent Confucian thinkers, writings from religious figures beyond the tradition, and how quiet-sitting practice might be used in contemporary contexts. The session made a claim for the inclusion of the Ruist perspectives in global Contemplative Studies research, noting its distinction from Buddhist forms of contemplation and its potential relevance to modern professionals who can be likened to ancient Ru scholars. 

Judson Murray opened the panel with his study of Confucian contemplative practice in the classroom: “Confucian Contemplation and Experiential Learning.” In this talk, he shared findings from research he conducted in upper-level seminars that featured Confucian contemplative practices as experiential learning techniques. Using quantitative and qualitative measures, Murray evaluated the effects of using quiet-sitting meditation and self-examination or self-monitoring practices found in historical literature as forms of contemplative pedagogy.

Bin Song’s paper “Quiet-Sitting Meditation: A Philosophical Practice in Cheng-Zhu Learning of Pattern-Principle” focused on three pivotal thinkers in the history of Confucian contemplation: Cheng Yi, Yang Shi, and Zhu Xi. He traced major elements of Ruist contemplation such as the pattern-principle and quietude across these thinkers as they favored different elements of a Confucian contemplative philosophy and path, discussing the ways these trends in Confucian contemplation were informed by its worldview and philosophy and how they were finally synthesized. 

Finally, John Pino’s paper “Rereading Zhu Xi’s Quiet-Sitting Practice through a Chinese Catholic Lens” used a comparative theological method as a way to reread Zhu Xi’s quiet-sitting meditation. He focused on the 20th-century Chinese Jesuit theologian Hu Guozhen (Father Hu) and his writings on Confucian forms of contemplation that diverge from traditional commentaries of the practices. Instead of concluding that Father Hu is misreading Zhu Xi, Pino argued that Hu’s reading gives us new insight into the role of oneness as a metaphysical concept to the practice of quiet-sitting.

This panel catalyzed the Special Issue: Confucian Contemplation in the Journal of Contemplative Studies. These speakers will be included in the issue, and guest editors Bin Song and Judson Murray are seeking submissions for the issue.

Meditation as Sickness, Meditation as Medicine

The second panel, “Meditation as Sickness, Meditation as Medicine,” explored how Buddhist meditation instructors and practitioners address and manage adverse effects arising from meditation across various cultural and historical contexts. The idea of adverse medical effects of meditation have historically been articulated in the Zen Buddhist tradition as “zen sickness,” an idea that has garnered increasing popular and scholarly interest as it pertains to the modern mindfulness movement. Willoughby Britton’s work, including “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience,” a study that articulated a taxonomy of various harms and adverse effects experienced by contemporary meditators, has also catalyzed this conversation. This panel responds to this emergent conversation with six presentations that collectively highlight how members of religious traditions, and medical practitioners who treat meditators, understand and make sense of adverse effects that arise in the context of meditative practice. 

Michael Sheehy’s paper “Meditation as Medicine: Tibetan Buddhist Contemplative Practices for Health and Wellbeing” examined Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practices from the 11th to 15th centuries, focusing on how meditators innovated techniques to address psychosomatic and psychosocial challenges that arose in the context of extended meditative retreat. These practices, documented in meditation manuals and anthologies, reveal an ethnopsychological approach to health and contemplation.

Ira Helderman’s paper “Clinician’s View from Contemporary Nepal: Interviews with Dr. Pawan Sharma,” by contrast, presented insights from interviews with Nepali psychiatrist Dr. Pawan Sharma, who treats meditation-related psychosis within a “meditation culture.” Sharma balances religiocultural norms, such as the nonpathologization of transient possession, with a biomedical approach, arguing for collaboration between clinicians and religious scholars to support meditators-in-distress.

Dixuan Yujing Chen’s paper “Shengyan’s Views on Meditation Sickness within the Han Chinese Buddhist Context” discussed the Taiwanese Buddhist monk Shengyan’s approach to “meditation sickness,” emphasizing the distinction between internal and external demons in meditation. Shengyan advocated for healthy mindsets, qualified teachers, and standardized training within the Han Chinese Buddhist tradition to mitigate adverse effects and ensure institutional authenticity.

In his paper “Deviation from Proper Chinese Self-Cultivation or Spiritual Practices: Interview with a Contemporary Teacher of Martial Arts, Qigong, and Buddhist Healing,” Kin Cheung explored the teachings of Cheung Seng Kan, a Chinese American healer who addresses deviations from proper self-cultivation in practices like qigong and Zen meditation. This research, a study in what Cheung calls filio-ethnography (ethnography of one’s own family member/s), centers on his own father’s multihyphenate spiritual healing practice integrating Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist, and popular Chinese religious principles, offering holistic strategies to navigate and avoid spiritual deviations.

Daniel M. Stuart’s paper “Healing Meditation and Meditation Sickness: The Strategies of Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899–1971)” analyzed the healing and meditative strategies of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, a Burmese meditation teacher whose charismatic approach often included intensive techniques. Stuart highlighted how U Ba Khin addressed meditation-related difficulties through medical and meditative solutions, underscoring the centrality of healing in his teaching model.

Last, Daphne Weber’s paper “Meditation Sickness as Gendered Karmic Consequence: An Analysis of Thai Female Monastic’s Adverse Meditation Experiences” focused on the meditation practices of Theravāda bhikkhunis, or female monks, who lack formal institutional recognition. She argued that gendered mentorship plays a crucial role in helping meditators overcome prior adverse meditation effects while reshaping gender roles in Buddhism through innovative meditative techniques.

Together, these papers brought attention not only to the phenomenon of “meditation sickness” but also to the various ways that diverse Buddhist cultures have thought about and addressed adverse outcomes of meditation—either through other contemplative practices designed to treat the side effects, or with other kinds of treatments. While panelists acknowledged the usefulness of the concept of “zen sickness” as a point of reference for this panel, they also emphasized the need for approaching various examples of adverse meditation effects across cultures and religions in a commensurately nuanced way. In this way, the panel demonstrated in its composition and its content the important contribution of the humanistic study of religion, including culturally, historically, and methodologically diverse perspectives, to meditation research.

What Do We Mean by Meditation?

Finally, the omnibus panel organized by the Contemplative Studies Unit addressed the question, What Do We Mean by Meditation? The three papers in the panel examined contemplative praxis from diverse perspectives to address this question, offering textual-historical, Buddhist philosophical, and cultural studies perspectives on its varied manifestations. The three papers explored how meditation has been understood as a means of healing, in the production of distinctive religious experiences, and as part of cultural expression, providing nuanced insights into its multidimensional nature.

Devin Zuckerman’s paper analyzed the Unimpeded Sound Tantra (Sgra thal ‘gyur)—a tantra of the Great Perfection tradition—and its commentary dated to the 12th century. This text puts forward a framework for healing associated with recognizable Buddhist aphorisms, such as tendrel or “auspicious connections,” or the Buddhist theorization of the person in terms of the karmic outflows of “body, speech, and mind.” Zuckerman’s paper highlighted how Buddhist contemplative techniques—including yogic, mantric, and attentional practices—were used not only for Buddhist soteriological purposes of rescuing sentient beings from suffering in the abstract, but also addressed the this-wordly human suffering of physical illness in ways that are, at times, surprising. 

Tenzin Buchung’s paper “Contemplative Practices involved in Thukdam: A Post-Clinical Death Meditation Observed Among Certain Tibetan Monks” examined thukdam, a meditative state of suspended animation observed among certain Tibetan Buddhist adepts following clinical death, in which the body shows signs of vitality for days. His paper explored the Mahāyāna philosophical context and practices—including tantric, Mahāmudrā, and Dzogchen contemplative theories—that are understood to enable this phenomenon, emphasizing its connection to nonconceptual, nondual awareness.

Luca Del Deo’s paper interrogated the dual identities of meditation as both a technological and cultural artifact in contemporary American contexts. He demonstrated how meditation is framed variably as a religious practice, a secular wellness tool, or a universal human behavior. This distinction enables scholars to better understand and critique how implicit expectations shape epistemologies of meditation.

Together, these papers illuminated the multifaceted nature of meditation, revealing it as a concept that resists strict classification as either theory or practice and spans domains such as healing, religious experience, and cultural expression. The panel underscored how contemplative practices weave together doctrinal frameworks, philosophical exploration, and societal influences, demonstrating meditation’s rich potential as a foundation for multidisciplinary and cross-cultural inquiry.