What is Contemplation?

Martijn van Beek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University in Denmark. He specializes in ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives on meditation.

Loriliai Biernacki is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is the author of Renowned Goddess of Desire: Women, Sex and Speech in Tantra (2007) and The Matter of Wonder: Abhinavagupta’s Panentheism and New Materialism (2023). She is also Co-Chair of the Contemplative Studies Unit at the American Academy of Religion.

David McMahan is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College and author of Rethinking Meditation: Buddhist Meditative Practices in Ancient and Modern Worlds (2023) and The Making of Buddhist Modernism (2008).

Douglas Christie is a Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and author of The Blue Saphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology and The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Love, Contemplative Practice, and the Common Life.