Mind Wandering in Meditative Traditions

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

The spontaneous flow of random thoughts is a basic feature of the human mind. Modern psychology has described it with terms like "stream of consciousness", "free association" and "mind wandering", and the phenomenon has recently been linked to the brain's "default-mode network". In the contexts of prayer, meditation and contemplation, discussions concerning mind wandering have been prominent across the Eurasian continent for a couple of thousand years. While psychoanalysis looks upon free association as a key to the discovery of inner conflicts and an important tool for the treatment of psychological ailments, meditative traditions tend to see mind wandering as an obstacle to spiritual progress, as a problem that needs to be overcome. Despite their widely different geographical and cultural origins, these traditions tend to share a number of important features: 1. a distinction between a non-phenomenal realm at the centre of its spiritual pursuit and the world of phenomena to which mind wandering belongs; 2. a concern with psychological features that are conducive to spiritual progress and those that are detrimental, where mind wandering most often comes out on the wrong side; 3. an understanding of mind wandering as representing residuals from the past; 4. an ambivalence between acceptance and non-acceptance in the practical treatment of mind wandering. This panel will discuss the doctrinal and practical approaches to mind wandering in Asian meditative traditions, with a brief look at European traditions and modern meditation movements for comparison.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Halvor Eifring, University of Oslo

Individual Presentations

• Like Clouds in the Sky: Some Tibetan Approaches to Meandering Thoughts in Meditation - Matthew Kapstein, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

• Mind Wandering in Two Meditation Movements in Modern India - Daniel Gold, Cornell University

• Mind Wandering in Neo-Confucian Meditation - Rur-bin Yang, National Tsing Hua University

• Mind Wandering in Tiantai Zhiyi’s Zhi and Guan Meditations - Guttorm Gundersen, University of Oslo

• Mind Wandering in East Asian and Mediterranean Cultures - Halvor Eifring, University of Oslo