Miguel Farias, BSc (Lisbon), MA (Wales), DPhil (Oxford) is the founding director of the Brain, Belief, & Behaviour Lab at Coventry University. After his doctorate in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (2000-2004), he was a Research Fellow at Cambridge University and Oxford University (2005-2007) and a Lecturer in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (2008-2013). His work focuses on the psychobiology of spiritual practices and beliefs, and in 2017 he won the William Bier award, given by the American Psychological Association, Division 36, for his outstanding contribution to research in the psychology of religion and spirituality. He is a regular speaker at Science festivals, and his popular book with Catherine Wikholm, 'The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?', has been translated into various languages.

David Brazier, MA, PhD (Keele University) is president of the International Zen Therapy Institute, author of a dozen books and many chapters, monographs and articles on Buddhism, psychology and culture, a Buddhist priest, and head of a religious order. He holds professional qualifications in psychotherapy, social work and management and is an authority on Buddhist psychology. In the past he has practised as a psychotherapist and previously in social work, setting up rehabilitation schemes in the fields of mental health, respite care for the mentally handicapped, and juvenile delinquency, as well as aid projects for refugees. He lectures on Buddhism and Buddhist psychology in Europe, Asia and North & South America and supervises educational programmes in English and Spanish. He has practised meditation for over fifty years.

Mansur Lalljee BA (Bombay); BA, MA, DPhil. (Oxon.). Until his retirement, Mansur Lalljee was a University Lecturer in Social Psychology and Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford. After graduating with a degree in philosophy from the University of Bombay, he moved to Oxford to complete his studies in psychology, and stayed on the faculty at Oxford for the rest of his career. He has published work on a wide range of psychological issues including the psychology of respect; the psychology of explanation; religion; social and political attitudes; and interpersonal communication; and has been invited to talk about these issues at conferences and in Universities in several parts of the world. He has also held visiting appointments at Trinity College, Dublin, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and Yale University, New Haven.

• Foreword


• Part I. Overview


• 1: Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee: Understanding and studying meditation


• 2: Richard King: Meditation and the Modern Encounter between Asia and the West


• 3: Doug Oman: Studying the Effects of Meditation: The First Fifty Years


• Part II. Meditation across the World's Traditions


• 4: Gavin Flood: Hinduism and Meditation: Tantra


• 5: Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen: Hinduism and Meditation: Yoga


• 6: Tomer Persico: Judaism and Meditation


• 7: Martin Laird: Western Christianity and Meditation


• 8: Cyril Hovorun: Eastern Christianity and Meditation


• 9: Scott Kugle: Meditation in the Islamic Tradition


• 10: Sarah Shaw: Theravada Buddhism and Meditation


• 11: Caifang Zhu: Chan Buddhism and Meditation


• 12: Georgios Halkias: Buddhist Meditation in Tibet: Exoteric and Esoteric Orientations


• 13: Harold Roth: Classical Daoist Meditation: 400-100 B.C.E


• 14: Louis Komjathy: Daoist Meditation: From 100 CE to the Present


• Part III. Varieties of Meditative Practices and Experiences


• 15: Nobuyoshi Yamabe: Concentration and Visualization Techniques in Buddhist Meditation


• 16: Carlos do Carmo Silva: The Phenomenology of Meditation: Commonalities and Divergences between Christian Meditatio and Hindu Dhy?na


• 17: Jessica Frazier: The Self in Meditation: The art of self-transformation


• 18: Ayesha Nathoo: Relaxation and Meditation


• Part IV. Approaches to the Study of Meditation


• Biology and Neuroscience


• 19: Kieran C. R. Fox and B. Rael Cahn: Meditation and the brain


• 20: Dusana Dorjee: Psychophysiology of Meditation


• Psychology


• 21: Tim Lomas: Meditation and emotion


• 22: Ivana Buric and Inti Brazil: Individual differences in meditation outcomes


• 23: Peter Sedlmeier and Kunchapudi Srinivas¿: Psychological Theories of Meditation in Early Buddhism and S??khya/Yoga


• Sociology


• 24: Michal Pagis: The sociology of meditation


• 25: Conrad Hackett: The demographics of meditation in the United States


• Anthropology


• 26: Manu Bazzano: Meditation and the post-secular condition


• 27: Douglas E. Christie: Christian Contemplative Thought and Practice in the Contemporary World


• 28: Masoumeh Rahmani: Goenka's Vipassana Movement: From Conversion to Disaffiliation


• 29: Caroline Starkey: Meditation in Contemporary Monastic Life


• Part V. Individual and Social Change through Meditation


• Therapeutic Applications


• 30: Patricia Lynn Dobkin and Kaveh Monshat: Mental Illness Through the Lens of Mindfulness


• 31: Madhav Goyal and Heather L. Rusch: Mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of physical conditions


• 32: David Orme-Johnson: Transcendental Meditation in the treatment of mental and physical conditions


• 33: David Brazier: Zen Therapy


• Social Change


• 34: Ann Gleig: Enacting Social Change Through Meditation


• 35: Candy Gunther Brown: Meditation and Education


• 36: Katherine M. Auty: Meditation in Prison


• Part VI. Debates and Controversies in Meditation


• 37: Jared R. Lindahl, Willoughby B. Britton, David J. Cooper, Laurence J. Kirmayer: Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward A Person-Centered Approach


• 38: Nathan Fisher: The Dark Nights of the Soul in Abrahamic Meditative Traditions


• 39: Juhn Y. Ahn: Meditation sickness


• 40: Brian Victoria: Meditation to kill and be killed by The Use of Sam?dhi Power (???) in Imperial Japan


• 41: Ron Purser and David Lewis: Neuroscience and meditation: Help or hindrance?


• 42: Etzel Cardeña: Meditation, Exceptional Psychophysiological Control, and Parapsychology


• 43: Deane H. Shapiro, Jr.: Reflections on the role of control in meditation