The Oxford Handbook of Meditation

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.

• ForewordPart I. Overview1: Miguel Farias, David Brazier, & Mansur Lalljee: Introduction: Understanding and studying meditation2: Richard King: Meditation and the Modern Encounter between Asia and the West3: Doug Oman: Studying the Effects of Meditation: The First Fifty YearsPart II. Meditation across the World's Traditions4: Gavin Flood: Hinduism and Meditation: Tantra5: Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen: Hinduism and Meditation: Yoga6: Tomer Persico: Judaism and Meditation7: Martin Laird: Western Christianity and Meditation8: Cyril Hovorun: Eastern Christianity and Meditation9: Scott Kugle: Islam and Meditation10: Sarah Shaw: Theravada Buddhism and Meditation11: Caifang Zhu: Chan Buddhism and Meditation12: Georgios Halkias: Buddhist Meditation in Tibet: Exoteric and Esoteric Orientations13: Harold D. Roth: Classical Daoist Meditation: 400-100 B.C.E14: Louis Komjathy: Daoist Meditation: From 100 CE to the PresentPart III. Varieties of Meditative Practices and Experiences14: Ayesha Nathoo: Relaxation and Meditation16: Nobuyoshi Yamabe: Concentration and Visualization Techniques in Buddhist Meditation17: Carlos do Carmo Silva: The Phenomenology of Meditation: Commonalities and Divergences between Christian Meditatio and Hindu Dhyāna18: Jessica Frazier: The Self in Meditation: The art of self-transformationPart IV. Approaches to the Study of MeditationBiology and Neuroscience19: Kieran C. R. Fox and B. Rael Cahn: Meditation and the brain20: Dusana Dorjee: Psychophysiology of MeditationPsychology21: Tim Lomas: Meditation and emotion22: Ivana Buric & Inti Brazil: Individual differences in meditation outcomes23: Deane H. Shapiro, Jr.: Reflections on the Role of Control in Meditation24: Peter Sedlmeier and Kunchapudi SrinivasDR: Psychological Theories of Meditation in Early Buddhism and S??khya/YogaSociology25: Michal Pagis: The sociology of meditation26: Conrad Hackett: The demographics of meditation in the United StatesAnthropology27: Manu Bazzano: Meditation and the post-secular condition28: Douglas E. Christie: Christian Contemplative Thought and Practice in the Contemporary World29: Masoumeh Rahmani: Goenka's Vipassana Movement: From Conversion to Disaffiliation30: Caroline Starkey: Meditation in Contemporary Monastic LifePart V. Individual and Social Change through MeditationTherapeutic Applications31: Patricia Lynn Dobkin and Kaveh Monshat: Mental Illness Through the Lens of Mindfulness32: Madhav Goyal and Heather L. Rusch: Mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of physical conditions33: David Orme-Johnson: Transcendental Meditation in the treatment of mental and physical conditions34: David Brazier: Zen TherapySocial Change35: Ann Gleig: Enacting Social Change Through Meditation36: Candy Gunther Brown: Meditation and Education37: Katherine M. Auty: Meditation in PrisonPart VI. Debates and Controversies in Meditation38: Jared R. Lindahl, Willoughby B. Britton, David J. Cooper, Laurence J. Kirmayer: Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward A Person-Centered Approach39: Nathan Fisher: The Dark Nights of the Soul in Abrahamic Meditative Traditions40: Juhn Y. Ahn: Meditation sickness41: Brian Victoria: Meditation to kill and be killed by The Use of Samādhi Power Imperial Japan42: Ron Purser and David Lewis: Neuroscience and meditation: Help or hindrance?43: Etzel Cardeña: Meditation, Exceptional Psychophysiological Control, and Parapsychology

The Oxford Handbook of Meditation offers ample resources that provide a useful overview of important questions currently being discussed in the field of meditation studies: the promise and limits of empirical research, the possibility of a transcultural science of meditation (and the risks necessarily involved in such a project), and comparative concerns about "meditation" across cultural and disciplinary boundaries. It can serve as an introduction to the field of meditation studies as well as provide direction for future research. Serious readers will no doubt agree that the Handbook successfully follows through on its promise to feed the wonder and desire to know of a wide audience of specialists and non-specialists alike.