Nested views entail relationships between religion and science that accommodate both religious and scientific narratives, but prioritize one perspective over the other. In this arrangement, one set of values, epistemic assumptions, or commitments is described in terms that subordinate it to the other. Conversely, the prioritized view may be recognized as a broader framework within which the de-prioritized view operates. On some occasions, practitioners’ use of words like “actually,” “really,” or even explanations that one phenomenon is another, signaled the broader, more encompassing framework. For example, one teacher stated: “So all disorienting experiences in meditation have to do with a prāṇa imbalance, or rlung imbalance. So some people come at it from the point of fixing the meditation or fixing other things, but fundamentally it’s an issue having to do with prāṇa at the end of the day. Enlightenment has to do with prāṇa; neurosis is prāṇa.”

We identified instances of views that prioritize religion, as well as views that prioritize scientific frameworks in this way. Those prioritizing religious views sometimes described Buddhist perspectives as operating on a “deeper” or more “profound” or “fundamental” level than scientific ones, which were described as superficial or limited in some way. Some teachers explained that the psychological benefits of Buddhist meditation were useful as far as they go but clarified that these were not the goal of practice. A Zen teacher noted that psychological well-being can “arise as a fruit of the practice” but is not the “purpose of the practice,” which is about “something deeper”: the “Buddha Way,” “spiritual realization,” and “realizing for [oneself] what is fundamentally true.” A Tibetan Buddhist teacher said that “psychological healing” can happen with meditation, but is only a matter of “enjoying the surface” of what is possible. Rather, the “full benefit” and “profundity” of Buddhist meditation is to be found in its “essential part,” which “goes beyond the rational, the conditioned thinking mind,” and involves “going beyond ego,” “feeling a boundless love,” and “seeing the true nature of everything.”

For those who prioritized scientific views, values such as scientific rigor, objectivity, and openness superseded traditional Buddhist positions or claims. They viewed Buddhism as more usefully and safely engaged if and when it could be subject to a kind of scientific scrutiny, which would allow them to confidently embrace aspects that stand up to such scrutiny and discard those that do not. A Zen practitioner working in a technology field suggested that in the West it would be more effective for Buddhist meditation to be approached in a “practical, no-nonsense, cause-and-effect, almost scientific way” because “that’s the kind of mindset that we have to begin with.” He suggested that it would be valuable for meditators to “submit themselves to testing” in ways that are “repeatable,” enabling Buddhist instruction to be more “standardized.”

A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner working in a scientific field similarly found herself unsatisfied by the responses of her Buddhist teachers when trying to make sense of her meditation-related challenges. Finding many traditional and contemporary spiritual resources unsatisfying, she said, “I would like to see things from scientists. . . . If I had seen an article that was more believable than some of the stuff that is out there, I would have come to be more comfortable much more quickly instead of seeing these things that were describing similar stuff to what I had experienced, but part of the writing making it seem like it was really bogus.” Describing herself “as a Westerner” with a “data-driven . . . personality,” she preferred a Buddhist tradition that employs “non-traditional” language and has an “openness about [meditation difficulties] that doesn’t make it mystical.” At the same time, she found elements of traditional Buddhist views that encouraged a “softer” and “more allowing” approach to meditation challenges to be a helpful corrective to her “natural” scientific orientation that can become too “hardcore” and “hard-edged,” leading to more agitation as she “tries to control the process.”