Overview    [page 39] If we are to believe later traditions, and there is in my opinion no reason not to do so, the first Tibetan historiographic writings date from Tibet's imperial period (seventh-ninth centuries), which coincided with her relations with the Nepalese, Indians, Arabs, Turks, Uighurs, 'A zha and, above all, Tang China. Only a fragment of this literary corpus, falling into two broad classes, has survived. The first of these constitutes those historical documents that were discovered as late as the beginning of this century in one of the caves of the famous cave-temple complex near the town of Dunhuang in Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. Recent scholarship generally agrees that the cave housing these manuscripts was sealed sometime after the year 1002, the latest date found in the manuscripts, possibly around the year 1035 (Fujieda: 65), so that the terminus ad quem of these undated documents would fall in that year. Of signal importance are especially three untitled manuscripts that are known to English-language scholarship as: (1-2) Royal Annals of Tibet (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Pelliot tibétain no.1288, together with India Office Library, London, Stein no.8212, 187). (3) Old Tibetan Chronicle (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Pelliot tibétain no.1287)
[page 40] They have been studied in varying degrees of detail by a number of Western, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese scholars.1 The first Tibetan to examine these was the great scholar and iconoclast dGe 'dun chos 'phel (1903-1951),2 who had gained access to these and a few other fragments while in Kalimpong sometime in 1939. As is related by H. Stoddard, his most recent biographer, the French Tibetanist Jacques Bacot visited Tharchin, a Christian missionary of Khunu descent, in Kalimpong and read with him several of these difficult manuscripts in Old Tibetan. Tharchin apparently solicited the help of dGe 'dun chos 'phel, who was able to aid him in deciphering a number of problematic readings. The results of Bacot's studies were published in 1946, but no mention is made there of either Tharchin or dGe 'dun chos 'phel, although he gratefully recorded his philological debt to another Tibetan, namely bKa' chen Don grub.3 The last tome of a recently published three-volume edition dGe 'dun chos 'phel's works contains inter alia three studies of a number of these Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts. They include a reproduction of the Royal Annals with philological notes, an adaptation into Classical Tibetan of the Old Tibetan of the manuscripts of a large portion of a version of the celestial origin of the imperial families and other miscellaneous fragments, and a reproduction of the Old Tibetan Chronicle.4 Some of the results of these initial studies were subsequently incorporated into his incomplete work on Tibetan history, the Deb ther dkar po ("White Annals"). He was followed by such recent scholars as Khetsun Sangpo, Khang dkar sKal bzang tshul khrims, rDo rje rgyal po, and Chab spel Tshe brtan phun tshogs. While most of Tibet's cultural institutions and literary canon derive from India or are based on one or other of her models, a notable exception is the intense preoccupation of Tibet's men of letters with history and historiography. In terms of literary genre, some of Tibet's historiographical writings bear a resemblance to, or are analogous with, the Indian vaṃśāvalī ("annals"), but her enormous historiographic literature, including that of biography and autobiography, bears testimony to an approach to history that is different from the Indian one(s) (see Warder, Subhrahmanian). As far as the secondary sources on this large corpus of literature are concerned, the premier study is still the one by A. I. Vostrikov.5 Now dated in a number of respects, it remains a classic and indispensable treatment of the various literary genres. [page 41] Despite the fact that the dissolution of the Tibetan empire seems to have resulted in a virtual cessation of further literary developments for about a century, if we take the Tibetan Buddhist tradition at face value, there is ample evidence for affirming the existence in at least central and eastern Tibet of an unbroken transmission of historiographic texts, or quasi-historiographic documents like family chronicles, throughout this time and into the period of the so-called subsequent propagation, which the Tibetan Buddhist historians generally date to the middle of the tenth century. Indeed, we possess documents that trace the genealogies for such extended families or clans of the 'Khon and rLangs of, respectively, the Sa skya and gDan sa mthil/rTse[s/d] thang monastic principalities.6 Moreover, some sort of archives may also have been maintained, if only by the scattered descendants of the imperial family. A sample of the kinds of documents that may now lie buried somewhere in the vast collections of the Potala would be a series of "edicts" issued by Khri srong lde btsan (r. 742?-797?), which were preserved in the chronicle by the great sixteenth-century historian dPa' bo gTsug lag phreng ba (1504-1566).7 By the same token, the two recensions that are now available of the sBa bzhed, a virtual biography of the first Tibetan monk, sBa Ye shes dbang po (eighth century), suggest that the original text should by and large be considered a primary source on Khri srong lde btsan and his religious works, in spite of the fact that their transmission is beset with enormous complexity. In his chronicle of Buddhism in Tibet (and much else besides), Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer (1124-1192) refers to a number of very early works, in addition to numerous edicts, that have to do with the reign of the latter as well. Their descriptive titles are:8 (1) bKa'i yig rtsis che (2) bKa'i yig rtsis chung (3) bKa'i thang yig che (4) bKa'i thang yig chung (5) rGyal rabs rkyang pa (6) Khug pa (7) Zings po can (8) sPun po
NYANGb wrongly collapses the titles of nos. 6 and 7, and reads Khug po zings pa [sic!] can. NYANGl has Yun po for no. 8, which is due to a misreading of the cursive ligature sp, which resembles[page 42]  the graph for y. Moreover, the last four would appear to be historiographic texts per se, but none of these have been located so far if, indeed, they are still extant. One recension of the sBa bzhed, as do Nyang ral and, more elaborately, the chronicles of Buddhism by *lDe'u Jo sras and mKhas pa lDe'u,9 brings to attention the existence of five early historiographic texts from the imperial period, two of which appear to correspond to nos. 7 and 8 of the above titles. These have been briefly noted in a recent paper by S. G. Karmay.10 There are roughly three expressions which, when they occur in book titles, usually indicate that the books in question are historiographic in nature, and all of these are found in writings attested in Tibet for the period covering the eleventh to twelfth centuries, and one which in part may even go back as far as the seventh century. With their probable dates of inception, these are: (1) Lo rgyus ("Records") (eleventh century) (2)  rGyal rabs ("Royal Chronology") (eleventh century) (3) Chos 'byung ("Religious Chronicle") (twelfth century)
Due to limitations of space, we shall have to restrict ourselves, with one notable and fairly lengthy exception, to a bibliographic survey of historiographical texts belonging to these two centuries. However, it must be understood at the outset that those philological procedures that are fundamental to other branches of the humanities having to do with texts and their transmission have thus far mostly bypassed inquiries into Tibetan historiography, as they have virtually every other branch of Tibetan studies. Moreover, there are also considerable gaps in the literary corpus of available texts on the present subject. For these reasons, and also in the absence of "critical" texts, some of the remarks that follow are of necessity rather tentative.
      
   Introduction    Meditation practices have expanded from their historical provenance in religious traditions, toward inclusion among methods of health promotion in the domains of medicine and science.[1] Although some practitioners come to meditation because it is a Buddhist practice, many others engage in meditation as a means for emotional, mental, and even physical health,[2] supported by an increasingly established scientific literature.[3] Proponents of meditation in the West[4] have extensively drawn on both religious and scientific discourses in its dissemination. Accordingly, contemporary Buddhist meditators in the West are likely to find themselves engaged in practices with rich associations with both religious and scientific worldviews. These dual associations may coexist without significance or tension under ordinary circumstances. However, meditation-related challenges can provoke existential concerns that make un-explored relationships between worldviews more important and therefore explicit. Meditation-related challenges are experiences that are 1) reported as difficult, distressing, functionally impairing, and/or requiring additional support and that 2) are attributed as having occurred either during meditation or as a result of meditation[5] . Investigating the ways in which religious and scientific perspectives are engaged when practitioners experience meditation-related challenges may lend some insight into practitioners’ views of religion and science in general and, more importantly, into their engagement with these worldviews as they cope with difficult experiences. Although numerous benefits have been attributed to long-term Buddhist meditation,[6] an examination of the both the historical and textual traditions of Buddhism,[7] as well as contemporary studies of meditation, reveals that such practices can lead to unexpected, challenging, and even distressing experiences.[8] These effects can sometimes be severe enough to disrupt an individual’s daily functioning.[9] Meditation-related challenges are not monolithic, varying in type, duration, and level of impairment. A full account of the phenomenology and consequences of meditation-related challenges is beyond the scope of this manuscript, which focuses on the relationships between religious and scientific worldviews for meditators who experience challenges. However, a growing literature has begun to document and describe these challenges.[10] Meditation-related challenges appear to make worldviews particularly salient for practitioners as they grapple with the existential implications of facing challenges in the course of Buddhist meditation practice.[11] As meditators face these challenges and attempt to move forward with their lives, an important part of their response is to understand how and why their meditation-related challenges came to pass, what to do about them, and what they mean. As Peter Berger observed, “To be sure, the individual suffering from a tormenting illness, say, or from oppression and exploitation at the hands of fellowmen, desires relief from these misfortunes. But he equally desires to know why these misfortunes have come to him in the first place.”[12] Worldview and narrative are particularly relevant to this process, enabling the adoption, contestation, and negotiation of meanings that are personally and socially significant.[13] As Esmé Weijun Wang reflects while considering the meanings of psychiatric diagnoses, “How did this come to be? is another way of asking, Why did this happen?, which is another way of asking, What do I do now?”[14] Thus, in the context of challenging experiences, worldviews do not simply provide epistemic or metaphysical postulates; they also often entail prescriptive, pragmatic, and teleological beliefs that inform behavior. For practitioners of Buddhist meditation in the West, a number of explanatory frameworks are afforded for making sense of meditation-related challenges. Insofar as their meditation practice is part of a tradition of Buddhist practices, religious and spiritual explanations are commonplace. Insofar as they are Westerners suddenly undergoing distress or impairment in functioning, psychological and biomedical explanations are also close at hand. The increasing tendency for meditation practices to be reframed in scientific language, and their impacts to be described through scientific research, provides additional affordances for meditators to make scientific interpretations of meditation-related challenges. Practitioners undergoing meditation-related challenges thus often negotiate both religious and/or scientific discourses as well as ideas about how religion and science do or do not interact. This paper aims to investigate the various ways in which the relationship between religion and science is articulated by Western Buddhists in the context of meditation-related challenges.
      
   Scholarship on the Relationships between Religion and Science     The academic study of relations between religious and scientific discourses has largely developed against the backdrop of Abrahamic religions. In this context, encounters of religion and science have repeatedly been characterized by conflict, often predicated on epistemological incompatibility.[15] The presumption of incompatibility between theology and science is thus sometimes expressed in terms of theological claims vs. scientific progress, and is notably articulated in the “secularization hypothesis,” which contends that as technology and industry extend their reach, religion will become less relevant.[16] However, this hypothesis has only partly borne out, and religion continues to have remarkable relevance.[17] Because the secularization hypothesis has tended to imply a natural conflict between religion and science, critiques of this view often put forth a “compatibility” thesis in which religious and scientific views do not necessarily negate one another. For example, in a latent class analysis of responses to the US General Social Survey, Timothy L. O’Brien and Shiri Noy observed that 43% of respondents favored religion over science, 36% preferred science over religion, and another 21% were characterized as “post-secular,” with positive views of religion and science, but often treating religion as primary.[18] Scholarship on religion and science has increasingly recognized, however, that religious and scientific worldviews may coexist in a range of relationships beyond the dichotomy of compatibility and conflict, and which are reflected but not exhausted by the “post-secular” category. Ian G. Barbour’s philosophical work is particularly notable in this respect,[19] articulating four ideal-typical ways in which religion and science may relate to one another. Briefly stated, these include: (1) Conflict, which entails rival, mutually exclusive claims by religion and science that pertain to the same domain, and which must be resolved in favor of either religion or science; (2) Independence, which entails views that specific methods, questions, or domains are relevant to either religion or science, and that religion and science can be selectively applied to the domains for which they are suited; (3) Dialogue, which entails attempts at engagement and even reinterpretation of religious and scientific claims on one another’s terms, often in areas where parallels can be drawn; and (4) Integration, which entails perspectives that religious and scientific views are to be reconciled and function in common with one another. Although these categories have been variously critiqued,[20] reimagined, and nuanced,[21] the revisions remain largely in conversation with Barbour’s seminal work despite several of its limitations. Much of this discourse is indebted to Christian theological issues in religion (e.g., debates over evolution). It also remains concerned with foundational, philosophical positions (e.g., debates about first causes) rather than the concerns of everyday life. In this scholarship the relationships between religion and science can appear as ideal types rather than as aspects of enacted daily life. The degree to which these categories may extend, or have relevance, to the lived experiences of contemporary individuals without Christian theological commitments remains unclear. Cristine H. Legare and Aku Visala[22] observe that individuals appear to readily turn to both science and religion as they go about their lives, although the extent to which they do so may vary depending on their views, commitments, and—importantly—what circumstances afford and what is at stake at any given point. They call for research that can apply to the daily lives of individuals outside of Christian theological contexts, and which speaks to the ways that scientific and religious worldviews are enlisted in the face of challenges. Rather than seeking to develop a new typology of relationships between religion and science, this paper contributes important data that can answer these calls by examining the narratives of Western Buddhists reporting meditation-related challenges.       
   Buddhist Meditation, Religious and Scientific Discourses, and the Influence of Buddhist Modernism     Numerous social and historical factors have led to the unique dynamics of science and religion encountered by Western practitioners of Buddhism. Arguably, and in contrast to Christianity, the most dominant narratives have entailed forms of compatibility between Buddhism and science. Donald S. Lopez Jr.[23] demonstrated that claims for compatibility have been articulated for at least 150 years and that such claims have persisted in largely similar forms despite changes in what is meant both by “Buddhism” and by “science.” Many agents have participated in the advancement of these claims, including Buddhist monks responding to Christian missionaries in Asian countries under colonial rule, theosophists bringing a perennialist amalgamation of Asian mystical traditions to the West, and scholars of Buddhism and scientists at European and North American universities. Noticing the surprising consistency of compatibility claims over this period, Lopez asks, “How can the same timeless truths be constantly reflected in discoveries that have changed, and continue to change, so drastically over time?”[24] David L. McMahan[25] has helped to delineate the features of “Buddhist modernism”—a term that describes forms of Buddhism that emerged due to the unique conditions of modernity. McMahan illustrated how specific discursive processes of modernity have been instantiated in the creation of a modern Buddhism, including a shift from institutional to personal, privatized religion and a reinterpretation of traditional Buddhist views, practices, and goals into psychological and scientific language.[26] One motivation for these shifts was the legitimation of Buddhism by establishing associations with the authority of science.[27] He also illustrated a tension in Buddhist modernism between a scientific rationalist discourse, on the one hand, and romantic tendencies that emphasize a transrational and mystical epistemology on the other. Various claims of compatibility have been elaborated in the context of Buddhist modernism. One compatibility narrative contends that science is confirming truths about the nature of reality that the Buddha already discovered.[28] This view was put forth in part by Asian Buddhists in an attempt to defend their religion against charges of superstition made by Christian missionaries in the colonial period, and in the process, they aimed to legitimate Buddhism as a contributor to the discourses of modernity.[29] Promoters of the compatibility of Buddhism and science have also presented Buddhist meditation as a method akin to scientific experimentation.[30] Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel, for example, have proposed that Buddhism not only is a science of the mind but also that it has “a rigorous, peer-reviewed educational method teaching contemplative insight.”[31] In addition to informing the presentation of Buddhism in the West, compatibility narratives have strongly influenced the explication of mindfulness, which has also been presented as scientific and, often, nonreligious.[32] In a notable example, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), expressed a vision of mindfulness as a “universal dharma that is co-extensive, if not identical, with the teachings of the Buddha.”[33] But insofar as his goal was to “recontextualize it within the frameworks of science, medicine . . . and healthcare,” he thought it was both possible and preferable to transmit this teaching “without ever mentioning the word ‘dharma.’”[34] The mindfulness movement has largely expanded its scope not through appeals to ancient tradition, but through the presentation of meditation as a secular, or post-secular, method for self-realization,[35] as well as an evidence-based treatment for various physical and mental maladies. The aims of medical intervention and pragmatic self-improvement have not historically been in the scope of Buddhist meditation, and in some instances could even be said to run counter to those goals.[36] The widespread popularity of mindfulness as a secularized health and self-improvement strategy is a testament to how far the compatibility argument has progressed and how successful it has been. On the other hand, comparatively few scientists engaged in meditation research seem to acknowledge potential incompatibilities between Buddhism and science even though, as Lopez has observed,[37] the presentation of a scientific Buddhism often has to distort or ignore teachings, practices, and worldviews found across Buddhist traditions that would be obvious to historians of Buddhism and traditional Buddhist practitioners alike (e.g., karma, reincarnation).  Evan Thompson also demonstrates the pervasiveness of the assumed compatibility between Buddhism and science.[38] He is particularly critical of “the myth of Buddhist exceptionalism,” which he defines as “the belief that Buddhism is superior to other religions in being inherently rational and empirical, or that Buddhism isn’t really a religion but rather is a kind of ‘mind science,’ therapy, philosophy, or way of life based on meditation”—ideas that he describes as “mistaken”, and which “rest on misconceptions about religion and science.”[39] Other scholars have worried that an overemphasis on the allegiance between Buddhism and science could result in a form of cultural imperialism in which more traditional forms of Buddhism (often prominently featuring myths, rituals, and supernatural beings) are delegitimized.[40] They have also pointed out that the emphasis on scientific Buddhism and secular mindfulness creates a commodity for the consumption of White converts that erases the voices of Asian American Buddhists.[41] Despite these contributions to our understanding of how and why Buddhism has come to occupy a unique position in the debates between science and religion, little is known about how these dynamics are presently playing out in contemporary Buddhist communities and among individual meditators and meditation teachers. This paper draws upon qualitative data from the Varieties of Contemplative Experiences (VCE) project, a mixed-method study on meditation-related challenges reported by Western Buddhist meditators and meditation teachers.[42] The context of meditation-related challenges is important, as distress presents a powerful motivation for understanding the causes and purpose of suffering, a process that recruits the religious and existential worldviews of the practitioner.[43] Within these narratives are accounts of multiple agents—meditators, their teachers, fellow practitioners, and others (medical providers, family, and friends)—navigating meditation challenges in a cultural context in which scientific, psychological, and biomedical frameworks for well-being and illness exist alongside appraisals and responses offered from within Buddhist communities. As a result, these data offer an opportunity to investigate how views about the compatibility or incompatibility of Buddhism and science are instantiated within the context of navigating challenging meditation experiences. This paper seeks to contribute a better understanding of the experiences of Buddhist meditators experiencing challenges, and of the relationships between science and religion for these practitioners, in three ways. First, it contributes data from individuals’ lived experiences. Second, it examines the relationships between religion and science in a non-Abrahamic context, among Western Buddhist practitioners. Third, it focuses on the context of meditation-related challenges, which represent unique stakes and difficulties that require practitioners to engage their explanatory frameworks. Our aim is to examine the various ways in which relationships between religion and science were described in this context.       
   Methods     This paper provides a reanalysis of data from the VCE project, a mixed-methods study of Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation experts in the West who have experienced meditation-related challenges (see Lindahl, et al. for details[44]). Previous analyses from the [name elided] project identified a broad range of meditation-related challenges, individual and social factors that influence their nature and trajectory[45], and heuristics used in establishing a differential diagnosis or need for intervention[46]. The present project draws upon and extends those initial findings through further analyzing qualitative data within and beyond these themes in order to identify instantiations of religious and scientific frameworks employed within practitioners’ and experts’ narratives.       
   Participants    Participants in the original VCE study were 60 practitioners of Buddhist meditation who reported that they had experienced meditation-related challenges, as well as 32 meditation experts (comprising mental health practitioners and meditation teachers who have helped others to address meditation-related challenges). Meditation practitioners were sampled equally across Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. The current analysis also includes data from a replication study of an additional eight practitioners and one expert from the tradition of vipassanā meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka. See table 1 for participant demographics including age and gender, as well as religion of origin. Table 1. Participant Characteristics  Characteristic   Number of Participants   Practitioners   Sex (M, F)   37, 31   Age (M (SD))   46.34 (13.97)   Education (Completed Degree)   High School   3   Bachelor’s   25   Master’s   25   Doctorate (PhD, PsyD, or MD)   15   Religious Upbringing   Buddhist   2   Catholic   13   Protestant   18   Orthodox Christian   1   Jewish   12   None   14   Other   2   Not known/missing   4   Practice Tradition   Theravāda (including Goenka practitioners)   28   Zen   20   Tibetan Buddhism   20   Experts   Sex (M, F)   25, 8   Type of Expertise   Theravāda (including Goenka experts)   14   Zen   8   Tibetan Buddhism   6   Clinical   5  Note. This table represents demographic and background characteristics of study participants. Practitioners = participants who reported their own meditation-related challenges. Experts = participants, either Buddhist meditation teachers or clinicians or both, who described how they guide and advise meditation practitioners undergoing challenges.
      
   Analyses           
   Analytic Process     Coded themes from the original VCE analysis were initially reviewed for relevance to narratives about religion and science. From the initial analysis of phenomenology or, in other words, the various types of meditation-related challenges documented in the study, the “change in worldview” thematic category was particularly informative for the present analyses. Additionally, from the analysis of influencing factors—that is, the factors that were identified as either risks or remedies (or both) for the onset and trajectory of meditation-related challenges—data from the “worldviews and explanatory frameworks” and “intentions, motivations, and goals” thematic categories were also informative. (For further information on the original categories and analyses readers are referred to the original publication of those findings[47]). Because “worldviews and explanatory frameworks” was one of the largest influencing factor categories in the entire study, comprising more than 800 discrete references across all participants, we began by “coding-on” this category for further subthemes. This allowed us to identify the range of types of worldviews and relationships with worldviews in their role as influencing factors. However, because discourses of science and religion often emerged in segments of the interview that were not directly related to the prior research questions (e.g., determining phenomenology, influencing factors, and criteria for differential diagnosis), a second review of all interviews was conducted to extract material pertaining to science and religion that was not originally included in any prior thematic analyses. This document was reviewed by three of the coauthors (RP, DC, JL), and new themes relevant to religion and science were identified through a combination of theory-driven and data-driven approaches through which thematic categories were allowed to emerge inductively. The extracted data document was then read and coded as appropriate with one or more themes by the same three coauthors. For the purpose of generating the present manuscript and a manuscript on the impact of worldviews on the trajectory of meditation-related challenges[48], additional subthemes that reflected patterns in the description of science and belief were compiled based on these analyses. Discrepancies in the application of themes and subthemes were discussed until consensus was reached. Thematic categories were applied to sections of interview texts, rather than to entire interviews. This enabled a richer, more nuanced analysis wherein multiple themes were often observed within any given narrative, showcasing how individuals entertain and navigate a range of explanatory frameworks when considering their meditation-related challenges. In the service of providing a more descriptive and useful account of relationships between religion and science, these themes were not developed to be mutually exclusive and are in many cases conceptually overlapping with one another.       
   Identifying Science and Religion     Integral to the analytic process was our determination of what would be interpreted as “science” and “religion” in the interview transcripts. Participants rarely invoked “science” or “religion” directly; instead, they typically discussed subsidiary topics broadly recognizable as within the domains of science or religion. Thus, we were particularly interested in the language participants used to refer to religious and scientific concepts and their interaction by invoking frameworks that draw on either science or religiosity, even if they did not mention science or religion by name.       
   References to Science     Although there were several direct mentions of “science,” references to science were more typically indirect, and occurred through discussion of topics typically within the purview of science, such as empiricist rationalism, Western medicine, or scientific research. Thus, our subsequent analyses were also indirect and simultaneously more specialized, intentionally sensitive to the specific topics that participants chose to speak about. We identified the following topics to be relevant to, and representative of, scientific discourse for the purpose of our analyses: discussions of rationality,[49] empiricism, technology, physics, medicine, psychology, and psychiatry.       
   References to Religion     Religious and spiritual content was also often referenced without the explicit use of the word “religion.” For our analyses we included terms and concepts associated with historical and contemporary Buddhist traditions. These included Buddhist and “Buddhist-adjacent” teleologies, such as expected states, stages, and insights, as well as discussions of ultimate purpose and goals associated with religious practice. Distinctive terminology associated with Buddhist traditions of Asia (e.g., dukkha), terms associated with distinctive phenomenology (e.g., nyams), and key philosophical (e.g., “emptiness”) or soteriological (e.g., kenshō) concepts were also treated as references to religion and spirituality. We also included terms and concepts associated with traditions commonly understood as religious, such as Hinduism or Christianity, as well as terms and concepts with roots in these traditions that have taken on new meanings and interpretations outside of traditional contexts (e.g., “kundalini” and “dark night”).       
   Results     The aim of our analyses was to identify the various relationships between religion and science that were explicitly or implicitly present in the way Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation experts in the West described working with meditation-relation challenges. A total of six themes emerged, each of which is suggestive of a way of conceptualizing the relationship between religion and science: compatibility, conflict, nested relationships, discrete domains, and modes of complementarity (see table 2 for a list of themes and definitions). Table 2. Types of Relationships between Religion and Science  Theme   Description   Conflict between Science and Religion   Religious and scientific frameworks are either entirely, or in part, so incompatible as to require a choice between scientific or religious claims.   Compatibility between Science and Religion   The integration of religion and science into a coherent worldview is seen as unproblematic.   Nested Relationships between Science and Religion   Relationships between religion and science that accommodate both religious and scientific narratives, but prioritize one perspective over the other.   Science and Religion as Discrete Domains   The supposition that there are some domains (e.g., soteriology) where religious perspectives are most appropriate, and other domains (e.g., medicine) where scientific perspectives should hold authority, which supports a “division of labor” between religious and scientific frameworks.   Complementarity between Science and Religion   Scientific and religious approaches enhance one another.  Note. This table represents identified themes that emerged from this study’s analysis. Descriptions are presented to the right of each respective theme.       
   Conflict between Science and Religion     Conflict views entail relationships between religion and science where religious and scientific frameworks are either entirely, or in part, so incompatible as to require a choice between scientific or religious claims. Thus, any arrangement where scientific and religious claims are described as antithetical and irreconcilable would be considered conflict views. In some cases, conflict was expressed directly, particularly through the rejection of one perspective in favor of the other. In one notable example, a practitioner rejected previously held religious interpretations of his experience of meditation-related challenges. While on his first Zen retreat, he had an “incredible experience” akin to discovering a “door” to “another world.” He interpreted this monthlong sense of the world having “opened up” to be consistent with descriptions of Buddhist experiences of insight. He then spent years trying to “find the door” again, seeking out teachers who framed practice in that way. On a subsequent retreat, he found what he initially appraised as access to this higher insight and wisdom, but it quickly escalated into “fantasies about being a world-savior,” with “hallucinations” and “anti-social behavior” that led to his removal from the retreat and psychiatric treatment. Later, after becoming acquainted with “well-documented . . . academic research” demonstrating ways in which brains “construct” experience to fit existing beliefs, he rejected his previous worldview as “basically an illusion” that caused him to construct “these experiences out of normal sense data to confirm what I was believing.” Conflicts may also arise due to perceived implications of adopting religious versus scientific frameworks. In the following example, a practitioner faced a decision whether to follow her psychiatrist’s advice, aligned with best practices from a biomedical framework rooted in science, or to follow an approach to meditation that was guided by her spirituality. This practitioner first came to meditation at the suggestion of her psychiatrist, but then while on a meditation retreat in a Theravāda tradition, she experienced highly debilitating and enduring changes to her perception and her sense of self. This led to severe functional impairment in spatial orientation, such as trouble walking down the street. As her challenges persisted, her psychiatrist told her to stop meditating, saying “it’s not good for you.” However, from an early age, she had “wanted to find my way spiritually.” She thought “it [meditation] did cause this to happen, but I also knew if that’s what happened, I would have a way out through it also.” With respect to her psychiatrist again, she said “I just didn’t care what he said—I knew I had to continue doing it. And I did it; I didn’t overdo it. And I just kept it up and kept it up.” Although her symptoms persisted to various degrees for nearly a decade, during which point resuming meditation could lead to her feeling “absolutely terrified,” eventual improvements through meditation and positive changes in her sense of self confirmed, for her, that she had been correct to reject the psychiatrist’s advice to stop meditating, and that it had indeed been a religious problem with a religious solution. “My sense of self came back knowing that I got through the rabbit hole or something. I know that I’m just part of the universe at this point. Everybody is part of me, and I’m part of everybody else.”       
   Compatibility between Science and Religion    Compatibility views entail relationships between religion and science in which their integration into a coherent worldview is seen as unproblematic. Thus, any arrangement in which one does not have to give up religious claims by endorsing scientific claims (or vice versa), or religious concepts are treated as equivalent or identical to scientific concepts, would be included in compatibility. For example, one teacher reflected on the challenges that practitioners report to him in the context of formal interviews: “Most of them are deep psychological issues or matters of trauma. You know, or you could see them as ancient twisted karma. I don’t make that much of a distinction about it.” Insights from meditation were also occasionally framed as correspondent with scientific concepts. For example, one practitioner stated: As I began to move more deeply into that sense of emptiness and impermanence and no-self, that, kind of through osmosis, seemed to then drift into my body sense—that if there is no solid self and if things are empty and impermanent and without a solid sense of self, that is also true for my whole molecular being. . . .  As I began to be interested in what physicists were looking at on the most elemental particle level, and I began to see our bodies are nothing but cells in a constant state of motion, I began to see that there really is, on every single level, no distinction between much of anything except for how molecules are rearranged. So, as that relates to my body sense, I began to get that sense of, “If there is no solid psychological self and things are empty and impermanent, what does that mean about my body’s presence in the universe?” Similarly, one Theravāda Buddhist meditation teacher equated two key concepts in his tradition associated with developing prowess in concentration, pīti (rapture or joy) and sukha (pleasure or bliss), with two neurotransmitters, stating that some practitioners “get the pīti. In other words, they’re generating the norepinephrine. They’re generating that neurotransmitter, or whatever the transmitter is for pīti, but they’re not generating the opioids for the sukha.”
      
   Purification Narratives    A subset of narratives that were consistent with compatibility frameworks, but were distinctive and consistent enough to prompt further scrutiny, were purification narratives. In general, purification narratives involve an interpretation of meditation-related challenges as an often-necessary component of the transition from an inferior state to a better one. This often involved having elements that were less desirable eliminated or transformed, often with difficulty or suffering as part of the purification process. Practitioners and experts alike used the language of “purification” in ways that illustrate how religious concepts can be blended not only with psychology but also with folk depictions of physiology, neuroscience, chemistry, and physics. The specific substances, processes, and mechanisms of purification varied, and often mingled scientific and religious referents. In some instances, Buddhist concepts described what was being purified: “karmic patterns,” saṅkhāras, or “obstacles to body, speech, and mind.” In other cases, purification was described in psychological language as transforming “impulses,” “past habit patterns,” “neurotic patterns,” “mental complexes,” “past traumas,” and “personal material,” as well as more general language such as purifying “dirt and refuse,” “impurities,” “unpleasant stuff,” or “stuff from the past.” In an example of how religious and scientific referents might be blended in a purification narrative, one practitioner in a Tibetan Buddhist tradition stated that “working with meditation is really bringing up and rooting out and kind of leaching out old habitual mind patterns, habitual karmic patterns.” A teacher in a Tibetan Buddhist tradition explained how he thought Buddhist notions of karmic purification were congruous with neuroscientific findings: in Tibetan Buddhism, the whole purpose of meditation is really purifying your mind or breaking down all the habitual tendencies, like the karmic patterns. Perhaps in modern science, especially neuroscience maybe, the way of dissolving or undoing those grooves in your brain. . . . You don't want to use the word “karmic pattern” in mainstream language because people think, “Oh that’s just another belief, another Eastern belief.” But this is more than a belief. To me, it’s really scientific because now, as you know, the neuroscientists are discovering the idea that the brain is very much central to our personality, to our being, but that also personality is no longer really a permanent trait—it can be changed by means of meditation or self-reflection. So that’s the purpose of the practice of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism is really to purify our consciousness of karmic patterns, which is another way of saying undoing those grooves in your brain.
      
   Nested Relationships between Science and Religion     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 wellbeing 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.”       
   Discrete Domains    These views articulate a “division of labor” between scientific and religious perspectives. They presuppose that there are some domains (e.g., soteriology) where religious perspectives are most appropriate, and other domains (e.g., medicine) where scientific perspectives should hold authority. This enables the coexistence of religious and scientific worldviews, and a pragmatic deployment of either as the situation calls for it. When practitioners critique religious or scientific interpretations for overstepping their bounds, this may also be consistent with discrete domains narratives, especially when the problem is characterized as religion or science operating in the wrong domain of life. Some teachers made practical use of medicine, psychiatry, or psychology, readily referring students to these biomedical fields for help when needed while also emphasizing the distinctions between those approaches and Buddhist ones. One Zen teacher said, “when we’re doing zazen on the cushion, that’s the time to deal with the kōan. . . . If you deal with the emotional stuff on the kōan and then you go to the therapist and talk about Zen practice, that’s just not going to cut it!” This teacher said that it is common for emotional issues to arise in Zen practice and welcomes continued practice if “they find the practice helpful,” but instructs students that “Zen won’t cure their emotional issues and that I’d recommend they see a therapist.” He establishes the distinction by telling students, “This isn’t going to take care of that. You need to take care of that and find a good person to work with you on that. We don’t really work with that here.” Further, one expert, who was both a Zen teacher and a mental health professional, described how applying Buddhist approaches to address psychological problems could even lead to harms for practitioners. “I’ve had people call me up and refer—you know, doctors [. . .] call me up and say, ‘Do you think meditation would help this individual who is struggling from [. . .] schizophrenia?’ And I just simply say, ‘No! Please, don’t!’ ‘Well, I think it would just really calm them down.’ And I said, ‘It would probably do the opposite.’” Related concerns were expressed about the inappropriateness of treating Buddhist practices as psychological tools from the standpoint of Buddhist priorities. One Tibetan Buddhist teacher noted that some approach Buddhist practice “as an aspirin” and lose “the big view . . . that makes this whole thing meaningful.” He stated, “It is actually possible to develop some sort of sustained experience of deep, deep, deep wellbeing that manifests itself as internal peace and externally extraordinary compassion, connection and, in our tradition, appreciation and devotion for those who have gone before.” But, instead, some want something that’s time-limited. It’s kind of like . . . evidence-based psychotherapy or time-limited . . . you know, you contract for four sessions and you’re supposed to get this. . . . I would love it if people understood that this is a lifelong journey. Some practitioners and experts noted that the application of Buddhist frameworks to areas of psychological health might cause inadvertent misidentification of legitimate psychiatric or medical conditions as normative Buddhist experiences. One Zen teacher, after receiving training in a psychotherapeutic modality (Somatic Experiencing), described her reevaluation of what she had previously identified as normative meditative states: what I’ve now begun to see is that in many meditation practitioners what we see as a state of samadhi or bliss is actually dissociation. It’s the freeze, the freeze from the somatic languaging. And it doesn’t feel bad. There’s some parts of freeze that feel really good. Conversely, some also cautioned that an application of psychological frameworks in the domain of Buddhist practices could lead to authentic Buddhist experiences being incorrectly “pathologized.” A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner who, at the time of their meditation-related difficulties resided in a setting where others were making their medical decisions, stated, “I remember some of the most intense moments . . . there would be all kinds of homosexual imagery and bestiality and demons and just crazy shit. . . . I knew that if I talked to anybody about what was going on with me, I was going to be back there pumped full of Thorazine. So I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.”
      
   Modes of Complementarity of Religion and Science    Complementarity narratives hold that scientific and religious approaches enhance one another. Thus, expressions of complementarity go beyond compatibility (i.e., the view that it is possible to reconcile religious and scientific positions) and are consistent with the stronger stance that scientific and religious positions not only can, but also should, inform one another. When practitioners and teachers discussed the value added to religious endeavors by incorporating the fruits of science—or vice versa—without implying a hierarchical view where one supersedes the other, these were considered complementary views. For instance, one meditation teacher said, “Don’t be afraid of therapy.” He explained that “if I can’t figure something out, or if I feel there is something incomplete from a spiritual perspective, I’m not afraid to search out a therapist.” Drawing upon Buddhist distinctions between “relative truth” and “absolute truth,” he stated his belief that “on an absolute level, meditation can solve everything in theory. But in practice it doesn’t seem to do it. . . . We think we can hopscotch over all these worldly, relative, psychological issues and take refuge in the absolute, and it just doesn’t work for most of us.” When practitioners discussed the benefits of scientific study for Buddhist meditation, these notably extended to the importance of mental health training or trained support staff for meditation instructors. One practitioner expressed a wish: That there would be some kind of teacher or some kind of people that were experienced enough at retreats to help people. That there might be some kind of a list in your area of psychiatrists or psychologists who have worked with meditation and that there would be some sort of phone contact you could make with somebody who had been through that.   This practitioner also thought “there’s nothing wrong with taking medication or whatever else if you need to do that.” One meditation teacher observed the increasing relevance of mental health issues—and various psychiatric medications—for meditation instruction. She explained how “A surprising number of people—a lot of people—are taking psychoactive medications. I think it’s actually all the better.” Some practitioners she worked with “meditate better on the SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] . . . because they are not busy fighting with their perseverating thoughts so much.” Some practitioners who experienced challenges described the added difficulty they faced when presented with only religious interpretations and remedies, or when instructors seemed uninformed about the psychological aspects of meditation experiences. One practitioner commented on how she “would have handled [her meditation-related challenges] better” had she been provided with a depth-psychological approach or framework in addition to traditional meditation instruction: I felt: “Shouldn’t I have been taught in a different way that this is a very psychological process?” And maybe in a more Jungian kind of way of: “Hey, look, your archetypes are going to come up and you’re going to have to deal with them.” But, no—none of that.  In contrast, one practitioner who attributed many of her meditation-related challenges to her trauma history appreciated that her teachers were “encouraging a broad approach” that engaged psychotherapy and bodywork as a support for her meditation practice.
      
   Discussion     This analysis yielded a set of themes describing the rich and varied associations of religion and science among contemporary Western Buddhists reporting meditation-related challenges. Our analysis demonstrates a broad range of expressions of the relationship between religious and scientific worldviews beyond the dichotomy of compatibility or conflict, including nested relationships, religion and science as discrete domains, and narratives of complementarity.    We will first briefly discuss how the additional themes we observed might relate to assumptions about compatibility and conflict as modes of relationship between religion and science. Then we will relate the full set of themes we observed to prior literature on science and religion. Finally, we will examine the relevance of these relationships for practitioners, and their potential role in dealing with meditation-related challenges.       
   Compatibility, Conflict, and Beyond     The occurrence of conflict and compatibility narratives in our data, as well as the need for additional framings, may be understood in light of the importance of the secularization hypothesis in the public imagination since the mid-20th century. Proponents of the secularization hypothesis have been regarded as exemplary of conflict narratives.[50] Correspondingly, critics of secularization theory[51] are readily interpreted as advancing some version of compatibility between science and religion. Popular media portrayals offer ample material that implies an either-or between conflict and compatibility alternatives. Consider the following journalistic article titles: “‘Faith vs. Fact’: Why Religion and Science Are Mutually Incompatible” in the Washington Post[52] and “Can Science and Religion Get Along?” in Science Magazine,[53] or a Pew panel: “Religion and Science: Conflict or Harmony?”[54] The propensity to dichotomize—to reduce complex information to two opposites—is a common cognitive trait,[55] which may make compatibility-conflict views intuitively appealing. Nevertheless, our analyses yielded additional relationships that should not be reduced to either compatibility or conflict because they convey unique, valuable information characterizing how people think about science and religion. Consider nested relationships, for example, which might otherwise have been assimilated into dichotomizing conflict-/compatibility narratives. If religion and science are imagined as vying for primacy, these might be viewed reductively as conflict; if the issue of coexistence between religion and science is most salient, then they might be reductively glossed as compatibility. Although both interpretations may be justified in their own ways, neither captures the specific arrangement in nested relationships, whereby religious and scientific positions are both accommodated, yet one takes explanatory or teleological precedence over the other. These may be especially relevant for individuals who have firm commitments to a scientific (or religious) epistemology, but are able to integrate religious (or scientific) information in a way that leaves their epistemic commitments intact. O’Brien and Noy observed a type of nested narrative, termed “post-secular,” in their research, but these primarily comprised individuals whose appreciation of science was nested within religious commitments.[56] “Directional” relationships between religion and science, as described by John H. Evans and Michael S. Evans,[57] also eschew conflict narratives but presume that religious views influence the development of science—again, nesting science within religion. It is important to note, therefore, that in some of the nested relationships we observed that science, rather than religion, played the primary role. Discrete domains relationships similarly might be interpreted to have elements of both compatibility and conflict: they tend to separate religion and science, and yet support meditators’ applying either in a practical fashion, as needed and when needed.  Complementary relationships, on the other hand, may be reduced to examples of compatibility. However, this would lose an important feature of these narratives: when practitioners invoked complementary views, they made cases for why religious and scientific approaches should both be applied in the context of meditation. For practitioners who articulated a need for meditation instructors or mental health providers to be informed with both religious and scientific approaches, this suggests more than tolerance or reconcilability, but an affirmative wish for integration. Finally, a subset of compatibility narratives we observed involved purification narratives. Although traditional purification narratives, which do not include scientific frameworks, can be found among many religious traditions, the narratives we observed among Western Buddhists are notable for their flexible capacity to accommodate both religious and scientific—especially psychological—views, while offering departures from the more orthodox interpretations of either. This may be due to the particular affordances provided by purification narratives for addressing meditation-related challenges, such as the construal of distress as a necessary part of one’s meditative path. Rather than proposing a new model for how relations between science and religion should be categorized, this article offers data that describe these relations among a group of Western Buddhists who have experienced meditation-related challenges. Nevertheless, our findings may be relevant to the ongoing development of theories on the relationship between religion and science. As noted earlier, prior theorizing on the relationships between religious and scientific worldviews has tended to reference Abrahamic traditions. Although these are likely to inform Westerners’ worldviews, they may not readily translate to practitioners of Buddhism. As discussed earlier, Buddhism has often been portrayed in the West as largely compatible with science, and may therefore not be as marked by a polarization between religion and science. It is also noteworthy that our themes do not map readily onto Barbour’s structure. Legare and Visala[58] join Barbour’s critics[59] in observing that his (and others’, such as Mikael Stenmark’s[60]) typologies primarily speak to Christian theology and its concerns, are abstract and may not be relevant to applied science, and—if applied stringently—are so rigid and etic that they do not reflect the thinking of ordinary individuals. Barbour has acknowledged these limitations.[61] Legare and Visala call for empirical evidence of how individuals actually relate science and religion, particularly in situations where there are pressing needs for explanation—such as illness—and highlight the importance of dynamism, change, and variety within individuals’ views.[62] Our data helps to answer this call.       
   Existential Relevance of Explanatory Frameworks     A growing literature on individuals’ responses to severe stressors and life disruptions highlights the importance of “meaning-making”—the integration of experiences with existing meaning systems, or adoption of new meanings to accommodate the experiences.[63] Worldviews and interpretive narratives serve to elucidate the causes, as well as the purpose, of suffering—a shared human need.[64] One of the functions of this process may be to repair the uncertainty that such events can expose, which—in addition to the unique distress of a given disruption—constitutes a broader existential threat that is shared among different kinds of life stressors. Practitioners in this study often described crisis situations that defied easy explanation, and which were likewise marked by a search for cause, purpose, and narrative. The Meaning Maintenance Model holds that people are fundamentally motivated by a need to resolve uncertainty, and that worldviews address this need by providing comprehensive explanatory frameworks.[65] Religious and scientific worldviews are both exceptional at fulfilling these needs, although different cultural circumstances, personal motivations, and stressor characteristics can lead individuals to fluidly employ different worldviews to make sense of disturbing events.[66] In other words, as Legare and Visala reason, especially when existential stressors require explanation, worldviews are actively enrolled to mitigate their psychological threat.[67] Meditation-related challenges can constitute a double disruption that makes worldviews particularly important for adjustment. Under ordinary circumstances, Buddhist meditation can help buffer the impact of existential threats.[68] However, meditation-related challenges can undermine the effectiveness of this buffer (since it may be the cause of one’s troubles), raise uncertainty about the extent and meaning of one’s predicament, and sow uncertainty about what one should do in response.[69] Thus, there is a double disruption: that of the meditation-related challenges themselves, paired with the dissolution of a valued coping strategy. The narratives presented here can be interpreted, in part, as describing attempts to navigate the meaning of meditation-related challenges, and to fit worldviews with experience in a meaningful and satisfying way. At the same time, the sheer variety of explanations offered, and relationships between religious and scientific frameworks that are available, may also be disorienting and present a source of distress.[70] Finally, in addition to providing meaning, religious and scientific worldviews informed practitioners’ decisions about their practice, the remedies they sought, and their lives more broadly.[71] Worldviews can influence individuals’ actions either explicitly through injunctions and recommendations (e.g., when meditators are recommended to continue meditating to address meditation-related challenges), or tacitly by shaping presumptive possibilities. The relations between religion and science that we identified not only describe how meditators enroll science and religion to explain their experiences, but also point toward the priorities entailed by these frameworks as they do so. For example, a nested worldview that privileges religious commitments might prescribe biomedical remedies (e.g., medication) for meditation-related challenges, while proscribing remedies that run contrary to the ultimate religious goals of the practice (e.g., stopping meditation). It is also important to clarify that meditation-related challenges are not monolithic, and that individuals report a range of types and trajectories of challenges that have various impacts on worldviews. The distinct attributes of meditation-related challenges in different religious and secular meditation traditions are not well understood, and quantitative data that can establish associations between aspects of worldviews and type or severity of the challenges are not yet available. Thus, these data help to articulate religious and scientific frameworks within the narratives of Buddhist meditators experiencing challenges, but should not be regarded as comprehensive or exhaustive.       
   Conclusion     This research examined the relations between religion and science as they were expressed by meditators who experienced meditation-related challenges and by meditation experts who assist practitioners with such challenges. We observed that relationships between religion and science can feature examples of both conflict and compatibility, but that a broader repertoire of themes had greater utility for describing these relationships. These themes included: nested relationships, where either religion or science were privileged as explanatory frameworks; discrete domains, where application of religious or scientific frameworks depended on the phenomena being explained; and complementarity, where religion and science were viewed as both necessary and as enhancing one another. These themes demonstrate that contemporary Western Buddhist practitioners make use of religious and scientific frameworks in a variety of ways as they navigate meditation-related challenges. Because unique relations between religion and science may inform how meditators respond to their circumstances, understanding the variety of possible relationships between religious and scientific frameworks may be useful for meditators, meditation instructors, and clinicians in navigating context-specific meditation-related challenges.         
   Appendix     SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT A: Themes that Emerged in Reanalyses  Code   Definition   Compatibility of science and religion   Study participant describes the relationship between science (or science-adjacent) concepts and religious (or religion-adjacent) concepts as congruent or compatible.   Conflict between science and religion   Study participant describes the relationship between science (or science-adjacent) concepts and religious (or religion-adjacent) concepts as being in conflict, irreconcilable, or antagonistic.   Influence of prior worldviews, intentions, goals, and expectations   Study participant describes how worldviews, intentions, goals, and expectations held prior to meditating (e.g., from a practitioner’s religious upbringing) have an influence on meditation practice or meditation-related challenges.   Worldviews as risk factors   Study participant describes how meditation practitioners holding specific worldviews, whether scientific or religious, has a deleterious impact on the onset or trajectory of meditation-related challenges.   Absence of framework leads to secondary distress   Study participant states that meditation practitioners not having an explanatory framework for meditation-related challenges leads to additional distress or difficulty.   Having framework helped   Study participant states that meditation practitioners having or being given a worldview or explanatory framework helped with the navigation of meditation-related challenges.   Pragmatic scientific approach amid religious belief or practice   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner engages with an overall religious appraisal of their challenges while also drawing upon pragmatic scientific frameworks (such as psychiatric medication, psychotherapy, or medical treatment) as a method for impacting the nature and trajectory of meditation-related challenges (e.g., for symptom reduction or for managing secondary fear and distress).   Worldviews related to differential diagnosis   Study participant describes the worldviews informing how meditation teachers, meditation practitioners, or other authorities make decisions about when to intervene in meditation-related challenges or how to appraise them.   Agreement with worldview of teacher or tradition   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner agrees with the worldview provided by their teacher or their tradition, especially their appraisal of a meditation-related challenge.   Conflict with worldview of teacher or tradition   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner disagrees with the worldview provided by their teacher or their tradition, especially their appraisal of a meditation-related challenge.   Consideration of other second-person worldview   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner considers a worldview provided by someone outside of their meditation community, such as a friend, family member, or medical expert.   Disaffiliation or deconversion   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner exhibits a loss of or diminishment in Buddhist commitments, whether to doctrines or to communities, associated with their meditation-related challenges and/or the interpersonal dynamics that played out in the context of navigating them.   Change in worldview congruent with teachings of tradition   Study participant describes a change in worldview that fits with the framework of their meditation practice lineage associated with a meditation-related challenge.   Other changes in worldview   Study participant describes a change in worldview that is not related to the worldviews of their meditation practice lineage associated with a meditation-related challenge.  Note. Code = coding categories that were identified in the present reanalyses of the VCE data. Definition = operational definition of each code, used to apply the codes to applicable sections of interview transcripts in analyses.         
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   Notes     
[1] Tainya C. Clarke et al., “Use of Yoga, Meditation, and Chiropractors among U.S. Adults Aged 18 and Over,” NCHS Data Brief no. 325 (November 2018): 1–8. [2] Peter Sedlmeier and Jan Theumer, “Why Do People Begin to Meditate and Why Do They Continue?,” Mindfulness 11, no. 6 (June 1, 2020): 1527–45, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01367-w. [3] J. David Creswell, “Mindfulness Interventions,” Annual Review of Psychology 68, no. 1 (2017): 491–516, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-042716-051139. [4] Defined here as the Global North outside of Asia and Australia. [5] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [6] Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body (New York: Penguin, 2017); Peter Sedlmeier et al., “The Psychological Effects of Meditation: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 138, no. 6 (2012): 1139–71, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028168. [7] Dudjom Lingpa, The Vajra Essence, trans. B. Alan Wallace (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017); Jared R. Lindahl et al., “Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward a Person-Centered Approach,” in The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, ed. Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 840–64; Juhn Y. Ahn, “Meditation Sickness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, ed. Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee, 887–906 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021); and Eric M. Greene, The Secrets of Buddhist Meditation: Visionary Meditation Texts from Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824886868. [8] Jared R. Lindahl et al., “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239; Simon B. Goldberg et al., “Prevalence of Meditation-Related Adverse Effects in a Population-Based Sample in the United States,” Psychotherapy Research: Journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research 32, no. 3 (2022): 291–305, June 2, 2021, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2021.1933646; Marco Schlosser et al., “Unpleasant Meditation-Related Experiences in Regular Meditators: Prevalence, Predictors, and Conceptual Considerations,” PLOS ONE 14, no. 5 (May 9, 2019): e0216643, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216643; and Ausiàs Cebolla et al., “Unwanted Effects: Is There a Negative Side of Meditation? A Multicentre Survey,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 9 (September 5, 2017): e0183137, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183137. [9] Lindahl et al., “Varieties of Contemplative Experience”; Willoughby B. Britton et al., “Defining and Measuring Meditation-Related Adverse Effects in Mindfulness-Based Programs,” Clinical Psychological Science 9, no. 6 (May 18, 2021): 1185–1204, May 18, 2021, 2167702621996340, https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702621996340; and Goldberg et al., “Prevalence of Meditation-Related Adverse Effects .” [10] Britton et al., “Defining and Measuring”; Lindahl et al., “Varieties of Contemplative Experience”; Lindahl et al., “Challenging and Adverse Meditation”; Dhanesh D. Binda, Carol M. Greco, and Natalia E. Morone, “What Are Adverse Events in Mindfulness Meditation?,” Global Advances in Health and Medicine 11 (April 19, 2022): 2164957X221096640, https://doi.org/10.1177/2164957X221096640; and M. Farias et al., “Adverse Events in Meditation Practices and Meditation-Based Therapies: A Systematic Review,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 142, no. 5 (2020): 374–93. [11] Lindahl, Jared R., Roman Palitsky, David J. Cooper, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Roles and Impacts of Worldviews in the Context of Meditation-Related Challenges.” Transcultural Psychiatry, December 7, 2022, 13634615221128680. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615221128679. [12] Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor, 1990), 58. [13] Michael Jackson, The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectivity (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002). [14] Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2019), 25. [15] John H. Evans and Michael S. Evans, “Religion and Science: Beyond the Epistemological Conflict Narrative,” Annual Review of Sociology 34, no. 1 (August 1, 2008): 87–105, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134702. [16] Steve Bruce, Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). [17] Peter L. Berger, The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, 1st ed. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007). [18] Timothy L. O’Brien and Shiri Noy, “Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular Perspectives on Science and Religion in the United States,” American Sociological Review 80, no. 1 (February 1, 2015): 92–115, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414558919. [19] Ian G. Barbour, Religion and Science (New York: HarperCollins, 2013). [20] Geoffrey Cantor and Chris Kenny, “Barbour’s Fourfold Way: Problems with His Taxonomy of Science-Religion Relationships,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001): 765–81, https://doi.org/10.1111/0591-2385.00395. [21] John F. Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1995); Arthur Robert Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming—Natural, Divine, and Human (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); K. Helmut Reich, “A Logic-Based Typology of Science and Theology,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8, no. 1/2 (July 1, 1996): 149–67, https://doi.org/10.5840/jis199681/29; and Mikael Stenmark, How to Relate Science and Religion: A Multidimensional Model (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004). [22] Cristine H. Legare and Aku Visala, “Between Religion and Science: Integrating Psychological and Philosophical Accounts of Explanatory Coexistence,” Human Development 54, no. 3 (2011): 169–84, https://doi.org/10.1159/000329135. [23] Donald S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). [24] Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Scientific Buddha: His Short and Happy Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 13. [25] David L. McMahan, “Modernity and the Early Discourse of Scientific Buddhism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, no. 4 (2004): 897–933; David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and David L. McMahan, Buddhism as the “Religion of Science”: From Colonial Ceylon to the Laboratories of Harvard (Leiden: Brill, 2010). [26] McMahan, Making of Buddhist Modernism. [27] McMahan, Buddhism. [28] Lopez, Buddhism and Science; Lopez, Scientific Buddha. [29] Lopez, Scientific Buddha, 11; Lopez, Buddhism and Science, 33. [30] B. Alan Wallace, ed., Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). [31] B. Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel, Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2008), 184. [32] Roman Palitsky and Deanna M. Kaplan, “The Role of Religion for Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Implications for Dissemination and Implementation,” Mindfulness 12, no. 8 (August 1, 2021): 2076–89, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01253-0; Roman Palitsky et al., “Do Worldviews Matter for Implementation-Relevant Responses to Mindfulness-Based Interventions? An Empirical Investigation of Existential and Religious Perspectives,” Mindfulness 13, no. 12 (December 1, 2022): 2952–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-022-02010-6. [33] Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Some Reflections on the Origins of MBSR, Skillful Means, and the Trouble with Maps,” Contemporary Buddhism 12, no. 1 (May 1, 2011): 290, https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2011.564844. [34] Kabat-Zinn, “Some Reflections,” 288, 290. [35] Jay Michaelson, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2013); Palitsky and Kaplan, “Role of Religion.” [36] Robert H. Sharf, “Is Mindfulness Buddhist? (And Why It Matters),” Transcultural Psychiatry 52, no. 4 (August 2015): 470–84, https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461514557561. [37] Lopez, Scientific Buddha. [38] Evan Thompson, Why I Am Not a Buddhist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020). [39] Thompson, Why I Am Not, 2, 16. [40] McMahan, Buddhism.  [41] Funie Hsu, “What Is the Sound of One Invisible Hand Clapping? Neoliberalism, the Invisibility of Asian and Asian American Buddhists, and Secular Mindfulness in Education,” in Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context, and Social Engagement, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, and Adam Burke, Mindfulness in Behavioral Health (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2016), 369–81, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44019-4_24. [42] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [43] Daniel Sullivan, Cultural-Existential Psychology: The Role of Culture in Suffering and [44] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [45] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [46] Lindahl, Jared R., David J. Cooper, Nathan E. Fisher, Laurence J. Kirmayer, and Willoughby B. Britton. “Progress or Pathology? Differential Diagnosis and Intervention Criteria for Meditation-Related Challenges: Perspectives From Buddhist Meditation Teachers and Practitioners.” Frontiers in Psychology 0 (2020). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01905. [47] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [48] Lindahl, Jared R., Roman Palitsky, David J. Cooper, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Roles and Impacts of Worldviews in the Context of Meditation-Related Challenges.” Transcultural Psychiatry, December 7, 2022, 13634615221128680. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615221128679. [49] Rationality, and forms of rationalism, are also features of traditional Buddhism and especially Buddhist philosophy. Thus, allusions to rationality may be commensurate with Buddhist frameworks as well. To determine the extent to which scientific frameworks were referenced, the authors relied on contextual elements that made clear that the references indicated appeals to scientific rationalism. [50] Legare and Visala, “Between Religion and Science”; Evans and Evans, “Religion and Science.” [51] E.g., Rodney Stark, “Secularization, R.I.P.,” Sociology of Religion 60, no. 3 (1999): 249–73, https://doi.org/10.2307/3711936. [52] Jeffrey Schloss, “Science and Theology,” Washington Post, August 3, 2015, sec. Opinions, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/science-and-theology/2015/08/03/77136504-19ca-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html. [53] Sara Reardon, “Can Science and Religion Get Along?,” Science | AAAS, February 19, 2011, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/02/can-science-and-religion-get-along. [54] Tom Rosentiel, “Religion and Science: Conflict or Harmony?,” Pew Research Center (blog), May 4, 2009, https://www.pewresearch.org/2009/05/04/can-science-and-religion-coexist-in-harmony/. [55] Matthew Fisher and Frank C. Keil, “The Binary Bias: A Systematic Distortion in the Integration of Information,” Psychological Science 29, no. 11 (2018): 1846–58, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618792256; Hannah J. Kramer et al., “Dichotomous Thinking about Social Groups: Learning about One Group Can Activate Opposite Beliefs about Another Group,” Cognitive Psychology 129 (September 1, 2021): 101408, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2021.101408. [56] O’Brien and Noy, “Traditional, Modern, and Post-Secular.” [57] Evans and Evans, “Religion and Science.” [58] Legare and Visala, “Between Religion and Science.” [59] E.g., Cantor and Kenny, “Barbour’s Fourfold Way.” [60] Stenmark, How to Relate. [61] Ian G. Barbour, “On Typologies for Relating Science and Religion,” Zygon 37, no. 2 (2002): 345–60, https://doi.org/10.1111/0591-2385.00432. [62] Legare and Visala, “Between Religion and Science.” [63] Crystal L. Park, “Making Sense of the Meaning Literature: An Integrative Review of Meaning Making and Its Effects on Adjustment to Stressful Life Events,” Psychological Bulletin 136, no. 2 (March 2010): 257–301, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018301. [64] Berger, Sacred Canopy; Jackson, Politics of Storytelling; Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock, Social Suffering, 1st ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Sullivan, Cultural-Existential Psychology. [65] Steven J. Heine, Travis Proulx, and Kathleen D. Vohs, “The Meaning Maintenance Model: On the Coherence of Social Motivations,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 10, no. 2 (May 1, 2006): 88–110, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_1; Travis Proulx and Steven J. Heine, “The Frog in Kierkegaard’s Beer: Finding Meaning in the Threat-Compensation Literature,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 4, no. 10 (October 1, 2010): 889–905, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00304.x. [66] Roman Palitsky et al., “Worldviews and the Construal of Suffering from Depression,” Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology 3, no. 4 (2019): 191–208, https://doi.org/10.1002/jts5.46. [67] Legare and Visala, “Between Religion and Science.” [68] Young Chin Park and Tom Pyszczynski, “Reducing Defensive Responses to Thoughts of Death: Meditation, Mindfulness, and Buddhism,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 116, no. 1 (2019): 101–18, https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000163. [69] Jared R. Lindahl et al., “Progress or Pathology? Differential Diagnosis and Intervention Criteria for Meditation-Related Challenges: Perspectives from Buddhist Meditation Teachers and Practitioners,” Frontiers in Psychology 11, art. 1905 (2020), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01905. [70] Lindahl, Jared R., Roman Palitsky, David J. Cooper, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Roles and Impacts of Worldviews in the Context of Meditation-Related Challenges.” Transcultural Psychiatry, December 7, 2022, 13634615221128680. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615221128679. [71] Lindahl, Jared R., Roman Palitsky, David J. Cooper, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Roles and Impacts of Worldviews in the Context of Meditation-Related Challenges.” Transcultural Psychiatry, December 7, 2022, 13634615221128680. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615221128679.

      
   1. INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPLATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY    The illustration depicted in figure 1 represents a mandala (IAST: maṇḍala). However, it was not created by a monk or a seasoned artist trained in the Buddhist artistic traditions of any of the East or Southeast Asian countries. Other, similar drawings presented in this article are entirely the work of novices and do not aspire to be considered works of art per se. Instead, this visual methodology serves as an innovative meditative exercise inspired on one hand by the Jungian tradition and on the other by the proposition to revolutionize ethnographic studies through the integration of contemplative practice. These two aspects will be briefly discussed in this article. The illustration presented herein has been developed through iterative phases of introspection, leading to the visual depiction of experiences amassed during a contemplative practice characterized by diverse stages. Showing this image serves as a preliminary representation, indicative of one of the prevailing outcomes emerging from this meditative work. In my endeavor to create it, I chose to engage in three meditation sessions over the course of a week. At the conclusion of each of these sessions, I took time to relax and reflect on the experiences I had during the meditative exercise. Following this, I undertook a secondary, more casual contemplation endeavoring to spontaneously capture on paper the experience I had undergone. The representation was generated promptly without deliberate consideration of explicit symbolic intentions and by instinctively and genuinely conveying what I felt compelled to communicate after meditation. Certainly, the interpretation and conceptualization processes are nearly automatic mechanisms inherent to human nature. Nevertheless, what distinguishes this study on images generated during meditative sessions is the explicit requirement, as an additional contemplative exercise, to diminish any form of interpretation, judgment, or conceptualization regarding the nature of these images.   Figure 1. Autoethnographic mandala, courtesy of the author   This experiment—of which I am presenting only one case study here (besides the digression on my autoethnographic experience)—is the culmination of a multiyear ethnography and is a research project centered on the study of consciousness through contemplative practices. The example I am showcasing represents one possible application of this method to oneself, serving as a form of contemplative autoethnography that utilizes visual elicitation to better illustrate meditative experiences. Participants were encouraged to express themselves freely through the visual device, maximizing spontaneity to the fullest extent possible. In this article, I will elucidate how this methodology was developed and applied to ethnographic investigation and how it can advance the anthropological study of contemplative practices by providing an example of one of the individuals who participated in this study and showcasing various mandalas he created through meditative practice. This in turn will show how he contributed to a more detailed formulation of the research methodology, which will be articulated more fully in the form of a larger research project. Since 2018, I have been conducting ethnographic research on meditation. Initially focused on the clinical and therapeutic aspects inherent in meditative practice, from 2021 onward my ethnography shifted its focus to another dimension, namely meditation itself. Born out of the need to study consciousness and the experience of being-conscious within the individual, this ethnography explored contemplative experience through an anthropological lens, not confining itself solely to mindfulness or meditation practices associated with a particular Buddhist group. It was decided, in fact, to broaden the understanding of contemplative practice to encompass any meditation exercise that centered not only on concentration but also on introspective inquiry into consciousness. The results of this second phase of research proved to be quite consistent across all participants. Self-contemplation and meditative reflection on the self and consciousness invariably entail a deconstruction of the sense of the self’s independence, specifically the experience of subjectivity as a self-centered phenomenon distinct from alleged other selves. This phenomenon manifested in various subjects, including meditation novices or those who engaged in highly personalized forms of meditation. In each case study, the contemplative practice was scrutinized as a method for exploring “profound dimensions,” as the experience was sometimes described by subjects of these studies, thereby elucidating the subjective experiences that emerged when, upon attaining a specific state of focused attention, the individual’s awareness shifted toward realms that could be characterized as transcending conventional psychological frameworks and encompassing the transformation of aspects ranging from identity to sensory perceptions. This, of course, is possible only if one accepts a fundamental theoretical issue—namely, that it is impossible to study consciousness by eliminating the subject of consciousness itself, asserting that one’s subjectivity invalidates the inquiry into consciousness. Removing subjectivity from the investigation of consciousness implies eliminating what matters most about consciousness itself. Thus, subjectivity is at the heart of this inquiry, proposing a veritable hermeneutics of contemplative experience. This study also distinguishes subjectivity, understood as an experience of which the individual is the immediate witness, and identity, a psychosocial construct that constitutes bonds of belonging and imaginative association of a part of the individual with a specific set of elements with which it forms a privileged association. A fundamental aspect of this phase of ethnographic inquiry is the incorporation of autoethnography as a valid tool for participation in the ethnographic experience. Several studies have already highlighted the efficacy and validity of autoethnography for anthropological inquiries.[1] Indeed, as discussed in previous works that yielded significant outcomes in this research, the articulation of an anthropological study of meditation inevitably leads to a reevaluation of ethnographic theory in its entirety.[2] First and foremost, the absence of a well-defined geographic or cultural field prevents the anthropologist from having the traditional backdrop for their research. When the ethnographic field becomes consciousness, specifically the consciousness of a subject initially perceived as other, a way must be found to establish a connection that goes beyond adapting to the customs of a particular standardized cultural form. Often, the subjects even come from the Western cultural world, and it is meditation that has been enculturated, assimilated, adapted, transculturated, and transformed to suit the needs of the Western world. This implies the need to develop a critical awareness of the history of meditative practice, but the contemplative experience itself is not always compromised by the transformation of the practice or the beliefs that lead individuals to adopt it. This seems to be indicated by a common tendency to report very similar experiences, especially in what we can refer to as the deep phase of the contemplative-meditative process. Autoethnography contributes to participation in this phenomenon. Furthermore, an anthropologist studying meditation cannot claim to do so from an external perspective, that is, as a non-meditator. This would place them entirely outside the possibility of understanding analogous experiences, constituting an objectivist claim that is inapplicable to meditation, as if it were a phenomenon to be studied in vitro, forcing an entirely unnatural detachment from anthropological intentions. Autoethnography, therefore, takes into account the experiences of the anthropologist and, mutatis mutandis, integrates them among the experiences of other subjects participating in this field of consciousness. The need that has driven me to challenge ethnographic theory stems precisely from this assumption: the practice of meditation requires a drastic reconsideration of the role of subjectivity, both of the anthropologist and the anthropologized. Notwithstanding the phenomenological turn and the recognition of subjectivity as an essential qualitative aspect within anthropological inquiry, ethnography continues to pose theoretical challenges necessitating resolution, particularly concerning the nuances of subjectivity itself and the anthropologist’s capacity to grasp fully the alterity inherent in the other under examination. This observation arises from my ethnographic exploration of meditation and highlights the inherent challenge in investigating consciousness while utilizing theoretical frameworks that impose certain constraints. Initially, anthropologists claimed to study cultural phenomena quantitatively, distancing themselves from the experiences of who they studied and placing themselves above them by treating the investigated populations as laboratory animals. It was argued that subjective intervention would invalidate the study, and any personal interpretation could not compromise what should be a cold presentation of empirical data. Fortunately, researchers later realized that this method completely hindered the understanding of complex human phenomena, whether cultural, social, or religious. Subjectivity—along with the beginnings of philosophical reflection—has, therefore, forcefully reentered anthropological inquiry. While subjectivity is recognized as an intrinsic element of anthropological inquiry, there persists a notion that grasping the subjectivity of others remains elusive. Despite anthropologists themselves maintaining subjective viewpoints, the idea of completely relinquishing one’s cultural identity to authentically adopt the perspective of another culture or personal life experience is considered somehow unattainable. This imposes a theoretical constraint on the ethnographic approach, which fails to fully address the original issue of the colonial separation between the anthropologist (regarded as culturally superior) and the Indigenous other (deemed inferior). Even after the phenomenological turn, the paradigm of self/other remains intact: it is simply acknowledged that, while the anthropologist can never fully understand the inner dimensions of another subjectivity, they must still approach this impossibility through the lens of what they can offer via the mediation of their own subjectivity. This is only partially solved by establishing a relationship of mutual exchange: the anthropologist anthropologizes the Indigenous but the Indigenous also does the same with the anthropologist, creating a circle of intersubjective exchange where every shared experience is filtered through one’s own subjectivity and then reflected. When, however, one delves into the analysis of contemplative practice, what happens, at least in my case, is rather peculiar in this regard. The paradigm in question, which is effectively a dualistic paradigm or a form of weak dualism (self/other), is completely overturned. As an anthropologist, I could not help but report that my subjective experience, following prolonged meditation practice, no longer conceived my subjectivity as separate from that of others. It is inevitable, while practicing meditation, to gradually abandon the conception of a division among subjects (including ourselves). This is not simply in a conceptual manner; this is an experience completely felt by the meditator, who is progressively able to expand or even project what before was perceived as one’s own consciousness into forms and modes of perception normally impossible to realize. As noted by Claire Petitmengin, This “subtilization” of the subject–object couple may occur gradually as meditative practice progresses. As more and more subtle tensions loosen, the emergence of the phenomenon and its resorption become closer and closer, until becoming simultaneous. First comparable to a drawing engraved in stone, the world of appearances becomes similar to a drawing made by a stick in the water, then finally to a drawing made by a stick in the air.[3] Specifically, I never lost the value of subjectivity as the point of observation from which my experience emanated. What is lost through meditation is separative identity: the idea that my experience is somehow owned by or belonging to the point of view experiencing it. This phenomenon was also observed in meditators participating in the study and was a fact that could not be ignored. How do we then account for intersubjective exchange regarding a contemplative experience that transcends the dialogue between two separate subjectivities and transforms it into the oscillation of subjectivity from one point to another? How do we, as anthropologists, account for the fact that the meditating subject no longer perceives a candle, for example, as a separate object but may even feel as though they are the candle itself? It is important to note that this phenomenon is not mere embodiment: the perspective of the observed is not assumed by the observer but is actually exchanged with the observer to the extent that the meditator can feel transcendence of their own point of view to see themselves from the outside or truly perceive the experience as if it belongs to what they would have previously defined as something other than themselves. This phenomenon belongs to a total transformation of the field into a nonlocal experience of subjectivity. Meditation leads to a form of extended consciousness similar to that of altered consciousness accompanying the use of psychoactive substances.[4] The difference is that, in extended consciousness phenomena, extension is fully under the control of the subject’s will, allowing them to voluntarily relinquish their point of observation and assume an omnidirectional one. At this juncture of the analysis, two pivotal issues emerge. The first necessitates a comprehensive redefinition of the theoretical framework and ethnographic methodologies: it is imperative to discard the dogma that suggests anthropologists are incapable of fully comprehending the subjectivity of the other. While it may be presumptuous to aspire to completely internalize someone else, the question arises: how does one navigate a scenario where the other is no longer discerned as such, to the extent that the researcher’s own identity becomes conflated with that of the subjects studied or to the point that there is no more identity or psychocultural separation creating two distinct identities? Second, a methodology needs to be found that could better account for this experience of self-transcendence. In the first case, the response I propose is precisely that of Contemplative Anthropology. Inspired on one hand by contemplative ethnography proposed by Orellana and on the other by micro-phenomenological inquiry, I have begun to articulate a nondualistic anthropological theory.[5] The outcomes of this articulation belong to other studies, so I will not repeat what has been said in those publications.[6] Regarding methodology, my intention in this article is to explore one of the possible approaches to ethnographic-contemplative investigation that can yield insights into the study of meditation practice. This is just one of many possible methodologies, so I urge the reader not to view this proposal as a rigid articulation of a new method, but rather to consider the results I will partially present in this study as the outcome of a possible new form of inquiry. The methodology I have developed is not solely based on ethnographic experience but also on the study of other methodologies. In particular, Gary Moody’s work utilizes visual devices in anthropological contexts. While developing this methodology, I delved into other ethnographies that integrated contemplative practices and image production, albeit not strictly related to meditation. This aspect is analyzed in section 4, where I intend to provide the reader with a brief background of a portion of the research that runs parallel to my ethnography. I also aim to clarify the connection between image and contemplative practice: how the latter has always utilized the imaginal medium as an aid to meditative exercise, which prompts me to reflect on another type of image evocation in precisely the forms of elicitation that I will present.  
      
   2. A VISUAL METHODOLOGY FOR ETHNO-CONTEMPLATIVE INQUIRY    The exploration of human consciousness has emerged as a central focal point across multiple academic disciplines, including Psychology, Anthropology, and the newborn field of Contemplative Studies. Meditation has garnered sustained interest among researchers seeking to comprehensively fathom its profound impact on both mental and physical wellbeing. However, investigating the inherently subjective experiences of individuals engaged in meditation has proven to be a formidable challenge, owing to the private and elusive nature of contemplation. Through the active involvement of participants in crafting multistage mandalas during their meditation sessions, and subsequently dissecting and interpreting these artistic expressions, I aspired to attain more profound insights into the multifaceted world of meditative experiences. When I initially ventured into structuring an inquiry into the various states of consciousness inherent in meditation through the medium of visual imagery, I turned to visual elicitation: a technique that necessitates the active engagement of subjects in either the production or interpretation of images.[7] The employment of this technique is particularly advantageous for several reasons. First and foremost, it relieves the subjects of the potential discomfort of verbally articulating such intricate experiences. By utilizing images as an intermediary, this technique simplifies the process and empowers the subjects to assume the role of knowledge dispensers themselves—thereby removing the anthropologist from the position of expert and stripping away the associated authority typically wielded in scholarly interactions that may influence the spontaneity of the responses of the subjects. Specifically, I opted to request subjects to instinctively produce images while also emphasizing that this image creation should unfold in a sequential, layered manner. The decision to construct the mandala in a modular fashion, with each layer corresponding to a distinct meditation session, was deliberate. I observed that this approach enabled individuals to recognize within the complete image the various stages of a complex meditative journey. By proposing a path that spanned several days of hypothetical meditation sessions, I found it essential to preserve a record of the meditative journey itself. This could be achieved through two distinct approaches: either by requesting the production of an image at the conclusion of each meditation session or by asking for the creation of a single, complex image in multiple phases. The latter approach allowed the compositional elements of the visual data to emerge progressively, influenced by and reflective of the contemplative journey’s evolution. Remarkably, in both my autoethnographic exploration and the experiments conducted with other subjects, there was a notable tendency to generate mandala-like images from the outset. For clarification, the term mandala denotes composite circular images characterized by stratified levels, either circular or bounded by other geometric shapes that are visually distinct from their respective contents. In the case of paintings, two-dimensional mandalas are to be considered schematic representations of three-dimensional cosmograms, spherical representations of the universe.[8] The historical analysis of mandala figures and their significance in Buddhist visual culture as well as their extensive application within Analytical Psychology, notably introduced by Jung, represent two important dimensions of this phenomenon.[9] A comprehensive exploration of these aspects, however, is beyond the scope of this article. With the recognition that the excessively analytical approach often sought by Psychology may not be well suited to anthropological objectives, I opted to devise my own method inspired by Jungian experiences but fundamentally grounded in ethnographic and autoethnographic practices, visual elicitation techniques, and micro-phenomenological theory. The outcomes of this investigation lay the foundation for arguments pertaining to the necessity of the aforementioned Contemplative Anthropology. I invited meditation practitioners to portray their spontaneous thoughts, emotions, and experiences, as well as the residual from the exercise of emptying the mind and the progressive extinguishment of the cognitive mechanisms that meditation involves without predefined meanings or artistic constraints, thereby employing the mandala as a conduit for visual elicitation. The creation of multilayered mandalas during diverse phases of meditation serves as a distinctive window into the evolving states of consciousness that occur during contemplative practice. The research methodology employed in this study is predicated on three fundamental principles. The first is that participants must be interested in practicing meditation, irrespective of their level of expertise or specific technique. This study recognizes the essential elements of meditation, including concentration, the cessation of automatic cognitive processes, and the exploration of deeper layers of consciousness, as constitutive of the contemplative experience. Second, concerning the visual production, participants are encouraged to craft multistage mandalas during their meditation sessions, each stage representing their evolving states of mind and experiences. Participants enjoy creative freedom in selecting the shape and progression of their mandalas, enabling spontaneous and unencumbered artistic expression. And finally, the third imperative applies to interpretation. Following the creation of the mandala, participants present their work to an anthropologist to whom they expose their interpretation of the drawings. This process empowers participants to assume the role of experts of their own visual creations, fostering open and candid dialogue concerning their meditative encounters. Initially, the anthropologist functions primarily as a listener, employing questions to delve into intriguing facets of the artwork. In certain instances, the anthropologist may propose interpretive hypotheses, thereby encouraging participants to contribute their insights. The anthropologist’s involvement in ethnographic interviews is inspired in part by micro-phenomenological investigation and focuses particularly on the subjective experience of meditators, and solicits an interpretation of the images they have spontaneously produced that should not be tainted by too much formal or experiential preconceptions. The image must emerge and appear in the drawing practice without the subject conceiving it as associated with forms that one already has in mind. Certainly, one must be aware of the difficulty of such an exercise, yet the attempt to avoid associating forms of designation with the images produced also serves to diminish, through contemplative exercise, the judgmental thinking that typically dominates the human mind as a form of automatism. The choice to refrain from a priori interpretations and to adopt only retrospective readings of the complete image is inspired, on one hand, by the micro-phenomenological exercise, which as we will later observe draws heavily from the contemplative experience. On the other hand, it is inspired by the nonjudgmental attitude that is also a necessary condition to liberate the image from the impossibility of conveying a spontaneous message. Naturally, it is seemingly impossible to produce any visual or semantic content devoid of meaning—but the intention of this research is not to achieve some form of absolute and fundamental purity of the conscious process. Our understanding of consciousness (viññāṇa) is not so much that of a data processor of the world, but rather as an entity that, only and solely when placed in relation to the world (loka), generates designations (paññatti).[10] Therefore, it is this process of designation that interests us in coming to better comprehend, through investigating these images, how contemplation can assist in establishing a dialectic between subject and world, and thus, how consciousness can somehow also be that which is mainly responsible for the dualistic mechanisms that contemplative practice seeks to transcend. The image produced through contemplative exercise will almost certainly reflect, if meditation is well performed, those phases of the progressive weakening of designation processes that attribute conventional meanings to the world. This process will appear in the symbolic forms that the subject’s perception tends to unconsciously attribute to the forms that gradually deconstruct within its conscious apparatus. Contemplative exercise helps us understand consciousness insofar as consciousness is placed in relation to something and studied in its being-placed-in-relation (Bewusstsein ist immer Bewusstsein von etwas, in Husserl’s terms).[11] Otherwise, consciousness in itself, just as the world in itself, would have no meaning. On the other hand, as we will see toward the end of this article, such an understanding of the conscious medium further helps us understand why Buddhists, in describing the experiences of deeper states of consciousness reached through contemplative practice, spoke of a fundamental and indivisible unity between the observing subject and the observed object.[12] The relationship established between the meditator in this study and the images taking shape during their contemplative exercise speaks to us, in turn, of a conscious relationship structured through the image. It also reveals the irreducibility of the actors involved, portraying them not as mere separate interactors but rather as two epiphenomena of a more complex unity in which the observer looking at the image is simultaneously being observed by this image—but in such a way without this shared vision being a relationship of division. Only in a subsequent phase, following the stages of drawing and progressive mandalic layering, is the meditator asked to observe the visual product in its entirety and interpret it, or to contemplate the completed image and articulate their reflections and thoughts concerning it. This is naturally only possible following a well-performed contemplative practice, which leads to a nonjudgmental concentration and an emptying of the mind from the proliferation of uncontrolled cognitive images, as demonstrated in the case of mental films in the circumstances of a weakened concentration.[13] This assertion is further corroborated by Petitmengin’s observations, wherein she addresses the challenges associated with attaining a state of proficient focused attention and accessing pre-reflective consciousness: The meditator also discovers, accompanying this nearly uninterrupted murmur, a swift flow of inner images and “films”: memories both recent and remote, pleasant or unpleasant, desired or apprehended future scenes, of which only a small portion emerges into consciousness. These imaginary discourses and inner imagery contribute to maintaining an almost incessant flux of emotions, of which only the most intense images are ordinarily perceived. However, these discursive, imaginary, and emotional layers obscure an even more difficult-to-access, subtler dimension.[14] To enrich the depth of this study, I also engaged in autoethnographic practice, generating mandalas during multiple meditation sessions. Subsequently, these mandalas were shared with other participants, and a cross-reading of their works ensued, augmenting the interpretations and insights derived from the study. This research methodology bridges the divide between subjective experiences and scholarly inquiry, offering a transdisciplinary approach rooted in contemplative practice, ethnography, and visual elicitation. The examination of multilayered mandalas as reflections of meditative journeys equips researchers with invaluable insights into the intricacies of human consciousness, thereby advancing our comprehension of the human psyche and its interplay with meditation. This approach not only rejuvenates Jung’s pioneering experiments but also sets the stage for future investigations exploring the dynamic interrelationship between art, spirituality, and self-exploration within the realm of meditation.
      
   3. VISUAL ELICITATION OF A CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE    For reasons of spatial constraints, and given that the outcomes of this research will be presented in other works, this article will provide only a few examples of mandalas that have been created for this study, introducing the ethnographic subjects who have participated in them or who have made a significant contribution to the study. Leo has been the most prolific in terms of drawings, which is remarkable considering that he is also a novice in meditation. While pursuing his undergraduate degree in physics during the research, and aspiring to become a mathematician, he agreed to participate in the study because he was fascinated by contemplative practice and thus provided an important example of an initial foray into meditation. His contemplative exercise flowed naturally into his drawings, and he produced numerous finished mandalas that have been collected and analyzed in the forthcoming outcomes of this study.   Picture1.png    
 Figure 2. Mandala realized September 25–October 8, 2023, courtesy of Leo Caliandro   However, there are also some initial experiments that were created prior to the implementation of the primary exercise I have outlined in the preceding paragraphs. Within these prior experiments, the initial drawings were generated as part of two five-day meditation sessions, producing ten preliminary mandalas in total, which represent five different stages of meditation within each session. Subsequently, for the purpose of systematically presenting the results of a unique mandala that consolidates a multistage meditative process into a single design, this research will also showcase one of the mandalas created by Leo using this technique. This particular technique is the one that I decided to pursue for all the other ethnographies, and it has been analyzed in various ethnographic studies currently in the process of being published. Following this outcome, the decision was made to shift toward producing only one drawing for more intense meditation sessions, and since the mandalic form had been invoked, the aim was to define the meditative phases through the progressive layering of the drawing, as shown in figure 2. This is the final outcome of an ongoing stage of this specific mandala layering. The complete stages of this mandala will be presented exclusively in this study and will be analyzed at the end of the article (see fig. 13). Leo, like the majority of participants, chose to layer from the outside to the inside, leaving the core for last. Some other meditators preferred to outline the core first or even opt for a multifocal concept of layer, creating apparent overlapping shapes. In Leo’s case, the cores reached the end of the meditation session as the culmination of the practice, thus reflecting the deepest contemplative moment. The initial experiments are presented in figures 3–8 to analyze the evolutionary aspect of this ethnography and how it transformed to adapt to the requirements of what the visual data gradually revealed. Finally, in the previous discussion of methodology, I chose to include one of the mandalas that I personally created (fig. 1). I have produced several mandalas throughout the course of my autoethnographic research, and many of them have been subject to the considerations of other study participants, where I would not always specify the authorship. Their interpretations have shed light on significant aspects of the dynamics of imaginal and pre-reflective experiences. By the term pre-reflective, I am referring to what Petitmengin explicates as “the portion of our experience that is lived without being acknowledged, devoid of immediate accessibility to consciousness and verbal description.”[15] The experiences of these initial mandalic experiments are represented by Leo through notes that were written after the drawings. His experiences are characterized primarily by their involvement in the sphere of expanding sensory perceptions, a common aspect for those who begin meditating consistently. Leo wrote about these preliminary experiences: “Movement flows into form, I sense a mechanical art, devoid of constitution. It must be a persistent revelation, intention.” This initial reflection, concerning the very first meditation (fig. 3), focuses on the mere experienced phenomenon, movement, that projects itself into form and its visual representation. Leo experienced a progressive immersion in the immediacy of the phenomenon, whether it be movement or thought. Furthermore, as he concluded the second meditation, he made an exceptionally singular declaration: “Outside of me, the world does not touch me, I myself seem not to touch me, nothing is familiar to me” (fig. 4). Here, we already witness the beginning of a loss of centrality of the psychophysical aggregate: Leo’s apparent disorientation from mundanity is perfectly understandable in the eyes of a Buddhist, and in Leo’s case, it moves from the disavowal of worldly things that were once familiar to him to turning against his own psychological self in alienation. We were still in the preliminary stages of this research with images and had not yet chosen the mandala as the experimental form to ask of meditators, but Leo encouraged the development of these imaginal and somewhat poetic considerations around a central nucleus. The third day he continued: “the expression of creativity,” referring to what he produced with the third meditation, “which ends where I cannot stop. Happiness” (fig. 5). This meditation accompanied the unlocking of a similar euphoric state that would return later in Leo’s meditative experience and beyond. However, euphoria was followed by a rapid decline. With the next meditation, Leo expressed “anger . . . I don’t understand why they don’t understand. Tension” (fig. 6). This is a very peculiar phase of his meditative journey. Detachment from the worldly sphere is experienced on the threshold of a crisis of presence, a particular phase I have studied in a separate context.[16] Finally (fig. 7), a sense of suspension remains, which on one hand fascinated Leo to the point of wanting to take meditation more seriously—he eventually became the main contributor to this study—and on the other hand, leaves us with many questions. This was only an initial phase, followed by more drawings and a meditative experience even more complex and focused on consciousness. However, it is essential to understand the beginnings of this research, which are also partly reflected in the sense of Leo’s last of the preliminary meditations, which reported: “waiting. Time is stagnant. Everything is slow, confused. Narcolepsy. Monotony melds perception.” From figure 7 to figure 8, we visually observe the transition from one meditative session to another. The elapsed time between consecutive sessions is approximately five days. As previously mentioned, we were still in the initial stages of the experiment, and our original intention was to create distinct drawings for each meditation session, contextualizing them within specific sessions. However, upon noticing that the drawings were all conspicuously taking on a mandala-like form, I began to entertain the idea of proposing the creation of a single composite drawing, where multiple phases of a single meditative session would be layered, akin to how different layers of a mandala represent distinct sections of the artwork. This was made feasible in part due to the presence of these mini-mandalas in the initial stages. As we shall see in the presentation of the complete mandala (fig. 2) selected for this article, which is but one among the many created by Leo, the stylistic variance is not significant. Rather, the resulting image becomes more intricate due to the accumulation of meditative experiences over time, which are artistically rendered into a unified form that is simultaneously multifaceted and capable of representing various degrees of abstraction. Leo’s embryonic meditative experiences proffer a trove of invaluable insights pertaining to the incipient phases of his sojourn toward heightened consciousness. These experiential vignettes, inextricably interwoven with his participation in mandalic experiments, furnish a foundational substratum for further elucidation and inquiry into the intricate dynamics that meditative practices, consciousness, and the micro-phenomenological substratum thereof entail. As Leo’s contemplative voyage evolves, this inceptive phase emerges as a pivotal referential vantage point for comprehending the transformative potential of meditation upon an individual’s subjectively construed experiential tapestry. As elucidated by Petitmengin, the complexities inherent in comprehending our subjective experiences are multifaceted.[17] Foremost among these complexities is the arduous task of cultivating and sustaining a stable focus of attention. This challenge becomes conspicuously manifest when we endeavor to direct our attention toward diverse stimuli, whether they take the form of inner mental images (e.g., envisioning an apple, a tulip, or an elephant) or external objects (such as a pen or a paperweight). Remarkably, within an exceedingly brief temporal window, typically lasting no more than a few seconds, our cognitive processes are prone to intrusion. These intrusive cognitions may assume various forms, including the resurgence of memories linked to the initial mental image or object, spontaneous commentaries pertaining to the ongoing experiential context, or the emergence of entirely unrelated streams of thought. This idea of art as a “liberation of sense” through the image is mentioned also by Santiago and Kiefer in the form of ut pictura poesis, that is to say, “a picture is a silent poem and a poem is a picture that speaks.”[18] Let us now briefly analyze what Leo interpreted about the second session (figs. 7–12). At the onset of this session, Leo attested to having undergone a transformation in his perceptions of temporality and spatiality. Specifically, with regard to figure 7, he stated, “There is a reason for time . . . a visible and arcane rationale of things . . . there is a space.” He proceeded with his meditations, developing considerable cognitive flexibility, although it is imperative to note that his academic background is in physics and mathematics. Many of his conceptions began to intersect with his meditative experiences, altering his perspective on reality: “Asymmetry . . . I have perceived an oddity in reality . . . a point of deviation from order . . . imperceptible asymmetry” (fig. 8). This notion of asymmetry is a highly intriguing theme, which I have also observed in other meditators. They tend to describe the sense of peace at the zenith of meditation as a moment when all the elements of the world harmonize with each other, reaching a point of equilibrium where they dissolve. Only by virtue of fundamental asymmetry, a crack in things, does the universe reveal itself, and meditation is aimed at rectifying this distortion. Leo appeared to corroborate this experience in the subsequent phase: “Balance . . . a new path is required . . . essences blur. Alienation” (fig. 9). Already in this phase, the potential for deconstruction of perceptual data, inherent to meditation, bears fruit as does the approach to a state of tranquility resulting from glimpsing beyond these cognitive deceits to a potential harmony or, at the very least, an acceptance of the essence of reality. However, at this point we are still in the preliminary stages of the experiment, and meditation is by no means an easy exercise. In figure 10, Leo indeed reported “fatigue,” and continues, “Space becomes distant and empty . . . precarious . . . time stretches . . . the hand is sluggish,” and finally (fig. 11): “Anxiety . . . monotony of thought . . . a weight on the stomach.” Compounding this cognitive challenge is the propensity of these intervening thoughts to engross our mental faculties to such an extent that a considerable duration of time may transpire, at times extending to several minutes, before we become conscious of the wandering trajectory of our attention. It is only at the point of this realization, assuming it transpires, that we recognize that throughout the entire duration we have remained oblivious to the fact that our cognitive focus had veered away from its original locus, effectively rendering us in a state of cognitive drift. Furthermore, in the context of tasks necessitating sustained attention, such as the act of writing, this inclination to drift from the primary task often rears its head. It is not uncommon to find oneself succumbing to these bouts of cognitive drifting, while only subsequently discerning that the cognitive processes had been engrossed in an entirely distinct mental endeavor detached from the immediate task at hand. In certain instances, the resumption of the primary task may occur without the realization that a momentary distraction had transpired. Consequently, there exists a profound lack of conscious recognition at any juncture that our attention has veered away from its intended focal point. This fact underscores not only the formidable nature of the challenge associated with maintaining cognitive focus but also the pervasive unawareness that characterizes this challenge. To attain awareness of the intrinsically volatile nature of our attentional processes, the creation of specific conducive conditions or the provision of specialized training aimed at cultivating our capacity to discern and acknowledge this phenomenon is necessary. Petitmengin explicitly advocates the utilization of Buddhist contemplative practices as a means to surmount the challenges associated with a comprehensive understanding of one’s own subjective experience.[19] She contends that through rigorous training, exemplified by the practice of samatha-vipassana meditation, individuals can autonomously delve into the multifaceted dimensions inherent to their subjective realms. Over a span of several months, these dedicated practitioners progressively unveil, and often express astonishment at, the intricate strata comprising the fabric of their internal landscapes. In the initial phases of this exploration, individuals may find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer scope of their inner discourses, resembling what Plato in The Sophist characterizes as thought itself—a silent dialogue of the soul with itself. Concurrently with this near-constant internal dialogue, a rapid stream of inner imagery and mental cinematics emerge, either drawn from recollection or spontaneously constructed in real time. This mental imagery encompasses a wide spectrum, covering both recent and distant memories and evoking a spectrum of sensations, from delight to the resurgence of traumatic recollections. Moreover, these mental representations often project forthcoming scenarios characterized by either anxiety-laden apprehension or the hues of desire unfolding ceaselessly. This rich tapestry of mental imagery is typically intertwined with emotions of varying intensity, thereby further enriching the contours of the subjective experience. It is important to underscore that beneath these discernible layers lies a more enigmatic and subdued dimension, wherein the demarcations between self and others, the inner and outer domains, and diverse sensory modalities become increasingly indistinct, as elaborated upon in Petitmengin’s earlier works. Furthermore, in conjunction with these manifold strata of experience, practitioners gradually attune themselves to the dynamic facet of their inner world. This dynamic dimension encompasses the swift succession of cognitive operations, including comparisons, evaluations, and diagnostic assessments. All this together collectively constitutes the ceaseless current of practitioners’ subjective experiences. Our objective is to deconstruct the conventional theoretical underpinnings of the world’s perceived image that is predicated upon a conventional internal/external binary, advocating for an alternative, nondualistic theory of visual perception. This nondualistic approach transcends the conventional stereoscopic ontological framework hypothesized in favor of a holographic model wherein cognitive systems actively shape reality through a constellation of images emergent from an omnipresent semantic substrate.[20] This novel theoretical framework, inspired by the reinterpretation of nondualistic conceptions found in Buddhist traditions, propounds a transformative trajectory transcending the current phenomenological-anthropological paradigm. This can be achieved also by the more extensive utilization of contemplative practice. In her work on the pre-reflective consciousness, Petitmengin reflects on meditation and concludes that “the analysis of the descriptions we have gathered suggests that during the process of gaining awareness, as attention relaxes its focus on external objects to engage with the so-called ‘inner’ experience, the distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer,’ self and non-self, diminishes.”[21]
      
   4. PREVIOUS USES OF DRAWING IN THE CONTEMPLATIVE FIELD    The aspect of visual elicitation is notably absent from the methodological approach employed by psychologists. When requesting the creation of a mandala, psychologists anticipate encountering general elements that can be attributed to a preconceived schema or a series of predetermined structures from which they can draw the interpretations they seek. Elicitation, however, implies consideration of the possibility that certain content, even the image itself, may not be mere representations but rather impressions of specific psychic moments. These impressions are summoned into existence and are not entirely formed or shaped solely by the will of the drawer. According to Petitmengin, Under a non-dualist/non-representationalist assumption, what is expected from introspection is definitely not to monitor the “inner” realm in the same way as natural sciences monitor the “outer” realm. Instead, introspection here becomes just a historic name for a program of changing the focus of attention within the one and all-pervasive field of lived experience, from the narrowly focused state and coarse-grained categories needed by natural sciences to a broader range of interest and refined categories.[22] In ethnographic interviews conducted with meditation practitioners, it becomes evident that by removing the element of mediation and requesting an uncritical drawing—one that is not the result of an effort to translate images into representations of something else but rather that which spontaneously emerges in the meditator’s consciousness after dissolving the dualistic structures of their conception through meditation—that such an image is perceived as something conscious in itself. It reflects, in some way, the consciousness of the one who summoned it into the visible realm in a visible form. There is an imaginative dialogue with what gradually appears on the paper, as if the artwork were not entirely produced but instead constitutes a fragment of consciousness summoned into existence through a dialogue with the meditator’s consciousness, arising from the contemplative practice itself. For this reason, I consider Gary Moody’s anthropological work on shamanic drawing to be fundamental in gaining a deeper understanding of these experiences. Although Moody’s work does not concern mandalas or meditation directly, it is nonetheless significant because of how he employs the visual element to evoke forms associated with contemplative practices characterized by a form of spirituality that I would describe as akin to shamanism. In his specific case, the use of images serves as a healing technique through what he calls “Spiritualist mediumship,”[23]which bears strong resemblance to the shamanic journey and the involvement of spirits. In this context, the spirits inspire the images the artist invokes, thereby contributing to the healing process. Moody refers to a cultural context in which these practices are intertwined with the communication with a spiritual realm. In my ethnography, I also encountered participants engaged in a personalized form of meditation, incorporating teachings on shamanic journeys. One of these subjects considered the images that arose within mandalas during meditation as inspired by their spirit guides, encountered in a meditation regimen involving a series of mental imaging techniques associated with natural and chthonic environments. Therefore, it is not surprising to observe a connection between these collectively termed shamanic aspects, even in their modern reinterpretations and contemplative practice. Moody affirms that individuals can receive messages in the form of images from the spirit world through accessing an altered state of consciousness. The mastery of accessing these states is typically acquired from specific mentors and often through dialogue with spirit guides. Among the techniques that Moody himself acquired in this context, many evoke parallels with the preparatory sessions of Buddhist meditation: “breath-work, focusing on internal sensations in the body, relaxation, and guided visual imaginative meditations.”[24] I have observed that Moody’s interpretation of “spirit” or the “spiritual world” can be considered comparable to that of “consciousness” within the context of my research. In this context, consciousness is intuitively understood by meditators as a subject that potentially permeates every aspect of life and takes on various forms that interact with one another. Therefore, in the case of my ethnography, mandalic forms were “inspired by consciousness” stimulated by contemplative practices, and they, in turn, were conscious aspects that manifested themselves through form much like how an individual’s consciousness manifests through their body. In Estelle’s study, a subject of Moody’s research, the “spirit art” can be said to be “created by spirit through a medium who is in a deep trance state.”[25] The type of spiritual art that Moody refers to is known as “auragraph,” which is considered to convey information about the subject whose aura is represented through a form of imaginal impression. Moody embarked on his study of auragraphs following an encounter with a spiritual artist in 2020 that deeply impressed him. This artist demonstrated the ability to imprint an auragraph on Moody, revealing details of his life that she could not have known otherwise. Consequently, Moody decided to embrace the guidance of his spiritual guides to create auragraphs himself. His investigation sheds light on the limitations of traditional anthropological techniques, including participant observation and ethnographic interviews, as not fully capable of accounting for these spiritual experiences.[26] Moody implies that this limitation is rooted in the “Western scientific paradigm,” which refuses to acknowledge “the existence of spirits.”[27] In our case, however, a similar argument could be made regarding the expansive permeability of consciousness. Contemplative techniques, by weakening the psychosocial constructs that isolate subjectivity in the perception of being a separate identity (a self) from others, open up the possibility for individuals to understand their own consciousness as an epiphenomenon of a broader manifestation of reality. This broader manifestation also permeates other subjectivities and even images without distinct boundaries (to the extent that it allows the meditator to dialogue with images as if they were conscious). Such a claim is rather challenging to accept and at most evokes conceptions considered outdated by ethnology, such as hylozoism and animism, that lack the approval of the majority of Western scientists. Here, there is also more than just a critic to the traditional ethnographic methods, since “using spirit art as a technique of the culture,” Moody writes, “I . . . increased my access and influence with participants. . . . I am using their language and beliefs.”[28] This idea reconnects us with what was previously discussed regarding the presumed impossibility, believed by many contemporary anthropologists, of fully embracing the subjectivity and experiences of others within one’s own understanding. Participant observation nonetheless entails an inevitable form of detachment from what is being observed: the observer is in fact just that, an observer. As much as the observer may be a participant in the activities and cultural world under scrutiny, they will continue to perceive themselves as separate from it by virtue of their role as an observer. They may contemplate absorbing it, even dissecting it, but what we contemplative anthropologists propose is to become that very world, to abolish the barrier of separation that isolates the boundaries of one’s subjective point of observation and elevates them to an identity. This is perhaps imputable also to a “psychological structure of modernity” that, according to Santiago and Kiefer, “is founded on hierarchical separation (of ideal and base, self and other, human and animal, white and black, man and woman, adult and child, sane and mad, civilized and savage).”[29] We are all effectively victims of these powerful forms of cognitive categorization and we cannot avoid critically considering these forms of conception of reality. Regarding the understanding of these cultural realms, there is much to be discussed. It is evident that meditation is currently practiced within a context that carries particular conceptions about spirituality and life, which cannot be entirely overlooked. The decision to engage in contemplative practice can imply multiple reasons, some of which I have examined when addressing those who adopt meditation primarily as a therapeutic pathway. The same can be said for those who adopt it as a spiritual or consciousness-oriented journey. There are many analogies, even among the most disparate schools of thought, with a certain consensus about the world and life. To remain within the scope of Moody’s work, I have observed a strong connection between the spirituality accompanying the meditative choice and the idea of shamanism or the channeling of certain spiritual or latent forces through contemplative practice. Historical reasons also account for this connection. Shamanism has had a significant impact on the Western world and has deeply fascinated it. Visual art has been profoundly influenced by shamanic conceptions that associate a close relationship between shamanism, understood as the earliest form of spirituality or proto-religion, and ancient art. Michael Tucker has identified the shaman as the prototype of all artists,[30] and although modern and contemporary popular conceptions regarding shamanism are heavily influenced by Western reinterpretations of this phenomenon and expectations toward exotic and ancient spiritualities, which are often attributed a certain degree of purity, it must be noted that some connections made by anthropologists and archaeologists between shamanic cults, sometimes considered an archaic form of spirituality, and the emergence of art may not be entirely fanciful. Despite the modern inclination, we should not entirely dismiss the possibility that this association between art and shamanism may be born partially of fantasy—but only insofar as this association tends to collectively identify as shamanism any form of ancient spirituality that involves pursuits such as altered or expanded consciousness, communication with an invisible spiritual world, the use of psychoactive substances, techniques to induce heightened states of consciousness, and the art stemming from these experiences. In the context of India, it is possible to draw a connection between altered states of consciousness experienced by seers (ṛṣi), the authors of the Vedas, and the consumption of the soma beverage. The soma beverage is produced from a divinized plant, which some have identified as the Amanita muscaria mushroom.[31] If contemplative practice in Buddhism were, in some way, a result of replicating extended states of consciousness without the need for psychoactive substances, it would also be possible to establish a link between ancient art and the use of these substances. This is because ancient art itself appears to document the consumption of psychedelic fungi in depictions that portray them surrounded by mystical auras or elements that suggest that these plants (though not ethnobotanically classifiable as such) held a specific role in those societies.[32] Analogously, The way in which cave art was interpreted as shamanistic during the first half of the twentieth century reinforced the historically intertwined discursive constructs of art and shamanism, co-opting shamanism into the visual arts, highlighting cave art as the origin of art and shamanism the origin of religion. Alongside a belief in the psychic unity of mankind, this conveniently eroded the cultural and chronological specificity of art and shamanism and enabled the identification of avant-garde artists as the inheritors of a singular shamanistic art tradition.[33] When we delve into the shamanic traditions of the Indian subcontinent, we come to realize how the image serves as a potent medium that not only constitutes the mere backdrop of what is experienced by the shaman during their flight, which is the contemplative practice in question, but also functions as the instrument of shamanic power. In other words, the image is not merely a visual metaphor used, for example, in therapeutic purposes, but also, in the sense of weakening the dualistic division of the ill person, advocating for the importance of a potential nondualistic experience in shamanic therapeutic practice. This also occurs within the Buddhist context of meditation but equally involves a contemplative-ecstatic practice that employs images for healing purposes. Much could be said about the healing power of images, regardless of their use in specific magical-ritual practices.[34] As for Nepalese shamanism, which we take as an example here to provide a broader comparative perspective, images play a role in creating a genuine landscape. Robert Desjarlais is a cultural anthropologist who studied these traditions. He writes:  These geographical images serve as a symbolic matrix representing certain personal experiences of the patient. . . . Through the manipulation of images symbolic of personal experience, I argue, the shaman simultaneously transforms the patient’s experience of selfhood. . . . In conducting such an exploratory surgery, searching for signs of the patient’s situation, the shaman, and thus the patient, derive some knowledge from the images arising out of the healing geography. . . . He then re-presents this visionary knowledge to the patient through imagery, making explicit what was once implicit.[35] In Buddhist contemplative practice, mental imaging exercises involve reflections on forms (rūpa) but also investigations into the essence of forms in colors and, more deeply, in light. For example, Majjhimanikaya 128 presents “specific mention of the need to see both light and visual forms in meditation.”[36] Important mental imaging exercises are also part of the Yogavacara tradition, a form of esoteric Buddhism that has long held the attention of scholars. This is a form of Buddhism that is perhaps reminiscent of archaic practices or at least those that predate the formation of movements such as Vajrayana or Yogacara. The Yogavacara tradition has been extensively studied by Kate Crosby, who has analyzed texts from this tradition within the context of the lineage of meditation practice in Theravada Buddhism. Crosby’s recent study has organically exposed the importance of mental imaging in these meditative practices structured as a true “inner alchemy,” or transformative process through imaging.[37] A contemplative exercise that brings together the perception of light and colors with the exercise on body-scan meditation is found in the Cambodian text The Lanka Path, translated by Bizot.[38] Here the practice begins by reciting arahaṃ while breathing “until a white light appears.”[39] Even though this meditation makes use of images of light and symbolic colors associated with specific powerful syllables, we must keep in mind that any element of this exercise is identifiable as a nimitta:[40] “The mental object (nimitta) is first experienced at the tip of the nose, then moved initially to the heart and subsequently to the navel. . . . Subsequently, the various mental objects and elements are positioned at locations between the navel and the heart or in some kind of mandala-like arrangement at the center of the body.”[41]
      
   5. CONTEMPLATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY AND AUTOETHNOGRAPHY    Regarding my autoethnography, as previously mentioned, I too embarked on a series of mandala drawing experiments. Autoethnography is a qualitative research method that combines autobiography and ethnography. Researchers study a culture or a specific human phenomenon through immersion as subjective participant observers using personal experiences as primary data. This method aims to provide insights into both personal experiences and broader social contexts.[42] For various reasons on which I will elaborate briefly in this section, autoethnography has proven to be the most valid method for investigating a complex experience such as meditation. In the realm of quantitative research disciplines, subjective experience is frequently undervalued due to the belief that it represents perspectives that do not reflect an objective reality existing independently of the perceiver. Within the field of Anthropology, however, there has long been recognition of the subjective and qualitative value inherent in experiential data. This recognition has led anthropologists to turn their attention inward and value their subjective experiences as co-participants in multifaceted sociocultural dynamics. Autoethnography, as this approach is known, involves self-analysis of one’s involvement in field experiences. The anthropologist takes note of these experiences, considering the judgments that might influence their evaluation and acknowledging them as phenomena that could be studied. In my specific case, engaging in autoethnographic participation within this study involved precisely what was expected of other participants: meditating while keeping a record of my experiences during these exercises, noting every significant event in my experience, and gradually composing mandalic designs. I practiced doing so with an emptied mind, discerning when the meditative exercise concluded and when the emergence of ideas, automatic thoughts, judgments, and other mental constructs that typically act unconsciously and beyond our control interfered with my creative process. Naturally, as with all participants, this endeavor was not meant to be excessively strenuous, as the exercise itself required translating an experience of mindfulness into visible forms. As far as my interaction with other participants is concerned, it is indeed a highly relevant aspect for this kind of research. The dynamics between the anthropologist and the anthropologized constitute an integral part of both ethnography and autoethnography. These dynamics intertwine and introduce complexities in human relationships that contribute significantly, especially in a study of this nature, to the value of the generated data. Due to constraints of space, however, I am unable to delve into this specific aspect here, primarily because it is highly intricate and warrants a separate treatment. I will simply state that the intersubjective relationship with the other meditators naturally implies the possibility for them to involve me in the interpretation of their drawings. Throughout my experience, ethnography has always required a well-defined “field,” but when the field is consciousness itself and thus not a geographically accessible place, we must ask ourselves whether Anthropology can understand it or not. Certainly, we cannot ignore the fact that the studied subjects still have their histories, which are also made up of experiences that take place in specific locations. Wherever the meditator is, however, all cultural references falter, for this is precisely the purpose of meditation: to overcome the “cognitive habits” that are bestowed upon us by experience, education, language, family, and society—in a word, culture. Cultural Anthropology can go only so far: it can tell us about how a culture self-identified as “Western” accommodates individuals who, through processes of fascination and acquisition of phenomena perceived as other than their identity, appropriate a phenomenon (meditation) that is undoubtedly cultural as well, which itself consists of historical and philosophical legacies that collide and intersect. It can then tell us how this acquisition generates a transformation of the phenomenon—a transculturation—and how it, in turn, becomes part of logics of identity construction and representation involving belonging, spirituality, protest, or even conformity. Then, when meditation is practiced for a certain period and in a certain manner, regardless of how the subject has come to know and appreciate meditation, certain cultural references are gradually lost, and the dilemma arises: How can the anthropologist define a blending of subjectivity, not solely between two subjects, but between a subject and an image? How can a meditating subject “feel” like a flower, a bee, a candle, or even infinite space? Herein lies the problem. My autoethnography began as an account of these experiences, even though I had meditated before embarking on this research.  However, this research led me to challenge certain assumptions of anthropological inquiry itself. My meditation practice precedes the period of this study, as I have been a meditator for many years. Meditation is a fundamental part of my life, which is why I decided to make it the focus of my academic research. From this perspective, what Moody says about involvement in the cultural dimension of what one studies (the spiritual world, in his case) is highly relevant, and I have personally experienced it in the major comprehension of meditative exercise. If one were to try to understand meditation simply through the experiences of others, without becoming a meditator oneself or even by disparaging meditation and claiming to be able to study it with objectivist detachment, one would not have any positive outcome.[43] Meditation is not simply a lifestyle and cannot be easily reduced to a specific sphere of religious beliefs, as Buddhism itself cannot be neatly categorized as a religion, spirituality, or philosophy. Buddhism can be considered as each of these things individually, yet it can neither be reduced to any one of them nor seen as the sum or combination of all three. However, Buddhist meditative practice cannot easily be relegated to religious practice like prayer; a spiritual practice; or even a psychological exercise (as believed by some mindfulness practitioners). Nevertheless, it is important to consider that those who practice meditation certainly do so not only due to their particular spiritual inclinations or religious beliefs but also for psychological analysis purposes. Moving specifically to the drawings I produced (fig. 1), I will mention that they varied throughout this ethnographic practice. I will limit myself here to showing just one. My ethnographic practice had to fit within a specific timeframe, considering that my meditation was already a habit for me as I had been meditating frequently, although not consistently, before starting this research. The meditation period I considered for this research was approximately one year, but the individual mandalas were created during single meditation sessions, which could vary greatly in duration. Some sessions lasted for months, others for weeks, and some for only a few days. Additionally, I experimented with various meditation practices beyond my usual habits. Specifically, in the recent period, I decided to undertake a series of guided meditation sessions inspired by my experience in the Buddhist tradition, to which I added personal relaxation techniques, such as imagining myself descending deeper and deeper into the earth and focusing on a mental image such as a monochromatic luminous sphere. Part of these meditations are strongly inspired by what I said earlier about the Laṅka Path. As I established myself within my designated meditation space, I gently closed my eyes, initiating a deliberate detachment from the external world. My respiration, characterized by its measured and consistent cadence, became the central focal point of my cognitive awareness. Within the framework of my inner sanctuary, which existed as an ostensibly timeless dimension, I commenced experiencing an intensely profound sense of tranquility and disengagement. Continuing my meditative practice, I progressively traversed into more profound phases of meditative absorption. During this progression, the delineations of my personal identity began to blur, while my conscious awareness seemed to extend beyond the physical confines of my corporeal form. It was as though I was merging with the expansive cosmic undercurrent of existence, culminating in a state of profound unity and interconnection that transcended the conventional boundaries of perceptual consciousness. Upon entering the culminating phase of my meditation, I arrived at a state characterized as samadhi, denoting the quintessential pinnacle of pure awareness. Within this state, all cogitations, desires, and attachments dissipated entirely. A distinct boundary between the observer and the observed ceased to exist, and my perception of individual identity disintegrated into the limitless expanse of consciousness. This was an experience that transcended time and spatial constructs, rendering all conventional notions of temporal and spatial demarcation empty, void. This profound meditation, grounded in the teachings of the ancient Buddhist canon, facilitated an inward journey through the strata of my consciousness. It culminated in a state of profound serenity and an intimate sense of unity with the cosmos. This transformative encounter left me profoundly tranquil, fostering a renewed comprehension of the interconnectedness that pervades the fabric of all existence. From the perspective of my subjective experience, these meditations did not create significantly different reactions from the ones I was accustomed to. Therefore, I can consider the results of this initial experiment to be similar to those I had experienced in the past. The process of mandala drawing was meant to be free from any pressure implicit in the idea of creating an artistic form, as the intention of this study was to use the visual medium to produce something of anthropological interest. It is not art itself that interests us, but the relationship with visual forms in the context of the study of consciousness. For this reason, I tried to rid myself of any preconceptions about artistic abilities and what should specifically be represented in a “proper” artistic manner. Instead, I focused on representing the shapes I experienced at the end of contemplative processes, concentrating on myself and the experience I had just gone through. This resulted in three different layers. I chose to use pens for this specific drawing and selected three different colors, because I felt they were essentially linked to the three experiential phases I had gone through, each lasting about a week or slightly longer. However, it can be noticed that the colors are not distinctly distributed among the three layers. There is a predominant color for each layer with appearances of another color in the other layers. The central core, however, is entirely in green and was drawn as the final phase of meditation when the sensation was one of total liberation from defined forms of cognitive and subjective distinctions. At the peak of this meditation, after which I took a few days of rest as usual, I experienced a profound distortion of temporal and spatial perceptions. While in the first phase of my meditation, the central experience involved an expanded sense of connection with the cosmos, especially with natural elements—which I felt compelled to represent in very rudimentary and elemental forms, such as rivers and trees. The last phase witnessed a complete upheaval of the simple extension of consciousness and a feeling of omnidirectional projection of my perception, as if I could simultaneously exist in various temporal and spatial points of what I seemingly experienced. This final, more difficult-to-describe phase was preceded by an intermediate period of euphoria-like experience that then drastically subsided. At the height of its exhilaration, I had the sensation of quickly understanding what was happening around me, even to the extent of believing I could predict events a few seconds in advance. I have confirmed that these phases reappear in various modalities, often in a different order, in other subjects involved in this study. 6. ANALYSIS: ONE CASE OF MANDALA-ELICITATION  We must cease now the autoethnographic considerations to return to the analysis of our subject, Leo. His productions are of particular interest to me because he was a novice in contemplative practice, having begun to engage in it precisely due to his interest in participating in this study. He has a scientific background and earned a degree in physics during this study, yet he is also interested in art, poetry, and literature. He is a multifaceted subject with artistic abilities that have always intrigued me, but prior to deciding to participate in this study, he had never shown interest in meditation or mandalas. The temporal leap between his final multilayered creation and those undertaken when he was still a novice meditator (figs. 3–12) spans nearly a year. A more detailed analysis of the results forms part of a research project that will have future outcomes distinct from the present paper. Thus, presenting the beginning and end of an annual journey seems the most concise means to encapsulate the outcomes of a year of meditation, which have yielded a considerable amount of ethnographic material and intriguing experiences for the field of Contemplative Studies. Leo’s final mandala (fig. 2) was created over six meditation sessions (visualized in fig. 13), each corresponding to distinct layers of stratification. In this phase, Leo developed a much deeper self-awareness as well as an understanding of the contemplative experience. Moreover, he encountered a phenomenon of great interest to me, which relates to the experience of the “end of the world,” signifying states of anguish that some individuals confront when delving into the deeper phases of meditation. While these sensations are not universal among meditators, they are quite common and have been examined in a separate study.[44] I was surprised to identify them in Leo as well, but at this stage of experience, given the implications of these apocalyptic experiences, a similar outcome was to be expected. In summary, these experiences of self-loss, often described by meditators as the “end of the world,” involve a sense of anguish stemming from the awareness of the loss of one’s psychological self. The term “end of the world” is borrowed from the anthropological studies of de Martino, an Italian historian of religions and anthropologist who conducted pioneering research in the field of ethnopsychiatry. His studies focused on themes such as cultural construction, social identity, and the relationship between religious cults, magical-ritual practices, and mythological narratives, in relation to psychopathologies specific to each culture (“culture-bound syndromes,” or CBS). He demonstrated how cases wherein the presuppositions for the emergence of sociocultural identity collapse—termed by him as “presence”—lead the subject to experience these moments as an apocalyptic “crisis.” [45] De Martino identifies these circumstances, often almost psychopathological (and therefore compared by him to the Weltuntergangserlebnis, i.e., the “delusion of world destruction”), in moments when the individual is overwhelmed by the world and cannot manage it. In the cases of meditators, however, the contemplative practice itself implies a voluntary deconstruction of the self, and thus the documented crisis experiences are among the most varied, ranging from being classified as “adverse events” to being recognized as transitional passages, anguishing yet peaceful crises that the meditator navigates and ultimately overcomes.[46] However, there still exists a degree of attachment in the meditator who fears the dissolution of their psychosocial identity and thus observes this meditation phase with a sense of impotent distress.   Leo describes the attainment of this very advanced stage of meditation as follows: ·      Layer 1 (September 25): “The flowing attempt takes the form of a desire for stabilization, as if in search of a way to recognize itself, and a small portrait emerges, contrasting with the rigor of the individual presented forms . . . writing, science, geometric art.” ·      Layer 2 (September 27): “It is entirely a portrait, the ego overflowing time and space, with hair entwined in the fabric of reality and illusion: the self is absolute, released in an attempt to surpass its natural boundaries.” ·      Layer 3 (September 28): “There is a portrait of emptiness, of randomness without purpose . . . writing and the face return . . . again and again.” ·      Layer 4 (September 30): “The dance of the observers takes the form of infinite gazes investigating . . . there is a futile attempt at a formal reproduction of speech . . . the observer . . . a portrait gaze . . . almost aged.” ·      Layer 5 (October 2): “A profound sense of sadness that blends and spreads through existential loneliness . . . the complex is subjective but only . . . every representation of it is a form of this infinite solitude.” ·      Layer 6 (October 8): “I feel extreme anxiety and restlessness, almost hyperventilating . . . every curl is the essence of closure, and together they close the subject . . . I have drawn anxiety and the unknown fate in different forms . . . I will never look at this mandala again, of which I am afraid.” The delineation of Leo’s six layers and phases of meditation provides an insightful lens through which anthropologists may examine the junctures between contemplative practice and anthropological inquiry. This association is not a recent confluence but, instead, finds its antecedents in earlier anthropological ruminations. Within this context, Leo’s meditative experiences may be expounded upon as follows: The inaugural phase in Leo’s progression can be construed as commensurate with an anthropological odyssey, underscored by an emphasis on stability and recognition. This evokes parallels with Lévi-Strauss’s notion of the ephemeral identity (“non existence d’une « identité substantielle »”) in the many possible cultural worlds.[47] In this preliminary phase, Leo endeavors to comprehend and stabilize the configurations encountered during meditation, much akin to an anthropologist’s quest to apprehend the fundamental constituents of a cultural phenomenon. In the subsequent stage (phase 2), Leo’s journey plunges to deeper depths as they confront a state wherein the ego transcends the confines of time and space, aspiring to traverse its innate boundaries. This comparative analysis finds resonance with Lévi-Strauss’s concept of deconstructing the anthropologist’s subject of scrutiny and mirrors the contemplative process of surpassing the boundaries of the self. In the third phase of meditation, Leo delves into an imagery of emptiness, akin to the deconstruction of cognitive objects, which is a recurring theme in anthropological discourse. The cyclic reemergence of writing and facial representations hints at the perpetual deconstruction and reconfiguration of meaning, echoing the impermanence that is inherent in both meditative practice and anthropological investigation. Moving on to phase 4, Leo’s encounter exhibits an alignment with the anthropological gaze, where observers engage in investigative scrutiny and endeavor to replicate formality within the meditative realm. This parallels the anthropologist’s diligent scrutiny and their aspiration to faithfully represent evolving cultural phenomena. In phase 5, Leo confronts profound sorrow and existential solitude, which mirrors the distressing encounters that some meditators associate with the end-of-the-world sensation. This juncture prompts contemplation on the deconstruction of the experiential subject, akin to the imperative need for the exploration and deconstruction of anthropological subjectivity. Finally, in phase 6, Leo grapples with extreme anxiety and a trepidation of confronting the unknown, a sentiment analogous to the apprehension often accompanying the transition to deeper meditative states: “I have drawn anxiety and the unknown fate in different forms . . . I will never look at this mandala again, of which I am afraid.” This stage accentuates the significance of preparedness and the possession of a comprehensive interpretative framework, a facet underscored in anthropological research. The anthropological perspective discerns parallelism between Leo’s voyage in meditation and broader philosophical and ontological tenets rooted in the conception that entities and experiences are subject to perpetual transformation and transition. Just as Buddhism posits a physics of complexity, Anthropology, in like fashion, investigates the intricate interplay of elements within cultures and human experiences. Both domains disavow the notion that entities either emerge from or dissolve into nothingness, underscoring the interconnectedness and flux intrinsic to the human experience and its study. This shared philosophical foundation portends the potential for the convergence of Anthropology and contemplative practice, thereby fostering a mutually enriching comprehension of human existence. 7. CONCLUDING REMARKS In the current study, I analyzed a subset of data that was collected in a research project on the ethnography of consciousness in meditation. Specifically, these data represent a broad snapshot of the ethnographic experience, encompassing both preparatory forms—namely, the initial drawings produced by a subject during their personal meditation—and the final ones, when the meditative technique has entered a more mature phase. In this project, visual elicitation was employed as a tool to express the complex stages of contemplative practice, requiring subjects to draw at multiple stages during meditation sessions or to produce multiple drawings as their meditations progressed. As the subjects engaged in meditation over the course of days or months, consistently and on a daily basis, details were added to the drawings or, in the initial stages, different drawings were generated. In the concrete representation of images, the only request made by the researcher was to have no bias or preconceived plan. The subject was instructed to draw immediately after completing a meditation session and to put on paper whatever came to them in the most spontaneous and immediate manner possible without attempting to assign meaning a priori. Only subsequently, after the act of drawing was completed, could the subject reflect retrospectively on the images now before them, engaging in a dialogue between their own sensibilities and the image they had produced. This dialogue is what I, as an anthropologist, participated in, primarily adopting a receptive and listening mode and only marginally posing questions and reflections, allowing the subject to freely articulate and explain the meaning or emotions present in certain forms or structures within the image. The data collection for these ethnographies was exclusively conducted through digital means.[48] This modality became extremely valuable during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, revealing how the digital means can contribute significantly to those situations in which the usual in-field ethnography is impossible.[49] In the case of the ethnography of meditation, as already mentioned, this becomes primarily indispensable for reasons that are intrinsic to the contemplative practice itself and make frequenting an ethnographic field, in a geographically determined sense, somewhat limiting. Naturally things change if one wants to investigate the cultural aspect of a specific tradition or movement around meditation, but if the focus is the subjectivity in the contemplative experience itself, the value of the ethnographic field loses its spatiality and concentrates on consciousness itself.[50] Frequently, the ethnographic subjects were geographically distant from the interviewer, spanning various parts of Europe. However, as addressed previously, conducting an ethnography of meditation necessarily entails a complete reevaluation of the concept of the ethnographic field, given that the practice of meditation has become disentangled from its historical-cultural context and has evolved into a transcultural and globalized phenomenon. Meditators are found across the globe. Studies such as this one, which focus on the general experiences that states of consciousness stimulated by meditation bring forth, are not delineated by cultural aspects within a particular cultural space. Therefore, such studies require a reevaluation of the ethnographic field in that it is no longer a space physically determined but a space of consciousness, which can and sometimes should be investigated through digital means. This includes online interviews, the sharing of images through scanning, and a dynamic ethnographic diary that takes into account the constant sharing that meditators can provide to the ethnographer through the digital medium. In an age of image saturation, where we are constantly exposed to an overabundance of visual material, we may become so accustomed to this inundation that we underestimate the significance of the image. Visual languages encompass not only the creation of artistic works but also extend to film and audiovisual content, ranging from documentaries to television series, all of which entail meticulous design. Photography, drawing, and video production can be regarded as important forms of personal expression. Whether to include these within the definition of art is a matter beyond the scope of this research. Rather, this project stems from the recognition of the need that arises in individuals to express their subjectivity in a unique and distinct form through the visual medium. Observing the potency of the visual medium from an anthropological perspective, I pondered whether the visual medium could serve as a stimulus for the expression of content related to the description of subjective experiences that might not be as elucidative through spoken language or ethnographic interviews. The use of digital technology naturally comes into play as a powerful and practical tool for efficiently and rapidly collecting ethnographic material.[51] In this context, the use of digital tools for ethnographic research that employs images and image production as a means of expression and ethnographic data constitutes an expanded form of ethnography—a possibility that has already been extensively explored, such as in the utilization of smartphones as a means of collecting audiovisual data for ethnographic purposes.[52] Within the specific objectives of this research, the use of image production as ethnographic data emerged from a highly specific necessity—namely, the need to anthropologically study the subjective experiences of individuals during contemplative acts from the perspective of their consciousness. This research evolved into a visual ethnography but not merely a conventional one; rather, it became an ethnography of states of consciousness through the visual medium. There are subjective experiences that are challenging to describe in words, and meditation is one such example. Visual elicitation is a widely employed technique in the social sciences that utilizes visual aids as a means to facilitate more effective subjective expression. There exist cases in which simple ethnographic interviews or verbal expression prove limiting or place the subject in an embarrassing condition concerning the researcher, thus creating a dichotomy and a filter of authority. The researcher who investigates personal aspects of the subject may be perceived as invasive, and the purpose of Anthropology is better fulfilled when the subject is free to express their subjectivity as it is without concern for filtering it or making it digestible to the technical needs of a researcher. Visual elicitation sometimes overcomes these obstacles, primarily by placing the subject in the role of an expert: the one who has produced the image can best interpret it, as they are intimately acquainted with its secrets.[53] The narrative that reveals how the image has appeared on the page, whether it is a drawing or a photograph, proves effective in expressing the subjectivity of its creator, who is therefore the only “expert,” while the researcher assumes the role of the listener who learns. By removing this filter of authority, we thus attain greater expressive freedom. Visual elicitation has primarily made use of photographs,[54] but drawing also exhibits surprising potential, and in both cases, it yields promising results.[55] Furthermore, as previously mentioned, aspects of subjective experience such as one’s own consciousness—phenomena involving exclusively mental dynamics including thought, perception, or sensation—can in some instances be better expressed through the visual medium, as it implies the invocation of shapes, colors, and image densities that lend themselves to metaphorically and effectively conveying what would otherwise be less immediate and require a complex elaboration, which not all subjects feel capable of performing convincingly in words. The potential intrinsic to Contemplative Anthropology transcends the mere examination of meditation practices themselves. By adopting this innovative approach, we can envisage a multitude of prospective applications that stand to substantively augment our comprehension of consciousness, identity, Phenomenology, and the study of multifarious cultural phenomena. Primarily, Contemplative Anthropology proffers a distinctive lens through which to interrogate consciousness and its intricacies. Through the methodical exploration of meditative experiences, it furnishes us with unparalleled insights into the inner machinations of the human psyche. This study constitutes merely an initial presentation of collected data; however, it hints at the imperative to transcend certain methodological constraints inherent in the examination of consciousness and contemplative practices. This methodological transformation extends beyond the utilization of conventional phenomenological methodologies, for the contemplative inquiry empowers researchers to transcend the boundaries demarcating self from other, thereby imparting a novel vantage point regarding the very essence of consciousness. This paradigmatic shift challenges established paradigms concerning subjectivity and thus precipitates a thorough reevaluation of consciousness as an interconnected, nondualistic phenomenon. Within the sphere of identity, Contemplative Anthropology provides an auspicious opportunity to disentangle the intricate tapestry of self-identification and cultural affiliations. By immersing themselves in contemplative practices, anthropologists can undertake an investigation into the transformative effects of these practices upon the conceptions of identity. Through firsthand experiential engagement, researchers can apprehend identity not as an immutable and isolating construct but as a dynamic and interconnected entity. This approach may ultimately engender a redefinition of identity as a malleable construct transcending conventional boundaries, thereby enriching our comprehension of how individuals perceive themselves in relation to others and their cultural milieus. The very discipline of Phenomenology itself undergoes a profound reevaluation within the overarching framework of Contemplative Anthropology. The contemplative perspective serves to challenge the time-honored dichotomy separating subject and object, ushering a nondualistic dimension into the realm of phenomenological inquiry. In this application of Phenomenology, exemplified within the contours of contemplative ethnography, the traditional demarcation between observer and observed no longer subsists. Instead, it duly acknowledges the latent potential for shared experiences and mutual comprehension that supersedes the conventional constraints of phenomenological investigation. This reinterpretation of Phenomenology inherently recognizes the intricate interplay between the subjectivity of the observer and the phenomenon under scrutiny, thereby engendering a more comprehensive grasp of lived experiences. Furthermore, the application of meditation to ethnographic inquiries, nested within the contemplative paradigm, extends its purview to encompass the examination of a diverse array of cultural phenomena extending beyond the domain of meditation itself. Consider the scenario of an anthropologist who, having diligently cultivated a contemplative practice, pivots their attention toward the rituals, ceremonies, and cultural practices prevalent across various societies. In this instance, the meditator-anthropologist does not adopt a stance of detached observation but embraces the position of an active participant capable of assuming the experiential standpoint from a nondual perspective. For instance, rituals concomitant with communal bonding may be scrutinized in a manner that transcends the conventional vantage point of an external observer. The meditator-anthropologist immerses themselves in these rituals not as a detached onlooker but as an individual capable of intimately apprehending the shared consciousness and interconnectedness that undergird these practices. This approach holds the promise of unearthing profound insights into the role of rituals in engendering a sense of unity and belonging within disparate cultural contexts. Analogously, the domain of art and aesthetics stands to accrue substantial benefits from the adoption of a contemplative approach. An anthropologist endowed with a contemplative background can delve into the realms of artistic creation and reception across various cultural milieus. This exploration may encompass an inquiry into how artistic expressions serve to evoke shared states of consciousness and transcendence, thereby furthering our comprehension of the role of art within human societies. In sum, Contemplative Anthropology has the potential to precipitate a paradigmatic shift in how we engage in the study and comprehension of both the human psyche and diverse cultural phenomena. By embracing a nondualistic perspective, this approach ushers forth innovative avenues for the exploration of the interconnected nature of consciousness, the fluidity inherent to identity, and the profound significance that underlies cultural practices. It invites us to undertake a comprehensive reevaluation of established paradigms and to embrace a more holistic and experiential approach to the discipline of Anthropology. Through the medium of contemplative inquiry, we may unearth the hitherto obscured strata of human experience and cultural significance, thereby enhancing our collective comprehension of the human condition. SEQUENTIAL MANDALAS  Picture1.png    
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Figure 5    Picture7.png    
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 Figure 11  Picture11.png    
 Figure 12  Picture12.png    
 Figure 13. Sequential production of Leo’s last complete mandala (fig. 2), phases 1–6, courtesy of Leo Caliandro  
  Acknowledgments: This article presents an ethnographic study employing an experimental methodology that combines visual elicitation techniques previously utilized in data collection within the social sciences. The study adapts this methodology specifically for the benefit of qualitative research, offering a case study applied to the investigation of contemplative practices. Naturally, the focus of this study revolves around how this methodology can enhance the anthropological study of contemplative practices, thus representing an initial endeavor. Subsequent works, ideally already in the process of publication, are expected to delve further into themes, case studies, and methodology. I wish to express gratitude to my mentor, Paolo Favero, and to the ViDi research center at the University of Antwerp, to which this study owes its refinement in the ethnographic dimension.
      
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   NOTES    
[1] Tony E. Adams, Carolyn Ellis, and Stacy Holman Jones, “Autoethnography,” in The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, ed. Jörg Matthes (New York: Wiley, 2017): 1–11, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0011. [2] Federico Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse: Contemplative Anthropology Investigating Experiences of World-Loss in Deep Meditation,” Religions 14, no. 7 (January 2023): 941, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070941. [3] Claire Petitmengin, “On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience: A Comparison Between the Micro-Phenomenological Method and the Practice of Meditation,” Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 52, no. 1 (January 2021): 53, https://doi.org/10.1163/15691624-12341383. [4] Agnieszka Sekula et al., “Producing Altered States of Consciousness, Reducing Substance Misuse: A Review of Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy, Transcendental Meditation and Hypnotherapy,” Psychoactives 3, no. 2 (2024): 137–66, https://doi.org/10.3390/psychoactives3020010; Raphaël Millière et al., “Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness,” Frontiers in Psychology 9, no. 1475 (September 2018), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475; Julian Davidson, “The Physiology of Meditation and Mystical States of Consciousness,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 19, no. 3 (1976): 345–80, https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.1976.0042. [5] For contemplative ethnography, see: Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Mindful Ethnography: Mind, Heart and Activity for Transformative Social Research (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019). For our other major influence, micro-phenomenology has been compared to meditation for several reasons. The two practices seem to obtain analogous results in the analysis of conscious experience and the deconstruction of perceptual phenomena. See Petitmengin, “On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience.” For instance, “we use the term ‘veil’ (in Sanskrit āvaraṇa: ‘what covers’) to designate what cuts us off from our experience, prevents us from being present to it. This term fits with the occulting effect of the veil (the veil hides experience, prevents seeing what is there), as well as with its distorting effect,” and in this case, “micro-phenomenological interviews applied to meditative experience and to themselves on the other hand, we have identified four main types of veiling: attentional, emotional, intentional and cognitive veils” (Petitmengin, “On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience,” 39). The mind is also recognized to get easily distracted, “wandering” through a series of images and thoughts that leads to a “generation of a virtual scene or a succession of virtual scenes during the wandering episode” (Petitmengin, “On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience,” 40). Both meditation and micro-phenomenological analysis aim to reduce this form of wandering: “In order to dissolve intentional veils, the micro-phenomenological interview thus uses devices to arouse a receptive attention” (Petitmengin, “On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience,” 65). [6] See Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse.” For other studies proposing nondualistic methodologies in social sciences see Eva Theunissen and Paolo S. H. Favero, “Between Self and Other Propositions for Non-Dualistic Research on VR,” in Interactive Documentary: Decolonizing Practice-Based Research, eds. Kathleen M. Ryan and David Staton (New York: Routledge, 2022): 147–61, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003174509. See also T. M. S. Evens, ed., Anthropology as Ethics: Nondualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice(New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), https://doi.org/10.3167/9781845452247. On the necessity of abandoning dualistic epistemologies in the visual studies see Paolo S. H. Favero, “A Journey from Virtual and Mixed Reality to Byzantine Icons via Buddhist Philosophy: Possible (Decolonizing) Dialogues in Visuality across Time and Space,” Anthrovision 7, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.4000/anthrovision.4921. [7] See Luc Pauwels, “Visual Elicitation in Interviews,” in Sage Research Methods Foundations (London: SAGE, 2020): 3–13, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036846496; Luc Pauwels, “Visual Elicitation Techniques, Respondent-Generated Image Production and ‘Participatory’ Visual Activism,” in Reframing Visual Social Science: Towards a More Visual Sociology and Anthropology(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015): 117–38, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139017633.006. [8] Nettrice R. Gaskins, “Semantic Symbology: The Evolution and Amplification of Cosmograms,” Journal of Visual Art Practice 20, no. 3 (October 2021): 259–74, https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2021.1951587. [9] For their Buddhist context, see Giuseppe Tucci, The Theory and Practice of the Mandala, (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2001); Kimiaki Tanaka, An Illustrated History of the Mandala: From Its Genesis to the Kālacakratantra (Boulder, CO: Wisdom, 2018). See also David McMahan, Empty Vision: Metaphor and Visionary Imagery in Mahāyāna Buddhism (London: Routledge, 2002). Within Analytic Psychology, see Patti Henderson, David Rosen, and Nathan Mascaro, “Empirical Study on the Healing Nature of Mandalas,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 1, no. 3 (August 2007): 148–54, https://doi.org/10.1037/1931-3896.1.3.148; Christopher T. Pisarik and Karen R. Larson, “Facilitating College Students’ Authenticity and Psychological Well-Being Through the Use of Mandalas: An Empirical Study,” The Journal of Humanistic Counseling 50, no. 3 (March 2011): 84–98, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1939.2011.tb00108.x; Judson Davis, “The Primordial Mandalas of East and West: Jungian and Tibetan Buddhist Approaches to Healing and Transformation,” NeuroQuantology 14, no. 2 (June 2016): 242–54, https://doi.org/10.14704/nq.2016.14.2.940. [10] See Federico Divino, “In This World or the Next: Investigation Over the ‘End of the World’ in Contemplative Practice through the Pāli Canon,” Annali Sezione Orientale 83, no. 1–2 (August 2023): 99–129, https://doi.org/10.1163/24685631-12340142. [11] See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Psychologie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. Erster Halbband. Herausgegeben von Karl Schuhmann. In: Husserliana Band III/1 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff). [12] Buddhist contemplative practice has garnered scholarly interest precisely due to its capacity to “weaken” the perception of division inherent in the ordinary experience of individuals, who exist within a dualistically structured world regarding both personal identity (I/you or we/they) and the “things” of the world, from which we perceive ourselves as separate. However, Buddhism is not the sole tradition encompassing a discipline with these objectives. More recently, there has been a growing discourse on “contemplative practices” in the plural, acknowledging that similar experiences can be observed outside the frameworks of Buddhist meditation, while still sharing some fundamental aspects. See David Loy, Nonduality: In Buddhism and Beyond (Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2019). [13] Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse.” [14] Claire Petitmengin, “La dynamique pré-réfléchie de l’expérience vécue,” Alter 18, no. 18 (2010): 168, https://doi.org/10.4000/alter.1668. Original: “Le méditant découvre aussi, accompagnant cette rumeur presque ininterrompue, un flot rapide d’images et de « films » intérieurs : souvenirs proches ou lointains, agréables ou non, scènes futures désirées ou appréhendées, dont seule une petite part apparaît à la conscience. Ces discours imaginaires et cette imagerie intérieure contribuent à entretenir un flux presque incessant d’émotions, dont seules les plus intenses sont ordinairement perçues. Mais ces strates discursive, imaginaire et émotionnelle occultent une dimension encore plus difficile d’accès, plus subtile.” [15] Petitmengin, “La dynamique pré-réfléchie de l’expérience vécue,” 165. Original: “la part de notre expérience qui est vécue sans être reconnue, sans être immédiatement accessible à la conscience et à la description verbale.” [16] Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse.” [17] Claire Petitmengin, “Describing One’s Subjective Experience in the Second Person: An Interview Method for the Science of Consciousness,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 5, no. 12 (December 2006): 233, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-006-9022-2. [18] Christopher James Santiago and Melinda Kiefer Santiago, “Dream Alliance: Art, Anthropology, and Consciousness,” Anthropologyof Consciousness 34, no. 2 (September 2023): 264–77, https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12218. [19] Petitmengin, “Describing One’s Subjective Experience,” 236. [20] For a description of the holographic model see Federico Divino, “Dualism and Psychosemantics: Holography and Pansematism in Early Buddhist Philosophy,” Comparative Philosophy 14, no. 2 (July 2023): 1–40, https://doi.org/10.31979/2151-6014(2023).140204. For a discussion of such a substrate in Buddhist Philosophy, see William S. Waldron, The Buddhist Unconscious: The Ālaya-Vijñāna in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought (London: Routledge, 2003). [21] Petitmengin, “La dynamique pré-réfléchie de l’expérience vécue,” 180. Original: “l’analyse des descriptions que nous avons recueillies suggère qu’au cours du processus de prise de conscience, plus l’attention relâche sa tension vers les objets extérieurs pour entrer en contact avec l’expérience dite « intérieure », plus la distinction entre « intérieur » et « extérieur », soi et non soi, se réduit.” [22] Claire Petitmengin, “On the Possibility and Reality of Introspection,” Kairos. Revista de Filosofia & Ciência 6 (2013): 193.  [23] Gary Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits’—Spirit Art and Spirit‐Guided Experiential Ethnographic Techniques,” Anthropology of Consciousness 34, no. 2 (September 2023): 554, https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12201. [24] Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits,’” 557. [25] Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits,’” 558. [26] Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits,’” 559–60. [27] Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits,’” 556. [28] Moody, “‘Dancing with Spirits,’” 580. [29] Santiago and Santiago, “Dream Alliance,” 6–7. [30] Robert Wallis, “Art and Shamanism: From Cave Painting to the White Cube,” Religions 10, no. 1 (January 2019): 5, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10010054. [31] John Brough, “Soma and ‘Amanita Muscaria,’” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 34, no. 2 (January 1971): 331–62, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X0012957X. [32] Estelle Orrelle, “Identifying Iconographic Evidence for a Mushroom Cult in the Preliterate Southern Levant,” Time and Mind 15, no. 3–4 (September 2022): 277–96, https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2022.2119096. [33] Wallis, “Art and Shamanism,” 10. [34] Paolo S. H. Favero, “The Image Is a Cure,” Visual Studies 38, no. 2 (2023): 196–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2023.2198406. [35] Robert R. Desjarlais, “Healing through Images: The Magical Flight and Healing Geography of Nepali Shamans,” Ethos 17, no. 3 (September 1989): 290, 297, https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1989.17.3.02a00020. [36] Kate Crosby, Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2020), 146. [37] Kate Crosby, “Tantric Theravāda: A Bibliographic Essay on the Writings of François Bizot and Others on the Yogāvacara Tradition,” Contemporary Buddhism 1, no. 2 (June 2008), https://doi.org/10.1080/14639940008573729; Federico Divino, The Apparent Image: The Phenomenon, the Void, the Invisible (Padua: Diodati, 2024), 139–50. [38] Lance Selwyn Cousins, Meditations of the Pali Tradition: Illuminating Buddhist Doctrine, History, and Practice (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 2022), 165. [39] Cousins, Meditations of the Pali Tradition, 168. [40] The appearance of luminous phenomena or the adoption of metaphors of light inherent to contemplative practice is a fact already codified in Buddhist texts. See, for example, notes 10, 11, and 21 in Federico Divino, “An Anthropological Outline of the Sutta Nipāta: The Contemplative Experience in Early Buddhist Poetry,” Religions 14, no. 2 (January 2023): 172, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020172. These effects are documented also for modern meditators. See Jared R. Lindahl, Christopher T. Kaplan, Evan M. Winget, and Willoughby B. Britton, “A Phenomenology of Meditation-Induced Light Experiences: Traditional Buddhist and Neurobiological Perspectives,” Frontiers in Psychology 4, no. 973 (2013), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00973. [41] Cousins, Meditations of the Pali Tradition, 159. [42] On the value of autoethnography for anthropological research see Ralf Buckley, “Autoethnography Helps Analyse Emotions,”Frontiers in Psychology 6, no. 209 (February 2015), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00209. Also, David Butz and Kathryn Besio, “The Value of Autoethnography for Field Research in Transcultural Settings,” The Professional Geographer 56, no. 3 (August 2004): 350–60, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-0124.2004.05603004.x. And for a brief overview of the method see Carolyn Ellis, Tony E. Adams, and Arthur P. Bochner, “Autoethnography: An Overview,” Historical Social Research 36, no. 4 (2011): 273–90.  [43] In this context, it is crucial to emphasize the significance of involving first-person perspectives in studying consciousness. In this regard, several studies have already been published focusing on the examination of consciousness through the qualitative analysis of firsthand experiences. See, for example, Dusana Dorjee, “Defining Contemplative Science: The Metacognitive Self-Regulatory Capacity of the Mind, Context of Meditation Practice and Modes of Existential Awareness,” Frontiers in Psychology 7 (November 2016), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01788. [44] See Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse,” and Divino, “In This World or the Next.” [45] Ernesto de Martino, The End of the World: Cultural Apocalypse and Transcendence (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2023), https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226820569.001.0001. [46] Dhanesh D. Binda, Carol M. Greco, and Natalia E. Morone, “What Are Adverse Events in Mindfulness Meditation?” Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health 11 (April 2022), https://doi.org/10.1177/2164957X221096640; Divino, “Mindful Apocalypse.” [47] Pierre-Noël Denieuil, “L’identité selon Claude Lévi-Strauss. De la substance à la structure,” Raison présente 169, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 86, https://doi.org/10.3406/raipr.2009.4144. [48] Dhiraj Murthy, “Digital Ethnography,” Sociology 42, no. 5 (October 2008): 837–55, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038508094565. [49] Magdalena Góralska, “Anthropology from Home: Advice on Digital Ethnography for the Pandemic Times,” Anthropology in Action 27, no. 1 (March 2020): 46–52, https://doi.org/10.3167/aia.2020.270105. [50] Urban Kordeš, Aleš Oblak, Maja Smrdu, and Ema Demšar, “Ethnography of Meditation: An Account of Pursuing Meditative Practice as a Tool for Researching Consciousness,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 26, no. 7 (August 2019): 184–237. [51] Angela Delli Paoli and Valentina D’Auria, “Digital Ethnography: A Systematic Literature Review,” Italian Sociological Review 11, no. 4S (2021): 243–67, https://doi.org/10.13136/isr.v11i4S.434. [52] Paolo S. H. Favero, “Doing Audio/Visual/Sensory Ethnography with and on Smartphones—A Possible Roadmap for an Expanded Ethnography,” International Review of Sociology 33, no. 2 (July 2023): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/03906701.2023.2233295. [53] Keith C. Barton, “Elicitation Techniques: Getting People to Talk About Ideas They Don’t Usually Talk About,” Theory & Research in Social Education 43, no. 2 (2015): 179–205, https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2015.1034392. [54] Xanthe Glaw, Kerry Inder, Ashley Kable, and Michael Hazelton, “Visual Methodologies in Qualitative Research,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 16, no. 1 (December 2017), https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406917748215; Roman R. Williams and Kyle Whitehouse, “Photo Elicitation and the Visual Sociology of Religion,” Review of Religious Research 57, no. 2 (June 2015): 303–18, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0199-5. [55] Anna Bagnoli, “Beyond the Standard Interview: The Use of Graphic Elicitation and Arts-Based Methods,” Qualitative Research 9, no. 5 (November 2009): 547–70, https://doi.org/10.1177/146879410934362; Kerstin Stieber Roger and Constance Blomgren, “Elicitation as a Mind-Set: Why Visual Data Matter?,” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18, no. 1 (March 2019).

      
   Introduction     Meditation practices have expanded from their historical provenance in religious traditions, toward inclusion among methods of health promotion in the domains of medicine and science.[1] Although some practitioners come to meditation because it is a Buddhist practice, many others engage in meditation as a means for emotional, mental, and even physical health,[2] supported by an increasingly established scientific literature.[3] Proponents of meditation in the West[4] have extensively drawn on both religious and scientific discourses in its dissemination. Accordingly, contemporary Buddhist meditators in the West are likely to find themselves engaged in practices with rich associations with both religious and scientific worldviews.  These dual associations may coexist without significance or tension under ordinary circumstances. However, meditation-related challenges can provoke existential concerns that make un-explored relationships between worldviews more important and therefore explicit. Meditation-related challenges are experiences that are 1) reported as difficult, distressing, functionally impairing, and/or requiring additional support and that 2) are attributed as having occurred either during meditation or as a result of meditation[5] . Investigating the ways in which religious and scientific perspectives are engaged when practitioners experience meditation-related challenges may lend some insight into practitioners’ views of religion and science in general and, more importantly, into their engagement with these worldviews as they cope with difficult experiences. Although numerous benefits have been attributed to long-term Buddhist meditation,[6] an examination of the both the historical and textual traditions of Buddhism,[7] as well as contemporary studies of meditation, reveals that such practices can lead to unexpected, challenging, and even distressing experiences.[8] These effects can sometimes be severe enough to disrupt an individual’s daily functioning.[9] Meditation-related challenges are not monolithic, varying in type, duration, and level of impairment. A full account of the phenomenology and consequences of meditation-related challenges is beyond the scope of this manuscript, which focuses on the relationships between religious and scientific worldviews for meditators who experience challenges. However, a growing literature has begun to document and describe these challenges.[10] Meditation-related challenges appear to make worldviews particularly salient for practitioners as they grapple with the existential implications of facing challenges in the course of Buddhist meditation practice.[11] As meditators face these challenges and attempt to move forward with their lives, an important part of their response is to understand how and why their meditation-related challenges came to pass, what to do about them, and what they mean. As Peter Berger observed, “To be sure, the individual suffering from a tormenting illness, say, or from oppression and exploitation at the hands of fellowmen, desires relief from these misfortunes. But he equally desires to know why these misfortunes have come to him in the first place.”[12] Worldview and narrative are particularly relevant to this process, enabling the adoption, contestation, and negotiation of meanings that are personally and socially significant.[13] As Esmé Weijun Wang reflects while considering the meanings of psychiatric diagnoses, “How did this come to be? is another way of asking, Why did this happen?, which is another way of asking, What do I do now?”[14] Thus, in the context of challenging experiences, worldviews do not simply provide epistemic or metaphysical postulates; they also often entail prescriptive, pragmatic, and teleological beliefs that inform behavior. For practitioners of Buddhist meditation in the West, a number of explanatory frameworks are afforded for making sense of meditation-related challenges. Insofar as their meditation practice is part of a tradition of Buddhist practices, religious and spiritual explanations are commonplace. Insofar as they are Westerners suddenly undergoing distress or impairment in functioning, psychological and biomedical explanations are also close at hand. The increasing tendency for meditation practices to be reframed in scientific language, and their impacts to be described through scientific research, provides additional affordances for meditators to make scientific interpretations of meditation-related challenges. Practitioners undergoing meditation-related challenges thus often negotiate both religious and/or scientific discourses as well as ideas about how religion and science do or do not interact. This paper aims to investigate the various ways in which the relationship between religion and science is articulated by Western Buddhists in the context of meditation-related challenges.       
   Scholarship on the Relationships between Religion and Science     The academic study of relations between religious and scientific discourses has largely developed against the backdrop of Abrahamic religions. In this context, encounters of religion and science have repeatedly been characterized by conflict, often predicated on epistemological incompatibility.[15] The presumption of incompatibility between theology and science is thus sometimes expressed in terms of theological claims vs. scientific progress, and is notably articulated in the “secularization hypothesis,” which contends that as technology and industry extend their reach, religion will become less relevant.[16] However, this hypothesis has only partly borne out, and religion continues to have remarkable relevance.[17] Because the secularization hypothesis has tended to imply a natural conflict between religion and science, critiques of this view often put forth a “compatibility” thesis in which religious and scientific views do not necessarily negate one another. For example, in a latent class analysis of responses to the US General Social Survey, Timothy L. O’Brien and Shiri Noy observed that 43% of respondents favored religion over science, 36% preferred science over religion, and another 21% were characterized as “post-secular,” with positive views of religion and science, but often treating religion as primary.[18] Scholarship on religion and science has increasingly recognized, however, that religious and scientific worldviews may coexist in a range of relationships beyond the dichotomy of compatibility and conflict, and which are reflected but not exhausted by the “post-secular” category. Ian G. Barbour’s philosophical work is particularly notable in this respect,[19] articulating four ideal-typical ways in which religion and science may relate to one another. Briefly stated, these include: (1) Conflict, which entails rival, mutually exclusive claims by religion and science that pertain to the same domain, and which must be resolved in favor of either religion or science; (2) Independence, which entails views that specific methods, questions, or domains are relevant to either religion or science, and that religion and science can be selectively applied to the domains for which they are suited; (3) Dialogue, which entails attempts at engagement and even reinterpretation of religious and scientific claims on one another’s terms, often in areas where parallels can be drawn; and (4) Integration, which entails perspectives that religious and scientific views are to be reconciled and function in common with one another. Although these categories have been variously critiqued,[20] reimagined, and nuanced,[21] the revisions remain largely in conversation with Barbour’s seminal work despite several of its limitations. Much of this discourse is indebted to Christian theological issues in religion (e.g., debates over evolution). It also remains concerned with foundational, philosophical positions (e.g., debates about first causes) rather than the concerns of everyday life. In this scholarship the relationships between religion and science can appear as ideal types rather than as aspects of enacted daily life. The degree to which these categories may extend, or have relevance, to the lived experiences of contemporary individuals without Christian theological commitments remains unclear. Cristine H. Legare and Aku Visala[22] observe that individuals appear to readily turn to both science and religion as they go about their lives, although the extent to which they do so may vary depending on their views, commitments, and—importantly—what circumstances afford and what is at stake at any given point. They call for research that can apply to the daily lives of individuals outside of Christian theological contexts, and which speaks to the ways that scientific and religious worldviews are enlisted in the face of challenges. Rather than seeking to develop a new typology of relationships between religion and science, this paper contributes important data that can answer these calls by examining the narratives of Western Buddhists reporting meditation-related challenges.       
   Buddhist Meditation, Religious and Scientific Discourses, and the Influence of Buddhist Modernism     Numerous social and historical factors have led to the unique dynamics of science and religion encountered by Western practitioners of Buddhism. Arguably, and in contrast to Christianity, the most dominant narratives have entailed forms of compatibility between Buddhism and science. Donald S. Lopez Jr.[23] demonstrated that claims for compatibility have been articulated for at least 150 years and that such claims have persisted in largely similar forms despite changes in what is meant both by “Buddhism” and by “science.” Many agents have participated in the advancement of these claims, including Buddhist monks responding to Christian missionaries in Asian countries under colonial rule, theosophists bringing a perennialist amalgamation of Asian mystical traditions to the West, and scholars of Buddhism and scientists at European and North American universities. Noticing the surprising consistency of compatibility claims over this period, Lopez asks, “How can the same timeless truths be constantly reflected in discoveries that have changed, and continue to change, so drastically over time?”[24] David L. McMahan[25] has helped to delineate the features of “Buddhist modernism”—a term that describes forms of Buddhism that emerged due to the unique conditions of modernity. McMahan illustrated how specific discursive processes of modernity have been instantiated in the creation of a modern Buddhism, including a shift from institutional to personal, privatized religion and a reinterpretation of traditional Buddhist views, practices, and goals into psychological and scientific language.[26] One motivation for these shifts was the legitimation of Buddhism by establishing associations with the authority of science.[27] He also illustrated a tension in Buddhist modernism between a scientific rationalist discourse, on the one hand, and romantic tendencies that emphasize a transrational and mystical epistemology on the other. Various claims of compatibility have been elaborated in the context of Buddhist modernism. One compatibility narrative contends that science is confirming truths about the nature of reality that the Buddha already discovered.[28] This view was put forth in part by Asian Buddhists in an attempt to defend their religion against charges of superstition made by Christian missionaries in the colonial period, and in the process, they aimed to legitimate Buddhism as a contributor to the discourses of modernity.[29] Promoters of the compatibility of Buddhism and science have also presented Buddhist meditation as a method akin to scientific experimentation.[30] Alan Wallace and Brian Hodel, for example, have proposed that Buddhism not only is a science of the mind but also that it has “a rigorous, peer-reviewed educational method teaching contemplative insight.”[31] In addition to informing the presentation of Buddhism in the West, compatibility narratives have strongly influenced the explication of mindfulness, which has also been presented as scientific and, often, nonreligious.[32] In a notable example, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), expressed a vision of mindfulness as a “universal dharma that is co-extensive, if not identical, with the teachings of the Buddha.”[33] But insofar as his goal was to “recontextualize it within the frameworks of science, medicine . . . [PR1] and healthcare,” he thought it was both possible and preferable to transmit this teaching “without ever mentioning the word ‘dharma.’”[34] The mindfulness movement has largely expanded its scope not through appeals to ancient tradition, but through the presentation of meditation as a secular, or post-secular, method for self-realization,[35] as well as an evidence-based treatment for various physical and mental maladies. The aims of medical intervention and pragmatic self-improvement have not historically been in the scope of Buddhist meditation, and in some instances could even be said to run counter to those goals.[36] The widespread popularity of mindfulness as a secularized health and self-improvement strategy is a testament to how far the compatibility argument has progressed and how successful it has been. On the other hand, comparatively few scientists engaged in meditation research seem to acknowledge potential incompatibilities between Buddhism and science even though, as Lopez has observed,[37] the presentation of a scientific Buddhism often has to distort or ignore teachings, practices, and worldviews found across Buddhist traditions that would be obvious to historians of Buddhism and traditional Buddhist practitioners alike (e.g., karma, reincarnation).  Evan Thompson also demonstrates the pervasiveness of the assumed compatibility between Buddhism and science.[38] He is particularly critical of “the myth of Buddhist exceptionalism,” which he defines as “the belief that Buddhism is superior to other religions in being inherently rational and empirical, or that Buddhism isn’t really a religion but rather is a kind of ‘mind science,’ therapy, philosophy, or way of life based on meditation”—ideas that he describes as “mistaken”, and which “rest on misconceptions about religion and science.”[39] Other scholars have worried that an overemphasis on the allegiance between Buddhism and science could result in a form of cultural imperialism in which more traditional forms of Buddhism (often prominently featuring myths, rituals, and supernatural beings) are delegitimized.[40] They have also pointed out that the emphasis on scientific Buddhism and secular mindfulness creates a commodity for the consumption of White converts that erases the voices of Asian American Buddhists.[41] Despite these contributions to our understanding of how and why Buddhism has come to occupy a unique position in the debates between science and religion, little is known about how these dynamics are presently playing out in contemporary Buddhist communities and among individual meditators and meditation teachers. This paper draws upon qualitative data from the Varieties of Contemplative Experiences (VCE) project, a mixed-method study on meditation-related challenges reported by Western Buddhist meditators and meditation teachers.[42] The context of meditation-related challenges is important, as distress presents a powerful motivation for understanding the causes and purpose of suffering, a process that recruits the religious and existential worldviews of the practitioner.[43] Within these narratives are accounts of multiple agents—meditators, their teachers, fellow practitioners, and others (medical providers, family, and friends)—navigating meditation challenges in a cultural context in which scientific, psychological, and biomedical frameworks for well-being and illness exist alongside appraisals and responses offered from within Buddhist communities. As a result, these data offer an opportunity to investigate how views about the compatibility or incompatibility of Buddhism and science are instantiated within the context of navigating challenging meditation experiences. This paper seeks to contribute a better understanding of the experiences of Buddhist meditators experiencing challenges, and of the relationships between science and religion for these practitioners, in three ways. First, it contributes data from individuals’ lived experiences. Second, it examines the relationships between religion and science in a non-Abrahamic context, among Western Buddhist practitioners. Third, it focuses on the context of meditation-related challenges, which represent unique stakes and difficulties that require practitioners to engage their explanatory frameworks. Our aim is to examine the various ways in which relationships between religion and science were described in this context.       
   Methods     This paper provides a reanalysis of data from the VCE project, a mixed-methods study of Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation experts in the West who have experienced meditation-related challenges (see Lindahl, et al. for details[44]). Previous analyses from the [name elided] project identified a broad range of meditation-related challenges, individual and social factors that influence their nature and trajectory[45], and heuristics used in establishing a differential diagnosis or need for intervention[46]. The present project draws upon and extends those initial findings through further analyzing qualitative data within and beyond these themes in order to identify instantiations of religious and scientific frameworks employed within practitioners’ and experts’ narratives.       
   Participants     Participants in the original VCE study were 60 practitioners of Buddhist meditation who reported that they had experienced meditation-related challenges, as well as 32 meditation experts (comprising mental health practitioners and meditation teachers who have helped others to address meditation-related challenges). Meditation practitioners were sampled equally across Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. The current analysis also includes data from a replication study of an additional eight practitioners and one expert from the tradition of vipassanā meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka. See table 1 for participant demographics including age and gender, as well as religion of origin. Table 1. Participant Characteristics  Characteristic   Number of Participants   Practitioners   Sex (M, F)   37, 31   Age (M (SD))   46.34 (13.97)   Education (Completed Degree)       High School   3   Bachelor’s   25   Master’s   25      Doctorate (PhD, PsyD, or MD)   15   Religious Upbringing       Buddhist   2   Catholic   13   Protestant   18   Orthodox Christian   1   Jewish   12   None   14      Other   2      Not known/missing   4   Practice Tradition       Theravāda (including Goenka practitioners)   28   Zen   20   Tibetan Buddhism   20           Experts       Sex (M, F)   25, 8   Type of Expertise       Theravāda (including Goenka experts)   14   Zen   8   Tibetan Buddhism   6   Clinical   5  Note. This table represents demographic and background characteristics of study participants. Practitioners = participants who reported their own meditation-related challenges. Experts = participants, either Buddhist meditation teachers or clinicians or both, who described how they guide and advise meditation practitioners undergoing challenges. Analyses Analytic Process Coded themes from the original VCE analysis were initially reviewed for relevance to narratives about religion and science. From the initial analysis of phenomenology or, in other words, the various types of meditation-related challenges documented in the study, the “change in worldview” thematic category was particularly informative for the present analyses. Additionally, from the analysis of influencing factors—that is, the factors that were identified as either risks or remedies (or both) for the onset and trajectory of meditation-related challenges—data from the “worldviews and explanatory frameworks” and “intentions, motivations, and goals” thematic categories were also informative. (For further information on the original categories and analyses readers are referred to the original publication of those findings[47]). Because “worldviews and explanatory frameworks” was one of the largest influencing factor categories in the entire study, comprising more than 800 discrete references across all participants, we began by “coding-on” this category for further subthemes. This allowed us to identify the range of types of worldviews and relationships with worldviews in their role as influencing factors. However, because discourses of science and religion often emerged in segments of the interview that were not directly related to the prior research questions (e.g., determining phenomenology, influencing factors, and criteria for differential diagnosis), a second review of all interviews was conducted to extract material pertaining to science and religion that was not originally included in any prior thematic analyses. This document was reviewed by three of the coauthors (RP, DC, JL), and new themes relevant to religion and science were identified through a combination of theory-driven and data-driven approaches through which thematic categories were allowed to emerge inductively. The extracted data document was then read and coded as appropriate with one or more themes by the same three coauthors. For the purpose of generating the present manuscript and a manuscript on the impact of worldviews on the trajectory of meditation-related challenges[48], additional subthemes that reflected patterns in the description of science and belief were compiled based on these analyses. Discrepancies in the application of themes and subthemes were discussed until consensus was reached. Thematic categories were applied to sections of interview texts, rather than to entire interviews. This enabled a richer, more nuanced analysis wherein multiple themes were often observed within any given narrative, showcasing how individuals entertain and navigate a range of explanatory frameworks when considering their meditation-related challenges. In the service of providing a more descriptive and useful account of relationships between religion and science, these themes were not developed to be mutually exclusive and are in many cases conceptually overlapping with one another. Identifying Science and Religion Integral to the analytic process was our determination of what would be interpreted as “science” and “religion” in the interview transcripts. Participants rarely invoked “science” or “religion” directly; instead, they typically discussed subsidiary topics broadly recognizable as within the domains of science or religion. Thus, we were particularly interested in the language participants used to refer to religious and scientific concepts and their interaction by invoking frameworks that draw on either science or religiosity, even if they did not mention science or religion by name. References to Science. Although there were several direct mentions of “science,” references to science were more typically indirect, and occurred through discussion of topics typically within the purview of science, such as empiricist rationalism, Western medicine, or scientific research. Thus, our subsequent analyses were also indirect and simultaneously more specialized, intentionally sensitive to the specific topics that participants chose to speak about. We identified the following topics to be relevant to, and representative of, scientific discourse for the purpose of our analyses: discussions of rationality,[49] empiricism, technology, physics, medicine, psychology, and psychiatry. References to Religion. Religious and spiritual content was also often referenced without the explicit use of the word “religion.” For our analyses we included terms and concepts associated with historical and contemporary Buddhist traditions. These included Buddhist and “Buddhist-adjacent” teleologies, such as expected states, stages, and insights, as well as discussions of ultimate purpose and goals associated with religious practice. Distinctive terminology associated with Buddhist traditions of Asia (e.g., dukkha), terms associated with distinctive phenomenology (e.g., nyams), and key philosophical (e.g., “emptiness”) or soteriological (e.g., kenshō) concepts were also treated as references to religion and spirituality. We also included terms and concepts associated with traditions commonly understood as religious, such as Hinduism or Christianity, as well as terms and concepts with roots in these traditions that have taken on new meanings and interpretations outside of traditional contexts (e.g., “kundalini” and “dark night”). Results The aim of our analyses was to identify the various relationships between religion and science that were explicitly or implicitly present in the way Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation experts in the West described working with meditation-relation challenges. A total of six themes emerged, each of which is suggestive of a way of conceptualizing the relationship between religion and science: compatibility, conflict, nested relationships, discrete domains, and modes of complementarity (see table 2 for a list of themes and definitions). Table 2. Types of Relationships between Religion and Science  Theme   Description   Conflict between Science and Religion   Religious and scientific frameworks are either entirely, or in part, so incompatible as to require a choice between scientific or religious claims.   Compatibility between Science and Religion   The integration of religion and science into a coherent worldview is seen as unproblematic.   Nested Relationships between Science and Religion   Relationships between religion and science that accommodate both religious and scientific narratives, but prioritize one perspective over the other.   Science and Religion as Discrete Domains   The supposition that there are some domains (e.g., soteriology) where religious perspectives are most appropriate, and other domains (e.g., medicine) where scientific perspectives should hold authority, which supports a “division of labor” between religious and scientific frameworks.   Complementarity between Science and Religion   Scientific and religious approaches enhance one another.  Note. This table represents identified themes that emerged from this study’s analysis. Descriptions are presented to the right of each respective theme. Conflict between Science and Religion Conflict views entail relationships between religion and science where religious and scientific frameworks are either entirely, or in part, so incompatible as to require a choice between scientific or religious claims. Thus, any arrangement where scientific and religious claims are described as antithetical and irreconcilable would be considered conflict views. In some cases, conflict was expressed directly, particularly through the rejection of one perspective in favor of the other. In one notable example, a practitioner rejected previously held religious interpretations of his experience of meditation-related challenges. While on his first Zen retreat, he had an “incredible experience” akin to discovering a “door” to “another world.” He interpreted this monthlong sense of the world having “opened up” to be consistent with descriptions of Buddhist experiences of insight. He then spent years trying to “find the door” again, seeking out teachers who framed practice in that way. On a subsequent retreat, he found what he initially appraised as access to this higher insight and wisdom, but it quickly escalated into “fantasies about being a world-savior,” with “hallucinations” and “anti-social behavior” that led to his removal from the retreat and psychiatric treatment. Later, after becoming acquainted with “well-documented  [PR2] . . .  academic research” demonstrating ways in which brains “construct” experience to fit existing beliefs, he rejected his previous worldview as “basically an illusion” that caused him to construct “these experiences out of normal sense data to confirm what I was believing.” Conflicts may also arise due to perceived implications of adopting religious versus scientific frameworks. In the following example, a practitioner faced a decision whether to follow her psychiatrist’s advice, aligned with best practices from a biomedical framework rooted in science, or to follow an approach to meditation that was guided by her spirituality. This practitioner first came to meditation at the suggestion of her psychiatrist, but then while on a meditation retreat in a Theravāda tradition, she experienced highly debilitating and enduring changes to her perception and her sense of self. This led to severe functional impairment in spatial orientation, such as trouble walking down the street. As her challenges persisted, her psychiatrist told her to stop meditating, saying “it’s not good for you.”  However, from an early age, she had “wanted to find my way spiritually.” She thought “it [meditation] did cause this to happen, but I also knew if that’s what happened, I would have a way out through it also.” With respect to her psychiatrist again, she said “I just didn’t care what he said—I knew I had to continue doing it. And I did it; I didn’t overdo it. And I just kept it up and kept it up.” Although her symptoms persisted to various degrees for nearly a decade, during which point resuming meditation could lead to her feeling “absolutely terrified,” eventual improvements through meditation and positive changes in her sense of self confirmed, for her, that she had been correct to reject the psychiatrist’s advice to stop meditating, and that it had indeed been a religious problem with a religious solution. “My sense of self came back knowing that I got through the rabbit hole or something. I know that I’m just part of the universe at this point. Everybody is part of me, and I’m part of everybody else.” Compatibility between Science and Religion Compatibility views entail relationships between religion and science in which their integration into a coherent worldview is seen as unproblematic. Thus, any arrangement in which one does not have to give up religious claims by endorsing scientific claims (or vice versa), or religious concepts are treated as equivalent or identical to scientific concepts, would be included in compatibility. For example, one teacher reflected on the challenges that practitioners report to him in the context of formal interviews: “Most of them are deep psychological issues or matters of trauma. You know, or you could see them as ancient twisted karma. I don’t make that much of a distinction about it.”   Insights from meditation were also occasionally framed as correspondent with scientific concepts. For example, one practitioner stated: As I began to move more deeply into that sense of emptiness and impermanence and no-self, that, kind of through osmosis, seemed to then drift into my body sense—that if there is no solid self and if things are empty and impermanent and without a solid sense of self, that is also true for my whole molecular being. . [PR3] . .  As I began to be interested in what physicists were looking at on the most elemental particle level, and I began to see our bodies are nothing but cells in a constant state of motion, I began to see that there really is, on every single level, no distinction between much of anything except for how molecules are rearranged. So, as that relates to my body sense, I began to get that sense of, “If there is no solid psychological self and things are empty and impermanent, what does that mean about my body’s presence in the universe?” Similarly, one Theravāda Buddhist meditation teacher equated two key concepts in his tradition associated with developing prowess in concentration, pīti (rapture or joy) and sukha (pleasure or bliss), with two neurotransmitters, stating that some practitioners “get the pīti. In other words, they’re generating the norepinephrine. They’re generating that neurotransmitter, or whatever the transmitter is for pīti, but they’re not generating the opioids for the sukha.” Purification Narratives A subset of narratives that were consistent with compatibility frameworks, but were distinctive and consistent enough to prompt further scrutiny, were purification narratives. In general, purification narratives involve an interpretation of meditation-related challenges as an often-necessary component of the transition from an inferior state to a better one. This often involved having elements that were less desirable eliminated or transformed, often with difficulty or suffering as part of the purification process. Practitioners and experts alike used the language of “purification” in ways that illustrate how religious concepts can be blended not only with psychology but also with folk depictions of physiology, neuroscience, chemistry, and physics.  The specific substances, processes, and mechanisms of purification varied, and often mingled scientific and religious referents. In some instances, Buddhist concepts described what was being purified: “karmic patterns,” saṅkhāras, or “obstacles to body, speech, and mind.” In other cases, purification was described in psychological language as transforming “impulses,” “past habit patterns,” “neurotic patterns,” “mental complexes,” “past traumas,” and “personal material,” as well as more general language such as purifying “dirt and refuse,” “impurities,” “unpleasant stuff,” or “stuff from the past.” In an example of how religious and scientific referents might be blended in a purification narrative, one practitioner in a Tibetan Buddhist tradition stated that “working with meditation is really bringing up and rooting out and kind of leaching out old habitual mind patterns, habitual karmic patterns.” A teacher in a Tibetan Buddhist tradition explained how he thought Buddhist notions of karmic purification were congruous with neuroscientific findings: in Tibetan Buddhism, the whole purpose of meditation is really purifying your mind or breaking down all the habitual tendencies, like the karmic patterns. Perhaps in modern science, especially neuroscience maybe, the way of dissolving or undoing those grooves in your brain. [PR4] . . . You don't want to use the word “karmic pattern” in mainstream language because people think, “Oh that’s just another belief, another Eastern belief.” But this is more than a belief. To me, it’s really scientific because now, as you know, the neuroscientists are discovering the idea that the brain is very much central to our personality, to our being, but that also personality is no longer really a permanent trait—it can be changed by means of meditation or self-reflection. So that’s the purpose of the practice of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism is really to purify our consciousness of karmic patterns, which is another way of saying undoing those grooves in your brain. Nested Relationships between Science and Religion 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 wellbeing 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.” Discrete Domains These views articulate a “division of labor” between scientific and religious perspectives. They presuppose that there are some domains (e.g., soteriology) where religious perspectives are most appropriate, and other domains (e.g., medicine) where scientific perspectives should hold authority. This enables the coexistence of religious and scientific worldviews, and a pragmatic deployment of either as the situation calls for it. When practitioners critique religious or scientific interpretations for overstepping their bounds, this may also be consistent with discrete domains narratives, especially when the problem is characterized as religion or science operating in the wrong domain of life. Some teachers made practical use of medicine, psychiatry, or psychology, readily referring students to these biomedical fields for help when needed while also emphasizing the distinctions between those approaches and Buddhist ones. One Zen teacher said, “when we’re doing zazen on the cushion, that’s the time to deal with the kōan. . [PR5] . . If you deal with the emotional stuff on the kōan and then you go to the therapist and talk about Zen practice, that’s just not going to cut it!” This teacher said that it is common for emotional issues to arise in Zen practice and welcomes continued practice if “they find the practice helpful,” but instructs students that “Zen won’t cure their emotional issues and that I’d recommend they see a therapist.” He establishes the distinction by telling students, “This isn’t going to take care of that. You need to take care of that and find a good person to work with you on that. We don’t really work with that here.” Further, one expert, who was both a Zen teacher and a mental health professional, described how applying Buddhist approaches to address psychological problems could even lead to harms for practitioners. “I’ve had people call me up and refer—you know, doctors [. . .] call me up and say, ‘Do you think meditation would help this individual who is struggling from [. . .] schizophrenia?’ And I just simply say, ‘No! Please, don’t!’ ‘Well, I think it would just really calm them down.’ And I said, ‘It would probably do the opposite.’”        Related concerns were expressed about the inappropriateness of treating Buddhist practices as psychological tools from the standpoint of Buddhist priorities. One Tibetan Buddhist teacher noted that some approach Buddhist practice “as an aspirin” and lose “the big view . . . that makes this whole thing meaningful.” He stated, “It is actually possible to develop some sort of sustained experience of deep, deep, deep wellbeing that manifests itself as internal peace and externally extraordinary compassion, connection and, in our tradition, appreciation and devotion for those who have gone before.” But, instead, some want something that’s time-limited. It’s kind of like [PR6] . . . evidence-based psychotherapy or time-limited . . . you know, you contract for four sessions and you’re supposed to get this[PR7] . . . . I would love it if people understood that this is a lifelong journey. Some practitioners and experts noted that the application of Buddhist frameworks to areas of psychological health might cause inadvertent misidentification of legitimate psychiatric or medical conditions as normative Buddhist experiences. One Zen teacher, after receiving training in a psychotherapeutic modality (Somatic Experiencing), described her reevaluation of what she had previously identified as normative meditative states: what I’ve now begun to see is that in many meditation practitioners what we see as a state of samadhi or bliss is actually dissociation. It’s the freeze, the freeze from the somatic languaging. And it doesn’t feel bad. There’s some parts of freeze that feel really good. Conversely, some also cautioned that an application of psychological frameworks in the domain of Buddhist practices could lead to authentic Buddhist experiences being incorrectly “pathologized.” A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner who, at the time of their meditation-related difficulties resided in a setting where others were making their medical decisions, stated, “I remember some of the most intense moments . . . there would be all kinds of homosexual imagery and bestiality and demons and just crazy shit. . [PR8] . . I knew that if I talked to anybody about what was going on with me, I was going to be back there pumped full of Thorazine. So I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.” Modes of Complementarity of Religion and Science Complementarity narratives hold that scientific and religious approaches enhance one another. Thus, expressions of complementarity go beyond compatibility (i.e., the view that it is possible to reconcile religious and scientific positions) and are consistent with the stronger stance that scientific and religious positions not only can, but also should, inform one another. When practitioners and teachers discussed the value added to religious endeavors by incorporating the fruits of science—or vice versa—without implying a hierarchical view where one supersedes the other, these were considered complementary views. For instance, one meditation teacher said, “Don’t be afraid of therapy.” He explained that “if I can’t figure something out, or if I feel there is something incomplete from a spiritual perspective, I’m not afraid to search out a therapist.” Drawing upon Buddhist distinctions between “relative truth” and “absolute truth,” he stated his belief that “on an absolute level, meditation can solve everything in theory. But in practice it doesn’t seem to do it. [PR9] . . . We think we can hopscotch over all these worldly, relative, psychological issues and take refuge in the absolute, and it just doesn’t work for most of us.” When practitioners discussed the benefits of scientific study for Buddhist meditation, these notably extended to the importance of mental health training or trained support staff for meditation instructors. One practitioner expressed a wish: That there would be some kind of teacher or some kind of people that were experienced enough at retreats to help people. That there might be some kind of a list in your area of psychiatrists or psychologists who have worked with meditation and that there would be some sort of phone contact you could make with somebody who had been through that.   This practitioner also thought “there’s nothing wrong with taking medication or whatever else if you need to do that.” One meditation teacher observed the increasing relevance of mental health issues—and various psychiatric medications—for meditation instruction. She explained how “A surprising number of people—a lot of people—are taking psychoactive medications. I think it’s actually all the better.” Some practitioners she worked with “meditate better on the SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] . [PR10] . . because they are not busy fighting with their perseverating thoughts so much.” Some practitioners who experienced challenges described the added difficulty they faced when presented with only religious interpretations and remedies, or when instructors seemed uninformed about the psychological aspects of meditation experiences. One practitioner commented on how she “would have handled [her meditation-related challenges] better” had she been provided with a depth-psychological approach or framework in addition to traditional meditation instruction: I felt: “Shouldn’t I have been taught in a different way that this is a very psychological process?” And maybe in a more Jungian kind of way of: “Hey, look, your archetypes are going to come up and you’re going to have to deal with them.” But, no—none of that.  In contrast, one practitioner who attributed many of her meditation-related challenges to her trauma history appreciated that her teachers were “encouraging a broad approach” that engaged psychotherapy and bodywork as a support for her meditation practice. Discussion This analysis yielded a set of themes describing the rich and varied associations of religion and science among contemporary Western Buddhists reporting meditation-related challenges. Our analysis demonstrates a broad range of expressions of the relationship between religious and scientific worldviews beyond the dichotomy of compatibility or conflict, including nested relationships, religion and science as discrete domains, and narratives of complementarity.      We will first briefly discuss how the additional themes we observed might relate to assumptions about compatibility and conflict as modes of relationship between religion and science. Then we will relate the full set of themes we observed to prior literature on science and religion. Finally, we will examine the relevance of these relationships for practitioners, and their potential role in dealing with meditation-related challenges. Compatibility, Conflict, and Beyond The occurrence of conflict and compatibility narratives in our data, as well as the need for additional framings, may be understood in light of the importance of the secularization hypothesis in the public imagination since the mid-20th century. Proponents of the secularization hypothesis have been regarded as exemplary of conflict narratives.[50] Correspondingly, critics of secularization theory[51] are readily interpreted as advancing some version of compatibility between science and religion. Popular media portrayals offer ample material that implies an either-or between conflict and compatibility alternatives. Consider the following journalistic article titles: “‘Faith vs. Fact’: Why Religion and Science Are Mutually Incompatible” in the Washington Post[52] and “Can Science and Religion Get Along?” in Science Magazine,[53] or a Pew panel: “Religion and Science: Conflict or Harmony?”[54] The propensity to dichotomize—to reduce complex information to two opposites—is a common cognitive trait,[55] which may make compatibility-conflict views intuitively appealing.       Nevertheless, our analyses yielded additional relationships that should not be reduced to either compatibility or conflict because they convey unique, valuable information characterizing how people think about science and religion. Consider nested relationships, for example, which might otherwise have been assimilated into dichotomizing conflict-/compatibility narratives. If religion and science are imagined as vying for primacy, these might be viewed reductively as conflict; if the issue of coexistence between religion and science is most salient, then they might be reductively glossed as compatibility. Although both interpretations may be justified in their own ways, neither captures the specific arrangement in nested relationships, whereby religious and scientific positions are both accommodated, yet one takes explanatory or teleological precedence over the other. These may be especially relevant for individuals who have firm commitments to a scientific (or religious) epistemology, but are able to integrate religious (or scientific) information in a way that leaves their epistemic commitments intact. O’Brien and Noy observed a type of nested narrative, termed “post-secular,” in their research, but these primarily comprised individuals whose appreciation of science was nested within religious commitments.[56] “Directional” relationships between religion and science, as described by John H. Evans and Michael S. Evans,[57] also eschew conflict narratives but presume that religious views influence the development of science—again, nesting science within religion. It is important to note, therefore, that in some of the nested relationships we observed that science, rather than religion, played the primary role. Discrete domains relationships similarly might be interpreted to have elements of both compatibility and conflict: they tend to separate religion and science, and yet support meditators’ applying either in a practical fashion, as needed and when needed.  Complementary relationships, on the other hand, may be reduced to examples of compatibility. However, this would lose an important feature of these narratives: when practitioners invoked complementary views, they made cases for why religious and scientific approaches should both be applied in the context of meditation. For practitioners who articulated a need for meditation instructors or mental health providers to be informed with both religious and scientific approaches, this suggests more than tolerance or reconcilability, but an affirmative wish for integration. Finally, a subset of compatibility narratives we observed involved purification narratives. Although traditional purification narratives, which do not include scientific frameworks, can be found among many religious traditions, the narratives we observed among Western Buddhists are notable for their flexible capacity to accommodate both religious and scientific—especially psychological—views, while offering departures from the more orthodox interpretations of either. This may be due to the particular affordances provided by purification narratives for addressing meditation-related challenges, such as the construal of distress as a necessary part of one’s meditative path. Rather than proposing a new model for how relations between science and religion should be categorized, this article offers data that describe these relations among a group of Western Buddhists who have experienced meditation-related challenges. Nevertheless, our findings may be relevant to the ongoing development of theories on the relationship between religion and science. As noted earlier, prior theorizing on the relationships between religious and scientific worldviews has tended to reference Abrahamic traditions. Although these are likely to inform Westerners’ worldviews, they may not readily translate to practitioners of Buddhism. As discussed earlier, Buddhism has often been portrayed in the West as largely compatible with science, and may therefore not be as marked by a polarization between religion and science. It is also noteworthy that our themes do not map readily onto Barbour’s structure. Legare and Visala[58] join Barbour’s critics[59] in observing that his (and others’, such as Mikael Stenmark’s[60]) typologies primarily speak to Christian theology and its concerns, are abstract and may not be relevant to applied science, and—if applied stringently—are so rigid and etic that they do not reflect the thinking of ordinary individuals. Barbour has acknowledged these limitations.[61] Legare and Visala call for empirical evidence of how individuals actually relate science and religion, particularly in situations where there are pressing needs for explanation—such as illness—and highlight the importance of dynamism, change, and variety within individuals’ views.[62] Our data helps to answer this call. Existential Relevance of Explanatory Frameworks A growing literature on individuals’ responses to severe stressors and life disruptions highlights the importance of “meaning-making”—the integration of experiences with existing meaning systems, or adoption of new meanings to accommodate the experiences.[63] Worldviews and interpretive narratives serve to elucidate the causes, as well as the purpose, of suffering—a shared human need.[64] One of the functions of this process may be to repair the uncertainty that such events can expose, which—in addition to the unique distress of a given disruption—constitutes a broader existential threat that is shared among different kinds of life stressors. Practitioners in this study often described crisis situations that defied easy explanation, and which were likewise marked by a search for cause, purpose, and narrative. The Meaning Maintenance Model holds that people are fundamentally motivated by a need to resolve uncertainty, and that worldviews address this need by providing comprehensive explanatory frameworks.[65] Religious and scientific worldviews are both exceptional at fulfilling these needs, although different cultural circumstances, personal motivations, and stressor characteristics can lead individuals to fluidly employ different worldviews to make sense of disturbing events.[66] In other words, as Legare and Visala reason, especially when existential stressors require explanation, worldviews are actively enrolled to mitigate their psychological threat.[67] Meditation-related challenges can constitute a double disruption that makes worldviews particularly important for adjustment. Under ordinary circumstances, Buddhist meditation can help buffer the impact of existential threats.[68] However, meditation-related challenges can undermine the effectiveness of this buffer (since it may be the cause of one’s troubles), raise uncertainty about the extent and meaning of one’s predicament, and sow uncertainty about what one should do in response.[69] Thus, there is a double disruption: that of the meditation-related challenges themselves, paired with the dissolution of a valued coping strategy. The narratives presented here can be interpreted, in part, as describing attempts to navigate the meaning of meditation-related challenges, and to fit worldviews with experience in a meaningful and satisfying way. At the same time, the sheer variety of explanations offered, and relationships between religious and scientific frameworks that are available, may also be disorienting and present a source of distress.[70] Finally, in addition to providing meaning, religious and scientific worldviews informed practitioners’ decisions about their practice, the remedies they sought, and their lives more broadly.[71] Worldviews can influence individuals’ actions either explicitly through injunctions and recommendations (e.g., when meditators are recommended to continue meditating to address meditation-related challenges), or tacitly by shaping presumptive possibilities. The relations between religion and science that we identified not only describe how meditators enroll science and religion to explain their experiences, but also point toward the priorities entailed by these frameworks as they do so. For example, a nested worldview that privileges religious commitments might prescribe biomedical remedies (e.g., medication) for meditation-related challenges, while proscribing remedies that run contrary to the ultimate religious goals of the practice (e.g., stopping meditation). It is also important to clarify that meditation-related challenges are not monolithic, and that individuals report a range of types and trajectories of challenges that have various impacts on worldviews. The distinct attributes of meditation-related challenges in different religious and secular meditation traditions are not well understood, and quantitative data that can establish associations between aspects of worldviews and type or severity of the challenges are not yet available. Thus, these data help to articulate religious and scientific frameworks within the narratives of Buddhist meditators experiencing challenges, but should not be regarded as comprehensive or exhaustive. Conclusion This research examined the relations between religion and science as they were expressed by meditators who experienced meditation-related challenges and by meditation experts who assist practitioners with such challenges. We observed that relationships between religion and science can feature examples of both conflict and compatibility, but that a broader repertoire of themes had greater utility for describing these relationships. These themes included: nested relationships, where either religion or science were privileged as explanatory frameworks; discrete domains, where application of religious or scientific frameworks depended on the phenomena being explained; and complementarity, where religion and science were viewed as both necessary and as enhancing one another. These themes demonstrate that contemporary Western Buddhist practitioners make use of religious and scientific frameworks in a variety of ways as they navigate meditation-related challenges. Because unique relations between religion and science may inform how meditators respond to their circumstances, understanding the variety of possible relationships between religious and scientific frameworks may be useful for meditators, meditation instructors, and clinicians in navigating context-specific meditation-related challenges.         
   Appendix     SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENT A: Themes that Emerged in Reanalyses  Code   Definition   Compatibility of science and religion   Study participant describes the relationship between science (or science-adjacent) concepts and religious (or religion-adjacent) concepts as congruent or compatible.   Conflict between science and religion   Study participant describes the relationship between science (or science-adjacent) concepts and religious (or religion-adjacent) concepts as being in conflict, irreconcilable, or antagonistic.   Influence of prior worldviews, intentions, goals, and expectations   Study participant describes how worldviews, intentions, goals, and expectations held prior to meditating (e.g., from a practitioner’s religious upbringing) have an influence on meditation practice or meditation-related challenges.   Worldviews as risk factors   Study participant describes how meditation practitioners holding specific worldviews, whether scientific or religious, has a deleterious impact on the onset or trajectory of meditation-related challenges.   Absence of framework leads to secondary distress   Study participant states that meditation practitioners not having an explanatory framework for meditation-related challenges leads to additional distress or difficulty.   Having framework helped   Study participant states that meditation practitioners having or being given a worldview or explanatory framework helped with the navigation of meditation-related challenges.   Pragmatic scientific approach amid religious belief or practice   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner engages with an overall religious appraisal of their challenges while also drawing upon pragmatic scientific frameworks (such as psychiatric medication, psychotherapy, or medical treatment) as a method for impacting the nature and trajectory of meditation-related challenges (e.g., for symptom reduction or for managing secondary fear and distress).   Worldviews related to differential diagnosis   Study participant describes the worldviews informing how meditation teachers, meditation practitioners, or other authorities make decisions about when to intervene in meditation-related challenges or how to appraise them.   Agreement with worldview of teacher or tradition   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner agrees with the worldview provided by their teacher or their tradition, especially their appraisal of a meditation-related challenge.   Conflict with worldview of teacher or tradition   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner disagrees with the worldview provided by their teacher or their tradition, especially their appraisal of a meditation-related challenge.   Consideration of other second-person worldview   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner considers a worldview provided by someone outside of their meditation community, such as a friend, family member, or medical expert.   Disaffiliation or deconversion   Study participant describes how a meditation practitioner exhibits a loss of or diminishment in Buddhist commitments, whether to doctrines or to communities, associated with their meditation-related challenges and/or the interpersonal dynamics that played out in the context of navigating them.   Change in worldview congruent with teachings of tradition   Study participant describes a change in worldview that fits with the framework of their meditation practice lineage associated with a meditation-related challenge.   Other changes in worldview   Study participant describes a change in worldview that is not related to the worldviews of their meditation practice lineage associated with a meditation-related challenge.  Note. Code = coding categories that were identified in the present reanalyses of the VCE data. Definition = operational definition of each code, used to apply the codes to applicable sections of interview transcripts in analyses.         
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[1] Tainya C. Clarke et al., “Use of Yoga, Meditation, and Chiropractors among U.S. Adults Aged 18 and Over,” NCHS Data Brief no. 325 (November 2018): 1–8. [2] Peter Sedlmeier and Jan Theumer, “Why Do People Begin to Meditate and Why Do They Continue?,” Mindfulness 11, no. 6 (June 1, 2020): 1527–45, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01367-w. [3] J. David Creswell, “Mindfulness Interventions,” Annual Review of Psychology 68, no. 1 (2017): 491–516, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-042716-051139. [4] Defined here as the Global North outside of Asia and Australia. [5] Lindahl, Jared R., Nathan E. Fisher, David J. Cooper, Rochelle K. Rosen, and Willoughby B. Britton. “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists.” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239. [6] Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body (New York: Penguin, 2017); Peter Sedlmeier et al., “The Psychological Effects of Meditation: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 138, no. 6 (2012): 1139–71, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028168. [7] Dudjom Lingpa, The Vajra Essence, trans. B. Alan Wallace (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017); Jared R. Lindahl et al., “Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward a Person-Centered Approach,” in The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, ed. Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 840–64; Juhn Y. Ahn, “Meditation Sickness,” in The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, ed. Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee, 887–906 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021); and Eric M. Greene, The Secrets of Buddhist Meditation: Visionary Meditation Texts from Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824886868. [8] Jared R. Lindahl et al., “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 5 (May 24, 2017): e0176239, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176239; Simon B. Goldberg et al., “Prevalence of Meditation-Related Adverse Effects in a Population-Based Sample in the United States,” Psychotherapy Research: Journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research 32, no. 3 (2022): 291–305, June 2, 2021, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2021.1933646; Marco Schlosser et al., “Unpleasant Meditation-Related Experiences in Regular Meditators: Prevalence, Predictors, and Conceptual Considerations,” PLOS ONE 14, no. 5 (May 9, 2019): e0216643, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216643; and Ausiàs Cebolla et al., “Unwanted Effects: Is There a Negative Side of Meditation? A Multicentre Survey,” PLOS ONE 12, no. 9 (September 5, 2017): e0183137, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183137. [9] Lindahl et al., “Varieties of Contemplative Experience”; Willoughby B. Britton et al., “Defining and Measuring Meditation-Related Adverse Effects in Mindfulness-Based Programs,” Clinical Psychological Science 9, no. 6 (May 18, 2021): 1185–1204, May 18, 2021, 2167702621996340, https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702621996340; and Goldberg et al., “Prevalence of Meditation-Related Adverse Effects .” [10] Britton et al., “Defining and Measuring”; Lindahl et al., “Varieties of Contemplative Experience”; Lindahl et al., “Challenging and Adverse Meditation”; Dhanesh D. Binda, Carol M. Greco, and Natalia E. Morone, “What Are Adverse Events in Mindfulness Meditation?,” Global Advances in Health and Medicine 11 (April 19, 2022): 2164957X221096640, https://doi.org/10.1177/2164957X221096640; and M. Farias et al., “Adverse Events in Meditation Practices and Meditation-Based Therapies: A Systematic Review,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 142, no. 5 (2020): 374–93. [11] Lindahl, Jared R., Roman Palitsky, David J. Cooper, and Willoughby B. 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