Spirituality • Pedagogy • Philosophy • Movement

Oxford Handbook of Meditation - a review

Jean-Michel David

I have been looking forward to viewing this Oxford Handbook, which forms part of the Oxford Library of Psychology, published in 2021. With just over a thousand pages (including the Index), and covering a broad range of practices, approaches and traditions spread across 43 papers that appear to have been written specifically for this volume, it certainly is destined to become a sourcebook useful to broaden our understanding, provide a means through which to speak across traditions and practices, and develop further research topics in the area. Having taught various forms of meditation for well over three decades, and having presented at various conferences, professional, educational and medical settings, it is a volume I will certainly have at arm’s reach for quick reference.

Having said this, it does not mean that it covers all elements of an after-the-read wishlist, a small range of topics are, from my perspective, unexpectedly omitted: a more philosophic / semiotic / meaning-making essay; something that covers Western esoteric currents, including the influence and practices arising from, for example and perhaps controversially, Steiner’s influential practices in the field of medicine, agriculture and education (each of which presupposes meditative practices), or the practices associated with the visual equivalent of lectio divina with western traditions like tarot – not necessarily top of mind, yet important enough to warrant inclusion. To be fair to the editors, they do acknowledge that they have ‘attempted to give an indication of major boughs and roots of the tree’ without attempting the impossible task of tracing ‘every root, branch, and twig’ (p.18).

Structure of the book

The book is divided into six broad sections, including three introductory essays that seek to capture an overview of the meditation landscape. The second section, inclusive of eleven essays, brings an outline of ‘meditation across the world’s traditions’, spanning both east and west, grounding the practice in its historical and philosophical settings. The third section, in contrast, specifically addresses, in four essays, specific practices and experiences irrespective of, or across, traditions. From here, we move to how meditation has been studied in modern times, covering, in twelve essays, breath of methodologies and approaches, from neuroscience to socio-political considerations. The ensuing section, in seven essays, looks at how meditation can be applied in various settings to produce individual and social changes. The book concludes with six essays that address what can often be overlooked: controversies, hindrances, and other potentially less-than-ideal consequences of meditative practices.

Each essay is can be viewed as a springboard for further research into that area, and the bibliographical references provide wonderful guides for more in-depth study. In what follows, what is evident is likely to be shared by many readers: areas reflective of one’s expertise will undoubtedly be viewed as overlooking aspects that may be considered of greater merit; whereas topics from areas in which one has more limited personal background expand, widen and deepen our understanding in those areas. Then there is also the inevitable distinction to be made between those topics that paint with a broader brush historical-developmental weavings (for example, Chapter 6, Persico’s ‘Judaism and Meditation’), and those areas of incision that seek to present up-to-date research findings, with the inevitable consequence that some of its important content may rapidly need updating (for example, Chapter 37, Auty’s ‘Meditation in Prison’). These differences form, I would suggest, part and parcel of the beauty and usefulness of such a Handbook.

Practical components

As mentioned in the Introduction (p13), readers, ‘even those familiar with the scientific study of the techniques or the history of one tradition, are likely to find themselves fascinated by the kaleidoscope of meditation techniques’. And here is where, in my view, the book becomes even more fascinating: under the guise of presenting overviews, historical development, and research findings, one gains insight into myriad techniques, overlaps between traditions, and reported experiential claims or expectations.
For example, practices, or methods similar to, Abulafia’s 13th century letter permutations, are reminders that visualised ‘yantric’ practices and theoptic visions require what Goethe referred to as ‘Exact Sensorial Imagination’.

Some personal highlights

Though I have headed this section as ‘personal highlights’, it seems a little unfair to the numerous aspects I will overlook in what follows. In some ways, I could easily mention that the highlight has been, in fact, the whole book (with an exception or two).

Importance of Ancillary practices

Very early in the book, in Chapter 3, Oman highlights the possible importance of what he calls ‘Ancillary Practices’. Certainly within the various traditions, meditation is seen as just one practice, a practice variously embedded within a whole gamut of tools for both personal and spiritual development. Whether this be, for example and as mentioned within this chapter, virtue development through the eight yamas and niyamas within Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, or, remaining unmentioned – at least not in an explicit manner - the Ten Commandments brought down from Mt Sinai by Moses (an important element in the development of some meditative practices), or indeed, a whole range of expected practices and ritual cleansing mentioned at different times through the Handbook’s various essays, it is inevitable that these ‘ancillary’ practices form part and parcel of the impact of meditation on personal changes accentuated by deepening practice.

Amongst these practices includes more traditional ones such as liturgy, moral development, diet, study, community engagement, and personal hygiene.

Hindo-Buddhist and Judeo-Christian practices

Aside from two essays specifically focussed on Hinduism (Chapter 4 and 5), various aspects of Hindu thought and influence runs through much of the text as a whole. To be fair, the direct impact of Hindu meditative practice on Buddhism, and the latter’s reflection back onto Hindu practice, cannot prevent this influence. The two essays mentioned, focused as they are on tantra and yoga, and despite their unavoidable limitations given the relative brevity each Chapter provides, are worth the Handbook as a whole. Despite this, I would have liked to have seen a little more exposition on the understanding of the states of meditation: not only what is the progression from focused attention, not only how does each deepening state succeed the previous, but what does the state of Samadhi state entail for both consciousness and engagement with the world(s)?
Perhaps I simply missed this point, or perhaps I have previously placed greater emphasis than deserved by the tradition. I do acknowledge that, for example, Flood in Chapter 4, and Sedlmeier and Srinivas in Chapter 24, characterise well the sequence from dhyana, through dharana, into samadhi as absorption – but that the whole description, if so vital to especially an understanding of meditation, is somewhat more limited or sketchy than ideal. Similarly, though again under this review section of positive and ‘personal highlights’, I would have liked to be confronted with a little more meat in Silva’s excellent essay on comparisons between Christian meditatio and Hindu dhyana in his ‘The Phenomenology of Meditation’ (Chapter 17).

Perhaps in each of these cases (and many others throughout the book), or perhaps reflecting what many of its essays were inching towards yet never quite reaching, was the direction towards mystical union. Though relatively frequently implied or mentioned (either as unio or samadhi), there appears to have been somewhat of a shying away from those deeper states. I am reminded of a comment on a friend’s draft thesis by his supervisor many decades ago: there’s plenty of foreplay, but it doesn’t quite get to the action.

Of the Science

Inevitably, even in the short time elapsed since the publication of this book, other research could have been included: especially material that was already evident on the vagus nerve; on the cerebral spinal fluid; on the pineal, on visual and auditory imaginative techniques and methods. I do realise that these may all be considered a little more ‘controversial’, but then, the whole field of meditative practice was a little more controversial, despite its long established traditions, only a couple of decades ago.
Dorjee (Chapter 20) nonetheless covers well elements of psychophysiology and meditation, referencing its impact on our capacity for metacognitive self-regulation and what she refers to as ‘modes of existential awareness’.

The impact on the autonomic nervous system is well attested and referred to, though I would have personally preferred a broader narrative that took a few more ‘risks’ in presenting what this potentially shows. The impact on emotional development (Chapter 21) and controlling-by-observing (Chapter 23) is well covered by Lomas and Shapiro respectively.

I suspect that most of my own ‘uneasiness’ with the whole field of ‘research’ as presented in well exemplified in Purser’s and Lewis’s ‘Neuroscience and Meditation: Help or Hindrance’ (Chapter 42). In essence, there is an (often) unstated assumption that views ourselves and the world around us as essentially physiological and measurable processes, a view that, for example, Iain McGilchrist (Cf his 2021 book The Matter with Things) as a left-hemisphere and thus reductionist view rather than the potentially more insight-filled right-hemispheric holistic and spiritual view of things.

On the Dark Night of the Soul

I’ll complete this overly brief review – given the substantial content of this volume – with Fisher’s contribution (Chapter 39). ‘More common’ Fisher mentions in reference to traditions such as Judaic and Christian ‘are exoteric and esoteric descriptions of the territory of the contemplative paths for the sake of preparation and guidance of the wayfarers’, and that ‘instructions being intentionally relegated to the realm of oral transmission between teachers and students’. It should be called to mind that such was also principally the case until relatively recent times in yogic and other eastern traditions, and that texts were often more seed-forms that had to be enucleated within a community that included teachers of the tradition.

There is a plenitude within Judeo-Christian tradition of imagery speaking of expansion and contraction, of ascent and descent, of ladders, stairs, and chariots, of levels of ‘soul qualities’ and even differing levels or aspects of the Soul. Each of these elements plays an important part in not only understanding meditative techniques and practices, as well as imagery used, paths ‘allowed’ within a specific tradition, and permissible experiences.

A Handbook of Meditation, as this book is titled, is not a practical manual of meditation – and never claims to be. The beauty is that it hints and indicates that the numerous ‘manuals’ and traditions that are accessible and available to us. As I mentioned at the beginning, it is a volume I will certainly have at arm’s reach for quick reference.

Jean-Michel David