Meditation and Emotion
The Oxford Handbook of Meditation October 4, 2019 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808640.013.25
Summary
The chapter discusses how meditation interacts with emotions, categorizing practices based on four parameters: behaviors of mind, object, attitude, and form. It identifies four emotional clusters directly influenced by meditation—dysphoric, compassionate, reverential, and ambivalent—and explores indirect effects mediated by physiology, cognition, and self-transcendence. While the overview is brief, it highlights potential impacts of meditation on emotional experiences and suggests directions for future research.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Meditation can directly influence emotions through specific practices targeting various emotional clusters and indirectly affect emotions via physiological, cognitive, and self-transcendent processes. |
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Abstract
Abstract This chapter offers an overview of the intricate connections between meditation and emotion. It begins by outlining a framework for understanding meditation, whereby practices can be classified according to four key parameters: behaviors of mind; object; attitude; and form. It also introduces some basic ideas around the nature of emotions, and affective experience more broadly. After that, the chapter has two main sections. The first explores direct interactions between meditation and emotion, where practices specifically target or elicit certain emotions. We shall look at four clusters of emotions: dysphoric; compassionate; reverential; and ambivalent. The second part then examines indirect interactions, in which the emotional effects of meditation are mediated by other processes. There we consider three such processes: physiology; cognition; and self-transcendence. Although the presentation is necessarily brief, the chapter gives an indication of the ways in which meditation may impact upon emotional experience. The chapter concludes by outlining directions for future research.