On the Veiling and Unveiling of Experience: A Comparison Between the Micro-Phenomenological Method and the Practice of Meditation
Journal of Phenomenological Psychology August 12, 2021 C. Petitmengin 15 citations
Both Buddhist meditation and micro-phenomenology aim to reveal aspects of experience that normally go unnoticed, but neither approach has systematically described how experience becomes veiled or how those veils can be lifted. Drawing on written and oral meditation teachings and on micro-phenomenological interviews, the authors identify four types of veiling processes—attentional, emotional, intentional, and cognitive—that together obscure direct experience and foster the naive belief in a mind-independent external reality. The first part of the article details these veils and the processes that dissolve them, identifying several conducive gestures. The second part examines how meditation and micro-phenomenology elicit those gestures.