Meditation and Emotion

Meditation affects emotional experience through both direct and indirect pathways. Directly, practices target specific emotions such as dysphoric, compassionate, reverential, and ambivalent feelings. Indirectly, meditation influences emotions via physiological changes, cognitive processes, and experiences of self-transcendence. The chapter classifies meditation practices by four parameters: behaviors of mind, object, attitude, and form. It concludes by suggesting directions for future research into how meditation impacts emotional experience.

Study at a glance

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.