Residential meditation retreats: their role in contemplative practice and significance for psychological research

King, Brandon G.; Conklin, Quinn; Zanesco, Anthony P.; Saron, Clifford D.

doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.12.021

Cited by 37 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Meditators with retreat experience were more likely to report particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences. Importantly, our data does not capture whether the particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences happened before, during, or after a meditation retreat, or whether and how these experiences may have been linked to the unique constellation of influencing factors operating in the context of retreat practice [68]. Retreat experience could simply be a proxy for other variables that underlie the relationship to particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences (e.g., intentions, personality).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations

et al. 2019

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So far, the large and expanding body of research on meditation has mostly focussed on the putative benefits of meditation on health and well-being. However, a growing number of reports indicate that psychologically unpleasant experiences can occur in the context of meditation practice. Very little is known about the prevalence and potential causes of these experiences. The aim of this study was to report the prevalence of particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences in a large international sample of regular meditators, and to explore the association of these experiences with demographic characteristics, meditation practice, repetitive negative thinking, mindfulness, and self-compassion. Using a cross-sectional online survey, 1,232 regular meditators with at least two months of meditation experience (mean age = 44.8 years ± 13.8, 53.6% female) responded to one question about particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences. A total of 315 participants (25.6%, 95% CI: 23.1 to 28.0) reported having had particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences, which they thought may have been caused by their meditation practice. Logistic regression models indicated that unpleasant meditation-related experiences were less likely to occur in female participants and religious participants. Participants with higher levels of repetitive negative thinking, those who only engaged in deconstructive types of meditation (e.g., vipassana/insight meditation), and those who had attended a meditation retreat at any point in their life were more likely to report unpleasant meditation-related experiences. The high prevalence of particularly unpleasant meditation-related experiences reported here points to the importance of expanding the scientific conception of meditation beyond that of a (mental) health-promoting and self-regulating technique. We propose that understanding when these experiences are constitutive elements of meditative practice rather than merely negative effects could advance the field and, to that end, we conclude with an overview of methodological and conceptual considerations that could be used to inform future research.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations

et al. 2019

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“…The scenic retreat environment and acute behavioral and social changes associated with substantial time in solitary meditation may have also contributed to a number of non-specific effects that influenced daily reports of attentiveness and serenity, and affected neuroelectric changes measured at rest. Residential retreat interventions provide a supportive and peaceful environment to help limit distraction, relax the body and mind, and facilitate continued awareness to ongoing experience (King, Conklin, Zanesco, and Saron, 2019). These intervention elements might proportionally explain certain intervention outcomes but may also directly support meditation-related changes by facilitating continued practice, and calm, focused states of mind.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meditation training modulates brain electric microstates and felt states of awareness

Zanesco¹,

Skwara²,

King³

et al. 2019

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Experiences of mindful awareness and mental quiescence are thought to pervade daily life with continued meditation practice, and ought to leave their imprint in the activity of distributed brain networks. Yet few studies have characterized the dynamics of resting brain activity following meditation-based training. In a longitudinal study, experienced meditators were randomly assigned to 3 months of intensive shamatha meditation training or to a waiting-list condition. Broad-band EEG collected at rest was segmented into a time series of transient microstate intervals based on data-driven clustering of topographic voltage patterns at the beginning, middle, and end of training. Individuals’ felt mindful awareness and mental quiescence was also assessed using a daily survey of their experiences over the study duration, and training participants further reported on the quality of their meditation practice based on four experiential dimensions involved in the practice of shamatha. Meditation training was associated with reductions in the strength and duration of EEG microstate intervals, while patterns of change in felt qualities of awareness corroborate contemplative phenomenological accounts of deepening mental calm and stability of attention that pervades daily life over time with training. Neural dynamics reflected in microstate parameters and sequence transitions were furthermore associated with training participants’ reported experience of mindful awareness and quiescence during the retreat. These findings connect experiential qualities of meditation practice and the activity of whole brain cortical EEG networks at rest.

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“…The previous meditation experience questionnaire was composed based on existing guidelines 14,78,79 to assess participants previous experience in meditation (see SM for description). The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale was used to measure self-reported trait present moment attention and awareness.…”

Section: Self-report Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking Inside the Black Box of Mindfulness Meditation: Investigating Attention and Awareness During Meditation Using the Mindful Awareness Task (MAT)

Hadash¹,

Ruimi²,

Bernstein³

2021

Preprint

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Buddhist and contemporary psychological theories propose that training attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation is a fundamental mechanism of mindfulness, essential for producing its salutary effects. Yet, the empirical foundation for this central idea in mindfulness science is surprisingly small due to a limited methodological capacity to measure attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. Accordingly, we set out to study these processes (N = 143) via a novel behavioral paradigm measuring the objects and temporal dynamics of mindful awareness during meditation – the Mindful Awareness Task (MAT). Using this paradigm, we empirically characterized attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. We provide novel behavioral evidence indicating that, as long-theorized, attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation are related to previous mindfulness meditation practice, attitudinal qualities of mindfulness, attention regulation, and mental health. We found that in contrast to widely held assumptions, sustained attention and executive functions, as measured via common cognitive-experimental tasks, may not be meaningfully related to the cognitive capacities trained and expressed in mindfulness meditation. Furthermore, we found that the accuracy of self-reported mindfulness is, paradoxically, dependent on behaviorally measured capacities for mindful awareness. Collectively, our behavioral findings reveal that, as long-theorized, attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation may indeed be fundamental to the practice, cultivation, and salutary functions of mindfulness. Findings indicate that the MAT paradigm may overcome significant limitations of extant measurement methods, and thereby enable future scientific insights into attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation and their salutary effects.

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Residential meditation retreats: their role in contemplative practice and significance for psychological research

Cited by 37 publications

References 51 publications

Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations

Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations

Meditation training modulates brain electric microstates and felt states of awareness

Looking Inside the Black Box of Mindfulness Meditation: Investigating Attention and Awareness During Meditation Using the Mindful Awareness Task (MAT)

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