@article{THESIS,
      recid = {3493},
      author = {Bledsoe, Reiman},
      title = {Mapping the Meditative Path:  The Effects of Conceptual  Knowledge of Meditative Frameworks on Meditators’  Experiences in Long-Term Insight Practice},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {M.A.},
      address = {2021-12},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {This paper addresses an increasingly contested topic in  the contemporary Western vipassanā meditation movement: The  dissemination of Buddhist frameworks like the “stages of  insight,” the “ñāṇas” first seen in the 5th century  Visudhimagga text, within cultures of mindfulness. The  principal question is two-fold: 1) Would sharing such  Buddhist frameworks protect potential Western meditators  from possible (and underreported) harms of intensive  practice? And 2) Does in-depth knowledge of such Buddhist  frameworks help, hinder, or otherwise affect perceived  progress for experienced meditators? While a growing body  of literature has begun reifying the harms mentioned in the  first question, the second question has gone unanswered  academically despite being answered anecdotally within  spiritual communities. Having struggled immensely myself to  reconcile conceptual Buddhist knowledge with my own  meditation practice, I hypothesize that knowledge of ñāṇas  hinders meditative progress, and conduct in-depth,  semi-structured interviews of experienced meditators to  test this hypothesis. Through this interview-based field  work, I construct an intersubjective account of the  relationship between cerebral knowledge about meditation –  a practice of non-cerebral engagement with one’s direct  experience of reality – and meditation itself. Through the  research interviews, the hypothesis that conceptualization  of the meditative path through ñāṇas hinders vipassanā  practice is confirmed, although benefits of meditative  frameworks like the “stages of insight” also emerge. A  number of themes related to the limitations of concepts  emerge as well, fashioning contemporary American insight  meditation into a lens through which I deconstruct the  general truth of conceptualization philosophically.  Pragmatically for meditators, on the other hand, I propose  a new map of the meditative path that retains the relevant  accuracy of the “stages of insight,” yet lets go of the  conceptual trappings they present to Western  practitioners.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/3493},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.3493},
}