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Concurrent Session 2 – Contemplative Neuroscience, the Phenomenology of Attention and the Mereology of the Subject

In this paper, I argue that results from contemplative neuroscience can help resolve a dispute between Husserl and Gurwitsch regarding whether attention is endogenous or exogenous. The empirical results indicate that attention is endogenous, i.e., that we are subjectively aware — and to a certain extent in control — of the direction of our attention. …

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Concurrent Session 1 – Distinctions of Contemplative Practice in Different Religious Traditions and Relevance to Neuroscience

Contemplative practices of the many traditions of the West and of the East have different characteristics. For example, the absorption of mystics (in Christian or Sufi traditions) has a different character than does Buddhist contemplation. Whereas the mystic enters into the subtle domain of mind in the experience of a higher power (in the face …

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Concurrent Session 1 – “This peace, this rest, this eternity”: Meditation and Consciousness in Modernist Literature

This paper explores the role of the meditative mind in modernist literatureand theories of consciousness. Modernist authors, such as Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner, are known for their fascination with subjective perception and self-conscious interiority, as well as representations of trauma and illness. This paper shows how the hitherto unexplored trajectory of the …

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