Workshop on Metaphor in Tibetan Contemplative Literature
How do
metaphors—and the poetic utterances they inhabit—participate in projects of transformation and
cultivation within Tibetan literature? In short, how do metaphors work contemplatively?
ISCR 2025 Contemplative Studies Update
The phenomena we study tend not to present a linear arc from life to death but a cyclical co-emergence of decomposition and re-emergence.
AAR 2025 Contemplative Studies Update
All of these papers demonstrate the ways in which contemplation—in its plurality of methods and modalities—is responsive and resonant across boundaries. In this, contemplation is consistently a methodology of movement, of transformation to reshape how we relate to the world and ourselves.
Reflections on SENSEmaking: A Symposium on Contemplative Technologies
SENSEmaking: A Symposium on Contemplative Technologies was held by the Contemplative Sciences Center and its Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab (CIRCL) on October 9th and 10th. Contemplative practices in esoteric and religious traditions have long sought to explore the horizon of human cognition and sensorium. How can these traditions inform the ways we make sense…
Conference Recap: American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, 2024
The American Academy of Religion held its 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA, November 23-26. The Contemplative Studies unit sponsored or co-sponsored three panels exploring contemplative practices, experiences, and traditions. Topics ranged from Confucian contemplations for college students, to comparative theology, ethnographies of lay healers and nuns, accounts of adverse effects of meditation, and…
Revisit the Generative Contemplation Symposium 2023
In April 2023, the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia hosted its first Generative Contemplation Symposium in Charlottesville, Virginia. This gathering convened experts in Contemplative Studies – scholars, philosophers, cognitive neuroscientists, artists, and Buddhist practitioners – to present their research, reflections, and theories on contemplative practices. In four thematic sessions on attention, non-dual…
CONFERENCE RECAP: American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, 2023
The American Academy of Religion hosted its 2023 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, November 18-21. Among the hundreds of panels and roundtable discussions were notable explorations of contemplative practice among scholars of religion, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and art history. These discussions were not only convened by the Contemplative Studies program unit of AAR but…
Generative Contemplation Symposium 2023 Video Proceedings: Self-Emergent Visions
The Generative Contemplation Symposium was hosted by the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia in April 2023. The following is the video proceedings along with searchable transcripts of Session IV: Self-Emergent Visions which focused on the deliberate elicitation of effortless self-emergent visionary experiences. We invite you to watch these creative interdisciplinary explorations between…
Generative Contemplation Symposium 2023 Video Proceedings: Dreams and Illusions
The Generative Contemplation Symposium was hosted by the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia in April 2023. The following is the video proceedings along with searchable transcripts of Session III: Dream and Illusion Practices which focused on the induction of perceptual and cognitive illusions. Video proceedings from other sessions will be posted in…
Generative Contemplation Symposium 2023 Video Proceedings: Nonduality
The Generative Contemplation Symposium was hosted by the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia in April 2023. The following is the video proceedings along with searchable transcripts of Session II: Nondual Awareness Practices which focused on the subject-object dichotomy in meditation. Video proceedings from other sessions will be posted in subsequent posts. We…
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