International Society For Contemplative Research (ISCR) Conference

The 3rd Conference of the International Society for Contemplative Research (ISCR) will be held on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from November 3-6, 2025.

The ISCR 2025 Conference is an international conference for rigorous interdisciplinary investigation of contemplative practices in diverse contexts. This year’s theme is The Arc of Life and Death. The conference will feature pre-conference workshops, plenary sessions, contemplative practice periods, individual presentations, concurrent panels, and poster sessions focused on a diverse range of topics and best practices within contemplative research.

Members of the research team at JCS are excited to be in attendance!

ISCR Keynote Speakers

11/03 5:00PM
Tawni Tidwell, PhD, TMD: Can the Arc of Life and Death Culminate in a Single Moment? Bridging Worlds of Body and Consciousness in Tibetan Tukdam Meditation

11/04 8:30AM
Anne Vallely: Griefwork as Contemplative Practice: Reframing Mindfulness through Humanistic Inquiry

11/05 8:30AM
Robert W. Roeser, PhD: Towards a Developmental Contemplative Science

11/06 8:30AM
Cheryl Woods Giscombé, PhD: The Arc of Life and Death: Courageous, Contemplative Reflection on Family, Foundation, and Future to Foster Harmony and Well-Being

American Academy of Religion (AAR) Conference

The team at JCS is also very excited to announce the following sessions at the upcoming AAR Conference!

Saturday, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM |  Sheraton, Gardner (Third Floor) | Session ID: A22-412  

Roundtable Session
Hosted by: Contemplative Studies Unit and Indigenous Religious Traditions Unit 
Theme: Author meets Critic: Flourishing Kin, Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-Being by Yuria Celidwen (Nahua/Maya Bats’il K’op) 

Loriliai Biernacki, presiding 

Celidwen’s book Flourishing Kin bridges Indigenous ontologies and methodologies, academic research, and poetic expression to cultivate sustainable collective flourishing through Indigenous contemplative spiritualities and sciences. This roundtable brings scholars of diverse fields to discuss Celidwen’s perspectives of relationality and flourishing as a spiritual-aesthetic arrest only possible in community through cultivating relationships toward all kin, from human to more-than-human, and the living Earth. Celidwen’s research draws from Indigenous spiritualities through ontologies and methodologies from her upbringing of Nahua and Maya Traditions and other Indigenous Traditions from around the world. Her research converses with Contemplative Studies, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, Religion and Ecology, African Religions, and Eastern Religions to show the tremendous benefit of integrating Indigenous forms of contemplation in approaches to well-being. Through poetic expression and authentic truth-telling, Celidwen invites a path that meets the world’s complexity with reverence and joyous participation in the flourishing of all living beings. 

Panelists

Respondent 

Sunday, 12:30 PM – 2:30 PM |  Sheraton, The Fens (Fifth Floor) | Session ID: A23-209

Papers Session 
Hosted by: Contemplative Studies Unit 
Theme: Contemplative Epistemologies: Diverse Methods and Practices

Michael Sheehy, University of Virginia, presiding 

This panel brings together scholarship on contemplative epistemologies, ways of knowing through diverse methods and practices.  

Papers 

Dhruv Nagar, Harvard Divinity School 
Knowing or Contemplating as ‘Attending to’: The Body and its Immaterial Other in Sāṃkhya, Advaita and Trika 

Agnes Bolinska, University of South Carolina 
Mindfulness meditation research and evidence-based medicine 

Haseena Sahib 
The Means of Arabic Qurʾān Recitation and Poetry Chanting to Arrive at Higher Forms of Knowing 

Marianne Florian 
Embedded and Enactive Cognition in Contemplative Learning 

Respondent 

Business Meeting 

Monday, 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM |  Sheraton, Boston Common (Fifth Floor) | Session ID: A24-113  

Papers Session 
Hosted by: Confucian Traditions Unit 
Theme: Confucian Contemplative Practices and Self-Cultivation 

Yidi Wu, presiding 

This session continues the discussion of Confucian Contemplation. All presenters contribute to an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Contemplative Studies. 

The first paper explores Mencius’ contemplative practices—restorative sleep, self-examination, and empathetic extension—as pathways to cultivating “flood-like qi,” enabling noetic insights into human goodness. The second paper revisits Zhu Xi’s meditative reading, comparing it with lectio divina, and argues for a more nuanced understanding of its interplay between vocal recitation and silent reflection. The third paper critiques the hierarchical distortions of gyeong/jing (敬, reverence) via Korean Confucianism and advocates for a reciprocal, inclusive ethical framework. The final paper examines the Kongyang Confucian Fellowship’s digital spiritual journaling, revealing its role in adapting Neo-Confucian self-cultivation for the modern era. Together, these studies illuminate Confucianism’s evolving contemplative dimensions. 

Papers 

Jung Lee 
How to Become a “Great Person” (da ren 大人): “Reflection” (si 思) and the Practice of Nourishing the Qi in the Mencius 

Ryan Pino, Boston College 
Zhu Xi’s Meditative Reading and Lectio Divina: A Comparison Revisited

Jea Sophia Oh 
An Ecofeminist Extension of Gyeong/Jing (敬) in Confucian Contemplation via Donghak’s Samgyeong/Sanjing (三敬) to Heaven, Humanity, and Nature 

Shumo Wang, Duke University 
Ever Renewing: Confucian Contemplative Journaling in the Digital Age 

Respondent 

Monday, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM |  Sheraton, Stuart (Third Floor) | Session ID: A24-304  

Papers Session 
Hosted by: Contemplative Studies Unit 
Theme: Contours of Freedom: Contemplative Practices in Jain Thought and Literature 

Nataliia Pavlyk, presiding 

This panel brings together five scholars studying Jain contemplative practices through philological, historical, anthropological, and philosophical approaches. The first three presentations examine Jain ideas on contemplation as presented in various Jain texts: the Cīvakacintāmaṇi (9th century), Yaśovijaya’s Dvātriṃśaddvātriṃśikā (17th century), and Śrīmad Rājcandra’s Mokṣamāḷā and Ātmasiddhi (19th century). Each presenter analyzes how these texts articulate or portray Jain contemplative practices within their respective historical and intellectual contexts. The remaining presentations explore contemporary cultural intersections of Jainism and contemplative practices. Case studies include Acharya Sushil Kumar’s “Arhum Yoga,” which integrates Jain and non-Jain elements into a unique system of yoga and sound theory, and prekṣā-dhyāna, a systematized Jain meditation practice framed for a global audience that emphasizes contemporary concerns, such as health and science.  Collectively, these five presentations shed new light on the variegated nature of Jain contemplative practices and provide new research opportunities in Jain Studies and Contemplative Studies. 

Papers 

Morgan Curtis 
Let the Animals Lead the Way: Mantra, Contemplation, and Spiritual Progression in the Cīvakacintāmaṇi 

Alba Rodriguez Juan 
Yaśovijaya’s Insights on Contemplation and Meditative Experience 

Cogen Bohanec, Claremont School of Theology 
A Critical Examination of Śrīmad Rājcandra’s Teachings on Contemplative Practices 

Christopher Miller 
Arhum “Jain” Yoga: Acharya Sushil Kumar’s Assemblage of Pan-South Asian Contemplative Practices in Song of the Soul 

Samani Pratibha Pragya 
Secularization of Contemplation: the Example of Prekṣā-Dhyāna