Meditation and Culture

Halvor Eifring is Professor of Chinese at the University of Oslo, Norway. He teaches Chinese language, literature and culture and directs an international research project on the cultural histories of meditation. He is General Secretary of Acem International School of Meditation.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors

Introduction
1 Meditative Practice and Cultural Context, Halvor Eifring

Section 1 Traveling Practices
2 The Daoist Adaptation of Buddhist Insight Meditation, Livia Kohn
3 Ignatian Visual Meditation in Seventeenth-Century China, Nicolas Standaert
4 Modern Meditation in the Context of Science, Øyvind Ellingsen and Are Holen

Section 2 Competing Practices
5 Mindfulness and Mindlessness in Early Chán, Robert H. Sharf
6 Reverence and Quietude in Neo-Confucianism, Rur-bin Yang
7 Meditative Pluralism in Hanshan Déqing, Halvor Eifring

Section 3 Competing Cultures
8 The Hindi Sants’ Two Yogic Paths to the Formless Lord, Daniel Gold
9 Inner Islamization in Java, Paul D. Stange
10 Cinnabar-fi eld Meditation in Korea, Don Baker

Section 4 Cultural Mosaics
11 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche, Hanna Havnevik
12 Vedic Chanting as a Householder’s Meditation Practice in the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta Tradition, M. D. Muthukumaraswamy
13 Spontaneous Thoughts in Meditative Traditions, Halvor Eifring

Notes
References
Index