Neural Buddhism: Biomedical Interpretations of the Dharma

This paper examines the uptake of mindfulness meditation among British parliamentarians through the lens of ‘neural Buddhism’, emergent at the intersection of contemplative practice and the neurosciences. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at Westminster between 2015 and 2019, it traces how a neurobiological imaginary – anchored in studies of neuroplasticity, grey-matter change, and the measurable effects of meditation on the brain – has come to underpin and legitimise mindfulness as a secular, commonsensical practice for non-clinical populations. 

The paper foregrounds the encounter between parliamentarians and a visiting neuroscientist, whose presentation of 'interpersonal neurobiology' was enthusiastically received when it illuminated personal practice but met with polite scepticism when extended to the transformation of political culture. 

Situating this encounter within the broader social life of psychological and neurobiological knowledge, I argue that the neuroscientific framing of mindfulness is incorporated into culturally specific ethical projects: in Westminster, it feeds a pragmatic ‘ethics of trying’ and a valorisation of common sense rather than any ambition to rewire the adversarial structures of democratic politics. In this context, neural Buddhism is engaged with as a practice, not for transforming the world, but for living well within it. 

This paper introduces the concept of egostasis (self-based persistence behaviour) and proposes a novel neurocomputational theory of the experience of suffering, grounded in the framework of active inference. We argue that psychological suffering is a transmodal, aversive state arising from prediction errors being attributed to a self-model. Chronic suffering is proposed to arise from temporally and counterfactually deep action policies that prevent the resolution of interoceptive stress signalling. 

While homeostasis and allostasis resolve stressors through immediate physiological and behavioural adjustments, egostasis attempts to achieve goals over extended temporal horizons. We hypothesise that chronic suffering arises when this mode becomes entrenched via canalisation, perpetuating a dynamic in which temporally deep egostatic policies consistently override temporally shallow allostatic policies. This results in a 'selfing' feedback loop: maintained interoceptive stress signals recruit the self-model (egostasis) which perpetuates the very stress-signalling the system seeks to resolve. 

By identifying the recruitment of the self-model as the core mechanism of chronic suffering, this theory elucidates the therapeutic efficacy of interventions that disrupt “selfing” dynamics, such as mindfulness meditation and psychedelic-induced “ego-dissolution”, offering a path toward the relief of suffering by restoring adaptive allostasis.

This presentation discusses some of the potential limitations of Davidan exclusively neurological approach to the understanding of contemplative practices. After briefly considering the history of thinking about meditation in scientific terms, it argues for greater consideration of the role that social and cultural context play in these practices. 

What makes meditation 'work' – or, rather, the work meditation does – is dependent not solely on the practice itself, or on the neural states involved in the practice, but also on a complex of surrounding cultural factors that provides a repertoire of categories through which contemplative experiences are interpreted. Such repertoires of ideas and ethical values surrounding the practice afford the possible ways of being in the world that make sense and meaning out of contemplative practice and experience. 

Mindfulness has gained considerable momentum globally as an intervention for improving health and wellbeing. Beyond mindfulness, advanced meditation includes states, stages, and endpoints that result from mastery of meditation. Matthew D. Sacchet Ph.D. (Harvard/Mass General) will provide an overview of current directions in advanced meditation research that characterize the third wave of meditation research. 

The study and practice of advanced meditation promise incredible new opportunities for elevating human potential in diverse clinical and non-clinical contexts. See the Meditation Research Program's website for more information.