Meditation And Pure Consciousness Experiences - Toby Woods | EP 23

Toby Woods is a scientist at the Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies. Subjective experience is notoriously difficult to study scientifically. This is even more the case for subjective experience in meditation and for this reason it has not been widely examined. In this podcast I am joined by Toby Woods, who is part of a growing movement to examine meditation experiences in a systematic and fine-grained manner using scientific methods. In the podcast we discuss the experience of "stillness" or "pure consciousness" in meditation, including the content that is present and absent, and we compare the experiences attained in different types of practices. We also look at the benefits of accessing the stillness and the risks and benefits of practising meditation more generally. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Start 0:40 Why Meditation Is Interesting To Study 3:20 What is Meditation? 9:30 Contentless Experience and Pure Consciousness 18:50 Beginner vs Advanced Meditators / Different Traditions 30:10 Buddhism and Advanced States of Meditation 33:35 Different Meditation Techniques For Different People 37:22 Science of Enlightenment 40:00 "Cessation" / Dropping Out of Consciousness 46:49 Risks of Meditation 55:45 Attention, Smartphones and Modern Distractions TOBY WOODS -Toby on X/Twitter: @TobyJWoods -Toby's papers: 1. Analysis of contentless goal-states using expert texts https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-022-09811-z 2. Analysis of paths to contentless goal-states using expert texts https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-022-09812-y 3. Analysis of contentless experience using participant reports https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-023-02145-0 MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST -Example of Peter Sedlmeier and Karin Matko papers on types of meditation practices: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-021-01641-5 -Papers by Ruben Laukkonen and colleagues on cessation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37714573/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37777153/ -Seminal paper by Willoughby Britton, Jared Lindahl and colleagues on adverse experiences in meditation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443484/ -Article on how "silent walking" is taking off on TikTok: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-08/silent-walking-taking-off-on-tiktok-boosting-youth-mental-health/102938224 JACK ROYCROFT - SHERRY -Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0DGVMa1qAI1huc87xNDrgy?si=62c281d9e8274694 -X: https://twitter.com/jack_roycroft -Medium: https://medium.com/@jackroycroftsherry