Meditation Research
My current research explores facets of attention, imagination, and embodiment in Tibetan Buddhist contemplative practices with analogs in contemporary philosophy of mind, cultural psychology, and the cognitive sciences. The project translates distinct practices from meditation manuals to discern underlying operations – contemplative epistemologies and phenomenological processes – so that these historical techniques of the “Tibetan inner science” (bod kyi nang rig) make meaning in dialogue with practical and conceptual frameworks in the humanities and mind sciences. Drawing from nearly a thousand years of Tibetan source literature, this project seriously engages these practices in a process of cross-cultural translation to contribute to scientific and phenomenological understandings and potentials of human contemplative experience.
I’m involved in several interdisciplinary collaborative research projects, including:
Dream Yoga
Training in the Oneiric Life: A Psychophysiological and Humanistic Study of Tibetan Buddhist Lucid Dreaming Practices
A collaboration with neuroscientist Ken Paller at the Paller Sleep Lab, Northwestern University. This project studies neurophysiological and humanistic approaches to dream yoga, comparing prescriptions on technique from historical Tibetan dream yoga manuals with neurobiological measures of dream yoga practitioners in the sleep lab, and micro-phenomenological reports of dream experiences.
Tibetan Imaginary Practices
Conjuring Illusory Bodies: Imaginary Practices of the Self in Tibetan Buddhism and Contemporary Tulpamancy
A collaboration with Michael Lifshitz at McGill University that compares contemporary tulpamancy practices with historical Tibetan Buddhist practices of conjuring illusory bodies. We study Tibetan manuals on the simulation of illusion-like experiences and the psychological anthropology of meditation to examine how tulpa practices shift as these contemplative technologies drift across cultural and temporal contexts with different ontological, psychological, and ethical orientations.
Tibetan Studies
My forthcoming work includes a book on the intellectual history of the little-known Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism with a focus on the zhentong philosophy of emptiness and Kālacakra practice. I’m involved in several projects that compare contemplative practices and correlative visionary experiences in the Dzogchen and Kālacakra systems, and a collaborative translation project on the earliest known Tibetan commentarial sources for proto-zhentong interpretations of the Kālacakra Tantra.
Jonang Foundation
The Jonang Foundation is a support organization, international network, and online educational resource for the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. We advance research and scholarship on the Jonang, and host educational and cultural preservation initiatives that sustain and enliven this distinct tradition within contemporary contexts. Ongoing research is conducted on the sites, master biographies, and material culture of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, which involves documenting, curating, and translating texts from the Jonang tradition and making these resources available in the JF digital library.
