Panel IV: Meditation


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Much of the popular dialogue between science and Buddhism has focused solely on the ways in which "mindfulness" meditation may be used to reduce stress and improve health. Far less attention has been paid to the ways in which such meditations facilitate reasoning and the introspective investigation of mind and reality.

Philosopher Mark Siderits opens this panel with the provocatively entitled target essay, "Is Meditation a Means of Knowledge?" Respondents include acclaimed Buddhologist, and translator to the Dalai Lama, Thubten Jinpa, as well as Roger Jackson (Buddhism) and Dr. Joseph Loizzo (psychiatry & Buddhism).

The moderator for this discussion is Professor Anne Klein from the Religion department at Rice University. Klein's focus within Asian Studies is on the Buddhist traditions, with special attention to Tibet and India. In particular, she is interested in Buddhist philosophy and its nuanced descriptions of mind, contemplative practice, and theories of knowing. Above all, her books examine the role of the intellect in relation to spiritual experience of various kinds.

Target Essay: Mark Siderits
Professor of Philosophy, Illinois State University


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Mark Siderits is a student of Buddhist and classical Indian philosophy. His research explores the possibility that contemporary analytic philosophy might have something to learn from the Sanskrit philosophical tradition. In his book, Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons, he shows how Buddhist philosophical tools may shed light on the current debate over the nature of diachronic personal identity (i.e., what it is that makes someone one and the same person over time). He has also done work on Indian and comparative philosophy of language and is currently working on particular issues in comparative epistemology. His most recent book, Buddhism As Philosophy, (Ashgate-Hackett, 2007), is a text, with readings, on the Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition. He is also working with Shoryu Katsura on a new translation of and commentary on Nagarjuna’s , Madhyamakakarika, . Outside of philosophy his interests include cooking (especially Indian cooking), and skiing
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Response: Roger R. Jackson
Professor of South Asian Religion, Carleton College


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Roger R. Jackson's special interests include Indian Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan ritual and meditative practices, Asian religious poetry, the study of mysticism, and Buddhism vis à vis modernity. He is author of Is Enlightenment Possible? (1993) and Tantric Treasures (2004); co-author of The Wheel of Time: Kalachakra in Context (1985); co-editor of Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre (1996) and Buddhist Theology (1999); and author of numerous scholarly and popular articles and reviews. He served for many years as editor-in-chief of The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. He currently teaches at and serves on the board of Gyutö Wheel of Dharma Monastery in Minneapolis.
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Response: Thubten Jinpa
President of the Institute of Tibetan Classics


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Thupten Jinpa was trained as a monk at the Shartse College of Ganden Monastic University, South India, where he received the Geshe Lharam degree. Jinpa holds a B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. He taught for five years at Ganden and worked also as a research fellow in Eastern religions at Girton College, Cambridge University.

Jinpa has been a principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama for nearly two decades and has translated and edited numerous books by the Dalai Lama including Ethics for the New Millennium, Transforming the Mind and The World of Tibetan Buddhism. His own publications include works in both Tibetan and English, the most recent book being Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy.

Jinpa teaches as an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Montreal. He is currently the president of the Institute of Tibetan Classics and heads its project of critical editing, translation and publication of key classical Tibetan texts aimed at creating a definitive reference series entitled The Library of Tibetan Classics.
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Response: Joseph Loizzo
Physician, Cornell Medical College


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Joseph Loizzo is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in Complementary and Integrative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College where he researches and teaches mind/body health. He also teaches science and religion, the scientific study of religious experience, and Indo-Tibetan mind sciences at Columbia University. Dr. Loizzo is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Columbia-trained Buddhist scholar with over thirty years' experience studying the beneficial effects of meditation on healing and learning.

In 1998, Dr. Loizzo opened the Center for Meditation and Healing at Columbia-Presbyterian/Eastside, the first mind/body center in the United States to offer programs in stress reduction, self-healing, and lifestyle change based on the Tibetan health and mind sciences. In 2003, he moved these programs to the Cornell Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine to better test and refine their effectiveness. He founded Nalanda Institute of Meditation and Healing in Eastside Manhattan in 2005, to make these programs available to the community at large.
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Group Discussion Panel IV: Meditation

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