Where do we end and where does the world begin? The case of insight meditation

Abstract

This paper examines the experience of where we end and the rest of the world begins, that is, the sense of boundaries. Since meditators are recognized for their ability to introspect about the bodily level of experience, and in particular about their sense of boundaries, 27 senior meditators (those with more than 10,000 hours of experience) were interviewed for this study. The main conclusions of this paper are that (a) the boundaries of the so-called “physical body” (body-as-object) are not equivalent to the individual's sense of boundaries; (b) the sense of boundaries depends upon sensory activity; (c) the sense of boundaries should be defined according to its level of flexibility; (d) the sense of body ownership (the sense that it is one's own body that undergoes an experience) cannot be reduced to the sense of boundaries; nevertheless, (e) the sense of ownership depends on the level of flexibility of the sense of boundaries.

Keywords::

• Boundaries
• Mindfulness
• Sense of Boundaries
• Sense of Ownership

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank the Tovana Insight Meditation organization, Israel, and especially Dr. Stephen Fulder, without whom this research would not have been possible. I am grateful to Maty Lieblich for her constant methodological support and her reading of a first draft of this article. In addition, I would like to thank Aviva Berkovich Ohana who introduced me to this fascinating topic. Finally, I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which helped me to improve this article significantly.

Notes

^[1] It is important to understand that the complexity of this issue leads to fundamental problems regarding terminology. For instance, when is it correct to use terms such as ‘subject’, ‘individual’, and ‘agent’, as opposed to ‘body’ or ‘organism’? To avoid this difficulty, in many cases I have chosen to use the relatively vague terms ‘one’ or ‘us’. This choice is not always ideal but allows me to circumvent the various problems that accompany the other possible options.

^[2] It is important to remember that one of the central characteristics of the experience of sameness or unification is the difficulty in describing it. Therefore, the phenomenological descriptions in this regard must be treated with caution. At the same time, despite this difficulty, many meditators do manage to depict this experience with words, and this led Stace (1961) to argue that in spite of the fact that most of those that have undergone a mystical experience claim that it cannot be expressed in words, in reality many of them talk about the experience at length. Hence Stace defines a mystical experience as “allegedly ineffable.” Having said that, it is important to understand that there is a gap between the experience of oneness on the one hand and the language of a bipolar or dichotomous experience on the other.

^[3] The fact that some of the meditators reported a loss of the sense of ownership during mindfulness meditation essentially demonstrates that such a sense indeed exists and that it can be lost; if this were not so, the report of its loss would not arise in such a sweeping fashion. Thus in normal situations a strong sense of ownership is the default setting. This explains why the sense of ownership is felt to be more present as it weakens; it is felt in particular when it is lacking.

^[4] Further experimental work is required in order to determine whether this experience should be more precisely classified as one of the following states. (a) Autoscopic Hallucination: “During an AH people experience seeing a double of themselves in extrapersonal space without the experience of leaving one's body (no disembodiment). As compared to OBEs, individuals with AH see the world from their habitual visuo-spatial perspective and experience their ‘self’, or center of awareness inside their physical body” (Blanke & Mohr, 2005, p. 186). (b) Heautoscopy: “During internal heautoscopy, subjects report seeing one or several of their inner organs. During negative heautoscopy, subjects report not seeing their reflection in a reflecting surface” (Blanke & Mohr, 2005, p. 186). (c) Out-of-body experience: “During an OBE people seem to be awake and feel that their ‘self’, or center of awareness, is located outside of the physical body and somewhat elevated. It is from this elevated extrapersonal location that the subjects experience seeing their body and the world” (Blanke & Mohr, 2005, p. 186). Bearing this in mind, one should remember that during all three autoscopic phenomena the subject has the impression of “seeing a second own body (or double) in extrapersonal space” (Blanke, Arzy, & Landis, 2008, p. 186). Hence, even if we cannot define the experience during the mindfulness practice exactly, we can, nevertheless, argue that it is a certain kind of OBE.

^[5] Indeed, OBE and derealization are both commonly categorized as dissociative symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). For more on this issue see Spiegel et al. (2013).

^[6] To be more precise, being in the middle of the world refers to the state in which all of the body touches the world. For example, this happens when one sinks into water—one is not touching any particular object but all of the body is in contact with the surroundings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yochai Ataria

Yochai Ataria is a PhD candidate in the Program for the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.