The Talk of Silent Meditation

Abstract

This dissertation is a mixed-methods study of “Insight Meditation Community South” (IMCS), a non-heritage Buddhist meditation community located in the southern United States and affiliated with both national centers for Insight Meditation in the United States, Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock in California. Throughout, I make two primary arguments. First, I engage with recent debates concerning the state of Buddhist modernism to argue that IMCS displays two dominant orientations: modernist and ultramodernist. After showing that language-rich, meditation-adjacent practices (such as sutta study or meeting with a small group) are the strongest predictors of an ultramodern Buddhist orientation, I offer a close analysis of several such linguistic practices to analyze how and why they cultivate an ultramodern orientation. Second, I argue that Buddhist meditation, at least as practiced at IMCS, is far from non-discursive. I employ a phenomenological approach to language and embodiment to demonstrate that language plays an integral role in achieving the affective and embodied experiences sought by meditators.