Research
Modern meditation research reviewed with methods and limitations.
Can Meditation Go Wrong? Adverse Events in Meditation (Farias 2020)
The first systematic review of meditation adverse events: 8.3% overall prevalence, anxiety and depression most common — and what it does and does not say about Daoist sitting.
Do Meditation Programs Improve Psychological Stress and Well-being? (Goyal 2014)
The landmark 2014 JAMA Internal Medicine meta-analysis: moderate evidence for mindfulness meditation on anxiety, depression, and pain — and what it does not say about Daoist sitting.
Schlosser 2019: How Common Are Unpleasant Meditation Experiences?
The largest survey to date of unpleasant meditation-related experiences: roughly one in four regular meditators reports having had one — and the study's predictors map the conditions that make them likelier.
Tang 2015: The Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation
The landmark neuroscience review — attention control, emotion regulation, and self-awareness as the proposed mechanism — read with the authors' own caveats about what remains unknown.
Varieties of Contemplative Experience (Lindahl 2017)
The first taxonomy of meditation-related challenges: interviews with Western Buddhist practitioners and teachers, mapping the phenomena, the influencing factors, and the remedies.