Introducing Contemplative Studies by Louis Komjathy, and: Contemplative Literature: A Comparative Sourcebook on Meditation and Contemplative Prayer ed. by Louis Komjathy (review)

Both of Louis Komjathy's texts offer much to the field of Contemplative Studies in distinct and complementary ways. As Komjathy writes, the two texts are distinct in their scope and methodology. Introducing Contemplative Studies outlines the field of Contemplative Studies, carefully unpacking its basic tenets and offering challenges to the field. Contemplative Literature "utilizes a historical contextualist and textual methodology"(Introducing, 4) within religious studies, while Introducing reaches beyond the field of Religious Studies to consider the interdisciplinary umbrella category of contemplative studies. Reading intertextually, the earlier published Contemplative Literature is a demonstration of what Komjathy envisions for the field in general: that is, as a field that includes critical inquiry of a variety of contemplative sources and traditions.

Introducing Contemplative Studies is broken into eight chapters, each with a particular focus. The introductory chapter is careful to situate Komjathy in his own pedigree, training, and social location. The first chapter lays out defining characteristics, a short history of the development of the field, and critical issues for the field. The second and third chapters focus on two fundamental aspects of Contemplative studies: contemplative practice and contemplative experience. The fourth and fifth chapters consider the relationship between contemplation and tradition and contemplative pedagogy, respectively. The sixth and seventh chapters consider methodological approaches for interpreting contemplative experiences as well as current trends in the field of contemplative studies, particularly the rise of contemplative science. Komjathy concludes with a more "visionary" chapter, proposing what he sees as new possibilities that might arise in the field.

Throughout the book, Komjathy challenges contemplative studies scholars to consider including a more diverse set of traditions and methodological approaches. Early in the book Komjathy names four biases in the field: "secularized Buddhism, hybrid spirituality, neuroscience, and clinical applications" (42). He argues that the rise and dominance of contemplative science has tended to privilege individual, largely secularized, and decontextualized techniques and technological mediation as its source of study while privileging medicalized approaches to the study. Taking up Harold Roth's critiques, Komjathy is also concerned about "cognitive imperialism and spiritual colonialism," along with the attending white privilege and middle-class escapism that at times, Komjathy observes, are present in more secularized forms of contemplative practice.

As an antidote to his critiques Komjathy proposes three defining characteristics of contemplative studies in chapter one: "practice commitment, critical subjectivity, and character development" (14–15). Valuing the study of practice over a long period of time, intentional self-critical examination of one's own social location and experience, and a concern for the development of character through the study of contemplation itself are all proposed as vital and central principles of the field. If taken seriously, these characteristics can be a way of welcoming a wide variety of practices, traditions, and approaches to studying contemplation with the added benefit of guarding against the privileging of any one approach, such as a scientific technological investigation, or any one practice, such as therapeutic meditation. Komjathy, as he says, wants to put the contemplative back into contemplative studies itself, avoiding the narcissistic tendencies found in some forms of decontextualized meditative techniques, and the "samsaric" conditions that autodidactism and decontextualized study can engender. He utilizes examples from his own teaching to propose a more embodied, intersubjective approach to contemplative studies.

For Christian practitioners and scholars, Komjathy—a Daoist practitioner-scholar and ordained Daoist priest—repeatedly names the anti-religion and even more pointedly anti-Christian bias of contemplative studies. Christianity—along with Sikh, Jain, Jewish, and Muslim traditions—is under-utilized as a critical site for inquiry in the field of contemplative studies. Komjathy is consistently concerned about the relative marginalization of religiously committed contemplatives and contemplative communities as both subjects of study and as experts who might contribute...