Frontiers of the Mind’s Potentials
Meditation research is entering its most daring phase yet.
The first wave focused on the benefits of meditation. The second wave brought greater methodological rigor and began exploring the mechanisms behind those benefits. Now, the third wave shifts the spotlight to largely unexplored frontiers of the mind’s potential.
We’re talking about:
->The intense bliss, peace, and deep well-being reported in advanced concentration meditation (deep absorption including what are sometimes called jh?na states).
->The clarity of perception, deepening wisdom about the nature of reality, and diminishing attachment to a fixed sense of self (that might be experienced through insight meditation)
The third wave is also the first to focus on a nuanced, systematic look at the difficulties and challenges often encountered on the meditation path. While these experiences might be viewed as “negative” from a Western psychological standpoint, we argue that under the right conditions, they may actually be essential signs of meditative and psychological growth.
Frontiers: Adverse Experiences vis a vis Signs of Growth
To borrow a metaphor: muscle strain and pain during and after training aren’t simply signs of physical weakness, but rather tell you that growth is happening. Similarly, certain meditation-related challenges might be developmentally appropriate responses to deep inner work. Unlike in physical training, however, these transformative effects often become possible only through our willingness to turn toward, stay with, and explore the difficult.
In our latest theoretical paper, my incredible colleague Terje Sparby and I suggest that these experiences can indicate a larger developmental arc: one where dips in energy, focus, functioning, or well-being are not necessarily regressions or pathologies, but telling signs of deeper processes of inner change and psychological reorganization taking place. Though not always linear or pleasant, these experiences may sometimes underlie what makes meditation so radically beneficial over time.
Meditation Research Program
At the Meditation Research Program, we see human beings as capable of not only seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, but also of delaying gratification, and enduring challenges in service of a life of deeper meaning and the highest possible flourishing. We also believe that capturing the nuances and complexities of positive, negative, and growth-related experiences in advanced meditation is vital to the third wave of meditation research—as they may be inseparable from the development of advanced states, stages, and endpoints of meditation that aim at contributing to the reduction of suffering and increase of well-being.
May this work benefit many.
Resources
The full PDF of the manuscript mentioned above is on theire website and available from the publisher:
https://meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/
https://meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/publications/
For an article published:
The Third Wave of Meditation and Mindfulness Research and Implications for Challenging Experiences: Negative Effects, Transformative Psychological Growth, and Forms of Happiness
Link to: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-025-02607-7
A recent blog at IMHU introduced the work of Michael Sacchet: https://imhu.org/spiritual-emergence/the-next-wave-of-meditation-research-and-training/
The full article above was written by Matthew Sacchet, PhD. and published on his linked in page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-sacchet/