In a commentary on Travis and Shear's article, Josipovic (2010) argues that the distinction that they have drawn points to a more basic difference between forms of meditation that are essentially dualistic and involve a "subject-observing-object" orientation and forms of meditation that involve nondual awareness, open awareness or open presence (OP) (Kozhevnikov et al, 2009; Lutz et al., 2007). In a more recent article, Josipovic (2011) presents evidence based on MRI studies for the distinctiveness of this type of meditation, which he categorizes as nondual awareness (NDA).
In future posts, I will provide more detailed exposition and commentary on Travis and Shear's categories and on Josipovic's category of NDA.
Josipovic, Z., Dinstein, I., Weber, J., & Heeger, D. J. (2011). Influence of meditation on anti-correlated networks in the brain. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 5.
Kozhevnikov, M., Louchakova, O., Josipovic, Z., & Motes, M. A. (2009). The enhancement of visuospatial processing efficiency through Buddhist deity meditation. Psychological Science, 20(5), 645-653.
Lutz, A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction. The Cambridge handbook of consciousness, 19, 497-549.
Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in cognitive sciences, 12(4), 163-169.
Travis, F., & Shear, J. (2010). Focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending: categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions. Consciousness and cognition, 19(4), 1110-1118.