1980s
David L. McMahan, BA ’87, Columbia, PA, has published a new book, Rethinking Meditation: Buddhist Meditative Practice in Ancient and Modern Worlds (Oxford University Press, July 28, 2023). In the book, McMahan, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, argues that the standard articulation of mindfulness did not come down to us unchanged from the time of the Buddha. Rather, it is a distillation of particular strands of Buddhist thought that have combined with Western ideas to create a unique practice tailored to modern life. The book demonstrates that most of the vast array of meditative practices that have emerged in Buddhist traditions have been filtered out of typical contemporary practice, allowing only a trickle of meditative practices through.