Sapienza Seminars

The cycle opened on December 4, 2024, in the early morning, when I delivered the seminar titled Experience and Practice of Knowing in Meditation: Tools for Understanding Buddhist Psychology. In this first meeting, I introduced participants to the intellectual depth of Buddhist traditions, which are often imagined as mysterious or esoteric but, in reality, contain a sophisticated reflection on cognition, perception, and the formation of conscious experience. Beginning from the earliest textual sources, I examined how Buddhist philosophers constructed precise tools for investigating the mind, integrating theoretical reflection with practical exercises aimed at transforming habitual patterns of awareness. My intention was to show how these conceptual frameworks, when studied with methodological rigor, can enrich contemporary psychological inquiry by offering alternative ways of thinking about knowledge, consciousness, and the lived texture of experience.

A week later, on December 11, I returned to the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology for the second seminar, Investigating the Unfathomable: Qualitative Approaches to the Study of Meditative Experience between Psychology, Phenomenology and Contemplative Ethnography. This meeting continued the epistemological discussion initiated the previous week, expanding it into the domain of methodology. Here the focus shifted to the challenges that researchers face when approaching meditative experience through traditional empirical methods and to the need for a qualitative framework capable of addressing the subtlety, fluidity, and depth of contemplative states. I explored the potential of phenomenology, mindfulness psychology, and contemplative ethnography as complementary techniques for interpreting meditative experience in its lived and relational dimensions. The seminar invited students to consider how meditative practices reshape the boundaries of the self, the expression of emotion, and the social and cultural patterns that structure perception.

Several months later, on April 17, 2025, I presented the third seminar of the series, Potential and Perspectives of the Contemplative Approach to Qualitative Psychology: Theory and Practice of Meditation Applied to Research, held at the Faculty of Psychology in Via dei Marsi. This meeting represented a direct continuation of the themes explored in December, but it shifted the emphasis toward the integration of contemplative practice within qualitative research itself. I reflected on how meditation can influence the researcher’s approach to psychological phenomena, both by transforming the observational stance and by revealing new layers of meaning within subjective, emotional, and relational experience. During the first part of the seminar, I examined the potential offered by the contemplative approach, drawing on Buddhist sources as well as contemporary studies to show how meditative traditions illuminate the concerns of modern psychology. The second part explored future perspectives, imagining how qualitative inquiry might evolve when supported by a methodology that incorporates meditative experience as both an object and a tool of investigation.

Across all three seminars, the aim of the project was to foster a dialogue among disciplines that study the human person in both theoretical and therapeutic contexts. The cycle encouraged an integrated view of psychological knowledge, one that reconsidered the centrality of the Cartesian self by emphasising the interdependence between individual and world, and by welcoming contributions from ancient anthropotechnics such as meditation, mindfulness, and guided introspection. This “middle ground” that the project sought to illuminate is already present in the practices of many contemporary therapists and in the lived experiences of people engaged in contemplative disciplines. The seminars offered a space in which to make this territory more visible, to clarify its significance, and to articulate its potential for reshaping the study of consciousness, life, death, and the intricate interplay between mind and environment.

These meetings with the Sapienza community marked the beginning of a rich and promising collaboration. The depth of engagement from the students and colleagues who participated reinforced my conviction that a dialogue between Buddhist psychology and contemporary psychological science is not only possible but necessary. I look forward to continuing this exchange and to expanding the conversation in the years to come.