Worldviews From Within: A Qualitative Investigation of Metaphysical and Ethical Beliefs Among European Long-Term Buddhist Practitioners and Novice Mindfulness Practitioners

Worldviews (WVs) are the set of beliefs that underlie the way we conceive of reality and selfhood. Buddhist meditation allegedly leads to long-lasting changes in WVs, and trait-like neurophysiological and behavioral differences between novice and expert meditators support this possibility. However, this claim has not yet been fully tested, and there is still no qualitative evidence. The purpose of the present qualitative study was to compare the WVs of a representative sample of European novices and long-term Buddhist trainees.

As part of the European Research Council Brain and Mindfulness project, the present qualitative study involved interviewing 32 participants trained in mindfulness meditation (“novices”) and 30 long-term practitioners with more than 20,000 hr of practice in Tibetan Buddhism (“experts”). We used an interpretive-phenomenological approach to explore their core beliefs about the nature of reality, metaphysics, and ethics. For each area of inquiry, we used structural-thematic analysis to identify representative clusters that described the variety of WVs of the two samples.

Emergent clusters show a strong dependence on expertise along a progressive distribution (gradient). This gradient shows that groups differ in terms of dereification, i.e., different degrees of identification with experiential contents (such as thoughts and emotions) while bringing insight about them as mental components. This applied to (1) subjectivity and agentivity, the latter being defined as the ability to make choices and determine one’s own outcomes; (2) linear temporality and causality; and (3) ontological substantialism, defined as the inherent essence or nature that grounds things. Finally, the gradient also describes a narrative-conversational shift from being content-oriented to process-oriented. Answers from novices tended to be based on knowledge organized on representational beliefs, while in the answers of experts, there was more metacognitive awareness and questioning of the ongoing experience of being interviewed. This result is consistent with the progressive cognitive and experiential dereification hypothesized to underlie this gradient. These results suggest that WVs depend on meditative experience, possibly due to metacognitive functions that shape thinking and knowledge about thinking.

These findings are consistent with the common Buddhist advice not to take contemplative beliefs at faith value, but instead to question and deconstruct any belief through close observation and analysis of one’s own experience. This exploratory journey is traditionally conceptualized as an interdependent, dynamic process. Future longitudinal studies are needed to explore how meditative practices can induce changes in WVs, and, reciprocally, the role of beliefs in cultivating targeted contemplative states, contributing to cognitive and emotional regulation.

This study was not preregistered.