Research Interests

Michael R. Sheehy specializes in Tibetan Buddhism with a focus on the literature, history, and phenomenology of contemplative practices. His writing and translation give attention to Vajrayāna Buddhist meditation, the history of thought in Tibet, and interfaces between Buddhism and science. His research works to bring practices and experiences detailed in Tibetan meditation manuals in dialogue with contemporary discourses in the humanities, cultural psychology, and the cognitive sciences.

At UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center, he is the founding director of the CIRCL Contemplative Innovation + Research Co-Lab, a transdisciplinary experimental lab that investigates practices and experiences of contemplation through myriad lenses, including cultural, historical, phenomenological, and neurophysiological. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contemplative Studies (JCS), a peer-reviewed open access journal that publishes original scholarship on diverse forms of contemplation.

Michael has published on topics ranging from models of mind to cognitive illusion and lucid dreaming to mindfulness and nondual meditation. He is coeditor of The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (2019), and author of a forthcoming book on the little-known Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. His current book project weaves practices of attention, imagination, and embodiment from historical Tibetan meditation manuals. With the University of Virginia Press, he coedits two book series, Varieties of Contemplative Experience and Traditions and Transformations in Tibetan Buddhism. His work has been featured in Psyche magazine and National Geographic.

CSC website: https://csc.virginia.edu/people/michael-sheehy

Selected Publications

BOOKS

• The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press. 2019.

ARTICLES

• “Cognitive Illusion, Lucid Dreaming, and the Psychology of Metaphor in Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Contemplative Practices.” International Journal of Transpersonal Studies. Special Issue on Buddhism and Psychology. 10.24972/ijts.2023.42.2.63. 2023.
• “The Distinctive Mindfulness of Dzogchen: Jigme Lingpa’s Advice on Meta-Awareness and Nondual Meditation.” Co-author with Marc-Henri Deroche (Kyoto University). In Religions 13, 7, 573; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070573. 2022.
• “Images of Emptiness in a Prognostic Mirror: Tantric Zhentong Visions of Tathāgatagarbha in Early Jonang Kālacakra Yoga Manuals.” In Buddha Nature Across Asia. Edited by Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Casey A. Kemp. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien. University of Vienna Press. 2022.
• "Tibetan Buddhism and the New Science of Rebirth.” In Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for Twenty-First Century. Edited by Holly Gayley. Shambhala Publications. 2021.
• "The Offering of Mount Meru: Contexts of Buddhist Cosmology in the History of Science in Tibet.” In Journal of Dharma Studies: Philosophy, Theology, Ethics, and Culture, 3, 2. Special issue on Buddhism and the History of Science. December 2020.
• "Materializing Dreams and Omens: The Autobiographical Subjectivity of the Tibetan Yoginī Kun dga’ ‘Phrin las dbang mo (1585-1668).” Revue d'Etudes Tibétaines, 56, October 2020.
• "The Case of the Missing Shangpa in Tibet.” In Reasons and Lives in Buddhist Traditions: Studies in Honor of Matthew Kapstein. Edited by Daniel Arnold, Cécile Ducher, and Pierre Julien Harter. Wisdom Publications. 2019.
• "The Philosophical Grounds and Literary History of Zhentong.” In The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press. 2019.
• "The Dharma of the Perfect Eon: Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsan’s (1292-1361) Hermeneutics of Time and the Jonang Doxography of Zhentong Madhyamaka.” In The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press. 2019.
• "Traversing the Path of Meditation.” In A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from Rimé Masters of Tibet. Edited by Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro. Wisdom Publications. 2017.

POPULAR ARTICLES (SELECT)

• “Zhentong: The Philosophy of Extrinsic Emptiness.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford University Press. Article published [forthcoming]. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.ORE_REL-01048.R1
• Review of Mind Seeing Mind: Mahāmudra and the Geluk Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In Journal of World Buddhist Cultures. Research Center for World Buddhist Cultures, Ryukoku University, Japan. March 2022.
• "Remaking Cosmology in Tibet.” In Journal of the History of Ideas Blog. January 2021.
• "A Buddhist Science of Mind.” Review of Science and Philosophy in Indian and Buddhist Classics. Vol. 2, the Mind. Wisdom Publications, 2020. In Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly. Spring 2021.
• "The Problem with Calling Buddhism a Science.” Review of Why I Am Not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson. Yale University Press, 2020. In Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, 115 119. Spring 2020.
• Teaching Contemplation in 3D.” Spotlight on Teaching: Contemplative Pedagogy. American Academy of Religion. Religious Studies News 21.1, May 2019