Research on Stillness Meditation
From 2017 to 2022 the University of Melbourne undertook a 5 year research project examining Stillness Meditation. The project was led by Dr Toby Woods, a long-time Stillness Meditation practitioner, and formed the basis for his PhD in psychology.
The research comprised two major studies, which each compared Stillness Meditation with two other practices. The first involved a systematic analysis of 135 expert texts on meditation, and the second involved more than 250 participants reporting on their deepest experience of stillness/silence during a specific period of practice.
In the first study it was found that, based on the expert texts, the stillness experiences in Stillness Meditation and classical focused attention practice are very similar. In each practice the stillness is described as the essential nature of the mind or being, as extremely simple, and as involving calm, naturalness, effortlessness, freedom, and an absence of thoughts and perceptions. The study found that, based on the expert texts, it is much quicker and easier to access the stillness in Stillness Meditation than in the focused attention practice.
In the participant-based study, Stillness Meditation participants were found to report a highly positive experience of stillness that involved little awareness of mental activity and a high degree of calm, ease, restfulness, and mental relaxation. The experience reported in Stillness Meditation was found to be more absorptive than in two classical focused attention practices, and to have more the quality of pure being with a complete absence of doing, and of reaching a ground state of the mind.
Stillness Meditation participants reported the deeper and more absorptive experience despite having done much less lifetime practice, doing much less practice in the period targeted in the research, and having not been on retreat. Stillness Meditation participants also reported having the experience for a signifcantly greater proportion of their total practice and being significantly more confident that they could have the experience again in their next session.
From 2022 to 2024 Dr Woods carried out further research on Stillness Meditation as a postdoctoral fellow at the Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies. Dr Woods’ main study examined over 150 meditation naive participants doing a single 15 minute “quiet time” session involving Stillness Meditation, focused attention meditation, or listening to an audiobook.
Stillness Meditation participants reported that their experience was highly positive and pleasant and involved a high degree of calm, relaxation, and rest, and that the session was easy. They reported significantly more of an empty mind than focused attention participants, and that their experience was significantly less boring than both focused attention and audiobook participants.
The study examined participants’ heart rate variability, which indexes parasympathetic nervous system response – i.e. relaxation response. For participants most in need of a boost in parasympathetic response (as indicated by low baseline heart rate variability), Stillness Meditation provided a significantly greater boost than the focused attention practice and audiobook.
In the first webinar below, Dr Woods summarizes key aspects of his PhD and postdoctoral research, and explains how the research provides multiple lines of evidence indicating that Stillness Meditation provides a shortcut to complete stillness of mind. In this webinar Dr Woods refers to Stillness Meditation as Do Nothing practice.
In the second webinar Dr Woods provides a more detailed presentation of his PhD project, including discussion of the main findings.
Also below are links to Dr Woods’ main papers on his text-based and participant-based studies from his PhD. Dr Woods’ studies from his postdoctoral research are currently being written up.
The final link below is to Dr Woods’ PhD thesis, which includes an introduction to Stillness Meditation (pp. 33-34, 40-43).
View webinar – PhD and postdoctoral research
View webinar – PhD research in more detail
Journal article comparing stillness experiences based on expert texts
Journal article comparing paths to the stillness based on expert texts
