Embodied Meaning and Integration

Embodied meaning is a new approach to understanding the significance of all symbols, including those of language, as association in human experience. It has been developed since the 1980’s, but its full practical significance has rarely been applied, nor have the full challenges that it presents to entrenched assumptions been followed through. Robert M. Ellis here develops a detailed multi-disciplinary account of the role of embodied meaning in the Middle Way as a practical path. This includes criticisms of some ways that embodied meaning has been confused with belief. At the heart of his practical case for applying embodied meaning in our lives are the concepts of fragmentation and integration of meaning. A variety of practices, including the arts, enable us to develop our meaning resources, both ‘cognitively’ and ‘emotionally’, and thus create the imaginative conditions for provisionality of belief.