ABSTRACT
Georges Bataille’s interest in meditation was closely tied to his emphasis on transgressive violations in philosophical form. When applied to the Western translation of Buddhist meditation in the current proliferation of “mindfulness,” and its adoption of, and ratification in, what seem like scientific forms, Bataille’s thought and aesthetic practices can potentially expose some of the cultural assumptions that are at work in the subsumption of mindfulness into those forms. And yet, how Bataille’s transgressive aesthetics can be applied to ethnography remains an open question, because the resistance to transgression, as well as adherence to propriety, may be far higher in academic disciplines and practices than it was for Bataille, the writer.
