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This dissertation is an ethnographic study that traces the production, cultivation, and maintenance of selves. Modern culture includes a growing interest in the cultivation of inner spheres, advising each and every individual to search for an experience of interiority that is independent from social and material surroundings. The Enlightenment's resistance to tradition, the search for a" true" self and the emphasis on self-mastery are all dimensions of the effort to free the self from its contingencies. As a result of this focus on the self, ancient techniques of self-cultivation gained renewed interest. One of these techniques is the practice of Vipassana (insight) meditation, a Theravada Buddhist meditation. Vipassana meditation was traditionally practiced by monks as a way of seeking enlightenment. In its modern manifestation, people who have little to do with Buddhism who do not call themselves Buddhists go to silent …