Contemporary Buddhism
June 1, 2026
Kanae Kawamoto
In Buddhism, the abhiññās (literally ‘higher knowledges’) refer to six types of supernatural powers that include recalling past lives and reading minds. This research explores the practical importance of supernatural powers (abhiññās) within the Theravāda Buddhist tradition, focusing on the contemporary meditation method formulated by the Burmese monk, Hpa-Auk Sayadaw (1934-). While modern...
Contemporary Buddhism
November 16, 2025
Martin T. Adam
ABSTRACT This article explores the relevance of classical Theravāda Buddhist doctrine to the present-day development of artificial general intelligence. Specifically, it addresses the interconnected possibilities of machine consciousness and machine agency. The first section consists of a philosophical exploration of the notion of artificial consciousness in light of ordinary language...
Contemporary Buddhism
October 24, 2025
Diane Denis
ABSTRACT This paper explores the evolving role of contemplative education within Buddhist Studies in the context of the contemporary “age of AI.” It advocates for the cultivation of image literacy at the academic level, arguing that as AI becomes the predominant compiler, producer, and distributor of information, it is imperative to reconsider the nature of cognition and its broader...
Contemporary Buddhism
April 22, 2025
Nicholas K. Canby, Jared R. Lindahl, David J. Cooper et al.
1 citation
Although meditation is often treated as an individual practice, meditation teachers can play an important role. Drawing on the mixed-methods dataset of the Varieties of Contemplative Experience project, this paper examines the role of meditation teachers and their impacts on Western practitioners who are navigating meditation-related challenges. Quantitative and qualitative results from 68...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 1, 2023
Terry Hyland
1 citation
The exponential expansion of mindfulness-based applications in education, psychology and psychotherapy, workplace training and mind/body well-being in general over the last few decades has been accompanied by wide-ranging claims about the impact of mindfulness on the brain. Arguments in this sphere have been supported by data taken from neuroscience reporting changes in the brain structure and...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2021
Charya Samarakoon
ABSTRACT Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against both male and female combatants, as well as civilians, remains a reality of war despite global efforts to address it. International humanitarian law (IHL) unequivocally condemns sexual violence in armed conflict, and there are specific measures addressing this issue in IHL. However, Buddhist teachings and practices to address sexual...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 2, 2020
Ivan Mayerhofer
ABSTRACT The study of digital religion is currently in its fourth wave of research, focusing closely on the interrelation between users and digital religious technologies. In the fields of philosophy, cognitive science and cultural studies, looping effects, or the dynamic process of subject formation as a result of the development and internalisation of new categorisation schemes, have been...
Contemporary Buddhism
February 20, 2019
P. Kyaw
ABSTRACT This article explores the popular Sunlun and Theinngu meditation traditions in Myanmar. The founders, Sunlun Sayadaw Ven. U Kavi (1878–1952) and Theinngu Sayadaw Ven. U Ukkaṭṭha (1913–1973), both led a lay life until in their mid-40s and only then took up meditation, going on to become highly respected meditation teachers. Their meditation techniques are similarly distinctive in...
Contemporary Buddhism
October 30, 2018
E. Harris
ABSTRACT This paper argues that the multiple orientalist expressions that flowed from British pens in nineteenth century Sri Lanka are of use to the scholar of Buddhism, in that they can not only shed light on the growth of Buddhist modernism and the use of the term ‘meditation’ within it, but also on Sri Lankan Buddhist practice on the ground. It first surveys the preconceptions of the British...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2018
Ville Husgafvel
34 citations
The discussion on the Buddhist roots of contemporary mindfulness practices is dominated by a narrative which considers the Theravāda tradition and Theravāda-based ‘neo-vipassanā movement’ as the principal source of Buddhist influences in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and related mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs). This Theravāda bias fails to acknowledge the significant Mahāyāna...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2018
Hülya Koşar Altinyelken
19 citations
This qualitative study explores the potential of a mindfulness programme for providing psycho-social support to international students in higher education. The article focuses on analysing the nature of emotional distress among students, how they regulate difficult emotions, and the effects of the mindfulness programme on emotion regulation. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2018
Richard E. Whitehead, Glen William Bates, Brad Elphinstone
18 citations
The Buddhist concept of nonattachment refers to a flexible engagement with experience without fixation on achieving specified outcomes. The primary focus of this study was to qualitatively examine how nonattachment and attachment are experienced in individuals identified as having very high and low levels of nonattachment. Specifically, we examined individuals’ descriptions of how their levels...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2018
C. P. Hertogh
ABSTRACT In this paper we propose logical analyses of Vipassanā Meditation as modus ponens or universal instantiation, as based upon identification, analysis, and interpretation of the meditation as a (spiritual) thought experiment (STE like e.g. huàtóus and kōans in Chan and Zen).* The analyses consist in completing the unfinished enthymematic argument of the Sutta-nipāta by explication of...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 30, 2018
Bee Scherer, Jeff Waistell
2 citations
This critical comparison of Morgan’s ‘Images of Organization’ and Hanh’s ‘Work’ considers whether Hanh offers new insights and metaphors. Morgan’s legacy resides not in his images but in showing that the dynamism of organisational theorising requires the generation of new metaphors. His images transfer onto Hanh’s psychology but largely mediate different messages. This study extends Morgan’s...
Contemporary Buddhism
January 2, 2018
Paul R. Fleischman
1 citation
Vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka is based upon neutral, non-judgemental, non-reactive awareness of the arising and passing of body sensations. This focus for meditation has two advantages. First, it is a practical focus that most people find they can work with, and that derives from a historical connection to the Buddha’s words. Second, this meditative focus puts the...
Contemporary Buddhism
July 3, 2017
Tessa Watt
8 citations
This paper investigates a particular understanding of ‘awareness’ in Mahāyāna Buddhism and its relevance for secular mindfulness. We will focus on the Zen and Mahāmudrā traditions which share a view of awareness as an innate wakefulness, described using metaphors of space, light and clarity. These traditions encourage practices in which the meditator rests in this spacious ‘non-dual’ awareness:...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 31, 2017
Eran Laish
1 citation
The Buddhist vision of liberation is intimately related with an experiential state that transcends intentionality, temporality and causality, owing to its non-directed, unchanging and unconditioned nature. As such, this vision reveals a novel mode of non-dual awareness, which is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived objects. In order to directly recognise this mode, several Buddhist...
Contemporary Buddhism
January 2, 2017
Paul Verhaeghen
9 citations
One of the core teachings of Buddhism is the doctrine of anattā. I argue that there is good evidence that anattā as understood in early Buddhism should be viewed less as a doctrine and a metaphysical pronouncement (‘no-Self’) than as a soteriological claim (‘not-self’) – an appeal and a method to achieve, or move progressively closer to, liberation. This view opens up anattā to empirical...
Contemporary Buddhism
November 1, 2013
Beatrice Alba
19 citations
AbstractSurveys were conducted at two metta meditation retreats in order to examine the psychological effects of metta meditation. Participants were invited to complete the survey at the beginning of the retreat, at the end of the retreat, and two weeks after the end of the retreat. Participants completed the same scales at each time phase, which included measures of happiness, compassionate...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Bhikkhu Bodhi
620 citations
The purpose of this paper is to determine the meaning and function of mindfulness meditation using as the source of inquiry the Pāli Canon, the oldest complete collection of Buddhist texts to survive intact. Mindfulness is the chief factor in the practice of satipa hāna, the best known system of Buddhist meditation. In descriptions of satipa hāna two terms constantly recur: mindfulness (sati)...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Paul Grossman, Nicholas T. van Dam
540 citations
The Buddhist construct of mindfulness is a central element of mindfulness-based interventions and derives from a systematic phenomenological programme developed over several millennia to investigate subjective experience. Enthusiasm for ‘mindfulness’ in Western psychological and other science has resulted in proliferation of definitions, operationalizations and self-report inventories that...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Rupert Gethin
402 citations
The Buddhist technical term was first translated as ‘mindfulness’ by T.W. Rhys Davids in 1881. Since then various authors, including Rhys Davids, have attempted definitions of what precisely is meant by mindfulness. Initially these were based on readings and interpretations of ancient Buddhist texts. Beginning in the 1950s some definitions of mindfulness became more informed by the actual...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
J. Mark G. Williams, Jon Kabat‐zinn
390 citations
The guest editors introduce this special issue on Mindfulness, explaining its rationale, aims, and intentions. Integrating mindfulness-based approaches into medicine, psychology, neuroscience, heal...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Ruth A. Baer
271 citations
The commitment to evidence-based practice in clinical psychology requires scientific investigation of the effects of treatment and mechanisms of change. Empirical evidence suggests that mindfulness-based treatments provide clinically meaningful improvement for people suffering from many important problems, including depression, anxiety, pain, and stress. However, the processes of change that...
Contemporary Buddhism
May 1, 2011
Christina Feldman, Willem Kuyken
237 citations
In this paper we investigate compassion and its place within mindfulness-based approaches. Compassion is an orientation of mind that recognizes pain and the universality of pain in human experience and the capacity to meet that pain with kindness, empathy, equanimity and patience. We outline how learning to meet pain with compassion is part of how people come to live with chronic conditions...