Buddhism

Buddhist meditation programs produced a small-to-medium overall positive effect on psychological health (g = .250), with MBSR/MBCT programs most effective (g = .766).

meta-analysis Sample size: 6366

Two-week daily 15-minute Brief Mindfulness Meditation reduced perceived stress and LF/HF ratio and increased positive affect and acting with awareness compared to a neutral audio control.

RCT Sample size: 85

Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation had the highest wellbeing, life satisfaction, and self-esteem, with advantages over Buddhist meditation, mindfulness, Zen, and NLP on several physical symptoms.

observational study Sample size: 399

Zen meditation performed by skilled monks improved cognitive control and reduced cognitive conflict in lateral and medial prefrontal cortices compared to non-meditators.

observational cohort

Argues that Longchenpa's philosophy presents awareness unframed as a form of freedom distinct from skill mastery, with breakthrough practice dissolving directedness and normative guidance.

philosophical analysis

Argues that the Vajra Exorcism Dance's formal elements are systematically structured manifestations of Vajrayana soteriology and cosmology, and its transformation reflects a negotiation between esoteric efficacy and popular accessibility.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that Buddhist activists transform walking meditation into a performative protest technique, enabling embodied intervention and alternative ways of being in the Anthropocene.

qualitative study

Argues that hesychast phenomenological categories have not yet been operationalized by cognitive science and that a systematic research program could bring them to light.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that Jungian psychology and Rumi's Sufi mysticism share a common metanarrative of inner evolution, with parallel concepts of the Self and the Beloved, ego dissolution, and spiritual ascent.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that AI cannot participate in pilgrimage spiritually, that removing hardship diminishes pilgrimage's transformative potential, and that cyberpilgrimage is not a legitimate alternative to physical pilgrimage.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that al-Ghazālī and Gregory Palamas challenge Islamic and Byzantine philosophy as merely derivative of Greek thought, advancing mystical–theological epistemologies rooted in revelatory experience.

comparative study

Argues that Zen Buddhism reveals the limits of intellectual knowledge and cultivates a holistic wisdom for intuitively applying perspectivally delimited knowledge.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that Dharma practices can effectively resolve underlying karmic causes of sleep paralysis, offering a transformative pathway to recovery where medical interventions may fall short.

qualitative analysis of Dharma Q&As and case presentations

Argues that Smara Sādhanā is an integral spiritual system grounded in Tantrāyāna non-dualism, where sexual union represents and actualizes the metaphysical unity of Puruṣa and Prakṛti.

qualitative study with hermeneutic approach

Argues that six intellectual traditions independently converge on the judgment that the self is not the highest or final layer of personhood, and that this convergence constitutes evidence worth taking seriously.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that Vipassanā meditation, grounded in Vietnamese Buddhist traditions, serves as an ethically oriented practice that fundamentally transforms professional life by cultivating mindfulness, equanimity, and ethical discernment.

theoretical or philosophical paper

Argues that shamanic healing of possession-type 'virtual illness' attributes mental distress to external spirits and uses spiritual healing to foster a positive psychological state, offering a culturally specific response to mental illness.

qualitative study