Mindfulness and Ethics
Oxford Scholarship Online June 22, 2017 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190499778.003.0011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that mindfulness as the union of smṛti and samprajanya is essential to the perception and attention needed for spontaneous moral engagement, and that spontaneity and mindfulness are mutually dependent: spontaneity is desirable only when infused with mindfulness, and mindfulness is morally efficacious only when it renders perception and action spontaneous. |
Abstract
This essay explores the role of the two aspects of mindfulness (smṛti and samprajanya) in ethical discipline. It argues that mindfulness understood as the union of these two attitudes is essential to the kind of perception and attention necessary for spontaneous moral engagement with the world. The essay first discusses why mindfulness is so important in Buddhist ethics. It then turns to the importance of spontaneity, first in the Aristotelian and then in the Zen tradition. It closes by showing why spontaneity can be understood as desirable only if infused by the kind of mindfulness philosophers such as Śāntideva recommend, and why mindfulness can be morally efficacious only if it suffuses our perception and action so as to render them spontaneous.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |