Mindfulness, Free Will and Buddhist Practice: Can Meditation Enhance Human Agency?
Buddhist Studies Review July 24, 2014 DOI: 10.1558/bsrv.v31i1.125 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Citations | 7 |
| Key points | Argues that the present-moment attention and awareness central to mindfulness practice may offer a way out of the impasse created by deterministic claims that free will is illusory. Proposes that non-judgmental, present-moment awareness can foster the capacity to transform mental formations that constrain autonomous thought and action, and that free will is not an innate given but a potential quality of mind developed through training, education, and skillful means. |
Abstract
Recent philosophical and neuroscientific writings on the problem of free will have tended to consolidate the deterministic accounts with the upshot that free will is deemed to be illusory and contrary to the scientific facts (Blackmore 2011; Harris 2012). Buddhist commentaries on these issues have been concerned in the main with whether karma and dependent origination implies a causal determinism which constrains free human agency or — in more nuanced interpretations allied with Buddhist meditation — whether mindfulness practice allows for the development of at least some potentially free volitions and actions (Harvey 2007; Repetti 2012). After examining some of the key arguments in this debate, it is suggested that the present-moment attention and awareness central to mindfulness practice may offer a way out of the impasse presented by the alleged illusion of free will. The meditative spaciousness of non-judgmental, present-moment awareness can help to foster the capacity to transform those mental formations which constrain autonomous thought and action. This conclusion is informed by the general thesis that free will is not a given — an innate aspect of the human condition — but, like wisdom or rationality, a potential quality of mind which may be developed through training, education and skilful means.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 5
- Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2004
- What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy August 18, 2008
- Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Function of Education Journal of Philosophy of Education January 26, 2009
- Mindfulness in Schools: Learning Lessons from the Adults, Secular and Buddhist Buddhist Studies Review July 8, 2011