Over the last fifty years the study of mysticism has been shaped by the debate between ‘perennialists’, who claim that mystical experiences are the same across different cultures, and ‘constructivists’, who claim that mystical experiences are shaped by, and hence specific to, particular religious traditions. The constructivist view is associated with the ‘discursive turn’ that has dominated the...
Research into the effects and mechanisms of mindfulness training draws predominantly on quantitative research. There is a lack of understanding about the subjective experiences of experienced mindfulness meditators, which may provide additional insights into the effects, processes and context of mindfulness training. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of a novel group of...
In this article, I would like to reframe our understanding of the role played by doxographies or classification of views (Skt. siddhānta, Ch. panjiao 判教, Tib. grub mtha’) in the Buddhist tradition as it pertained to Tibetan attempts at defining and organizing the diversity of Buddhist contemplative practices that made their way into Tibet since the introduction of Buddhism to the Tibetan...
Mindfulness meditation has been primarily studied within the context of individual’s psychological well being and/or in relation to it’s potential to enhance cognitive skills such as attention and working memory. However, in Buddhism, mindfulness is used as a tool to cultivate wholesome actions, and as a means to promote virtuous, prosocial qualities. In this article, we postulate that...
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...
Many aspects of meditation have been examined for over seventy years, including its physiological, psychological variables, and clinical conditions. However, the effectiveness of Zen meditation for clinical application has been debated. The quality of meditation could be one of the keys to understand the disagreements among studies. This study aims to reveal the experience of Zen meditation...
Addicted drugs like nicotine affect autonomic nervous system that results in arrhythmia and other cardiovascular diseases. Notable effects of Zen meditation on autonomic nervous system have been reported during the past decade. Holistic Detox Association (HDA) in Taiwan offered Zen-meditation program to drug addicts as the core scheme among a variety of drug addiction treatments. This paper...
This article explores Zen Buddhist philosophy of spiritual development by examining one of the most common representations within the Zen Buddhist religious tradition, the Ten Ox Herding Pictures, which illustrate both religiously and culturally specific ideas and cross-culturally common themes. Interpretations from the standpoints of Zen philosophy, Jungian and transpersonal theories, and...
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the moral-psychological stakes of Jay Garfield's reading of Buddhist ethics as moral phenomenology and applies that thesis to the pedagogical mechanisms of the Tibetan Buddhist lojong (“Mind Training”) tradition. I argue that moral phenomenology requires that the practitioner work on a part of her subjectivity not ordinarily accessible to agential action: the...
This paper examines the content of the Tangut text in one of the largest joinable pieces of Tangut fragments with Tibetan phonetic glosses, Fr. 3(8), Fr. 9(14), and Fr. 1(6) from инв. 8363 of the Archives of Orientalists of the Institute of Oriental Manuscript, Russian Academy of Sciences. A detailed sentence-based translation of the Tangut text is provided. The interpretation of these...
The Buddha taught that everything is connected and constantly changing. These fundamental observations of the world are shared by ecology and evolution. We are living in a time of unprecedented rates of extinction. Science provides us with the information that we need to address this extinction crisis. However, the problems underlying extinction generally do not result from a lack of scientific...
The present study is a comparison of dream content between monks and nonreligious respondents, aiming to understand the unconscious of monks, and to further explore the influence of religion on our human mind. The authors interviewed participants to collect dreams and then explored similarities and differences through content analysis. A total of 127 participants reported their dreams, 65 monks...
Abstract This article examines contemporary Buddhist defences of the idea that consciousness is reflexively aware or self‐aware. Call this the Self‐Awareness Thesis. A version of this thesis was historically defended by Dignāga but rejected by Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika Buddhists. Prāsaṅgikas invoke a distinction between two truths or realities; they deny an ultimate reality but admit the use of...
Abstract Buddhist philosophy of mind is fascinating because it denies that there is a self in one of the ways that has traditionally seemed best able to make sense of that idea: the idea that the self is the agent of actions including the thinking of thoughts. In the Buddhist philosophy of mind of the fifth century thinker Buddhaghosa what does the explanatory work is instead attention....
Varios estudios clínicos muestran cómo los ejercicios de las tradiciones védicas, como el yoga, o budistas theravada o mahayana así como las prácticas tántricas tienen un impacto psicobiológico significativo. Este estudio busca el correlato neurofisiológico de las prácticas llamadas meditaciones tántricas y no-tántricas mediante una revisión sistemática cualitativa de los datos recolectados....
Varios estudios clínicos muestran cómo las prácticas tántricas y los ejercicios de las tradiciones védicas -como el yoga- o budistas theravada o mahayana tienen un impacto psicobiológico significativo. Este estudio compara el correlato neurofisiológico de las prácticas llamadas meditaciones tántricas y no-tántricas mediante una revisión sistemática cualitativa de los datos recolectados. Se...
Since the mid-1980s, a number of articles have appeared in the psychoanalytic literature regarding the relationship between the Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhist technique of vipassana or "mindfulness meditation" and psychoanalytic listening. Despite differences in theory and technique, the experience of personal analysis continues to serve as the sine qua non of effective psychoanalytic...
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...
Abstract This article explores the idea of a deeply embodied consciousness during movement, which has become one of the most intensely discussed topics in terms of the phenomenology and spirituality of dance and somatic practices. The strive towards an embodied state of consciousness has been historically present in the context of Zen Buddhist philosophy, wherein true embodiment is considered...
중국 명대 말기 강남 지역은 유교, 불교, 도교의 삼교합일 사상이 성행하였다. 비록 그 시대는 혼란과 분열, 갈등과 대립이 극에 달해 왕조(王朝) 교체라는 비극적 장면을 맞이하고 있었지만, 학계에서는 조화와 화합의 사상운동이 전개되고 있었다. 유교와 불교의 관계에서 볼 때, 명대에는 불교가 그 어느 시대보다도 당시의 유학자들에게 커다란 영향을 끼친다. 이는 송대부터 시작된 일인데, 유교의 철학적 용어와 체계는 대략적으로 불교로부터 강한 영향을 받은 것이다. 특히 선종(禪宗)의 영향을 크게 받고 있으며, 명대에 성립된 신유학의 일파로서 양명학도 불교의 영향을 크게 받는다. 명말청초의 유학자 황종희가 명대 최고의 유학자로 존숭한 유종주는 이와 같은 시공간적 배경 하에서 불교에 대항하여 그것과는 조금...