This study examines the Buddhist framework of personality development and spiritual well-being through a textual analysis of the Majjhima Nik?ya. Unlike conventional secular psychological paradigms, Buddhism integrates ethical training and mental refinement directly into the process of personality transformation. Adopting a qualitative, hermeneutical research design, this study systematically...
This paper takes the concept of sabbakāya-pat ̣isaṃvedī (“experi-encing the whole body”) in the Ānāpānasati Sutta as an anchor point to examine the interpretative differences between Theravada and some Selected Northern Buddhist traditions. Since the original canonical phrasing is brief and open-ended, it leaves ample room for the later interpretations. In the Theravada (Southern) tradition,...
Harmony Meditation is a meditative practice codified in Italy in the 1990s by AlessandroMahony, derived from the Zen tradition and integrated with psychological, psychophysiological,and neuropsychological expertise. Unlike approaches such as Mindfulness and TranscendentalMeditation, it does not exhaust itself in non-judgmental observation or in the mechanicalrepetition of a mantra, but rather...
Abstract Objectives Second-generation mindfulness-based interventions (SG-MBIs) incorporate a broader range of contemplative techniques, including Buddhist-derived ethics- and wisdom-based practices. However, little is known about how non-Buddhist participants engage with these practices or whether differences in contemplative composition are reflected in participant experience. This study...
MindfulnessOctober 3, 2026ZiYoung Kang, Youngdon Choi, Gun Ahn et al.
Abstract: Background: Divergent definitions of mindfulness complicate the interpretation of mindfulness-based intervention research. Some scholars suggest that incorporating insights from historical models of mindfulness in Buddhism may further enhance the benefits of mindfulness practices. Although these recommendations converge on some points, they diverge on others, warranting systematic...
Buddhism, one of the world's major philosophical and spiritual traditions, transcends religious practice to encompass ethics, psychology, and a practical framework for human well-being that has shaped civilisations for over 2,500 years. This paper examines Buddhism's profound influence on humankind through three interconnected dimensions: (1) the foundational teachings of the Four Noble Truths...
This paper offers an extensive comparative analysis of the twin practically and philosophically fundamental tenets of Buddhismsamādhi/dhyāna (meditation), paññā/prajñā(wisdom) and vimutti/mokṣa (liberation)as demonstrated respectively in the twin traditions of Theravāda and Mahāyāna. The kāyanagara because of this formed signifies that both coalesced from the teachings of the historical Buddha...
One familiar gesture pairs the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness (kṣaṇikavāda) with Husserl’s phenomenology of internal time-consciousness; another declares the two incompatible because Husserl rejects the punctual now-point the kṣaṇa affirms. Both fail. Husserl retains the momentary phase—Hua X §39 speaks of the “primal sensation” and the “actual momentary phase” of the flow—while denying...
This study explores how the audiovisual language of cinema can embody the abstract aesthetics of Zen through a series of experimental creative practices and the production of a documentary film, combined with analyses of previous Zen-themed films and related literature. Adopting a practice-as-research methodology, the study comprises multiple audiovisual experiments inspired by Zen aesthetics,...
English. This article revises the concept of the "Fourth Turning of the Wheel of Dharma", introduced by the author in an earlier version (March 2026), as a philosophical investigation of how the mind operates in technically mediated environments, and explicitly lowers the status of the claim: from a possible historical fourth turning to a figure of reading and a call to doctrinal work, with no...
English. This article revises the concept of the "Fourth Turning of the Wheel of Dharma", introduced by the author in an earlier version (March 2026), as a philosophical investigation of how the mind operates in technically mediated environments, and explicitly lowers the status of the claim: from a possible historical fourth turning to a figure of reading and a call to doctrinal work, with no...
A pre-registered formalization of the Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha's combination rules, collated against the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana, with the Dhammasaṅgaṇī list collated against its commentary and against the Cambodian edition The Theravāda Abhidhamma classifies consciousness into 89 types (121 when the supramundane types are reckoned by jhāna). It also states, factor by factor and type by type, which of...
Research SquareSeptember 25, 2026Jimpei Hitsuwari, Makiko Kamikawaji, Toryo Ito
preprint
Abstract Amulets are ubiquitous across cultures. However, psychological research on amulets has concentrated on the effects of owning and using them, whereas the experience of making one’s own amulet remains largely unexplored. This research takes a descriptive and exploratory approach to examine pre–post shifts in psychological states surrounding Yuwai-mamori, an approximately 15-minute...
Can decades of Zen meditation leave measurable traces in the practitioner’s natural language? Long-term contemplative practice is widely understood to reshape emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perceptual engagement, yet empirical research on these transformations has been fundamentally constrained by two limitations: an observation window of weeks to months at most, and an...
This qualitative case study examines Buddhist spiritual care for terminal cancer patients through the case of Wat Kham Pramong in Sakon Nakhon Province, Thailand. It addresses three objectives: to examine how the temple responds to patients’ spiritual needs, to identify the Buddhist teachings and practices relevant to those needs, and to assess the approach’s qualitative impact in terminal...
This work develops a phenomenological account of mindfulness, and related phenomena. It is divided into two main parts. The aim of part one is to articulate a pre-phenomenological sketch of mindfulness (and related phenomena) by (1) drawing on passages from some of the classic works of Western literature and everyday life, (2) through an interpretation of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and (3) by the...
Zen meditation has been widely recognized for its psychological and physiological benefits; however, the differential impacts of meditation experience on psychophysiological biomarkers remain underexplored. This study bridges a crucial gap by investigating how Zen meditation influences anxiety, sleep quality, and EEG-derived brain activity in novice and experienced meditators. Over three days,...
Asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta whether there is a self and whether there is no self, the Buddha was silent; he later gave Ānanda not two reasons but four, in two pairs, as to why. Scholarship divided between no-self and affirmative readings of anattā has claimed the episode for one side or the other without accounting for its fourfold form. This article locates the anattā teaching in the...
This study examines how lay women engage with, adapt, and transmit the heart-mind esoteric Buddhist tradition known as Foxin Jing () in contemporary China. Previous scholarship on Chinese esoteric Buddhism has predominantly focused on issues related to legitimacy, lineage, institutional power, and master-disciple relations. However, there has been a relative lack of focus on the role played by...
Body & SocietySeptember 7, 2026Matteo di Placido, Giuseppe Giordan
This article introduces the idea of multiple habitus , a heuristic tool for analyzing the transmission, incorporation and social reproduction of religious teachings within a continuously transforming spiritual field. Drawing on data from the project ‘Buddhism in Italy’ we show how Italian Buddhism articulates a plurality of “core dispositions” that display notable congruence across major...