Mindfulness based sex therapy (MBST) represents an integrative modality within psychosexual treatment, synthesising principles from mindfulness meditation, rooted in Buddhist contemplative traditions, with contemporary psychotherapeutic techniques. A distinct, though often overlapping, influence derives from tantric philosophy, which reframes sexual intimacy as a practice of conscious...
The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical foundations of three significant fields: New Religious Movements (NRMs) studies, New Age studies, and Western Esotericism. The author offers a historical overview of these domains, reconstructing the scholarly background and interdisciplinary context of their conceptual formation. It is argued that the primary obstacle to their...
Black women’s engagement with Buddhism represents a distinct and under-examined pathway for healing from anti-Blackness. Drawing on publicly available memoirs and essays, this qualitative narrative inquiry explores how Black women describe their experiences with Buddhist practice in relation to racialized suffering and meaning-making. Using an interpretive thematic analysis, I identified three...
Abstract This chapter chronicles a personal journey of transforming suffering (dukkha) into healing through the application of Buddhist-informed contemplative practice and pedagogical engagement. Following a period of the author’s personal hardship, this narrative explores how Buddhist teachings—particularly those of Thich Nhat Hanh on mindfulness and loving-kindness—became instrumental in his...
The Hindu bhakti traditions are traditionally significant psychological, social, and spiritual assets of the South Asian society. Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in academic interest in the connection between devotional practices and psychological well-being, especially regarding the topics of resilience, emotional regulation, coping, and meaning-making. This...
While contemporary psychology focuses on developing a cohesive self for wellbeing, Indian philosophical traditions such as Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and the teachings of J. Krishnamurti provide a critique of the notion of a fixed self-identity. This conceptual paper compares them at a phenomenological and functional level and relates these comparisons to contemplative neuroscience, particularly...
Mimbar Agama BudayaJuly 5, 2026Edi Priyono, Euis Dewi Yuliana, I Putu Sarjana et al.
Character education increasingly draws on religious and contemplative practices, yet how repeated ritual practice becomes internalized as character remains underexplored. This study examines character formation through chanting practice among students at the Institut Nalanda Jakarta dormitory by integrating Kelman’s theory of attitude change with the Abhidhamma perspective. Using a qualitative...
This article traces the evolution of Indian philosophical thought across seven historically distinct turning points: the Rigvedic period's focus on cosmic consciousness (Purusha, Brahman, Agni); the Upanishadic revolution's inward turn and the emergence of Brahman-Atman identity; the Shramana revolt of the 6th century BCE in which Buddhism and Jainism redirected Indian thought toward physical...
According to the Idealistic school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Yogācāra, human existence is not as much the condition of a “being”, of an entity, but a mere experience projected by the cosmic consciousness, by the so-called “store-house consciousness” (ālayavijñāna). Nevertheless, human existence has some special features; it doesn’t represent a simple cosmic experience but rather an “alteration” of...
Yogācāra Buddhism, the idealistic branch of Mahāyāna, features a moderate ontology, more inclined to realism, which gives a certain degree of reality to manifestation. According to this ontology, Yogācāra's view of universal unity is organic-functional rather than substantial. The cosmos is unitary not because of an alleged ontological reduction to a single substance, as in primary Mahāyāna or...
Introduction: Perspectives towards death have been largely negative across cultures, where fear, anxiety and avoidance have been prevalent practices in the face of death. Yet certain religions provide frameworks that signify the need to foster acceptance of mortality. Based on Tibetan Buddhism, the concept of impermanence (anicca) primarily occupies a central role in understanding the nature of...
Dharma has been extensively defined by source (Jaimini), effect (Kaṇāda), etymology (Mahābhārata), and normative function (Dharmaśāstra), but has rarely been formalised as a mechanism of real-time consciousness-to-action generation. This paper proposes an operational framework at three distinct levels. At the philosophical level, Dharma is identified as the context-sensitive action trajectory...
Between roughly 500 BCE and the thirteenth century CE, the Indian philosophical traditions — Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Buddhist Abhidharma, and the various schools of Vedānta — developed a precise, multi-term vocabulary for what we should now call the empirical psychology of habit. Four terms carry the conceptual weight: saṃskāra, the discrete imprint left in the mind by each act; vāsanā, the accumulated...
Dr. Phani Mohanty's Ahalyā represents one of the most philosophically sophisticated achievements in modern Odia poetry. Although the poem has generally been interpreted as a feminist reinterpretation of the Ramayana myth or as an exploration of gendered suffering, such readings only partially illuminate its remarkable philosophical architecture. The present study argues that Ahalyā is...
A personal essay collection and structured knowledge graph mapping the three major Buddhist Abhidharma traditions (Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda, Yogācāra) onto contemporary frameworks in computational phenomenology — predictive processing, active inference, Global Workspace Theory, Parallel Distributed Processing, and related approaches. Comprises sixteen essays (eight themes × English + Japanese),...
Can one learn more about one’s own religion through the practices of another? My positive answer to this question is illustrated in this paper by reflection on aspects of the Buddhist practice of emptiness, in specific connection with Christian under-standing of our lives as creatures. The Buddhist meditative practices I have in mind have several things in common. They are introspective...
[연구 목적] 본 논문은 이즈쓰 도시히코의『의식과 본질』에 나타난 대화론을 문화 간 대화와 선적 대화에 초점을 맞추어 고찰하고, 비종교의 시대에 종교교육에 대해 갖는 의의를 밝히는 데 목적이 있다. [연구 내용] 본 논문은 먼저 교육적 관계의 대화적 성격과 그 안에서 종교성이 갖는 역할을 밝힌다. 이어서 이즈쓰 사상에서 문화와 언어의 관계를 분석하고, 문화적․언어적 분절 속에서 대화의 불가능성이 어떻게 발생하는지를 해명한다. 이러한 논의를 배경으로, 본 논문은 본질의 부정으로서의 선, 분절에서 비분절을 거쳐 분절(II)로 나아가는 운동, 그리고 비분절에 근거한 수직적 대화로서 선적 대화의 구조를 고찰한다. [결론] 선적 대화는 선을 종교적 내용으로 교육에 도입하는 것으로 이해되어서는 안 되며, 종교성에...
This study comparatively analyzes the course structures of three domestic graduate institutions offering Buddhist counseling-related curricula: the Department of Meditation, Psychology, and Counseling at Dongguk University Graduate School of Buddhist Studies; the Meditation Counseling program at Dongbang Culture University; and the Counseling Studies track within the Department of Buddhist...
This study aims to analyze research trends in Buddhist counseling-related academic journal articles published in South Korea from 2016 to 2025 and to propose directions for future research. To this end, articles identifiable through domestic academic search services - including KCI, RISS, DBpia, eArticle, and KOAJ - as well as open internet searches were reviewed for publications from 2016...
This article focuses on the connection between the refusal of the shamanic vocation and its hereditary transference with lhaba and lhamo – shamanic religious specialists who embody deities known as lha during organized ritual séances. Drawing on ethnographic material collected from the Brogpa community in Ladakh, India, I examine the nature of lha as a presence deeply woven into social and...