Meditation is a practice that involves training the mind to achieve focused attention, tranquillity, and enhanced self-awareness. Different meditation techniques have distinct effects on the mind. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals provide valuable insights into the brain's functioning during meditation. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of three traditional meditation...
After a century and a half of focus on Buddhist doctrine, academic attention is increasingly being paid to practice. What remains undertheorized, however, is the relation between the two. An example of this is the idea that tantric practice is simply a ritual technology, separate and autonomous from doctrinal formulation. This is a persisting academic trope, one that conceptualizes doctrine and...
Tanya Luhrmann’s notable contribution to the cognitive study of religion consists of demonstrating that religious experience is based on purposeful practice of the believer. Through this practice, the objects of religious doctrine – gods and spirits – eventually begin to be perceived as more real and present. However, considering realness only in the context of encounters with invisible beings...
AbstractThis paper explores a pivotal question raised by a group of Indian Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) trainee teachers from poor, ex-Dalit communities who converted to Buddhism in the mid-1950s. The question—“How is this MBSR meditation different from the meditation we do as Buddhists?”—highlights the perceived differences between traditional Buddhist meditation aimed at...
Short mindfulness-based interventions have gained traction in research due to their positive impact on well-being, cognition, and clinical symptoms across various settings. However, these short-term trainings are viewed as preliminary steps within a more extensive transformative path, presumably leading to long-lasting trait changes. Despite this, little is still known about the brain...
The integration of meditation, particularly Buddhist meditation, into psychotherapy, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic tool within clinical and counseling contexts. The primary focus is on two major types of Buddhist meditation: Samatha (tranquility meditation) and VipassanÄ (insight meditation). These practices, rooted in ancient texts like the Sutta Piá¹aka, aim to cultivate...
While meditation research has primarily focused on mental health outcomes and immediate cognitive and affective benefits, little is known about its influence on higher-order beliefs, such as views on free will and personal agency. Despite substantial references to free will and related concepts in Buddhist philosophy, to our knowledge, there has been no empirical work investigating the...
Meditation practices have demonstrated numerous psychological and physiological benefits, but capturing the neural correlates of varying meditative depths remains challenging. In this study, we aimed to decode self-reported time-varying meditative depth in expert practitioners using electroencephalography (EEG). Expert Vipassana meditators ( n = 34) participated in 2 separate sessions....
This essay is intended to present introductory contributions to the problem of time by putting into dialogue two thinkers: Heidegger and D?gen. The strategy for both will show a continuum of three modes of human habitation, taken as ways of being human, from three modes of possible interpretation of the time problem. The initial two are presented under the perspective of Heidegger's thought:...
Walking meditation or mindful walking is a widely performed form of Buddhist practice that focuses on mind-body interactions. We have found that this particular form of exercise was highly effective in eliciting improvements in cardiometabolic and functional fitness measures in a number of clinical populations. In some key measures, the magnitudes of benefits were greater than the traditional...