The positive effects of meditation on human wellbeing are indisputable, ranging from emotion regulation improvement to stress reduction and present-moment awareness enhancement. Changes in brain activity regulate and support these phenomena. However, the heterogeneity of meditation practices and their cultural background, as well as their poor categorization limit the generalization of results...
This paper presents the ambiguity of the term ekāyana in the Satipaṭṭhānasutta in the light of inclusivism and exclusivism perspectives. Ekāyana is a familiar term in Buddhist Studies and Satipaṭṭhānasutta is a well well-known text in the Theravada insight meditation cycle. Ekāyana can be rendered in various ways according to the subjectivity and interpretation of each translator; thus, the...
The research project "New Faces of the Folk Church – Lived Religion, Spiritual Practices and Theological Legitimacy" aims at investigating everyday spiritual activities laypeople engage in within an ecclesial institution, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden, and how these practices are linked to notions about religion and health. In this article we give an account of our preliminary...
Pure presence (PP) is described in several meditative traditions as an experience of a vast, vivid space devoid of perceptual objects, thoughts, and self. Integrated information theory (IIT) predicts that such vivid experiences may occur when the cortical substrate of consciousness is virtually silent. To test this, we analyzed high-quality 256-electrode high-density electroencephalography...
The practice of meditation consists in allocating attention on sensory stimuli. As it is commonly known, attention allocation tends to increase both the cortical and the phenomenal response to the target. Yet, in deep contemplative states practitioners often report to feel a complete dissolution of body boundaries, i.e. the state of banga (in Pali). This phenomenon creates a tension with...
Jhāna meditation was little known in the West before the 1980s, historically shrouded in mystery and mostly confined to monastic traditions in Buddhist countries. In recent years, however, deep states of meditation in general, but particularly the jhānas, have been attracting interest from neuroscience researchers as another avenue to explore neural networks and functions in the human brain....
Abstract Starting from the allegation of the Pure Land tradition “as a deviant form of Buddhism,” the paper looks at non-dualist and dualist features in the teachings of the Japanese medieval Pure Land master Shinran Shōnin (1173–1263). It is suggested that Shinran should be understood within the Mahāyāna framework of the two truths or realities (satyadvaya). Shinran retains both perspectives...
This article takes as its starting point a repertoire of protective texts and practices articulated as ritual therapeutics in the early twentieth century by the well-known Burmese scholar-monk, the Ledi Sayadaw. Through an exploration of meditation-practice, meditation-teaching, and meditation-performance contexts in postcolonial Burma and India, I demonstrate the ways in which such texts and...
Mindfulness has all but become a mainstay in modern education.Yet, despite the incredible enthusiasm and increased application inschools, there remains significant divergence between advocatesand critics. Advocates assert that mindfulness practice promotesindividual and societal health and well-being. Meanwhile, criticsquestion the intention, and the social and political implications...
March 18, 2024Vismay Agrawal, Ruben Laukkonen2 citations
preprint
Contemplative practices have been shown to elicit a range of experiences and insights often referred to as "nothingness". However, these encounters are frequently conflated and remain undifferentiated. Here we address this ambiguity and provide a nuanced understanding of two such events: 1) emptiness (lack of inherent existence in experience, i.e., no-thingness) and 2) cessation (“cut” or...