Abstract In recent years a style of thought has emerged that privileges molecular biology, in the form of cognitive neuroscience, as the preferred or even only valid foundation for the scientific study of mind and mental life. Despite the lack of progress and honest positive prognosis, neuroscience has managed to create a false but pervasive sense of achievement and meaning that dominates...
Creative Arts Educ Ther (2020) 6(2):187–199 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2020/6/5 Ink for Mettā 墨‧映 Abstract “Ink for Mettā” is the integration of Chinese calligraphy and mettā meditation in the practice of expressive arts therapy. Chinese calligraphy is a traditional form of writing with aesthetic appreciation value, and it is one of the Buddhist meditative practices for enhancing self-awareness. Mettā...
Creative Arts Educ Ther (2020) 6(2):141–152 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2020/6/4 Expressive Arts as a Way of Making Meaning and Gaining Insight: An Eastern Perspective with the “Mind” 從東方思想探討表達藝術作為尋找意義與洞見的方式 Abstract This article includes two parts. Part I attempts to use one of the Buddhist psychology theories, “five ever-present mental states,” to illustrate how our mind is interconnected and propose...
Anand Vaidya, Sean Smith, and Mark Siderits have presented thoughtful comments and provocative challenges to my article “What Kind of an Illusion is the Illusion of Self?” Their challenges raise significant questions about the nature of illusion, whether Buddhism is denying the self in all senses of the term, whether there could be a self that exists for some limited duration of time and has at...
This paper explicates the complex relationship between contemplative practice and enlightened activity conducted both on and off the meditative cushion as demonstrated in the approach of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist founder Dōgen (1200–1253). I examine Dōgen’s intricate views regarding how language, or what I refer to as just saying, can and should be used in creative yet often puzzling and perplexing...
In his seminal Orientalism and Religion (1999), Richard King argues that Western scholars of religion have constructed a conceptual dichotomy between “mysticism” and “rationality” that has caused them to systematically distort the claims and arguments of Eastern thinkers. While King focuses primarily on Western scholarship on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, this essay shows that his argument...
The phenomenon of mysticism is one of the most controversial issues in modern humanities. We still lack generally accepted typology for mystical traditions of the world. The paper studies the issue of correlation between material and ideal beings, which constituted the basis of the most common typology of mystical doctrines. The research of mystical traditions, formed in Christianity, Islam and...
Reviewed by: Taming the Wild Horse: An Annotated Translation and Study of the Daoist Horse Taming Pictures by Louis Komjathy Joshua Capitanio Louis Komjathy. Taming the Wild Horse: An Annotated Translation and Study of the Daoist Horse Taming Pictures. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Pp. 264. $75.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0231181266. In Taming the Wild Horse: An Annotated Translation and...
Abstract Booming Western interest in mindfulness and meditation has significantly mainstreamed breath and breathing practices, where focussed breathing is taken to be conducive to novel psychological states. Thanks to the regulation of breathing patterns, patterns in our thinking are not just affected but revealed, together with their entanglement with respiration (in a variety of looping...
Anapanasati is a core meditation of a breath-centered practice in the Buddhist Theravada tradition, which may have some neurological mechanism effects on the brain. To gain insight into the neurological mechanisms involved in Anapanasati meditation, we measured the alterations of regional cerebral glucose metabolism during Anapanasati meditation using positron-emission tomography/computed...