Abstract The human brain possesses plenty of functions but little is known about its scientific relationship with mind and spirit. Conferences^1,2^ focused on the connection between science and religion were held very recently in which neuroscientists, Buddhist scholars and Dalai Lama discussed attention, mental imagery, emotion, mind, brain functions and meditation, suggesting religious...
European PsychiatryNovember 1, 2007Ludwig Grepmair, Ferdinand Mitterlehner, Thomas Loew et al.
This study examined whether the promotion of mindfulness in psychotherapists in training can influence the treatment results of their patients. The therapeutic course and treatment results of 196 inpatients, who were treated during a nine week period by nine psychotherapists in training, were compared: in the first phase of the study, the treatment group without (CG, historical control group,...
A noted philosopher proposes a naturalistic (rather than supernaturalistic) way to solve the "really hard problem": how to live in a meaningful way—how to live a life that really matters—even as a finite material being living in a material world. If consciousness is "the hard problem" in mind science—explaining how the amazing private world of consciousness emerges from neuronal activity—then...
The purpose of this study was twofold. First, pretreatment correlations are presented among impulsivity, intoxicant use, HIV risk behavior, spirituality, and motivation in a sample of 38 HIV-positive drug users. Second, treatment outcomes are presented from a preliminary study of spiritual self-schema (3-S(+)) therapy - a manual-guided psychotherapy integrating cognitive and Buddhist...
Groddeck, most interestingly, proposed that the body manifested the mind, and the mind the body. I consider his interactional viewpoint from several perspectives. First, I discuss how the entire body not only is minded by and minding of all that occurs within and without, but as well how the developable capacity for mindfulness affects the perception of reality, within and without. Secondly, I...
A practitioner in true meditation should already transcend the physiological, mental, subconscious, and Alaya state, and eventually attain the spiritual realm. The scientific approach to the scope of Zen meditation provides insight into the mechanism in addition to the vague sketch of meditation sensation and its multiform benefits to human beings. In meditation research, it is difficult to...
OBJECTIVE: To provide a comprehensive review and evaluation of the psychological and neurophysiological literature pertaining to mindfulness meditation. METHODS: A search for papers in English was undertaken using PsycINFO (from 1804 onward), MedLine (from 1966 onward) and the Cochrane Library with the following search terms: Vipassana, Mindfulness, Meditation, Zen, Insight, EEG, ERP, fMRI,...
This chapter reconstructs some of the social context of the development of ‘Tantra,’ and in particular asks how Buddhist monks and lay practitioners came to adopt ‘extreme’ versions of Saiva (Kaula) practice as central parts of their own religious practice between the 8th and 12th centuries. These ‘extreme’ elements included the presence of fierce and terrifying deities, cremation-ground...
The article considers ideas of two truths in Buddhist philosophy, relative truth and absolute truth, according to Tsonkapa's '' Stages on the Path to Bodhi'', Relative truth is the result of ignorance, producing ideas of Ego, Self, which have no corresponding reality. Absolute truth expresses level of mind on which knowledge, that there are no things existing by their own, by their own quality,...
Anagarika Munindra (1915-2003) played an important role in the movement to teach vipassana meditation, and to spread this method widely in South Asia and the West. His life is examined with respect to its historical context and the spread of the vipassana movement from Burma to India and then to North America, Europe, and Australia. His family background as a Barua caste member, involvement...