Religions
March 26, 2025
Federico Divino
This paper represents an attempt to investigate some aspects of Vedic religiosity, as represented in the R̥gveda (R̥V), in comparison with the Pāli Canon on the themes of cognition, contemplative practice, and the theory of knowledge. It aims to argue that the metaphors in R̥V, for instance, fire, the chariot, the yoke, light, and the ocean, bear proto-Buddhist ideas that have influenced...
American Journal of Psychoanalysis
March 1, 2025
Seiso Paul Cooper
The author makes a distinction between the expressive Soto Zen practice of shikantaza (just sitting, only sitting) that was promulgated by Eihei Dōgen, (1200-1253) the founder of the Soto Zen Buddhist school in Japan and various instrumental/facilitative and "quietist" contemplative practices. Different contemplative practices reflect and express the underlying assumptions, guiding principles...
Korean Institute for Buddhist Studies
February 28, 2025
Lan-Bang Jung
Amanasikāra, the opposite of manasikāra (mentation, attention), is a significant concept in the history of the development of Buddhist practices. This paper primarily focuses on a concise work titled Amanasikārādhāra (the locus of non-mentation) composed by Advayavajra (also known as Matreyanātha or Maitrīpa in Tibet), who flourished in the 11th century. This text offers valuable insights into...
Philosophy East and West
February 1, 2025
John Spackman
This paper examines two accounts of how Buddhist meditative practice has been seen as cultivating nonconceptual mental states. The first, exemplified in recent work by Evan Thompson, drawing on Dharmakīrti, views the representational contents of certain meditative states as nonconceptual. The second, found in Yogācāra texts like the Mahāyānasaṃgraha, suggests that meditation cultivates a type...
Mindfulness
February 1, 2025
Manfred Seegers
Abstract Psychological research on mindfulness has often focused on the effects of mindfulness training, such as clinical application, rather than on the meaning of mindfulness itself as taught in various spiritual, philosophical, and medical traditions. Mindfulness is often seen as a general training in attentional awareness. From a Buddhist perspective, this approach does not allow for the...
Psychedelic Intersections
January 17, 2025
Colin H. Simonds
1 citation
Approaches to Psychedelic Buddhism are at times extractive, at times collaborative; they at times respect roots and lineages, and at times innovate, eschewing traditional practices. By analyzing them through the Indigenous logics of authority found in Indigenous plant medicine communities and the Buddhist tradition, we can better understand novel syncretic psychedelic traditions and work...
Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media
January 15, 2025
Xinna Cai
This paper explores the integration of Buddhist principles, cultivated over 2,500 years for enhancing mental well-being and treating psychological issues, with Western psychology. It builds a bridge between Buddhist conceptssuch as emptiness (nyat), mindfulness, conation (cetan), and loving-kindness and compassionand contemporary psychotherapeutic practices. Although clinical interest has...
OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine
January 15, 2025
This is a conceptual paper comparing how narrative therapy and Buddhist mantra-based meditation promote mental healing. Narrative therapy promotes mental healing by shifting families’ attention to their subjugated stories of strengths and personal agencies. Whilst Buddhist meditation has been integrated into psychotherapy developed in the West, the application is primarily the focus on breath...
Subhasita: Journal of Buddhist and Religious Studies
January 13, 2025
H. Wagner
This research explores the fundamental differences between Buddhism and science, focusing on their unique approaches to knowledge and reality. The study aims to investigate the challenges of reconciling these two fields while identifying potential areas of complementarity. Using a qualitative approach, the research employs a literature review method to analyze key theoretical frameworks and...
Journal of International Buddhist Studies
January 12, 2025
Ven. Vimala (Dhammapāragu)
This paper critically evaluates the concept of saṅkhāra within early Theravāda Buddhist knowledge, addressing gaps in prior studies by Bandusena Wickranmasinghe Dadanayaka and Venerable Nodhiñana, who primarily emphasize the doctrinal and causal aspects of saṅkhāra without substantial engagement with its psychological implications. This research focuses on saṅkhāra’s role as “mental formations”...