Asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta whether there is a self and whether there is no self, the Buddha was silent; he later gave Ānanda not two reasons but four, in two pairs, as to why. Scholarship divided between no-self and affirmative readings of anattā has claimed the episode for one side or the other without accounting for its fourfold form. This article locates the anattā teaching in the...
This study examines how lay women engage with, adapt, and transmit the heart-mind esoteric Buddhist tradition known as Foxin Jing () in contemporary China. Previous scholarship on Chinese esoteric Buddhism has predominantly focused on issues related to legitimacy, lineage, institutional power, and master-disciple relations. However, there has been a relative lack of focus on the role played by...
Body & SocietySeptember 7, 2026Matteo di Placido, Giuseppe Giordan
This article introduces the idea of multiple habitus , a heuristic tool for analyzing the transmission, incorporation and social reproduction of religious teachings within a continuously transforming spiritual field. Drawing on data from the project ‘Buddhism in Italy’ we show how Italian Buddhism articulates a plurality of “core dispositions” that display notable congruence across major...
Buddhist meditation is widely studied in relation to mindfulness, emotion regulation, compassion, and well-being, yet it is often operationalized as an attentional or stress-reduction technique detached from the ethical and cultural conditions of practice. This article develops the ethical-cultural training ecology model, a Hypothesis and Theory framework that treats Buddhist meditation as a...
Modern organizations are increasingly confronted with issues surrounding ethical choices, employee welfare, accountable leadership, stakeholder interactions, and unpredictability. These advancements have sparked interest in management viewpoints that go beyond just efficiency and financial outcomes. Buddhist philosophy has garnered interest in this regard for its focus on ethical behavior,...
Digital media has played an important role for the globalization, adaptation and practice of Buddhism. The impact of digital media in globalizing Buddhist practices has tried to explore in this article with actual kindness paid to how it changes rituals, transforms communities, creates new forms of material and disembodied practice which has presented both prospects and challenges. This...
Vipassanā1 meditation is central to modern Theravāda Buddhism, especially in Myanmar has been one of the most influential places in its recent development and international transmission. Although previous studies have examined individual teachers, specific techniques, or modern mindfulness, very few studies connect the historical growth of Myanmar Vipassanā with a structured comparison of its...
This paper aimed to present a conceptual framework that facilitates integrating early Buddhist psychology with contemporary psychotherapy. It was conceptual in scope, rooted in the framework of the early Buddhist teachings. While grounded in contemplative and clinical experience, it selectively integrated contemporary scholarship from psychotherapy, contemplative neuroscience, and Buddhist...
ProblemA persistent observation troubles both positive psychology and contemplative science: people suffer in the midst of success. The wealthy report emptiness; the deeply loved report captivity; the lucid report paralysis; the renunciate remains seized by the identity of renouncing. Existing wellbeing frameworks—utility theory, composite indices, PERMA—explain this poorly because they share a...
Purpose: This study aims to clarify the concept, structure, and soteriological purpose of sati practice in Early Buddhism on the basis of Pāli sources, and to analyze the core transformations that occur when sati is transposed into contemporary clinical mindfulness programs. It pays particular attention to the function of sati within jhāna practice, an aspect largely neglected in existing...