Analytical meditation and monastic debate are contemplative practices engaged in by Tibetan Buddhist monastics that have up to now been largely unexplored in Western contemplative science. The highly physical form of contemplative debating plays an important role in the monastic curriculum. Based on discussions and recorded interviews Tibetan monastic teachers and senior students at Sera Jey...
The "neural correlates of consciousness" (NCC) is a familiar topic in neuroscience, overlapping with research on the brain's "default mode network." Task-based studies of NCC by their nature recruit one part of the cortical network to study another, and are therefore both limited and compromised in what they can reveal about consciousness itself. The form of consciousness explored in such...
Richard Hayes (1993, 2013) and Dan Arnold (2008, 2012) have argued that Dharmakīrti (c. 600-660 C.E.) is a mind-body dualist. The proof, they say, lies in the justification he gives for his theory of rebirth. In this paper, I put Dharmakīrti’s argument to the test against a rival argument of Nāgārjuna. It turns out Nāgārjuna completely rejects the mind-body dualism of Dharmakīrti and the...
In this article, I would like to reframe our understanding of the role played by doxographies or classification of views (Skt. siddhānta, Ch. panjiao 判教, Tib. grub mtha’) in the Buddhist tradition as it pertained to Tibetan attempts at defining and organizing the diversity of Buddhist contemplative practices that made their way into Tibet since the introduction of Buddhism to the Tibetan...
ABSTRACT This paper argues that the multiple orientalist expressions that flowed from British pens in nineteenth century Sri Lanka are of use to the scholar of Buddhism, in that they can not only shed light on the growth of Buddhist modernism and the use of the term ‘meditation’ within it, but also on Sri Lankan Buddhist practice on the ground. It first surveys the preconceptions of the British...
Many aspects of meditation have been examined for over seventy years, including its physiological, psychological variables, and clinical conditions. However, the effectiveness of Zen meditation for clinical application has been debated. The quality of meditation could be one of the keys to understand the disagreements among studies. This study aims to reveal the experience of Zen meditation...
S.2585 is a significant Dunhuang manuscript, providing various types of Buddhist meditative techniques. Some techniques can be traced back to Central Asia and India, although some techniques seem to have been developed later. I argue that the vision of buddhas that accompanies single-minded contemplation of the navel as described in S.2585 may reflect the idea of a “buddha within” denoting the...
The modern mindfulness movement often cites early Buddhist texts that outline its basic practices. These texts, though, depict a different kind of practice, one which involves ongoing nonconscious dispositions that underlie and give rise to recurrent affective and cognitive responses to similar stimuli. In later Indian Buddhist traditions, especially the Yogācāra school, these patterns were...
The very practice of Zen is about turning the human mind on itself in order to directly experience the ungraspable, non-intellectual, and present-centered nature of being. Dropping off preconceptions, preferences, hopes, knowledge, and the like produces a deep mental cleansing that rescues the self from the grip of conditioning and returns it to its natural beginner&s;s mind: what in Zen is...
Addicted drugs like nicotine affect autonomic nervous system that results in arrhythmia and other cardiovascular diseases. Notable effects of Zen meditation on autonomic nervous system have been reported during the past decade. Holistic Detox Association (HDA) in Taiwan offered Zen-meditation program to drug addicts as the core scheme among a variety of drug addiction treatments. This paper...