Contemplative Meditation and Neuroscience: Prospects for Mental Health

Numerous studies show that personal spirituality developed through prayer positively influences mental health. Phenomenological and neuroscientific studies of mindfulness, an Eastern meditative prayer form, reveal significant health benefits now yielding important insights useful for guiding treatment of psychological disorders. By contrast, and despite its practice for millennia, Christian meditation is largely unrepresented in studies of clinical efficacy. Resemblances between mindfulness and disciplinary acts in Christian meditation taken from the ancient Greek practice of askesis suggest that Christian meditation will prove similarly beneficial; furthermore, psychological and neuroscientific studies suggest that its retention of a dialogical and transcendent praxis will additionally benefit social and existential psychotherapy. This paper thus argues that study of contemplative meditation for its therapeutic potential is warranted.     

印度早期佛教的佛塔信仰形态

本文主要以现存的律藏文献及相关资料为主,再对印度早期的佛塔信仰进行研究,重点对印度早期佛教佛塔信仰的诸种形态进行讨论,希望通过对佛塔信仰群体的解明,增进我们对早期佛教发展进程的深入理解,并就此提出若干进展性的看法。     

The Art of Contemplative and Mindfulness Practice: Incorporating the Findings of Neuroscience into Pastoral Care and Counseling

This article draws on recent neuroscientific research evidence that demonstrates the plasticity and malleability of the human brain to make the case for greater use of contemplative and mindfulness practices in pastoral care and counseling. It explores the negativity bias of the brain as it has evolved and argues that mindful awareness practices have the ability to work against this bias in favor of less fearful and anxious perspectives on life, including interpersonal relationships. Contending for a higher evaluation of Christian practices than beliefs, it specifically targets the doctrine of original sin as a contributor to this negativity bias, and advocates the use of Christian meditative practices, especially the Centering Prayer, as a means to foster brain resculpting that is integral to the experience of becoming aware of oneself as a new creation.     

Compassion, Ethics, and Neuroscience: Neuroethics Through Buddhist Eyes

As scientists advance knowledge of the brain and develop technologies to measure, evaluate, and manipulate brain function, numerous questions arise for religious adherents. If neuroscientists can conclusively establish that there is a functional network between neural impulses and an individual??s capacity for moral evaluation of situations, this will naturally lead to questions about the relationship between such a network and constructions of moral value and ethical human behavior. For example, if cognitive neuroscience can show that there is a neurophysiological basis for the moral appraisal of situations, it may be argued that the world??s religions, which have traditionally been the keepers and purveyors of ethical values, are rendered either spurious or irrelevant. The questions point up broader dilemmas in the interface between science and religion, and raise concerns about the ethics of neurological research and experimentation. Since human beings will still arbitrate what is ??moral?? or ??ethical,?? how can religious perspectives enrich the dialogue on neuroethical issues and how can neuroscience enrich dialogue on religion? Buddhist views on the nature of consciousness and methods of practice, especially meditation practice, may contribute to discussions on neuroscience and theories about the interrelationship between consciousness and ethical awareness by exploring the role that karma, intentionality, and compassion play in Buddhist understandings of the interrelationship between consciousness and ethics.     

No I,No Problems: The Quintessence of Buddhist Psychology of Awakening

If psychology is viewed as the science of human mind, the Buddha could unarguably be termed as the finest depth psychologist humanity has seen. Not only did he penetrate deep into the hidden recesses of human mind and uncovered the machinations of the latent tendencies, he also found the way out of their stranglehold on mankind. As a compassionate teacher, he focused his entire teaching primarily on the later practical aspect. He often mentioned that he taught only two things: there is unhappiness (dukkha) and there is a way out of this unhappiness. The root cause of this unhappiness, he identified as the primeval ignorance avijja, which creates the notion of ‘I’ as an individual entity, the doer, the feeler and the thinker. This in turn gives rise to the concepts of ‘I and mine’, ‘thee and thine’ from which originate craving (raga) and aversion (dosa). The Buddha’s penetrative insight into the nature of human reality revealed that what we call ‘I’ or a ‘being’ is only a concatenation of the five impermanent aggregates, viz. the body, consciousness, intellect, feelings and volitional mental formations, which work interdependently, changing from moment to moment in accordance with the law of cause and effect. By a systematic cultivation of the mindfulness of these aggregates anyone can progressively uproot the ego and purify the mind by extinguishing this fire of defilements continuously burning within it. As the mind gets progressively purified, it awakens from the illusion of ‘personality’ and naturally abides in loving kindness (maîtri), compassion (karuna), altruistic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) to increasing degree. ‘No I, No problems’, as one contemporary Master puts it.     

佛教艺术内涵在中国佛教传播初期的重要价值

本文提出佛教表现艺术的概念并探讨其内涵,认为除动态和主动两大特征之外,归纳出场面、情景、情节三大要素。近年来许多研究课题客观上都是围绕佛教表现艺术而展开的,但是由于没有佛教表现艺术的整体理论框架,因此处于分散的和不自觉的状态。本文提出佛教表现艺术中,有关研究范畴被自觉地纳入一定的理论体系而予以论述解析。为说明佛教表现艺术在中国佛教史上的重要价值,本文特别以最常见的东汉楚王刘英奉佛史料为例,在前人并未充分注意的历史现象细节中揭示其所透露的重要信息,力图使读者对历史真实有更全面的了解和认识。     

The Buddha was a devoted nationalist: Buddhist nationalism,ressentiment, and defending Buddhism in Myanmar

Since 2012, Buddhist nationalist movements – especially the 969 movement and Ma Ba Tha – have emerged in Burma/Myanmar seeking to defend Buddhism against mainly the Muslim minority, with monks delivering nationalist anti-Muslim sermons to huge audiences. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how a discriminatory nationalist agenda can – by appealing to the common trope of Buddhism-in-danger – appear to be justified to Buddhists. Based mainly on nationalist sermons, as well as on fieldwork and nationalist publications, this article examines discourse on the Buddha as a nationalist. First, it argues that Burmese Buddhist nationalism, analytically, should be understood as a ressentiment ideological discourse that also informs a Buddhist-nationalist discipline claimed to bring karmic merit. Second, it traces the roots of this ideology to the colonial period. Third, the article outlines and seeks to define how ‘Buddhist nationalism’ should be understood in an emic sense.     

The Emerging (Social) Neuroscience of SES

Social scientists have long been interested in understanding how socioeconomic status (SES) affects the way people think, feel, and behave. Neuroscience has provided new tools (fMRI, EEG, and ERP) to allow us to answer these questions, demonstrating, for example, that lower SES is linked to stronger mirror neural responses, greater mentalizing, enhanced vigilance to threat, and lesser likelihood to spontaneously infer traits based on limited information. The present paper (i) reviews evidence that SES affects neural responses involved in a wide range of psychological processes, (ii) highlights the value of neural methods in investigations of SES, (iii) discusses cultural neuroscience as a potential framework to understand why SES has the effects it does on the brain, (iv) considers previous developmental neuroscience findings regarding SES and attention in light of cultural neuroscience, and (v) discusses future challenges, opportunities, and questions for this emerging field.     

僧教育欤?俗教育欤?——关于僧才培养的现代性思考

在某种意义上,可以说,中国佛教发展史就是一部"得人"史--"得人",则兴宗立派,光宗耀祖;不"得人",则门庭冷落,影响式微.而"得人"之关键,则在教育.面对近代以来的历史巨变,以寺院为基地的传统僧才教育体系已明显不适应于新的僧才培养要求.佛教作为一种影响巨大的宗教,一种博大精深的学问,一种无所不在的文化,要求新的僧才培养以僧教育为本、俗教育为枝,两面开展,兼收并蓄,庶可使佛教更真地、更深地契入当代的社会文化生活之中.     

The sacred geography of Dawei: Buddhism in peninsular Myanmar (Burma)

Starting point:Serge-Christoph Kolm suggests that ‘Buddhism advocating minimizing dukkha (pain, dissatisfaction)—rather than maximizing sukkha (from which “sugar” comes) may be a kind of negative welfarism’(Kolm2006 Kolm, Serge-Christoph. 2006. Macrojustice from Equal Liberty, www.ehess.fr/kolm/document.php?id = 135. [Google Scholar], 8). Christoph Fehige, after suggesting that ‘Maximizers of preference satisfaction should instead call themselves minimizers of preference frustration’, concludes that Buddha is on his side (Fehige1998 Fehige, Christoph. 1998. “A Pareto Principle for Possible People.” In Preferences, edited by C.Fehige and U.Wessels. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 518, 522).

Type of Problem:What are the common intuitions of negative utilitarianism and Buddhism?

Result:Negative utilitarianism and Buddhism share the following intuitions: Negative utilitarianism—understood as an umbrella term—models the asymmetry between suffering and happiness and therefore accords with the Buddhist intuition of universal compassion. The Noble Truths of Buddhism accord with the negative utilitarian intuition that (global) suffering cannot be compensated by happiness. Some forms of Buddhism and negative utilitarianism share the intuition that non-existence is a perfect state.     

The Varied Trajectories of Engaged Buddhism: New Works on Buddhist Environmental Ethics,Interdependence, and Racial Karma

This book discussion reads three works in contemporary Buddhist social ethics alongside one another: Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s Interconnected, David Loy’s Ecodharma, and Larry Ward’s America’s Racial Karma. Each of these works contributes to the subfield of engaged Buddhism, which aims to bring Buddhist value theory to contemporary social and political issues in order to effect social change. The rapid development of engaged Buddhism constitutes a particularly rich moment in the history of Buddhist thought, as Buddhist ethics is showing itself to be actively in process—a tradition in the midst of rapid transformation, revision, and cross-cultural application. This book discussion interrogates these three works with that metaphilosophical and historiographical issue in mind, analyzing the particular ways in which they contribute to challenging and reshaping the traditional contours of Buddhist ethics into a contemporary social and political register. In exemplifying the approaches of translation, extending, and applying, these works demonstrate the creative and experimental moment in which Buddhist social ethics finds itself today. Such adaptations of the Buddhist tradition are historiographically significant as innovations, while also of a piece with Buddhism’s history of intercultural transmission.     

The Contemplative Bow in Teaching and Learning Pastoral Care

This article elucidates theoretical underpinnings for the use of one's self in the pastoral theological classroom. The contemplative bow is developed as a capacious metaphor to describe appropriate self use and its necessary importance in the teaching and learning of pastoral arts in a theological curriculum. Central to the argument is the assumption that effective teaching and learning in pastoral care emerges from awareness and knowledge of self as well as letting go of self in beneficial service with others. Analytical engagement of educational, theological, and psychological theory informs practice for the professional school classroom.