Experiencing Buddhist practices promotes nonbelievers’ preference for future rewards in intertemporal choices

Religious individuals often prefer future rewards more in intertemporal decision-making than nonreligious individuals, but the reasons behind this preference remain under-investigated. Focusing on decision-making in Buddhist culture, the current study aimed to examine three potential mechanisms: Buddhist practices, self-control and belief in future-oriented concepts. In five studies, we consistently found that nonbelievers’ preference ratings for Larger and Later (LL) options increased after visiting a temple (Study 1, n = 99) or participating in Buddha name chanting (Studies 2–5, n = 314). We also found in Studies 3 and 4 that this effect was mediated by the individual's level of self-control, but no evidence was found to support the mediation of belief in future-oriented concepts. These results contribute to the work attesting to the effect of religious practices on individuals (especially nonbelievers). They also provide a mechanism (self-control) for the positive correlation between individuals’ religiousness and preference for future rewards in intertemporal decision-making.     

苏非主义与明清汉文译著活动

明清以来,穆斯林学者卓有成效的汉文译著活动,成就了中国伊斯兰教思想和实践。在这一活动中,苏非主义也起了相当的作用,苏非来华传教、苏非作品传入中国并在经堂教育中作为课本使用,都对明清穆斯林学者的译著活动产生了一定影响,使他们的译著作品带有苏非主义特征。     

BUDDHISM,COMPARATIVE NEUROPHILOSOPHY,AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain represents an ambitious foray into cross‐cultural neurophilosophy, making a compelling, though not entirely unproblematic, case for naturalizing Buddhist philosophy. While the naturalist account of mental causation challenges certain Buddhist views about the mind, the Buddhist analysis of mind and mental phenomena is far more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize the Buddhist claim that there could be mental states that are not reducible to their neural correlates; however, when the mental states in question reflect the embodied patterns of moral conduct that characterize the Buddhist way of being‐in‐the‐world, an account of their intentional and normative status becomes indispensable. It is precisely this synthesis of normativity and causal explanation that makes Buddhism special, and opens new avenues for enhancing, refining, and expanding the range of arguments and possibilities that comparative neurophilosophy can entertain.     

EXAMINING THE BODHISATTVA'S BRAIN

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain aims to introduce secular‐minded thinkers to Buddhist thought and motivate its acceptance by analytic philosophers. I argue that Flanagan provides a compelling caution against the hasty generalizations of recent “science of happiness” literature, which correlates happiness with Buddhism on the basis of certain neurological studies. I contend, however, that his positive account of Buddhist ethics is less persuasive. I question the level of engagement with Buddhist philosophical literature and challenge Flanagan's central claim, that a Buddhist version of eudaimonia is a common core conception shared by all Buddhists. I argue that this view is not only a rational reconstruction in need of argumentation but is in tension with competing Buddhist metaphysical theories of self, including the one Flanagan himself endorses.     

Buddhism in Russia: challenges and choices in the post-Soviet period

This paper considers the position of Buddhism in contemporary Russia, with a focus on the three national republics where Buddhism is historically practised: Kalmykia, Buryatia and Tuva. I provide a brief overview of the history of Buddhism in each of the three regions. Turning to the current situation, I then review religion–state and intrafaith relations within Russia’s Buddhist republics. Of particular interest are the politics surrounding the pastoral visits of the 14th Dalai Lama to Russia. Since his last visit in 2004, the Russian government has consistently denied solicitations for visas for the Dalai Lama. I draw on interviews and focus groups conducted in Kalmykia and surveys from both Kalmykia and Buryatia to underscore the importance of such a visit both to Buddhists in these republics and to the larger Buddhist community in the Russian Federation. The paper concludes by reiterating the Dalai Lama’s opinion that Russia and Russia’s Buddhists will play a pivotal role in the development and preservation of Buddhism as a religious tradition.     

Bodies,religion and relationality: the paradox of the Buddhist trikāya

Rethinking religion along the lines of relationality rather than focusing on practice alone may substantiate the cultural meanings of embodiment. Yet, relationality may only provide a cover for exclusive practices that are intended to reduce the significance of the religious subject, as in the case of the practice of multiple embodiments in Tibetan Buddhism. This practice refers to the ability of lamas to activate a form of transcendental reciprocity in the service of their disciples’ salvation. But its application also suggests a paradox centring on the dissolution of bodies. It not only affirms ongoing relationships between lamas and their disciples but also reiterates the quest for transcendental goals beyond the intricacies of bodily connections. This paradox demonstrates that the question of bodies and subjectivity in religion may not be resolved simply by focusing on the meanings of personal relationships and relationality. The context of these meanings becomes clearer when a distinction is made between the lama's personal goals and the metaphor of spiritual empowerment in lama–disciple relationships.     

Breakthrough to Modernity,Apologia for Traditionalism: the Russian Orthodox View of Society and Culture in Comparative Perspective

Since the end of the socialist period in 1990, Buddhism in Mongolia has been undergoing a resurgence. Temples no longer oversee vast tracts of land and receive income from the activities of bonded nomadic herders as they did in the presocialist period. They must instead fund themselves from the freely given donations of lay Buddhists. Whilst the majority of the Mongolian population self-identify as Buddhist, regular donations to temples are not an assumed part of social and economic relationships. Unlike the case in most other Asian Buddhist societies, the concept of giving donations as a way to make merit was not present amongst my interlocutors. The urban Mongolians that I spoke to viewed their donations as payments for highly valued ritual services. The act of donating to temples was for some an ambivalent activity, bringing to the fore broader issues relating to spiritual authority, religious education and observance, and the necessary conditions for spiritual efficacy. In this article I investigate patterns of religious giving in Ulaanbaatar in relation to ideas about donation, the role of religious specialists and concerns about the intersections between capitalism and religion.     

Indian Buddhist concepts of normative and deviant bodies: can ancient sexual mores be reconciled with modern sensibilities?

José Cabezón’s Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism is the most comprehensive study to date of early Indian Buddhist notions of sexuality and gender. This article is a response to Cabezón’s work that critiques some of his ideas and raises further questions for research into this still nascent field.     

ONLINE BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN RESPONSES TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

I report the findings of a comparative analysis of online Christian and Buddhist responses to artificial intelligence. I review the Buddhist response and compare it with the Christian response outlined in an earlier essay (Tamatea 2008). The discussion seeks to answer two questions: Which approach to imago Dei informs the online Buddhist response to artificial intelligence? And to what extent does the preference for a particular approach emerge from a desire to construct the Self? The conclusion is that, like the Christian response, the Buddhist response is grounded not so much in the reality of AI as it is in the discursive constructions of AI made available through Buddhist cosmology, which (paradoxically), like the Christian response, are deployed in defense of the Self, despite claimed adherence to the notion of anatta, or non‐Self.