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bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 2019
2016
Another way to say it: the highest ideal of the Western tradition has been the concern to restructure our societies so that they are more socially just. The most important goal for traditional Buddhism has been to awaken and put an end to one’s dukkha (“suffering” in the broadest sense), especially that associated with the delusion of a separate self. Today it has become obvious that we need both: Not just because these ideals complement each other, but because each project needs the other. Snyder’s essay on “Buddhist Anarchism” was published over 50 years ago. Now there is a new kid on the block: the mindfulness movement, which straddles West (it is a modern development...) and East (... based on early Buddhist teachings). Yet if “individual insight into the basic self/void” refers to enlightenment, that is not what mindfulness practice is about—it leaves all that religious mumbo jumbo behind, right? And it is certainly not concerned about social revolution, either. So where does i...
Psychology and Psychological Research International Journal, 2024
In the quest for mental peace and philosophical insight, the most profound approach is to let the mind function freely, without the interference of a controlling thinker. This essay explores the philosophical and cognitive implications of an unimpeded mind, drawing from Eastern traditions such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism, alongside contemporary cognitive science. It argues that the natural rhythm of thought is disrupted by the ego’s need for control, leading to mental fragmentation and turbulence. By embracing the concept of “no-mind” or non-interference, individuals can achieve a harmonious flow of consciousness. Contemporary cognitive science supports this view, showing that reducing self-referential thinking enhances cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation. This harmonious state, akin to the flow experienced by top athletes and artists, offers a path to greater psychological well-being and deeper philosophical understanding.
In the Buddha's teachings, the opening of the awareness of the Original Mind and interbeing of life occurs when the non-dualistic cognitive based subject/object separation and alienation ceases. This enlightened awareness of life is fundamentally different from observing, fixating, contemplating and comprehending the objectification of standing apart. To become aware means to transform one's cognitive structures to regain and repose within the oneness of the original unity of life. Instead, the untransformed, normal cognitive consciousness distorts and veils the original reality because of the separation that is created through the dualistic manufacturing by the subject/object dichotomization. The dualistic thought patterns veil the Original Mind by the entrenchment through which one orientates to life, by trying to manacle life, even though life is always metamorphosing – frustration and suffering naturally follow. The unthinkable letting go of dualism and the belief in the substantial 'I' begins when one understands the deceptions created by one's habitual patterns of thought and consciousness. Only through the transformation and transcendence of these cognitive patterns will the fruitfulness of the Original Mind, also referred to as Buddha Mind, consciousness pattern become unveiled. The focus of all spiritual practice transformation becomes lifting this inner state of mind, which is normally relegated to the background of human experience, out of a secondary role and give it the rightful primary role. Only when this veiled consciousness is rediscovered, accepted and lived through can the process of becoming aware of the primal unity of life operate. This becoming aware of the source is created by letting go of all the distorting cognitive constructions in which we are usually infatuated and tightly cling to. This includes letting go of the 'I', which only clings and tries to preserve itself, never letting go and refusing to completely trust. Once this is accomplished, the alienation in which our ignorance has led us can never fully return. The Buddha Mind quietly and unconsciously urges our transformation, which allows us to live life not through our self concepts but through understanding non-self. By opening and accepting oneself to this urging, a new obliging awareness develops and transforms the way we live in accordance with the new insights. This maturing towards the Buddha Mind requires a seeking and accepting of transformation. One must lose one's self' to find the Original Mind. The conscious spiritual training to achieve the Original Mind cannot be subverted into ego and skill training for worldly success, mastery and reputation. For example, often yoga body training practices have little to do with the original intent of inner healing and integrating work, but become only methods to increase one's relaxation, health and willpower. There is little to gain for one's inner development and transformation from the exercise of the body, which perceives from an objective distance the physique as an object to manipulate, ignoring one's awareness of the whole person. Instead, inner development can be achieved when one does not treat the body in an objective way, but as a sensitive, responding life-providing organism. Then one acquires a foundational routine to follow the true meaning of practice, beginning when the practitioner learns, by means of breathing, to exercise holistically the mind/body and not just the body.
This paper examines the experience of where we end and the rest of the world begins, that is, the sense of boundaries. Since meditators are recognized for their ability to introspect about the bodily level of experience, and in particular about their sense of boundaries, 27 senior meditators (those with more than 10,000 hours of experience) were interviewed for this study. The main conclusions of this paper are that (a) the boundaries of the so-called “physical body” (body-as-object) are not equivalent to the individual’s sense of boundaries; (b) the sense of boundaries depends upon sensory activity; (c) the sense of boundaries should be defined according to its level of flexibility; (d) the sense of body ownership (the sense that it is one’s own body that undergoes an experience) cannot be reduced to the sense of boundaries; nevertheless, (e) the sense of ownership depends on the level of flexibility of the sense of boundaries.
Jundo Nagashima and Seongcheol Kim (eds.) 2017. Śrāvakabhūmi and Buddhist Manuscripts. Tokyo: Nombre Inc., 2017
The problematic of how mind and materiality interact fundamentally drives much of Buddhist metaphysics. Various concepts emerged within different strands of Buddhist thought—particularly within the Abhidharma traditions—to deal with this problematic and to sort out a range of different practical, exegetical, and philosophical issues in the process. Among these concepts are categories such as the “storehouse consciousness” (ālayavijñāna: a mental substratum undergirding physical life) and “unmanifest materiality” (avijñaptirūpa: a form of karmically produced materiality that is not manifest to the physical senses), both of which are situated between the gross materiality of human bodies and the ethereal and less effable stuff of the mind. Debates about such concepts are directly relevant to traditions of Buddhist practice in its broadest sense—including ethical cultivation (śīla), the cultivation of deep states of concentration (samādhi), and the cultivation of discernment into the nature of reality (prajñā). In this chapter, I explore how engagements with—as well as shifting interpretations and historical understandings of—early Buddhist practice, and the connection of such practices with later śāstric debates about meditation, contributed to the development of such concepts. In this connection, this article is an attempt to understand the following liminal categories of materiality: 1. “unmanifest materiality,” 2. visual objects experienced in meditation, and 3. bodies of intermediate beings as they pass from one life to another in a process of rebirth.
Anais da Semana de Ciência e Tecnologia, 2017
Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 2024
Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 2
Au dela du separatisme et de la radicalisation, 2024
• F. LA GRECA – L. DE CARO – E. MATRICCIANI, Y la Palabra se hizo Evangelio. La historicidad del Nuevo Testamento y los escritos de María Valtorta (Nueva Eva – CEV, Madrid 2023) 295pp
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