This talk explores a well-known writing in the area of meditation in the Japanese Zen tradition entitled Yasenkanna (夜船閑話, or Idle Talk on a Night Boat), one of Hakuin’s autobiographies, written in 1757 by the Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686–1769), a seminal figure who occupies a prominent place in the history of Japanese religion today. …
Continue reading “Old Insights for A Hectic World: What Does Hakuin Teach Us Today?”
The process of observing the mind in Buddhism is called samatha and vipassanā, and involves placing attention on a certain object (or objects) with awareness. Important facets of this type of observation, also called mindfulness, are noticing objects without using language, and accepting them as they are. According to Buddhism, suffering emerges from a state …
Continue reading “Observation of the Mind in Buddhism and Mindfulness”
Contemplative Studies is an emerging academic field that examines a distinctive subset of significant human experiences through a multi- disciplinary perspective that utilizes the sciences, humanities, and the arts. This field takes as its principal task the study of a continuum of human experiences that involve focusing the attention in a sustained fashion leading to …
This lecture explores the characteristics and significance of the philosophy of Kyoto School, which came to be known widely but is still not fully clear. Kyoto school, unlike ordinary philosophical schools, did not arise from crit- icisms of preceding schools and postulating a certain thesis. Rather, it was a group naturally formed around Kitaro Nishida …
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This presentation will examine the relevance of recent work in cognitive science, psychological anthropology, and cultural psychiatry for thinking about context in contemplative science. Theories of embodiment and enactment provide ways to elaborate an ecosocial view of mind that integrates neurobiology and sociocultural contexts. In this view, mental phenomena are produced by looping effects within …
As the “cultural heart of Japan,” Kyoto is home to longstanding traditions of contemplative practice, philosophy, and scientific research. Inspired by this setting, and its location at the Zen temple complex Myōshin-ji, the theme for this Mind & Life International Research Institute is Contemplative Practice in Context: Culture, History, and Science. This five-day immersive program brings together leading scholars in the sciences and humanities, contemplatives, and artists to examine contemplative epistemologies within a variety of contexts.
Mindfulness training is growing in its mainstream popularity. This keynote panel will discuss the promises of offering mindfulness training to cohorts across many major societal institutions such as healthcare, business, higher education and military/first responder communities. Paralleling its popular rise have been growing concerns regarding mainstream dissemination of contemplative training, including the ethical framework within …
Buddhist scholar Andrew Olendzki writes: “It is time for us to evolve…. The problem we now face is that these very instincts, which have served us well in a primitive, competitive setting, have become counterproductive in the interdependent social world we now inhabit and have themselves become our greatest existential threat.” Similarly, Jewish scholar Arthur …
This workshop will involve three methods of engaged contemplation in Islamic Sufism, consisting of silent and vocal forms of “remembrance” (dhikr) and “remembrance in life.” The ultimate purpose of these methods is to retrain the individual’s consciousness to respond — at each moment in one’s daily life — toward one’s consciousness and whatever appears in …
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Integrating comparative feminist philosophy, Buddhist philosophy and contemplative education fosters personal development by promoting an embodied ethics central to both Buddhist and Feminist philosophies. The aim of this lecture is to interweave these three philosophical traditions so that “the echoes of the old voices contribute to the quality of sound of the new voices,” creating …
