Author: Eli Franco
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
The volume presents seventeen papers by different scholars that examine, from an interdisciplinary perspective, questions concerning meditation and yogic perception. The contributions focus on various aspects, such as the nature of consciousness, the relation of body and mind, and health, and bind together the perspectives and approaches of disciplines such as South Asian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies, religious studies, philosophy and the history of philosophy, medieval European history, anthropology and psychology. In contrast to recent interdisciplinary studies on meditation that take the natural sciences as their focal point (notably, quantum mechanics and neurophysiology), this volume uses methods established in the social sciences and humanities as tools for understanding meditative traditions, especially those found in Buddhism and Hinduism.
Yogic Perception, Meditation and Altered States of Consciousness
Author: Eli Franco
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
The volume presents seventeen papers by different scholars that examine, from an interdisciplinary perspective, questions concerning meditation and yogic perception. The contributions focus on various aspects, such as the nature of consciousness, the relation of body and mind, and health, and bind together the perspectives and approaches of disciplines such as South Asian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies, religious studies, philosophy and the history of philosophy, medieval European history, anthropology and psychology. In contrast to recent interdisciplinary studies on meditation that take the natural sciences as their focal point (notably, quantum mechanics and neurophysiology), this volume uses methods established in the social sciences and humanities as tools for understanding meditative traditions, especially those found in Buddhism and Hinduism.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Book Description
The volume presents seventeen papers by different scholars that examine, from an interdisciplinary perspective, questions concerning meditation and yogic perception. The contributions focus on various aspects, such as the nature of consciousness, the relation of body and mind, and health, and bind together the perspectives and approaches of disciplines such as South Asian, Buddhist and Tibetan studies, religious studies, philosophy and the history of philosophy, medieval European history, anthropology and psychology. In contrast to recent interdisciplinary studies on meditation that take the natural sciences as their focal point (notably, quantum mechanics and neurophysiology), this volume uses methods established in the social sciences and humanities as tools for understanding meditative traditions, especially those found in Buddhism and Hinduism.
Altered States of Consciousness
Author: Marc Wittmann
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262546086
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
What altered states of consciousness—the dissolution of feelings of time and self—can tell us about the mystery of consciousness. During extraordinary moments of consciousness—shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication—our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been ignored by mainstream science, or considered crazy fantasies. Recent research, however, has located the neural underpinnings of these altered states of mind. In this book, neuropsychologist Marc Wittmann shows how experiences that disturb or widen our everyday understanding of the self can help solve the mystery of consciousness. Wittmann explains that the relationship between consciousness of time and consciousness of self is close; in extreme circumstances, the experiences of space and self intensify and weaken together. He considers the emergence of the self in waking life and dreams; how our sense of time is distorted by extreme situations ranging from terror to mystical enlightenment; the experience of the moment; and the loss of time and self in such disorders as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Dostoyevsky reported godly bliss during epileptic seizures; neurologists are now investigating the phenomenon of the epileptic aura. Wittmann describes new studies of psychedelics that show how the brain builds consciousness of self and time, and discusses pilot programs that use hallucinogens to treat severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. If we want to understand our consciousness, our subjectivity, Wittmann argues, we must not be afraid to break new ground. Studying altered states of consciousness leads us directly to the heart of the matter: time and self, the foundations of consciousness.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262546086
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
What altered states of consciousness—the dissolution of feelings of time and self—can tell us about the mystery of consciousness. During extraordinary moments of consciousness—shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication—our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been ignored by mainstream science, or considered crazy fantasies. Recent research, however, has located the neural underpinnings of these altered states of mind. In this book, neuropsychologist Marc Wittmann shows how experiences that disturb or widen our everyday understanding of the self can help solve the mystery of consciousness. Wittmann explains that the relationship between consciousness of time and consciousness of self is close; in extreme circumstances, the experiences of space and self intensify and weaken together. He considers the emergence of the self in waking life and dreams; how our sense of time is distorted by extreme situations ranging from terror to mystical enlightenment; the experience of the moment; and the loss of time and self in such disorders as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Dostoyevsky reported godly bliss during epileptic seizures; neurologists are now investigating the phenomenon of the epileptic aura. Wittmann describes new studies of psychedelics that show how the brain builds consciousness of self and time, and discusses pilot programs that use hallucinogens to treat severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. If we want to understand our consciousness, our subjectivity, Wittmann argues, we must not be afraid to break new ground. Studying altered states of consciousness leads us directly to the heart of the matter: time and self, the foundations of consciousness.
Altered States of Consciousness
Author: Charles T. Tart
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 589
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 589
Book Description
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness
Author: Philip David Zelazo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113946406X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113946406X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness is the first of its kind in the field, and its appearance marks a unique time in the history of intellectual inquiry on the topic. After decades during which consciousness was considered beyond the scope of legitimate scientific investigation, consciousness re-emerged as a popular focus of research towards the end of the last century, and it has remained so for nearly 20 years. There are now so many different lines of investigation on consciousness that the time has come when the field may finally benefit from a book that pulls them together and, by juxtaposing them, provides a comprehensive survey of this exciting field. An authoritative desk reference, which will also be suitable as an advanced textbook.
The Philosophy of the Yogasutra
Author: Karen O'Brien-Kop
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350286184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Karen O'Brien-Kop's introduction to the Yogasutra highlights its status as a significant work of philosophy. Approaching the Yogasutra as living philosophy, this book elucidates philosophical conceptions of yoga, recognises the logical structure the sutras follow and explains the rules and principles that have sustained Patañjali's system of thought for centuries. Moving beyond standard interpretations of Patañjali's text and commentary as an aphoristic practice manual, O'Brien-Kop uses branches of philosophy to read the Yogasutra. Covering reality, self, ethics, language and knowledge, Patañjali's philosophies come to the fore. The book introduces his reasoned positions on dual and nondual metaphysics, the relationship between mind and body, the qualities of consciousness, the nature of freedom, and how to live ethically. Carefully-selected extracts from the primary text are translated for those unfamiliar with Sanskrit and commentaries run throughout. A glossary provides definitions of key concepts with useful translations. Accessible and up-to-date, this introduction broadens our understanding of Indian philosophical thought and explains why the Yogasutra deserves to be read alongside Parmenides' 'On Nature' and Plato's Phaedo as a classic of world philosophy.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350286184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Karen O'Brien-Kop's introduction to the Yogasutra highlights its status as a significant work of philosophy. Approaching the Yogasutra as living philosophy, this book elucidates philosophical conceptions of yoga, recognises the logical structure the sutras follow and explains the rules and principles that have sustained Patañjali's system of thought for centuries. Moving beyond standard interpretations of Patañjali's text and commentary as an aphoristic practice manual, O'Brien-Kop uses branches of philosophy to read the Yogasutra. Covering reality, self, ethics, language and knowledge, Patañjali's philosophies come to the fore. The book introduces his reasoned positions on dual and nondual metaphysics, the relationship between mind and body, the qualities of consciousness, the nature of freedom, and how to live ethically. Carefully-selected extracts from the primary text are translated for those unfamiliar with Sanskrit and commentaries run throughout. A glossary provides definitions of key concepts with useful translations. Accessible and up-to-date, this introduction broadens our understanding of Indian philosophical thought and explains why the Yogasutra deserves to be read alongside Parmenides' 'On Nature' and Plato's Phaedo as a classic of world philosophy.
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy
Author: Steven M. Emmanuel
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119144663
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 760
Book Description
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy is the most comprehensive single volume on the subject available; it offers the very latest scholarship to create a wide-ranging survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy. Encompasses the broadest treatment of Buddhist philosophy available, covering social and political thought, meditation, ecology and contemporary issues and applications Each section contains overviews and cutting-edge scholarship that expands readers understanding of the breadth and diversity of Buddhist thought Broad coverage of topics allows flexibility to instructors in creating a syllabus Essays provide valuable alternative philosophical perspectives on topics to those available in Western traditions
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119144663
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 760
Book Description
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy is the most comprehensive single volume on the subject available; it offers the very latest scholarship to create a wide-ranging survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy. Encompasses the broadest treatment of Buddhist philosophy available, covering social and political thought, meditation, ecology and contemporary issues and applications Each section contains overviews and cutting-edge scholarship that expands readers understanding of the breadth and diversity of Buddhist thought Broad coverage of topics allows flexibility to instructors in creating a syllabus Essays provide valuable alternative philosophical perspectives on topics to those available in Western traditions
Capturing the Ineffable
Author: Philip Y. Kao
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487517262
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Grounded in ethnographic case studies that examine experiences from which wisdom emerges, Capturing the Ineffable provides a rigorous analysis of the sociocultural context of wisdom in the contemporary world. Each chapter in the volume deals with different aspects and showcases how communities in different contexts - nursing homes, religious organizations, corporations, and monastic institutions, for example - engage with the ineffability of wisdom. Contributors draw from a range of disciplines and cross-cultural and historical data in order to interpret the meaning and value of wisdom as a human endeavour. This book also represents an anthropological method for evaluating various philosophical and scientific approaches to understanding wisdom, including how wisdom is learned and taught. Readers will be able to appreciate how action, emotion, uncertainty, and cultural systems come to bear on wisdom as a value in human life and expression. In the end, Capturing the Ineffable reveals how the conception and paradoxical nature of wisdom dispels the dichotomies of self/other, structure/agency, known/unknown, nature/culture, and the like. What is at stake is a recasting of wisdom as a particular kind of anthropological endeavour and, thus, a return to and modification of philosophical anthropology.
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487517262
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Grounded in ethnographic case studies that examine experiences from which wisdom emerges, Capturing the Ineffable provides a rigorous analysis of the sociocultural context of wisdom in the contemporary world. Each chapter in the volume deals with different aspects and showcases how communities in different contexts - nursing homes, religious organizations, corporations, and monastic institutions, for example - engage with the ineffability of wisdom. Contributors draw from a range of disciplines and cross-cultural and historical data in order to interpret the meaning and value of wisdom as a human endeavour. This book also represents an anthropological method for evaluating various philosophical and scientific approaches to understanding wisdom, including how wisdom is learned and taught. Readers will be able to appreciate how action, emotion, uncertainty, and cultural systems come to bear on wisdom as a value in human life and expression. In the end, Capturing the Ineffable reveals how the conception and paradoxical nature of wisdom dispels the dichotomies of self/other, structure/agency, known/unknown, nature/culture, and the like. What is at stake is a recasting of wisdom as a particular kind of anthropological endeavour and, thus, a return to and modification of philosophical anthropology.
The System of Absentology in Ontological Philosophy
Author: Adam Lovasz
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443816558
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
This volume deals primarily with absentology, an ontological and social-scientific epistemological mode, dedicated to the analysis of absence. The book is drawn by manifestations of absence wherever they may be encountered. It deals with three terms, ‘the shadow economy’, ‘corruption’ and ‘pollution’, while constructing a non-realist ontology predicated upon the emptiness of all predicates, as expounded by certain strands of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. According to the absentological viewpoint, there is nothing outside, beyond, below or above relations. Relations exist on their own, enchained within an immense, infinite regress, opening and closing upon one another. Absentology is, by consequence of its nonattachment to phenomena, a form of social inquiry fundamentally alien to each and every social form, and it abandons any illusions about the possibility of an escape from the realm of relationality. This book will appeal to students and academics interested in ontological philosophy.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443816558
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
This volume deals primarily with absentology, an ontological and social-scientific epistemological mode, dedicated to the analysis of absence. The book is drawn by manifestations of absence wherever they may be encountered. It deals with three terms, ‘the shadow economy’, ‘corruption’ and ‘pollution’, while constructing a non-realist ontology predicated upon the emptiness of all predicates, as expounded by certain strands of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. According to the absentological viewpoint, there is nothing outside, beyond, below or above relations. Relations exist on their own, enchained within an immense, infinite regress, opening and closing upon one another. Absentology is, by consequence of its nonattachment to phenomena, a form of social inquiry fundamentally alien to each and every social form, and it abandons any illusions about the possibility of an escape from the realm of relationality. This book will appeal to students and academics interested in ontological philosophy.
Jewels of the Middle Way
Author: James B. Apple
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614295018
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
Jewels of the Middle Way documents an important tradition of Madhyamaka and provides insight into both the late Indian Buddhist blend of Madhyamaka and tantra and the Kadampa school founded by the Indian Buddhist master Atisa. This book presents a detailed contextualization of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school in India and Tibet, along with translations of several texts in the Bka’ gdams gsung ’bum (Collected Works of the Kadampas), recently recovered Tibetan manuscripts that are attributed to Atisa and Kadampa commentators. These translations cohere around Atisa’s Madhyamaka view of the two realities and his understanding of the practice and the nature of the awakening mind. The book is organized in three parts based on the chronology of Atisa’s teaching of Madhyamaka in India and Tibet: (1) Lineage Masters, the Mind of Awakening, and the Middle Way; (2) Articulating the Two Realities; and (3) How Madhyamikas Meditate. Each part focuses on a specific text, or set of texts, specifically related to Atisa’s Middle Way. The authorship and date of composition for each work is discussed along with an outline of the work’s textual sources followed by an analysis of the content.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614295018
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
Jewels of the Middle Way documents an important tradition of Madhyamaka and provides insight into both the late Indian Buddhist blend of Madhyamaka and tantra and the Kadampa school founded by the Indian Buddhist master Atisa. This book presents a detailed contextualization of the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school in India and Tibet, along with translations of several texts in the Bka’ gdams gsung ’bum (Collected Works of the Kadampas), recently recovered Tibetan manuscripts that are attributed to Atisa and Kadampa commentators. These translations cohere around Atisa’s Madhyamaka view of the two realities and his understanding of the practice and the nature of the awakening mind. The book is organized in three parts based on the chronology of Atisa’s teaching of Madhyamaka in India and Tibet: (1) Lineage Masters, the Mind of Awakening, and the Middle Way; (2) Articulating the Two Realities; and (3) How Madhyamikas Meditate. Each part focuses on a specific text, or set of texts, specifically related to Atisa’s Middle Way. The authorship and date of composition for each work is discussed along with an outline of the work’s textual sources followed by an analysis of the content.
Madhyamaka and Yogacara
Author: Jay L. Garfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190231300
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Madhyamaka and Yogacara are the two principal schools of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. While Madhyamaka asserts the ultimate emptiness and conventional reality of all phenomena, Yogacara is usually considered to be idealistic. This collection of essays addresses the degree to which these philosophical approaches are consistent or complementary. Indian and Tibetan doxographies often take these two schools to be philosophical rivals. They are grounded in distinct bodies of sutra literature and adopt what appear to be very different positions regarding the analysis of emptiness and the status of mind. Madhyamaka-Yogacara polemics abound in Indian Buddhist literature, and Tibetan doxographies regard them as distinct systems. Nonetheless, scholars have tried to synthesize the two positions for centuries. This volume offers new essays by prominent experts on both these traditions, who address the question of the degree to which these philosophical approaches should be seen as rivals or as allies. In answering the question of whether Madhyamaka and Yogacara can be considered compatible, contributors engage with a broad range of canonical literature, and relate the texts to contemporary philosophical problems.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190231300
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Madhyamaka and Yogacara are the two principal schools of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. While Madhyamaka asserts the ultimate emptiness and conventional reality of all phenomena, Yogacara is usually considered to be idealistic. This collection of essays addresses the degree to which these philosophical approaches are consistent or complementary. Indian and Tibetan doxographies often take these two schools to be philosophical rivals. They are grounded in distinct bodies of sutra literature and adopt what appear to be very different positions regarding the analysis of emptiness and the status of mind. Madhyamaka-Yogacara polemics abound in Indian Buddhist literature, and Tibetan doxographies regard them as distinct systems. Nonetheless, scholars have tried to synthesize the two positions for centuries. This volume offers new essays by prominent experts on both these traditions, who address the question of the degree to which these philosophical approaches should be seen as rivals or as allies. In answering the question of whether Madhyamaka and Yogacara can be considered compatible, contributors engage with a broad range of canonical literature, and relate the texts to contemporary philosophical problems.