In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā. By Christian Jambet. Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006. Pp. 497. Hardcover $38.95.Analysis in Śaṅkara Vedānta: The Philosophy of Ganeswar Misra. Edited by Bijayananda Kar. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2006. Pp. xxv + 190. Hardcover Rs. 240.00.Bhakti and Philosophy. By R. Raj Singh. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 112. Hardcover $65.00.Brahman and the Ethos of Organization. (...) By Leonard R. Silos. Paseo de Roxas: Asian Institute of Management, 2006. Pp. xix + 344. Price not given.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard. By Tina Chunna Zhang and Frank Allen. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2006. Pp. xiii + 203. Paper $21.95.Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience. By Mikel Burley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiv + 226. Price not given.Comparative Philosophy and Religion in Times of Terror. Edited by Douglas Allen. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. xiv + 257. Hardcover $62.00. Paper $32.00.Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. By B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Pp. vii + 211. Hardcover $29.50, £19.00.Contexts and Dialogue: Yogācāra Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind. By Tao Jiang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 198. Paper $20.00.Dialogue Transcultural. Edited by Yue Diayun et al. Nanjing: Jiangsu Peoples Press, 2006. Pp. 335. Price not given.Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. By Hee-Jin Kim. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 169. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.The Garden of Loneliness: A Translation of Jayshankar Prasad's Āṅsū, "Tears." By Charles S. J. White. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. Pp. xv + 136. Hardcover Rs. 295. [End Page 608]The Happening of Tradition: Vallabha on Anumāna in Nyāyalīlāvatī. By Anna-Pya Sjödin. Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2006. Pp. 195. Price not given.Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature. By Reiko Ohnuma. 2006. Pp. xvii + 372. Hardcover $45.00, £29.00.Hwa Yu T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Five-Word Song. By Glenn D. Newth. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007. Pp. xiii + 160. U.S. $18.95. Can $24.95.A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. By Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. Pp. xii + 274. Hardcover $130.00, €100.Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr's Cosmopolitical Vision. Edited by Stephen F. Schneck. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Pp. x + 382. Paper $35.00.Myth and the Existential Quest. By Vassilis Vitsaxis and translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis and Vassilis Vitsaxis. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. Pp. 301. Hardcover $49.95. Paper $39.95.Nietzsche-Buddha-Zarathustra: Eine West-Ost Konfiguration. By Michael Skowron. Daegu: Kyungpook National University Press, 2006. Pp. 293. Paper $18.00, Won 17,000.Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka. By Mahinda Deegalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 241. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $21.95.Ramana Maharashi: The Sage of Arunachala. By Arvind Sharma. New Delhi: Penquin Group, 2006. Pp. 215. Hardcover Rs. 295.Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Edited and translated by Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. xxx + 220. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $14.95.Religions of Korea in Practice. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 542. Paper $24.95, £15.95.The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. By Barbara Hendrischke. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. x + 410. Hardcover $60.00, £38.95.The Self 's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakantha's Arguments against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self. By Alex Watson. Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili, 2006. Pp. 433. Price not given... (shrink)

This book, now in its fifth edition, provides a comprehensive introduction to Buddhist psychology and counselling, exploring key concepts in psychology and practical applications in mindfulness-based counselling techniques. This integrated study uses Buddhist philosophy of mind, psychology, ethics and contemplative methods to focus on the 'emotional rhythm of our lives', opening up new avenues for mental health.De Silva presents a range of management techniques for mental health issues including stress, anger, depression, addictions and grief. He moves beyond the restriction of (...) mental health issues to 'damage control', instead encouraging personal growth and positive emotions of compassion, forgiveness, generosity, equanimity and, ultimately, emotional balance.This book blends Western psychology and philosophy and ancient wisdom and contemporary thought to provide a key contribution to cognitive sciences, emotion studies, moral psychology and psychotherapy counselling. This new edition contains nine new chapters and an additional second part which focuses on counselling and mindfulness-based techniques in therapy. (shrink)

Drawing on decades of experience, a psychotherapist and Zen practitioner makes the Abhidharma--the original psychological system of Buddhism--accessible to a general audience for the first time. The Abhidharma, one of the three major text collections of the original Buddhist canon, explores the critical juncture of Buddhist thought and the therapeutic aspects of the religion and meditation. It frames the psychological system of Buddhism, explaining the workings of reality and the nature of the human mind. Composed of detailed matrixes (...) and lists that outline the interaction of consciousness and reality, The Abhidharma explores the essence of perception and experience, and the reasons and methods behind mindfulness and meditation. Because of its complexity, the Abhidharma has traditionally been reserved only for academic or monastic study; now, for the first time, clinical psychologist Beth Jacobs makes this dynamic, important text and its teachings available to general readers, using practical explanation, personal stories, and vivid examples to gently untangle the technical aspects of the Abhidharma. Jacobs’ work illuminates this classic of Buddhist thought, highlighting the ways it can broaden and deepen our experience of the human psyche and offering profound insights into spiritual practice. (shrink)

An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology. Padmasiri de Silva. Library of Philosophy and Religion-The Macmillan Press, London. 134 pp. £10.00.

The Art of Happiness - Teachings of Buddhist Psychology. Mirko Frýba. Translated by Michael H. Kohn. Shambhala, Boston and Shaftesbury 1989. xvi, 301 pp. US$15.95.

Nagarjuna's "Seventy Stanzas". A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness. David Ross Komito. Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, NY 1987. 226pp. £9.95.

Being Arising:. Review of Going on Bdngby Mark Epstein and The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga by Martin Levine.

There is no descriptive science of the stream of consciousness in the literature of the social sciences, and as a result, we do not have an empirical understanding of the nature of the healthy human mind.This paper will:(1)demonstrate that an empirically valid theory of the healthy mind must be a theory that isderived from a descriptive science ofthe stream of consciousness (2) present the rationale and methodology for doing interviews with a specific group ofTibetan lamas who have been using meditation (...) for over ten and a half centuries todevelop a descriptive science/if the streamofconsciousnessand (3) present briefexcerpts from some ofthe interviews I have been doing with these lamas. In these interviews, the lamas discuss their experiences of their own mind in meditation for the purpose of: (1) developing a descriptive science ofthe stream of consciousness and (2) using that descriptive science to discuss and describe the defining characteristics ofthe healthy human mind. (shrink)

The Buddhist view of the mind - how it works, how it goes wrong, how to put it right - is increasingly being recognised as profound and highly practical by scientists, counsellors and other professionals. In The Psychology of Awakening, this powerful vision of human nature, and its implications for personal and social life, are for the first time brought to a wider audience by some of those most influential in exploring its potential for the way we live today. These (...) include: David Brazier Jon Kabat Zinn Francisco Varela Joy Manne Geshe Thubten Jinpa Mark Epstein Gay Watson Maura Sills Guy Claxton Stephen Batchelor Deeply relevant, accessible and authoritative, The Psychology of Awakening will be of interest to all those who wish to understand the workings of their minds a little better and who are also seeking new ways of mastering the challenges - personal, professional and cultural with which modern life confronts us all. (shrink)

The work presents in clear focus, comparative perspectives on the nature of Man, Mind, Motivation, Conflict, Anxiety and Suffering, as well as the therapeutic ...

Essential Buddhism, the fundamental teachings of the historical Buddha and the core of all major branches of Buddhism, is psychology, not religion or philosophy. Essential Buddhism is described from a psychological perspective and interrelated with Western psychology in general, and cognitive science, behaviour modification, psychoanalysis, and transpersonal psychology, in specific. Integrating Buddhist psychology and Western psychology yields a more comprehensive psychology and more powerful therapies.

Mind in Harmony will interest anyone who is curious to know what Buddhism has to say about the mind. Readers who already know something about Buddhism in general, and fancy taking the plunge into Buddhist psychology, will find plenty here to stimulate them, and an accessible introduction to this technical subject.

This book examines the psychological dimensions of emotions and humour in Buddhism. While there is a wealth of material concerning human emotions related to humour and the mindful management of negative emotions, very little has been written on the theory of Buddhist humour. Uniting both Buddhist and Western philosophy, the author draws upon the theory of ‘incongruity humour’, espoused by figures such as Kierkegaard, Kant and Hegel and absorbed into the interpretation of humour by the Buddhist monk and former (...) Western philosopher, Ñāṇavīra Thero. The author makes extensive use of rich primary sources such as the parables used by Ajahn Brahm while interweaving Western theories and philosophies to illuminate this original study of humour and emotion. This pioneering work will be of interest and value to students and scholars of humour, Buddhist traditions and existentialism more widely. (shrink)

Know Your Mind is an accessible introduction to traditional Buddhist psychology, offering a clear description of the nature of mind and how it functions.

In this chapter I analyse two Buddhist moral psychological categories: the brahmavihāras (the four Boundless Qualities), which are the main moral affective states in Buddhist ethics, and the kleśas, or the afflictive mental states. Based on this analysis, I argue for two general claims about moral psychology in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist ethics. First, I argue that Buddhist moral psychology is centrally interested in the psychology of moral improvement: how do I become the kind of person who can respond in the best (...) possible way to the moral needs of myself and others? Second, and related, Buddhist moral psychology focuses on the skills of moral perception and attention. Moral philosophical arguments, I argue, are generally offered in the context of self-cultivation exercises and not, as they often are in Western ethics, as models of moral deliberation. (shrink)

Buddhist Practice on Western Ground: Reconciling Eastern Ideals And Western Psychology. Harvey B. Aronson. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2004. xiii, 253 pp. $14.95. ISBN 1590300939.

Buddhist philosophical traditions share the Hellenistic orientation toward therapy, particularly with regard to therapeutic interventions in our emotional life. As Pierre Hadot and Martha Nussbaum have ably argued, for the Hellenistic philosophers, philosophy itself is a therapy of the emotions. In this paper, I shift the focus of the contemporary philosophical literature on therapies of the emotions, which investigates almost exclusively the Hellenistic philosophers, and instead draw on the therapies developed by Tibetan Buddhist philosophers and yogis, in particular Gampopa (1079–1153), (...) Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), and Patrul Rinpoche (1808–87). The texts I use are in the genre of Tibetan literature called lo jong (blo sbyong), or mind (blo)- training (sbyong). I argue that the philosophical analysis of the Tibetan Buddhist therapies gives us a model of moral improve- ment that is both novel and promising. This model focuses on the morally improving agent’s capacity for self-awareness and relaxation, her playful approach to emotional-ethical obstacles, and the cultivation of sophisticated, context-sensitive and appropriately flexible judgments about her emotional-ethical life. I also offer a rough taxonomy of Tibetan therapies of the emotions, which will serve as a vehicle to understanding the view of moral improvement described above. (shrink)

In this article I would like to reflect on Buddhist soteriology in light of debates in cognitive science and philosophy of mind on the nature of folk psychology. My point of departure is the argument of Paul and Patricia Churchland that our commonsense understanding of mind and behavior can, and indeed should, be transformed on the basis of scientific knowledge of the brain and its functioning. Like many theorists in the 1980s and 1990s, the Churchlands regarded folk psychology—our natural and (...) spontaneous interpretation of human behavior in terms of mental states, preeminently beliefs and desires—as a theory akin to those folk theories used to explain natural phenomena in default of the modern scientific theories... (shrink)

본고는 불교에서 자아심리학의 성립가능성을 보고자 한다. 불교의 인간론에서 인간은 기능적 존재이면서 가능적 존재이다. 자아를 나, 인간으로 볼 수 있다면 불교에서 인간은 오온의 기능 집합체로 볼 수 있다. 이러한 기능을 나열적으로 보여줌으로써 자아에 대한 포괄적 정의가 성립한다. 기능의 가능성이 최대한 발현된 것이 인간의 본래적 측면이라는 점에서 자아에 대한 본래적 정의가 성립한다. 이와는 반대로 기능의 발현가능성이 억제되는 것은 자아에 대한 비본래적 정의에 해당한다. 본래적 정의에 의한 오온은 오법온으로, 비본래적 정의에 의한 오온은 오취온으로 부를 수 있다. 또한 자아를 발생적 관점에서 연기론에 따라서 정의할 (...) 수 있다. 자아인 명색과 유는 무명과 행, 애와 취에 의해서 발생한다는 자아에 대한 발생적 정의가 성립한다. 사성제적 관점에서 보면 고라는 자아와 집이라는 원인, 멸이라는 자아의 소멸과 소멸로 나아가는 도라는 원인을 자아에 대한 생멸적 정의라고 볼 수 있다.BR 비본래적 정의와 본래적 정의를 바탕으로 범부의 자아와 성인의 자아를 구분할 수 있고, 이를 바탕으로 자아정체성이 범부와 성인의 두 차원에서 성립함을 볼 수 있다. 범부의 차원에서 자아와 자아정체성은 유위법으로, 세속적 진리의 차원에서 세워지고, 성인의 차원에서 자아와 자아정체성은 무아적 자아로 성립하게 된다. 서구의 자아심리학에서 다루는 자아의 기능과 방어기제는 자아의 원인이 되는 번뇌에서 다룰 수 있을 것이다. 자아의 정의, 자아의 발생, 자아의 정체성, 자아의 기능과 기제를 불교적 관점에서 볼 수 있게 된다. 그러므로 불교의 자아심리학이라는 영역의 성립가능성을 보게 된다. (shrink)

Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

본고는 무아의 심리학의 가능성과 무아의 심리치료적 함의를 불교철학적 관점과 서구의 기초심리학적 관점에서 기술하고자 한다. 불교철학적 관점에서 무아는 오온무아, 제법무아, 연기무아로 볼 수 있다. 오온의 비실체성은 제법의 비실체성으로 나아가고, 이는 상호의존적 관계성과 운동성으로 나아간다.BR 기초심리학적 관점에서 무아는 인지적 무아, 정서적 무아, 행동적 무아, 성격적 무아로 볼 수 있다. 실체적 사고, 이분법적 사고, 분별적 사고, 희론적 사고, 당위적 사고, 나 중심사고는 인지적 무아에 반대된다. 정서적 무아는 비실체적 정서, 비집착적 정서를 말한다. 행동적 무아는 즉비의 논리에 기반한 행동이고, 자비희의 행동으로 귀결된다. 성격적 무아는 성인의 (...) 성격으로 볼 수 있다.BR 이러한 무아의 심리학을 기반으로 무아의 심리치료 또는 무아상담적 함의를 도출할 수 있다. 각각의 오온에 대해서 무아의 일의적 적용, 무아를 포함한 삼법인의 인정, 관계성과 상호의존성의 인식, 명과 관의 중요성 인식, 처계라는 감각과 공간의 비실체성과 역동성은 무아상담적 함의라고 할 수 있다. 서구심리학의 자아는 만들어진 것이고, 변화하는 것이고, 자아와 무아는 동일한 지평에 존재하는 않는다는 것도 무아상담적 함의라고 할 수 있다. 이러한 무아의 심리학은 무아의 관점에서 심리학을 새롭게 볼 수 있는 근원적 작업이라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

Concept of meditation in Tibetan Buddhism.

This essay defends a Buddhist answer to the question of how a skeptical tradition might account for its moral position. Two domains in Buddhist thought and practice are often considered to be dissimilar, perhaps contradictory. On the one hand, there is an aspiration to nirvana and a philosophy that describes everything as “emptiness” and rejects, with apparent universality, “attachment to views.” On the other hand, Buddhist traditions of practice recommend actions based in compassion and loving kindness, and the cultivation of (...) contentment, introspective awareness, and peace of mind. It is argued that these arenas are not in conflict, but are linked through Buddhist psychology, wherein the proven limitations of concepts are quite explicitly leveraged to show that beings hampered by such limits ought to think and act with epistemic humility. The result is not nihilism, but a method for improving our perspectives on ourselves and our society—a method that may serve as a model for humanistic research. (shrink)

Early Buddhist Metaphysics provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's metaphysical transition in terms of the Aristotelian tradition and vis-à-vis modern philosophy, exploits Western philosophical literature from Plato to contemporary texts in the fields of philosophy of mind and (...) cultural criticism. (shrink)

Psychology and Buddhism. From Individual to Global Community. Edited by Kathleen H. Dockett, Rita Dudley-Grant and C. Peter Bankart. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 2003. xv, 308 pp. £47.00. ISBN 0-306-47412-3.

Are there Buddhist conceptions of the unconscious? If so, are they more Freudian, Jungian, or something else? If not, can Buddhist conceptions be reconciled with the Freudian, Jungian, or other models? These are some of the questions that have motivated modern scholarship to approach ālayavijñāna, the storehouse consciousness, formulated in Yogācāra Buddhism as a subliminal reservoir of tendencies, habits, and future possibilities. -/- Tao Jiang argues convincingly that such questions are inherently problematic because they frame their interpretations of the (...) Buddhist notion largely in terms of responses to modern psychology. He proposes that, if we are to understand ālayavijñāna properly and compare it with the unconscious responsibly, we need to change the way the questions are posed so that ālayavijñāna and the unconscious can first be understood within their own contexts and then recontextualized within a dialogical setting. In so doing, certain paradigmatic assumptions embedded in the original frameworks of Buddhist and modern psychological theories are exposed. Jiang brings together Xuan Zang’s ālayavijñāna and Freud’s and Jung’s unconscious to focus on what the differences are in the thematic concerns of the three theories, why such differences exist in terms of their objectives, and how their methods of theorization contribute to these differences. -/- Contexts and Dialogue puts forth a fascinating, erudite, and carefully argued presentation of the subliminal mind. It proposes a new paradigm in comparative philosophy that examines the what, why, and how in navigating the similarities and differences of philosophical systems through contextualization and recontextualization. (shrink)

This study employs ethnographic field data to trace a dialogue between the self-psychological concept of the self object and experiences regarding the concept of “interbeing” at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery in the United States. The dialogue develops an understanding of human experiences with the nonhuman natural world which are tensive, liminal, and nondual. From the dialogue I find that the self object concept, when applied to this form of Buddhism, must be inclusive enough to embrace relationships with animals, stones, (...) and other natural forms. The dialogue further delineates a self-psychological methodology for examining religions in their interactions with natural forms. (shrink)

. Recent discussions of the mind‐brain and the soul‐body problems have been both advanced and complexified by the cognitive sciences. I focus explicitly here on emergence, supervenience, and nonreductive physicalist theories of human personhood in light of recent advances in the Christian‐Buddhist dialogue. While traditional self and no‐self views pitted Christianity versus Buddhism versus science, I show how the nonreductive physicalist proposal regarding human personhood emerging from the neuroscientific enterprise both contributes to and is enriched by the Christian concept (...) of pneuma and the Buddhist concept of pratityasamutpada. (shrink)

We discuss the structure of Buddhist theory, showing that it is a kind of moral phenomenology directed to the elimination of egoism through the elimination of a sense of self. We then ask whether being raised in a Buddhist culture in which the values of selflessness and the sense of non-self are so deeply embedded transforms one’s sense of who one is, one’s ethical attitudes and one’s attitude towards death, and in particular whether those transformations are consistent with the predictions (...) that Buddhist texts themselves make. We discover that the effects are often significant, but not always expected. (shrink)