Remontant aux sources vives de la sagesse, Patrick Mandala a choisi de confronter les textes de l'Antiquité grecque et des sages de l'Inde. Les correspondances entre ces deux philosophies sont nombreuses, riches et fécondes. Le texte grec est mis en regard avec plusieurs textes indiens. A plusieurs époques, dans sa quête de la connaissance de soi, la pensée grecque a rejoint la sagesse indienne. Cette rencontre est un message intemporel et universel. Autant de textes qui amènent la réflexion et (...) la méditation la plus profonde qui répondent aux trois grandes questions de l'humanité : "D'où venons-nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?". (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how increasing understanding and explicit awareness of social consciousness can develop through transformations in worldview. Based on a model that emerged from a series of qualitative and quantitative studies on worldview transformation, we identify five developmental levels of social consciousness: embedded, self-reflexive, engaged, collaborative, and resonant. As a person's worldview transforms, awareness can expand to include each of these levels, leading to enhanced prosocial experiences and behaviours. Increased social consciousness can in turn stimulate further transformations (...) in worldview. We then consider an educational curriculum to facilitate the understanding of worldview and the cultivation of social consciousness as core capacities for twenty-first century students and global citizens. (shrink)

¿Puede un detalle cambiar la historia de la Sicilia islámica? La revuelta de Ibn Qarhab es un tema bastante conocido que marca la transición política de la isla desde la esfera de influencia aglabí a la del naciente califato fa-timí en el Norte de África. Sin duda, la reconstrucción de la revuelta de Ibn Qarhab se basa en un corpus tardío y repetitivo de fuentes arabo-islámicas y, sobre todo, en la interpretación irredentista y decimonónica propuesta por Michele Amari. La fuente (...) andalusí aquí considerada, un pasaje de al-Muqtabis V de Ibn H.ayya-n, alejada tanto de las redes historiográficas antes mencionadas como de la atención de la investigación actual, brinda la posibilidad de aclarar algunos detalles y proporcionar nuevas lecturas del acontecimiento. La revuelta de Ibn Qarhab puede ser interpretada como una búsqueda informal de legitimidad dictada por alianzas y contingencias; de forma inesperada estas últimas habrían podido desplazar el baricentro de la isla desde la vecina orilla norteafricana a la órbita de influencia del emirato omeya de al-Andalus. (shrink)

Contents: Mandalas. I. A Study in the Process of Individuation. II. Concerning Mandala Symbolism Index Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found (...) in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Mountain Mandalas: Shugend? in Ky?sh?, by Allan G. Grapard. Bloomsbury. 2016. 320 pp. Hb. £90. ISBN–13: 9781474249003. Pb. £31. ISBN-13: 9781350044937. Ebook £34.54. ISBN-13: 9781474249027.

This study starts from the premise that mandala is a design of the Cosmos and consciousness. mandala is a contracted and systematically designed cosmic space and represents high-level spirituality at the same time. The work of designing mandala is an experience with a sacred world as itself and constitutes a process of self-discipline. In other words, mandala is to ritualize the world of Buddhism beyond a design context and visualize religious experience through a specific object. Therefore, (...) it serves as a medium that gets both producers and audiences to experience the sacred world. In this way, mandala is present as an experiencing design and a behaving medium. This study aims to identify the archetype of empirical and synthetic design by analyzing mandala as an integrated icon for which the Cosmos and human beings or consciousness and matter meet each other. Spatial structuralization is considered most important in the icon of mandala. The space in mandala is the place where consciousness joins reality, which represents the state of enlightenment. Many multi-dimensional Buddhas coexist in the space, and they are arranged in harmony and in order. This visual structure allows mandala to play the role of interactive medium. In the iconic shapes of mandala symbolizing a sacred world, major elements include a circle, square, semicircle, triangle and the numbers of 8 and 4. The respective shapes are matched to white, yellow, red and black, and the five different senses are connected to one another. The five senses are symbolic of earth, water, fire, wind and void which constitute the universe, and again they remain connected to five different parts of the body of a disciplinant drawing mandala: liver, kidney, spleen, lungs and heart. Those organs are associated with five Buddhas and in turn connected through the boundless space of the universe. By analyzing such a composite structure of mandala, this study tries to appreciate its in-depth meaning as an integrated design. (shrink)

This essay traces the development and the nature of two ideas that have played an important role in Buddhist thought and Buddhist experience. The one, called mandala , is fairly well known in Western literature, particularly because of its intricate and aesthetically moving patterning. It describes the experiencer's anthropocosmic universe. AI; such it is governed by the two major forms of geometry, plane and projective, with circles, squares, and triangles entering various combinations. Broadly speaking, a mandala presents a (...) static worldview. By contrast, what is called dkyil·'khor , is hardly ever mentioned in Western literature. It is a thoroughly dynamic concept that describes the anthropocosmic whole's self·organization in ever· changing and evolving patterns, ebbing and flowing, but always in some sense being the whole. In other words, a mandala emphasizes structure, a dkyil·'khor emphasizes process. The accompanying illustrations show select phases in the construction of a mandala. (shrink)

Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang, by Michelle C. Wang. Leiden: Brill, 2018. xviii + 318 pages. Hb. $147.00, ISBN-13: 9789004357655; Ebook $25.00, ISBN-13: 9789004360402.

Buddhist maṇḍala that are made of colored sand or are painted on cloth have been well represented in Asian art circles in the West. Discussions of the role that they can play in stimulating religious contemplation or even as sacred icons charged with power have also appeared in English scholarship. The metaphorical meaning of the term maṇḍala, however, is less commonly referenced. This paper discusses how the founder of the Japanese school of Shingon Buddhism, the Buddhist monk Kūkai of the (...) ninth century, uses this term in a metaphorical sense to convey the transformed nature of awareness that is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. Emphasis is also placed on the importance of metaphorical thinking to the religious path of transformation itself. (shrink)

Anthropology of Consciousness, EarlyView.

Chan has been one of the most prominent sects of Chinese Buddhism since the mid and late Tang Dynasty and it has been particularly well-known around the world. The Platform Sutra purports to convey the teachings of Huineng, one of the most revered figures in the Chan tradition, and the text has been regarded as the most reliable source for the study of Chan. This canonical Buddhist text is generally categorized into four different versions: 1) Dunhuang ; 2) Huixin ; (...) 3) Qisong ; and, 4) Zongbao. The Dunhuang version is further divided into two manuscripts: the Old Dunghuang text and New Dunghuang text (also known as... (shrink)

The mandala is a polysemantic term referring to several distinct yet interrelated architectural and imperial concepts. In addition to this com plexity, however, the mandala’s multivalency is further compounded by layers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century interpretations that have added reductionistic Jungian associations and/or anachronistic Orientalist expectations onto the image. This essay attempts to strip away such accretions and assumptions. It calls for the recognition of the variety and distinctiveness of early Japanese mandalas and aims to resuscitate the role (...) of the mandala in picturing, but not necessarily producing, enlightenment. As a result, this essay will attempt to return to basics and reconsider two key types of Japanese Buddhist mandalas on their own terms. Specifically, it will provide an iconographic and doctrinal analysis of the eighth-century Taima mandala of Amitābha/Amitāyus Buddha in his Pure Land of the Western Paradise. It will also examine the famous pair of ninth-century Two-World mandalas, which depict the Diamond and the Womb World aspects of Mahāvairocana Buddha, the cosmic buddha of great light who illumines all equally. The essay concludes with a final reflection on the Taima and Two-World mandalas, as both are unique examples and emblematic models for two distinct Japanese Buddhist worldviews. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo apresenta e discute alguns resultados de uma pesquisa sobre um manuscrito sânscrito budista contendo o Guṇakāraṇḍavyūhasūtra, que foi investigado por meio de uma abordagem interdisciplinar com vistas a compreender as estratégias sociorreligiosas que permearam sua gênese narrativa em um novo milieu. Os resultados apontam para uma monumentalização narrativa do texto Mahāyāna original indiano - o Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra - durante sua transposição para o contexto do budismo esotérico no Nepal. Por meio de um número crescente de molduras concêntricas, a (...) retórica cronológica e soteriológica do sūtra adquiriu uma transcendência discursiva que o transformou num maṇḍala textual, i.e., ele possui uma dimensão estrutural diretamente associada aos cosmogramas sagrados que permeiam os diferentes contextos dessa região. ABSTRACT This paper presents and discusses some results from a research conducted on a Buddhist Sanskrit manuscript containing the Guṇakāraṇḍavyūhasūtra, which was investigated by means of an interdisciplinary approach to understand the social and religious strategies, which permeated its narrative genesis in the new milieu. Results point to a narrative monumentalization of the original Indian Mahāyāna text - the Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra - while it's being transposed into the Buddhist esoteric context in Nepal. Through an increasing number of framing devices, the chronological and soteriological rhetoric of the sūtra has acquired a discursive transcendence which transformed it into a textual maṇḍala, i.e., it presents a structural dimension directly associated with the sacred cosmograms which pervade different contexts of this region. (shrink)

Spells, Images, and Mandalas: Tracing the Evolution of Esoteric Buddhist Rituals. By Koichi Shinohara. The Sheng Yen Series in Chinese Buddhist Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Pp. xxii + 324. $55.

Metaphors allow us to come to terms with abstract and complex information, by comparing it to something which is structured, familiar and concrete. Although modern science is “iconoclastic”, as Gaston Bachelard phrases it, scientists are at the same time prolific producers of metaphoric images themselves. Synthetic biology is an outstanding example of a technoscientific discourse replete with metaphors, including textual metaphors such as the “Morse code” of life, the “barcode” of life and the “book” of life. This paper focuses on (...) a different type of metaphor, however, namely on the archetypal metaphor of the mandala as a symbol of restored unity and wholeness. Notably, mandala images emerge in textual materials related to one of the new “frontiers” of contemporary technoscience, namely the building of a synthetic cell: a laboratory artefact that functions like a cell and is even able to replicate itself. The mandala symbol suggests that, after living systems have been successfully reduced to the elementary building blocks and barcodes of life, the time has now come to put these fragments together again. We can only claim to understand life, synthetic cell experts argue, if we are able to technically reproduce a fully functioning cell. This holistic turn towards the cell as a meaningful whole also requires convergence at the “subject pole”: the building of a synthetic cell as a practice of the self, representing a turn towards integration, of multiple perspectives and various forms of expertise. (shrink)

The eleventh-century Indian Buddhist master Ratnākaraśānti presents a unique Yogācāra interpretation of tantric _maṇḍala_ visualisation in the _*Guhyasamājamaṇḍalavidhiṭīkā_. In this text, he employs the neither-one-nor-many argument to assert that the qualities of the mind represented by the deities in the _maṇḍala_ are neither the same nor different from the mind itself. He also provides five scenarios of meditation to explain the necessity of practising both the perfection method (_pāramitānaya_) and the mantra method (_mantranaya_) together in Mahāyāna. Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation exerts a (...) significant influence on the works of later Buddhist masters in India and Tibet, with parts of it being reused in the _*Śrīherukopadeśanāmasvādhiṣṭhānakrama_ by Śūnyasamādhivajra (c. the eleventh century), the eighteenth chapter of the _Āmnāyamañjarī_ by Abhayākaragupta (from the late eleventh to the twelfth century) and the tantric compendium _sNgags rim chen mo_ by the Tibetan master Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419). This paper explores how Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation has been reused and modified in these subsequent works. While Śūnyasamādhivajra faithfully reproduced Ratnākaraśānti’s Yogācāra explanation, Abhayākaragupta modified it to align with his Madhyamaka view. Abhayākaragupta in turn influenced Tsong kha pa, who accepted Abhayākaragupta’s Madhyamaka modification in his works. This paper also engages with current scholarly discussions on textual reuse and the underlying reasons behind it. While Śūnyasamādhivajra and Abhayākaragupta assimilated Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation without acknowledgement, Tsong kha pa quoted the text by name and acknowledged Abhayākaragupta’s reuse of Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation. This paper concludes by discussing the factors that determine whether the reused text is acknowledged or not, and the possible reasons behind textual reuse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kandinsky, Kant, and a Modern MandalaKenneth BerryWhat gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?—Joseph Campbell, "The Way of the Myth"Michele Roberts has written of the "joy of the human imagination, without which we would be unable to understand one another, and would thus wither and perish."1 This is the baseline for my discursive analysis of imagination and beauty in art as (...) it relates to the work of Kant and Kandinsky. While both accepted the forward movement of cognition in art and aesthetics, my concern is that some cognitively minded individuals neglect the part played by imaginative intuition in the creative process. Much recent art is lacking in both imagination and beauty. Although it may be rich in concept, according to Kant creative intuition is also necessary. Postmodernists' focused emphasis on the oblique, fleeting, transient, and ephemeral—short-lived, fugitive fashions or superficial trends in art and aesthetics—confuses the fleeting and moving present, rushing us forward into the future when we might do better to look back historically and constructively at the more enduring influence of Kant and Kandinsky. Of course, it might in one sense be in the "apparently unremarkable and evanescent that our lives sometimes find their greatest meaning,"2 but this does not imply that we cannot also learn from the past.Imaginative Representation in Kant and KandinskyIn his painting of 1926, Several Circles, Kandinsky depicts a group of overlapping, partially transparent discs that appear to drift freely against a black background. Will Grohmann has described this abstract scenario as a "cosmic metaphor" that points symbolically to a "limited infinite."3 Clearly, Kandinsky is concerned here with some transcendent meaning. Jung has remarked on the poetic association of the avian contour at the lower left of the painting—perhaps this is a metaphor for flight or spiritual freedom.4 The picture, he says, seems to represent a state of universalized equilibrium and harmony. This picture constitutes, to my mind, the expression, in a Kantian sense, of aesthetic ideas,5 mediating as it does between concepts and intuitions [End Page 105] and concerned as it is with the expression of artistic ideas in an imaginative, aesthetically harmonious form. On this topic Kandinsky has said: "If your imagination is not powerful enough to develop visions which are truly your own, and which, reduced to the state of ideas, can be translated into images, then go back to the study of nature"6Nature, we are told, Kant elevated above fine art in the sense that the beauty of nature's handiwork is the sole basis of the immediate interest that is taken in it7—it is untainted by desire or any concept of perfection or use (the merely agreeable), it is pleasurably imbued with "purposiveness without purpose" in the teleological implication of the "kingdom of ends." The dynamical and morally sublime, however, implied genius. Had Kant been living in our modern age, though he still might not have been a great art lover as such, he would surely not have dismissed Kandinsky's abstract compositions—as El Lissitzky did—as being mere wallpaper patterning, decorative arabesques, and the like; Kant would surely have recognized the symbolic power of these images as art!The Gestalt TheoryAccording to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), aesthetic ideas are representations of the imagination. Following Rudolf Arnheim, a "representation" may be understood as either a man-made image or external figuration or, in another sense, as a "mental image."8 These ideas suggest that representation, through art, involves both the internal and the external. Representation in science is the means by which we generate images of the object "out there"—the basis of an objectivist epistemology. A scientific "representation" of the Giant's Causeway, supposedly built by Finn MacCool, might involve a computer simulation of columnar polygonal fractures in topographical detail. Kant, however, was concerned with representations of ideas, specifically aesthetic ideas as distinct from rational ideas. These were based on the animating principle of the soul, or Geist. In at least one language, Icelandic, which is an aesthetically pleasing language and very visual in language terms—abstract words... (shrink)

In view of the fact that culture-inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky . Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” , the Mandala Model of Self and Face and Favor Model were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be (...) applied to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars , this article illustrates how to construct culture-inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture-inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods. (shrink)

Despite best efforts, every aspect of life is in a state of flux. To adapt is to survive. That is why we must learn to embrace the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence. The essence of impermanence is that reality is never stagnant but is dynamic throughout. The one‐by‐four blue brick with bow that was once associated with the roof of the LEGO Cinderella's Dream Carriage may now be unidentifiable. Skills evolve, experience accumulates, and every LEGO project raises the bar for the (...) next endeavor. When we dismantle it brick by brick, systematically examining each piece, we find that the self, like the Death Star, lacks any substantial permanent essence, that it is bereft of the sum of self. LEGO enthusiasts recognize the MOC (My Own Creation) as a LEGO creation that monks designed and built. Destruction of a mandala, like dismantling LEGO creations, demonstrates that beauty is only meant for this world for a short time. (shrink)

This review points out how Baldwin's book is unique in that it foregrounds proto-Marxist views of God. But it misses the mark by not mentioning "Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s work on the rhizomic nature of the Buddhist ‘mandala’.".