Situating Mindfulness, Part 1: Early Buddhism and Scientific Research in Psychology

Bhikkhu Anālayo

doi:10.1007/s12671-021-01673-x

Abstract

As the first of three articles, the present essay explores the character of selected aspects of early Buddhism in order to assess its potential relevance as a reference point for those engaged in research on mindfulness in psychology. The exploration, which proceeds in critical dialog with suggestions made by Donald Lopez Jr. and Evan Thompson, covers the topics of the Buddha’s omniscience, Buddhist cosmology, the notion of karma, the role of rebirth, the past lives of the Buddha, and the role of religious authority vis-à-vis the scope of personal investigation in early Buddhist thought. The present paper is meant to serve as a corrective to an apparent tendency in recent scholarship, as part of an in itself deserved criticism of exaggerated positions taken by Buddhist modernists, to overlook or even deny rational dimensions of Buddhist thought, here in particular taken up from the viewpoint of its earliest phase. This tendency appears at times to be based on a lack of historical perspective or understanding of Buddhist doctrines and their development.

Highlights

The remarkable growth of the clinical employment of mindfulness inevitably has become part of an ongoing discussion between “Buddhism” and “science,” which has its own particular history and dynamics (Cabezón 2003)
Given that the actual words of the Buddha, as a historical person, can no longer be reliably retrieved, such reconstruction is about as early a stage as possible still within the reach of scholarly study. This type of reconstruction attempts to discern between early and later layers of the teachings attributed to the Buddha, in the way these have been reported in the relevant textual sources, the “early discourses” delivered orally to an audience and formalized during the subsequent extended period of oral transmission
As in ancient India writing was not employed for the purpose of transmitting religious teachings, the “texts” relevant to the reconstruction of early Buddhism are the final records of a long process of oral transmission

Summary

Omniscience and Cosmology

One development of considerable importance for an assessment of the nature of early Buddhist thought vis-à-vis scientific rationalism in general is the historically late attribution of omniscience to the Buddha (Anālayo 2006 2014, pp. 117–127, and 2020b, pp. 21–25). An example in case is Mount Meru, whose basic ancient Indian conception as the central axis of a flat world is incompatible with scientific knowledge of the planet Earth. 4), who introduces his study, titled Buddhism & Science, A Guide for the Perplexed, as follows: “I write as a historian of Buddhist thought and practice.” This is remarkable as he is aware of Pāli discourse material documenting that, at an early stage in the history of Buddhist thought, the Buddha was not seen as having claimed to be omniscient As a historian writing a history of the idea that Buddhism and science are compatible, why not adopt a historical perspective on the Buddhist doctrinal positions that are of central relevance to that idea?

Past Lives of the Buddha

Karma and Rebirth

Authority and Investigation