Asian Traditions Research Articles

Activity-based mindfulness: large-scale assessment of an online program on perceived stress and mindfulness.

Mindfulness has emerged as key construct in mental health over past decades. While current mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are usually rooted in Asian contemplative traditions, mindfulness practices can equally be found in other knowledge systems, including integrative medicine systems such as anthroposophic medicine (AM). The Activity-Based Stress Release (ABSR) program incorporates the latter as part of an 8-week-long online intervention combining mindfulness exercises, behavioral self-observation, and mindful movement practices derived from this integrative medicine frame. The program could offer additional means for cultivating mindfulness, thereby addressing the necessity for diverse approaches in conjunction with individual differences, diverse clinical demands, or restricted capacities to perform certain mindfulness practices. Using an observational repeated-measures design, the current study aimed to assess a large-scale online implementation of this program in terms of its feasibility, assessing perceived stress and mindfulness. Individuals who enrolled in any of the 37 ABSR program iterations carried out during 2023 and agreed to participate in the study completed online surveys including validated stress and mindfulness scales at the beginning, middle, end, and follow up of the intervention. Linear-mixed models were used for data analysis. A total of 830 individuals took part in the study, of which 53.5% filled in at least 2 surveys. In line with our expectation, mindfulness scores increased significantly over the course of the intervention, while stress scores decreased significantly in this timeframe. We further found differential effects of self-practice frequency and duration on the outcomes. This study provides a first indication of stress reduction in conjunction with the online implementation of this novel MBI. The work further suggests that this AM-based intervention indeed targets mindfulness, as do other MBIs, and that it is adaptable to an online format. However, given the observational single-arm design, controlled studies will be necessary to confirm these results. Nonetheless, the study adds a novel contribution to existent MBIs, which is significant in view of the need for diverse approaches to meet the heterogeneity of individual predispositions and clinical requirements. It remains to established by forthcoming research for which groups of individuals or clinical features this approach could be especially beneficial or less suitable.

Environmental philosophy in Asia: Between eco-orientalism and ecological nationalisms

Environmental philosophy – broadly conceived as using philosophical tools to develop ideas related to environmental issues – is conducted and practised in highly diverse ways in different contexts and traditions in Asia. ‘Asian environmental philosophy’ can be understood to include Asian traditions of thought as well as grassroots perspectives on environmental issues in Asia. Environmental issues have sensitive political facets tied to who has the legitimacy to decide about how natural resources are used. Because of this, the works, practices, and researchers in Asian environmental philosophy are exposed to being (mis)used by diverse stakeholders and actors to support political ends not related to environmental sustainability. Two processes are at play at the nexus of the construction of identities in relation to conceptualisations of nature: eco-orientalism and ecological nationalisms. This paper analyzes and exemplifies these dynamics through a conceptual framework that distinguishes ideological and socio-technical explanations of environmental degradation. Finally, to minimise the risks of political misuse, five pathways are presented to carefully help curate environmental, philosophical statements: contextualise, quantify uncertainty and ‘uniqueness’, downscale, confront claims with local realities and literature, and collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. Conjointly, these pathways aim at favouring intercultural collaboration while valuing diversity, thus supporting the development and exchanges in environmental philosophy in Asia and beyond.

Brian Black, In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History series.

Brian Black, In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History series.

Philosophy, religion, and ‘studies': scholarship as a spiritual exercise in Chinese thought

ABSTRACT That Asian traditions do not distinguish between ‘philosophy' and ‘religion' is an oft-repeated truism. This obscures disciplinary categories operative in Asian intellectual history, especially those that do not map onto the academic landscape as we know it today. To disambiguate the terms ‘philosophy,' ‘religion,' ‘philosophy of religion,' and ‘philosophy of religious studies,' this essay explores the status of ‘studies' in Chinese thought. The tradition of rujia 儒家 or ruxue 儒學, commonly translated as ‘Confucianism,' might plausibly be rendered simply ‘scholarship.' The lineage of the ru—i.e., scholars or literati—is held together by an overarching methodology that takes the activity of studying and learning itself as a spiritual exercise aimed as scholarly excellence as well as personal cultivation. My aim is not to belabor differences between Asian and Western traditions but to invite academics to consider this rich sense of ‘studies' in our own practices today.

In Vivo Regulation of Small Molecule Natural Products, Antioxidants, and Nutrients by OAT1 and OAT3.

The organic anion transporters OAT1 (SLC22A6) and OAT3 (SLC22A8) are drug transporters that are expressed in the kidney, with well-established roles in the in vivo transport of drugs and endogenous metabolites. A comparatively unexplored potential function of these drug transporters is their contribution to the in vivo regulation of natural products (NPs) and their effects on endogenous metabolism. This is important for the evaluation of potential NP interactions with other compounds at the transporter site. Here, we have analyzed the NPs present in several well-established databases from Asian (Chinese, Indian Ayurvedic) and other traditions. Loss of OAT1 and OAT3 in murine knockouts caused serum alterations of many NPs, including flavonoids, vitamins, and indoles. OAT1- and OAT3-dependent NPs were largely separable based on a multivariate analysis of chemical properties. Direct binding to the transporter was confirmed using in vitro transport assays and protein binding assays. Our in vivo and in vitro results, considered in the context of previous data, demonstrate that OAT1 and OAT3 play a pivotal role in the handling of non-synthetic small molecule natural products, NP-derived antioxidants, phytochemicals, and nutrients (e.g., pantothenic acid, thiamine). As described by remote sensing and signaling theory, drug transporters help regulate redox states by meditating the movement of endogenous antioxidants and nutrients between organs and organisms. Our results demonstrate how dietary antioxidants and other NPs might feed into these inter-organ and inter-organismal pathways.

Между Европой и Азией: становление правовой системы России

The article presents results of studies of the historical choice factor in the process of establishment of the Russian legal system from the standpoint of influence of European and Asian legal traditions on evolution of Russian law. The author brings forward some methodological approaches to solution of research tasks solved in this sphere of historical jurisprudence.

Interpretations of the Method of Counting Ten in the East Asian Tradition of Huayan Scholasticism

Interpretations of the Method of Counting Ten in the East Asian Tradition of Huayan Scholasticism

Radical Hope

In this article, Yizhou Huang considers the transnational transmission of devised theater, focusing on the Shanghai-based performance group Grass Stage (Caotaiban) led by Zhao Chuan. She discusses the group’s devising process from two symbiotic aspects, the corporeal and the political. Attending to Grass Stage’s eclectic inspirations and international collaborations, Huang compares the collective to world renowned ensembles such as Théâtre du Soleil and parses out the unequal transactions between Asian performance traditions and devised theater techniques. She warns against a neo-Orientalism that positions non-Western artists and their works solely into an epistemological framework that applauds liberal democracy and argues for devised theater as a site of minor interventions, world making, as well as radical hope.

Idols and Icons: Franciscan Theology and Artistic Inculturation in Mexico, 1524–1699

Indigenous people in Mexico encountered and interacted with the visual images of Mary, Jesus, and the Saints via Catholic missionaries in the sixteenth century. I examine the complexity of Franciscan changing attitudes and practices toward transforming what they perceived as idols into icons in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indigenous Christians also adapted and synthesized artistic forms and meanings. Furthermore, artists from various cultures drew sources from Indigenous Mexican, European, and Asian traditions and created a visual Christian culture.

The influence of culture on the viewing of Western and East Asian paintings.

The influence of British and Chinese culture on the viewing of paintings from Western and East Asian traditions was explored in an old/new discrimination task. Accuracy data were considered alongside signal detection measures of sensitivity and bias. The results showed participant culture and painting tradition interacted but only with respect to response bias and not sensitivity. Eye movements were also recorded during encoding and discrimination. Paintings were split into regions of interest defined by faces, or the theme and context in order to analyse the eye movement data. With respect to the eye movement data, the results showed that a match between participant culture and painting tradition increased the viewing of faces in paintings at the expense of the viewing of other locations, an effect interpreted as a manifestation of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings. There was, however, no evidence of broader influence of culture on the eye movements made to paintings as might be expected if culture influenced the allocation of attention more generally. Taken together, these findings suggest culture influences the viewing of paintings but only in response to challenges to the encoding of faces.

Рубежность и сущностные характеристики театрального танца в России конца XIX – начала ХХ века

Innovation and experiment as sources that expand and deepen the space of theatrical dance in Russia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries had a complex connection: from “traditional” and “local modern” to “systemic” and “natural”. Unlike Western European ballet theater, in Russia the aesthetic concepts of expressionism, constructivism and abstractionism were the first poetic experiments “with” choreography and “in” choreography, which received reinterpretation not only at the level of off-dance plans and free formative laws of movement, but also at the level of artistic coordinates of space and the semantics of academic ballet art. The paper aims to substantiate the position that after the era of romantic ballets by Marius Ivanovich Petipa (1818-1910), a milestone of the choreographic system begins in Russia, associated with the tasks of rethinking the language of theatrical dance, its architectonic structures (scenic and bodily), as well as the essential characteristics of the content and form of the ballet text. The study is novel in that it develops the following hypothesis: the architectonic space of the stage and architectonic bodily forms become figuratively and expressively evidence-based. The connection between the lexical potential and the creation of tectonic tasks in the system of academic movement is revealed, the verbal, temporal and visual continuum of space is correlated. As a result, the paper systematizes European and Asian theatrical traditions in the study of artistic and physiological processes of movement in order to determine the specifics of the architectonic bodily structures of the period under consideration.

Western Buddhism and Transpersonal Psychology: Cross-Hermeneutic and Engaged Approaches

Contemporary Buddhism has been fashioned from cross-cultural interactions between a long history of Asian traditions and the expansionist drive of modernity. As part of this engagement, Buddhism, particularly in the West, has developed a close relation with transpersonal psychology. This essay forms an introduction to the special issue of articles approaching this relation between Buddhism and psychology in different ways. While some articles probe the difference in aims of the two disciplines, some are concerned with the decontextualized uses of Buddhist techniques such as mindfulness, some explore the possibilities of Buddhist practice in cognitive or other psychological terms and some ground Buddhism in ecopsychological concerns as forms of engagement. This paper outlines the historiography of modern Buddhism and introduces the papers in this special issue of IJTS.

Defining peripeteia. The theoretical disentanglement of Möbius Strip

This article draws from the Japanese phenomenological approach (Kyoto School, particularly Kitaro Nishida and Watsuji Tetsurō) concerning the embodied experience of time-space. It unravels crucial concepts behind Möbius Strip, a mixed-media performance along the way with a particular focus on peripeteia. Having been triggered by the current warfare in Ukraine, Möbius Strip deals with the phenomenon of war. The aim of this article is to disentangle the meaning of peripeteia as a term in a concrete fashion by identifying its role and impact in the dramaturgy of Möbius Strip. The term is further circumscribed under a comparative point of view, which narrates peripeteia as a term that is primarily encountered in Ancient Greek tragedy and unravels its connection with cognate terms from Asian tradition.

Residential architecture in historic environment of Astrakhan (Saint-Petersburg)

Purpose: Identification and systematization of historical residential buildings in Astrakhan, built before 1917.Design/methodology/approach: The comprehensive analysis of historical residential buildings in Astrakhan and systematization of their characteristic elements. Description of the city in the 19th century, notes by local and art historians and architects, comparative analysis of houses in other regional centers.Research findings: Historical residential buildings in Astrakhan are built under the influence of natural and climatic factors, European and Asian architectural traditions, economic and logistical capabilities of customers.Practical implications: Historical houses preserve the historic urban environment in order to develop the tourist potential of the Astrakhan region.Originality/value: For the first time, a systematized list of historical residential architecture in Astrakhan is compiled with the indication of formative factors.

The Kutadgu Bilig: some characteristics and its relation to the idea of rule

Mirrors of princes are a specific genre of Islamic literature dedicated to giving advice to rulers, princes, and ministers. There are few mirrors that are composed in verse. The Kutadgu Bilig is modeled on the Persian Shāhnāme of the poet Firdawsi making the Central Asian heritage of wisdom literature at home in Islamic contexts. The text is written in Qarakhanid Turkish; the form is a didactic poem set as a dialogue between the protagonists. In a Weberian sense the program of advice may be analyzed as rational leadership due to the increasing role of shari’a-based rulership. However, there are other elements of legitimacy in this text blurring the clear distictions made by Weber. Hence, we may identify it as a unique, non-European case of legitimation of rulership. The Kutadgu Bilig are to be read as an attempt to secure the continuation of the Central Asian tradition in a context dominated by Iranian influences into Central Asia. The protagoists of this work are the king, the vizier, the wise man, and the ascet. All these actors are representing virtues needed for successful rulership. At the same time the roles of all the persons associated with the court are discussed even very personal ones like choosing a wife and raising children.

The Thematic Characteristics of First and Second Generation Chinese American Writers: Based on the Analysis of The Bonesetters Daughter, Crazy Rich Asians, Everything You Never Told Me, and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Novels created by Chinese American writers are expected to reveal certain situations in Chinese American immigrant families. Family conflicts can be combined with more social problems, such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, political suppression, and the discussion of ancestry and familyhood. First and second-generation Chinese American writers have different perspectives and techniques to blend family conflict with social problems, but their works also have features in common. The paper compares Crazy Rich Asians, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Bonesetters Daughter, and Everything You Never Told Me to analyze their plots, characters, and the backgrounds of their authors, respectively, to conclude these Chinese American writers techniques similar, or variable, and the causes to such differences. In general, the writing methods of Chinese American writers and their techniques are closely related to their educational experience and cultural background. Different degrees of relation with Oriental culture and moral values lead to various points of view expressed in stories. A lack of knowledge of Asian traditions may lead to misinterpretation of certain behaviors, but this might also prompt writers to introduce the better part of Asian traditions. As writers often get inspiration from surrounding people and events, settings, plots, and characters can also be seen to reflect the writers cultural and educational backgrounds.

When Gods Drown in Plastic

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the category animism has seen a remarkable resurgence in Western scholarship, capturing the interest of many anthropologists, scholars of religion, and philosophers. Some authors have argued that animism can provide a model for a new environmental ethics that acknowledges more-than-human agencies and interdependencies. However, the question remains as to how so-called animist ontologies can transform not only individual moralities, but also the extractivist economic-political structures underlying the current crisis. In this article, we assess some of these claims by examining an Asian ritual tradition that is arguably animistic, while also containing elements of Buddhism, Daoism, and ancestor worship: the worship of whales, widespread along the coast of South and Central Vietnam. Fishing communities here believe that whales are divine beings, incarnations of the maritime god Ông Nam Hải (Lord of the South Sea)—also known as Cá Ông (Lord Fish)—who rescue people in distress at sea. When fishers find beached whales, they offer them elaborate funeral ceremonies and enshrine their bones in local temples. Whale worship constitutes a way of relating to the physical environment, and rituals help people respond to problems such as coastal erosion and overfishing. However, there is no evidence suggesting that this particular animistic belief system has given way to environmentalist action, let alone induced systemic change. Animistic ontologies certainly have ethical dimensions, and they may provide ways for people to make sense of and cope with Anthropocenic crises, but that does not mean they teach people how to act sustainably. At the very least, that would require an active process of translation and adaptation.

Perspectives on Heidegger’s Overcoming Nihilism in Dialogue with East Asian Thought Traditions

The article analyzes the perspectives of overcoming nihilism (Verwindung) by discussing Heidegger’s relationship with East Asian traditions of thought (first of all, chan/zen and daoism). We can consider the emergence of Enframing (Gestell or Ge-stell) of the essence of modern technology defined by the philosopher as a diagnosis of the fulfillment of nihilism and the end of the Western tradition of thought. By revealing the problem of the end of the Western metaphysical tradition and its overcoming, the aim is to understand the possibilities of the emergence of a different way of thinking by looking at the horizon of post-metaphysical thinking. Heidegger’s dialogue with the sources of Eastern thought is a search for perspectives on overcoming nihilism (Verwindung), which is inseparable from the deepening of self, other and mutual understanding.

Poganek rutowaty (Peganum harmala L.) w tradycjach ludów Azji Środkowej i jego popularność w dobie pandemii COVID-19 – perspektywa antropologii medycznej

Syrian rue (Peganum harmala L.) in Central Asian traditions and its popularity in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: perspective of medical anthropology Syrian rue (Peganum harmala L.) has been traditionally used in Central Asia for medical purposes, e.g. for treating skin diseases, joint pain, sore throat and cough. It is also applied as an apotropaic means – fumigation with the smoke of burning dried twigs of Syrian rue is commonly practised to ward off evil spirits, “evil eye” and other malevolent forces. According to the other explanations, it has purifying effects and kills microbes. In this article I briefl y outline early descriptions of Peganum harmala in the medical texts of scholars and physicians representing Greek- Arabic-Persian medicine, and focus on the role of this plant in people’s everyday life in Central Asia, based on my field materials from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and literature. In addition, I present the career of Peganum harmala in Central Asian countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, when fumigation with its smoke has been widely practised to protect against the coronavirus. Syrian rue was also used – beside several other plants – by some heads of state, who promoted local traditional medicines at time when they were failing to tackle the pandemic crisis. Applying an anthropological perspective, I pay particular attention to the wider context of these developments and analyse socio-cultural, political and economic factors that have contributed to the increased popularity of Peganum harmala. I also point out possible benefits of testing traditional herbal medicines as potential treatments for COVID-19 and other viral infections and refer to Asian traditional medical systems, especially traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), whose contribution to overcoming the pandemic has been recognised by the WHO.

Replanted elsewhere: Getting to the root of solidarity

ABSTRACT This paper brings together two scholars, Filipina/CHamorro and Cantonese (respectively), to engage in collaborative story-sharing sessions. We accessed our upbringings, K-12 and postsecondary educations, relations with processes of coloniality and racialization, and critical consciousness formation to situate our lives and knowledges in how Asian diasporic peoples have sought to challenge systems of oppression through radical intellectualism. We consider how this radical work has been necessarily connected to practices of what has been referred to as “thick solidarity” or “co-conspiracy.” We share how we came to an understanding of solidarity as protection, the importance of considering power relations and formations, and the need to sustain value systems. We discuss implications for broader work in what might be called, in the lineage of Cedric Robinson and his invocation of the Black radical tradition, the Asian radical tradition.