Buddhist Concept Research Articles

Self‐care and self‐awareness — two keys to leading well

In this month's column, I am writing about self‐care and self‐awareness, two of the most important habits of good leaders. I’ll also discuss the Buddhist concepts of monkey mind and comparative mind, and how managing these will dramatically improve your sense of peace and your ability to lead.

Budist Uygur Metinlerinde Dinî Bir Terim Olarak ünüş = Skr. niḥsaraṇa İfadesi

The article discusses the Old Turkic religious vocabulary and its association with belief systems such as Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Islam. It highlights the role of Uyghurs in embracing Buddhism and creating an extensive body of literature through translation. The Uyghur monks played a crucial role in translating Buddhist concepts into Turkish, carefully selecting terms that corresponded to source languages like Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. This effort was not limited to Buddhism but also extended to conveying Islamic religious terms using Buddhist terminologies. A central concept in Buddhist teachings is saṃsāra, which refers to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth within the Indian philosophical framework. The article discusses the Sanskrit term niḥsaraṇa, which signifies ‘escape from saṃsāra’. This term carries various meanings in Sanskrit, such as ‘departure, death, path, solution, and ultimate happiness.’ In the Old Uyghur religious vocabulary, the corresponding term for niḥsaraṇa is ünüš (yol), which directly translates to ‘path’ in Old Turkic. This term is distinctively used within the Buddhist context of the Old Turkic religious vocabulary and is found in various combinations within Buddhist Uyghur texts. The article aims to analyze the thematic interpretations of this expression aligned with Buddhist philosophical systems. It seeks to elucidate how the term is used within Buddhist Uyghur texts, shedding light on its significance within the context of those writings.

Self‐care and self‐awareness — two keys to leading well

In this month's column, I am writing about self‐care and self‐awareness, two of the most important habits of good leaders. I’ll also discuss the Buddhist concepts of monkey mind and comparative mind, and how managing these will dramatically improve your sense of peace and your ability to lead.

Active Compassion

In the United States and elsewhere, Zen (Chan) has often been positioned as coupled to, if not synonymous with, Japanese and other martial arts. This essay is a critical exploration of the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and no-self as they relate to Zen and martial arts, drawing upon Lila Abu-Lughod’s “ethnographies of the particular” to articulate the author’s own experience as a Jujutsu instructor and Buddhist practitioner. It offers several modes of understanding the ways in which Zen and the martial arts may be simultaneously incompatible with and reaffirming of one another, concluding with a re-envisioning of how the two diverse traditions may be woven together to benefit self and others in what the essay calls “active compassion.”

Being Zen: Pelevin, Buddha, and the Void

AbstractVictor Pelevin, whose rise to popularity coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union, critiques the notion of national identity via the prism of Zen Buddhism. Pelevin embraces the religion’s idea of the volatile self and undertakes the project of spiritually empowering the Russians, by exposing the futility of constructing any national identity. With linguistic, cultural, and historical cross‐references between Japan and Russia, the author creates a dialogical hybridity that exemplifies the Zen Buddhist concept of non‐duality in which the self becomes inseparable from the other. This article analyzes four of Pelevin’s novels—Chapaev and Pustota, The Life of Insects, Secret Views of Mount Fuji, and iPhuck 10—and examines how the author incorporates the Zen Buddhist notion of emptiness to reinterpret Russian identity in a spiritually restorative way.

An Asian Integral Ecological Theology: Pope Francis’s Teaching in Dialogue with Asian Religions

This article presents Pope Francis’s ecological theology, especially as presented in his Laudato Si’ and Querida Amazonia, and places it in dialogue with the ecological thought in Buddhism and Daoism. It begins by placing Pope Francis’s teaching in the environmental context of Asia. It then compares it with the statements on ecology by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, especially regarding what Francis terms “the globalization of the technocratic paradigm” and the “excessive anthropocentrism.” The article then relates these two critiques to the Buddhist concept of interdependent origination, especially as presented by the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Daoist concepts of de, dao, wuwei, and ziran. It ends by showing where Pope Francis’s ecological theology could be expanded by addressing the population issue, the theology of the “Cosmic Christ,” and an evolution-based theology of creation. The substance of this article was presented during the twenty-second Louis Luzbetak Lecture on Mission and Culture at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, on October 18, 2021 (watch the video at https://learn.ctu.edu/2021-luzbetak-lecture ). The author is grateful to its organizers for the opportunity to discuss Laudato Si’.

The Impact of Hinduism and Buddhism on the Music of Indonesia

The incorporation of Hinduism and Buddhism in Indonesia has given a unique characteristic to the Indonesian cultural reality. Since the Kalinga–Bali Yatra (from 320 BC to the establishment of Kalinga kingdom in Central Java around 500 AD), that is, the yearly ancient naval expedition of sailors from Orissa (Kalinga in India) to the Swarnadwipa Islands (Malacca, Sumatera, Java, Borneo, and Bali), the culture of Hinduism and Buddhism has been slowly introduced and acknowledged by the people of Indonesia. The earliest interaction between Hinduism/Buddhism and the locals could be tracked since the period of Kalinga kingdom in the central part of Java island. The influence of Hinduism and Buddhism in Indonesian traditional culture has penetrated to the people’s musical tradition in Java and Bali. On top of that, the story of Ramayana and Mahabharata has been adopted into Wayang Kulit tradition in Java. Among other Hindu–Buddhist influences in Indonesia comprise Indian drama– dance, Rasa esthetic theory, Mahayana Buddhist influence in Bedoyo, Slendro pathet (Javanese gamelan musical organization system), and Hinayana Buddhist concept of removal of nine consciousness of human beings.

UM HOMEM BRASILEIRO BRANCO TRADUZINDO POEMAS DE POETAS AFRO-AMERICANAS: A TRADUÇÃO DO AFETO, (DES)ENCONTROS, INTEREXISTÊNCIA E O AFETO DA TRADUÇÃO

ABSTRACT In this article, I elaborate on the awareness that, as a White man, my materiality takes part in a socioeconomic and political system that, regardless of personal merit, benefits me, unlike the vast majority of Black men and women, whose rights are marginalized. The questions I propose to answer are: in what way, despite being a White man, does translating the poetry of Black women produce affects that overcome these oppositions? Despite my own limitations, such a translation experience entails the possibility of a relationship described by monk and activist Thich Nhat Hanh (1991) as interbeing, which suggests the Buddhist concept of sunyata, meaning “emptiness of inherent existence” (CARLUCCI, 2022). All beings, according to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, are interconnected at a deeper level of (inter)existence in that, between the Self and the Other, despite all differences, they maintain an existential connection in which they affect one another. Here, I purposefully play with the sense of “affect” and “being affected by” to reflect on love, as invited by African American activist, anti-racist, teacher, and artist bell hooks (2000), whose writings on love reverberate the issues I intend to discuss.

Subtle, hidden, and far-off: The intertextuality of the Yogasūtras

Abstract Modern scholarship discusses ‘Buddhist influences’ on the Patañjali’s Yogasūtras (YS). Indeed, Patañjali borrowed key Buddhist concepts, particularly from Yogācāra. But this borrowing does not evince that the YS is just ‘crypto-Buddhism’. In fact, during the first millennium CE, the YS was equally influential on Buddhist thinkers. I make this argument by focusing on YS 3.25, which discusses the yogic ability to see subtle (sūkṣma), hidden (vyavahita), and far-off (viprakṛṣṭa) objects. Tracing textual occurrences of these three words, I use this stable mimetic trope to demonstrate the influence of YS on Buddhist, Nyāya, and Vaiśeṣika writings. This influence is all the more interesting given that Buddhists explicitly disagree with many of the theoretical suppositions latent in YS 3.25. I demonstrate that despite this theoretical disagreement, Buddhists make ample use of YS 3.25. This paper thus complicates any clear direction of influence between Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and further questions the cogency of strict delineations between different philosophical schools. I also offer the method used in this paper as a novel approach to textual exegesis. By focusing on stable textual memes and tracing their occurrences across sources, we gain a powerful method to more deeply plumb India's rich intertextual intellectual history.

The Formation of Biaoquan and Zhequan as a Pair of Philosophical Concepts in Chinese Buddhism

The general consensus in the field of Buddhist studies is that the terms “biaoquan” and “zhequan” are a pair of Buddhist philosophical concepts often used to designate two diametrically opposed forms of rhetoric. The former term constitutes its affirmative statement, while the latter defines a fact in negative terms—known in Christian theology as cataphatic and apophatic uses of language, respectively. Looking at the terms for which biaoquan and zhequan initially served as translations, especially in Xuanzang’s works, it would seem that these two concepts have not always appeared as a related pair representing the above-mentioned affirmative–negative dichotomy. The former could designate both affirmation (*vidhi) as well as the general activity of speech, syllables, and words (nāma). In the case of zhequan, it corresponds, in different texts, to the three Indian Buddhist concepts of negation (*pratiṣedha, *vyāvṛtti, *nivṛtti), implicative negation (paryudāsa), and exclusion of others (anyāpoha), with each use of the term “zhequan” carrying a different set of meanings and associated doctrines. Indeed, in various texts, the concept of zhequan might be opposed to the concept of biaoquan (*vidhi *sadhana) or opposed to pure negation (prasajya), or it might be applied on its own with no opposing concept. However, as Chinese Buddhism continued to develop throughout the Tang, biaoquan and zhequan came to be firmly associated and popularized as a pair of opposites. Looking at the doctrinal as well as the translation history of these two terms, this paper focuses on how they were used as a pair of opposing philosophical concepts, followed by an analysis of the profound influence of these two concepts on Chinese Buddhism.

Философско-смисловото поле на преводаческо-интерпретативната техника на гъ-и

The Philosophical Sense of the translatory-interpretive technique of the Geyi The article aims to present the controversy surrounding the geyi's translation and interpretation technique, which was used in the third and fourth centuries in China, commonly translated as "matching concepts", which is the most distinct manifestation of the adaptation of Buddhist concepts to classical Taoist doctrines. For this purpose, its basic philological and philosophical interpretations of the term are presented. Studying the spread and adaptation of Buddhist doctrines in China gives the unique opportunity to balance these two opposing positions. The very specificity of the philosophical sense of the translator and the interpretive technique of the geyi is considered in its aspect as one of the main factors that shaped the features of Chinese Buddhism and its subsequent final detachment from its Indian equivalent. Its use and improvement mark the beginning of the formation of East Asian Buddhism as an essentially new Buddhist doctrinal strand.

What does it mean that all is aflame? Non-axial Buddhist inspiration for an Anthropocene ontology

Bruno Latour’s “practical climatoscepticism” expresses our moral inhibition with respect to the climate crisis. In spite of Clive Hamilton’s claim that the Anthropocene condition requires us to be suspicious of all previous (i.e. Holocene) ontologies, we propose a threefold Anthropocene ontological structure inspired by non-axial Buddhist elements. In the ontological field, the overall domain in which meaning is searched for, the Buddhist relationalist view on existence can nurture post-humanist philosophies. For the ontological home, one’s specific position and responsibilities, the Buddhist concept “dharma-position” can feed into Hamilton’s “new anthropocentrism.” For the ontological path, the ideal qualities of our interactions, the Buddhist “brahmaviharas” can lend functional structure to the tensions between philosophies of radical acceptance and engaged action. We discuss how this threefold ontological structure provides partial answers to Latour’s “practical climatoscepticism” and Hamilton’s no-analogue world. We sketch avenues for investigation for various Anthropocene ontologies.

Comprehending genius loci, towards spiritual sustainability: lessons from Buddhist heritage city Anuradhapura

ABSTRACT The world heritage city Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, significant for spiritually cherished spatial orientation manifests in the city; reflecting ‘spiritual sustainability’, that integrates nature, natural elements, topography, built elements with the performances of people. This research examines comprehending ‘genius loci’ in heritage city Anuradhapura, and how this occurrence relates to spiritual sustainability. It explores in-depth dimensions of the place, related to ‘spiritual orientation’; a novel approach for understanding heritage sites. This paper proposes an original interdisciplinary study and method to examine ‘spiritual sustainability’ of the place and meanings by employing contextual concepts, and generalised concepts. It utilises Buddhist concepts, to explore in-depth meanings of the place, attached with the locus, vision, and cultural/religious views. Further, it discusses how these meanings shape and sustain the heritage city between divine/mundane dimensions. The same universal concept flourished upon architecture, landscape, villages and cities, from pre-history to the Buddhist city Anuradhapura, gathered in the same locus comprehending ‘genius loci’, established ‘spiritual sustainability’. In conclusion, the Buddhist heritage city sustains between physical and non-physical dimensions, a dynamic process, reveal more in-depth meanings of the place. This study presents a new insight to value heritage places and a new perspective for sustainable developments.

Between Buddhist ‘Self-Enlightenment’ and ‘Artificial Intelligence’: South Korea Emerging as a New Balancer

As artificial intelligence (AI) outpaces the human brain, it is invoking wide-spread fear that men and machines are moving into a conflicting zone. Some even suspect that AI machines may one day consider human beings as slow and sloppy, and thus worthy of subordination or elimination. A growing challenge to mitigate the looming crisis requires science to expand its artificially augmented intelligence by incorporating elements from the ethical–spiritual and human universe. Our endeavor to bridge the prevailing gap between science and spirituality focuses on Buddhism, which stands out in its ability to achieve a rare fusion between natural, spiritual and human worlds. This unique synthesis is specifically mediated by Buddhist ‘causality’, where one aspect explains reality based on a scientifically proven cause and effect paradigm, but the other aspect interprets it by compassionate humanism. It argues that the missing human–spiritual dimension in artificial intelligence can be remedied by the Buddhist concept of ‘causally’ linked to the idea of ‘self-enlightenment’. Being an integral part of Buddhist heritage and a leading player in cutting-edge science, Korea demonstrates abilities to emerge as a new balancer to incorporate the best of science, spiritually and humanism to build next-generation AI machines with distinct human qualities.

Gross National Happiness in Bhutan: Is Buddhist Constitutionalism Legitimate in the Age of Secularism? A Post-Colonial View

Bhutan’s current constitution draws upon the historical dual system of religious-civil governance under the monarchy (previously Abbot-king) embodying the Mahayana Buddhist concept of Boddhisatva-leadership. Bhutan’s democracy includes an executive-military and pluralist religious custodian role for the King who can be abdicated by parliament. It includes Gross National Happiness as spiritual core, which is non-binding law, incorporating many human rights and human values like compassion. The ban on proselytization in the secular constitution should be viewed from a geopolitical post-colonial perspective of the Christian civilization mission and India/China annexation-politics, and Asian definitions of secularism (Royal patronage of religious pluralism). Christians do experience restrictions on congregation. Hindu Nepalese-origin migrants experience(d) citizenship issues due to geopolitical context but can express religion fully. GNH-policy also has certain implementation difficulties and the GNH index indicates declining community values and spirituality in the face of modernist development. Bhutan’s constitution does not fall within the definition of theocracy. The clergy is excluded from the electoral process. The King’s authority is mainly based on moral leadership, popular uncertainty about imported democracy, and is non-absolute but larger than conventional constitutional monarchies. The constitution is more secular than Buddhist in its binding provisions and offers space for non-GNH oriented governments, also in recent practice. Preserving identity and stability is Bhutan’s aim and secularism needs to look at a group approach, apart from individualist approaches. Human rights traditions could acknowledge the cultural-religious roots that inspired them and keep human dignity alive, instead of wanting to remove it from the state altogether and making human rights the new religion.

Brian Houghton Hodgson. At the origins of European Buddhology

The article describes the life and work of Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801–1894), who was servant of the Honourable East India Company (HEICo) in Nepal in 1820−1843. After this he worked as an independent scholar in Sikkim until 1858. Hodgson was among the first European scholars of Buddhism, and the article focuses on the analysis of his views on Buddhism, as well as his efforts to collect Sanskrit manuscripts of classical Buddhist texts. The life and scientific research of Hodgson is considered a typical example of the activities of the first Western Orientalists, who combined service in the colonies with the study of the languages and culture of the Asian peoples. Hodgson received special training for colonial officials and worked for many years as a servant of the HEICo in Nepal, where, along with his official duties, he studied natural history, ethnography and religion of the region. Hodgson collected and donated to universities, libraries and museums in Europe more than four hundred manuscripts of Sanskrit Buddhist writings, previously either completely unknown to European science, or known only in Chinese and Tibetan translations. The study and translation of these manuscripts laid a solid foundation for European Buddhology. In his own works on Buddhism Hodgson identified and characterized four philosophical schools of Indian Buddhism, outlined the Buddhist concepts of the "primordial Buddha" (Adi-Buddha), "contemplation buddhas" (dhyani-buddhas), described Buddhist cosmology and a number of other Buddhist concepts. In addition, he classified the genres of Buddhist literature, took part in the discussion about the original language of the Buddhist canon, showed the inconsistency of the ideas that existed at that time about the African origin of Buddha Shakyamuni. Hodgson's Buddhist views gained recognition in the 19th century, but the accumulation of scientific knowledge about Buddhism showed the fallacy of many of the concepts he put forward. Nevertheless, they played a role in the formation of Western Buddhology, and understanding the history of the study of Buddhism in the West is completely impossible without taking into account Hodgson's works.

Protecting Environment through the Teachings of Buddha

Recently, the word ‘environment’ is actively being used because it needs attention more than anything else. The rush to protect the environment is the minimum move one can do for oneself. Many ways of protecting the environment are discussed but until and unless people don't realise themselves to be an integral part of the environment nothing will work. Buddhism is a religion that has long recognized the interconnectedness of all things, including humans and the natural world. The paper aims to build a framework for understanding the possibilities of Buddhism in order to protect the environment. As such, Buddhism has a lot to offer in terms of promoting environmental awareness and sustainability. The paper explores the ways in which Buddhist teachings and practices can be applied to environmental issues. For example, the practice of mindfulness can help us develop a deeper awareness of the natural world and our impact on it. Buddhist concepts such as non-attachment and non-harming can help cultivate a more sustainable relationship with the environment. The study concludes by offering a foundation to develop a new way for protecting the environment with inner self involvement. Buddhist path of moral action, mindfulness and meditation, and wisdom, the figure of the bodhisattva, who is dedicated to working to lessen the suffering of all sentient beings, serves as a model for sustaining a commitment to working toward what may seem like an impossibly lofty goal. The study demonstrates the potential for Buddhism to play a role in fostering environmental awareness and sustainability by examining the ways in which Buddhist teachings and practices can be applied to environmental challenges.

Буддизм и платонизм в интертекстуальном поле романа В. Пелевина «Любовь к трем цукербринам»

The paper is devoted to understanding the role of the ideas of Buddhism and Platonism in the intertextual space of V. Pelevin’s novel, given that throughout his entire writing career, the prose writer plays with elements of various cultural systems, including philosophical systems. The aim of the paper is to determine the features of the religious and philosophical context of V. Pelevin’s creative work in the 2010s using the novel “Love for Three Zuckerbrins”. The study focuses on the intertextual connections of Pelevin’s prose with the philosophy of Plato (in particular, his doctrine of ideas) and the religious concepts of Buddhism (in an eclectic combination of its various schools and teachings). The paper is original in that it is the first to identify the synthesis of the philosophical thought of the West and the East in V. Pelevin’s novel “Love for Three Zuckerbrins”. As a result of the study, it has been found that, firstly, the appearance of ideas and images of Plato’s philosophy in the novel “Love for Three Zuckerbrins” reflects a change in the vector and the complication of the author’s worldview system; secondly, Plato’s allegory of the cave, idea of the Cosmos are synthesised with the Buddhist motifs of sleep and emptiness and are aimed at creating the Multiverse.

Consolation without Previous Cause in Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises and Zen Satori : A Comparative Study

abstract: This article compares and contrasts the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause with the Zen Buddhist concept of satori . The aim is to underscore a unique but not commonly recognized characteristic of Ignatian contemplation and promote interreligious understanding. I argue that Ignatian prayer methods, though primarily kataphatic in their approach, share common features with apophatic spirituality and Zen meditation, even though Zen does not make any reference to God. This article consists of three main parts: In the first part, I delve into Ignatius's own religious experience, particularly the experiences he had during eleven months in Manresa, and interpret these experiences from the lens of the Ignatian consolation without previous cause. In the second part, I explore the overall goal of Zen, focusing on the discussion of Zen sunyata and satori . In the final part, I draw out points of contact and differences between the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause and Zen satori with an aim toward better appropriating the Ignatian consolation without previous cause from Zen satori . In doing so, I hope to make Ignatian spirituality more appealing and available to spiritual seekers across religious traditions.

Poet Sogi’s Journey to Shirakawa Barrier

The diary of the Japanese poet Sogi (1421–1502) “Shirakawa kiko” (“Journey to the Shirakawa Barrier”, 1468) is analyzed. The sacred place, sung in the lyrics of the past, is the beginning of the song (utamakura). The diary is divided into two parts. This is the result of the development of the genre in the art of renga (connected stanzas) poets. The subject of the study is the prose part. It reveals an increased suggestiveness (yojo) of artistic speech. In the reminiscent variety, a picture of intertextual discourse is formed, the significance of the literary tradition is revealed. It makes up the latent layer of the text, covering the entire narrative. The essay is considered as a memoir diary, it is dominated by emotional content (aware), dating back to the cult of feelings of the aristocratic era. In the chronotope of the diary, a plexus of times and spaces is found, creating an illusory vision of reality as a reflection of the poet’s Zen consciousness. The journey remains unfinished, affirming the infinity of the path and recalling the rotation of the wheel of samsara — the cycle of life and death. The path in the illusory, changeable world affirms the idea of mortal existence (mujo), which has become the fundamental Zen Buddhist concept of the diary.