Spirituality Research Articles

"Nada vs sunyata." The Notion of Emptiness in John of the Cross and in Zen Buddhism

It is not seldom that some authors try to compare the doctrine of Zen Buddhism with the doc­trine of Saint John of the Cross with the intention of finding some parallels. The most striking similarity seems to be the term “emptiness” (nada – John of the Cross and sunyata – Zen Buddhism). The difficulty of the comparison stems from the fact that in both cases this term has an experiential meaning, i.e. it de­scribes subjective feelings one has while following the spiritual path. Therefore, the intent of the paper is to capture the metaphysical and epistemological meaning of this term in order to facilitate the com­parison. This effort has led to the conclusion that in both doctrines the essentially different meaning of emptiness reflects their different understanding of the ultimate reality. Consequently, meditational techniques which both forms of spirituality adopted to achieve the ultimate reality exclude each other, and the semantic proximity of Zen Buddhism and John of the Cross is misleading.

The Relationship of Sustainable Buying Behavior Dimensions Among the Gen Z: Modeling the Impact of Psychological Factors

Sustainable consumption has continuously become a trend in the behavior of consumers over the recent decades due to drastic changes in technological advancement, economic development, and population growth on a global scale. This research aimed to establish the relationship among the dimensions of sustainable purchase behavior of the Gen Z living in Metro Manila, Philippines. Multiple regression analysis was used to establish the psychological factors of Generation Z's overall sustainable purchase behavior. Findings revealed that the Perceived Knowledge About Sustainability Issues (PKSI), Attitude Towards Sustainable Purchasing Behavior (ATS), Sustainable Purchase Behavior (SPB), Spirituality (SP), Perceived Consumer Effectiveness (PCE), Drive for Environmental Responsibility (DER), and Perceived Marketplace Influence (PMI) dimensions were positively correlated among each dimensions.

The art of healing and spirituality, the point of view of a Buddhist doctor

The spiritual path proposed by Buddhism is based on foundations to be integrated and put into practice. This path and the meditation that integrates it opens up capacities for the caregiver and beneficial effects from a therapeutic point of view for the patient.

Mountains and Waters of No-Mind

This article explores the epic poem Mountains and Rivers Without End (1996) by Gary Snyder and a Song/Chin dynasty Chinese landscape painting. I illustrate how the poem and the painting, together with Henry David Thoreau’s autobiographical narrative A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums (1958), form a complex web of intertextual and intermedial references. All four works, I argue, tell similar narratives of spiritual journey and paths through mountain and river landscapes; all four speak of moments of heightened awareness in the sense of Buddhist “no-mind” (Chinese: wu-shin; Japanese: mushin). I show how they converge in exhibiting ontologies of non-substantiality, emptiness, and becoming. Taking the philosophies of Zen Buddhism and Taoism as a theoretical frame, I argue that the American transcendentalist and Beat works poetically and narratively convey relational rather than substantialist views of Being and life. They depict the world as a dynamic and open field of tension between two non-oppositional forces from which we as subjects are not essentially separate in a dualistic way. I substantiate my argument by drawing on the French sinologist and philosopher François Jullien, who refers to the Chinese understanding of landscape (“mountains and waters”) in his critical treatment of (European) philosophy’s centuries-long subject-centered epistemology and substantialist “ontology of Being.”

Dr. Annemarie Schimmel on Sheikh and Salik Relationship in Sufism: A Study

Prof. Annemarie Schimmel is deemed to be eminent intellectual of the contemporary era who has produced gargantuan intellectual works in the sphere of Islamic Studies, particularly that of sufism, the subject which is broad ranging, intricate and critical field. There are plenitude of elements associated with the concept of sufism on which Annemarie Schimmel has delved deep. However, the one that we will be dissecting in this very paper is Annemarie Schimmel’s views on the role sheikh plays in the life of salik on the spiritual path. How he aids him in this convoluted journey and what are the downsides of having such undiluted authority in life.

Wearing fire and chewing iron: Oaths of peace and the suspension of monotheism in contemporary Alevism

AbstractThis article examines the practices and discourses surrounding theikraroaths by which some Alevis in Turkey and the Turkish diaspora are initiated into their spiritual path. I examine a contemporary revival of this Alevi oath complex, which is a historical product of the same messianic trends in post-Mongol Sufism that shaped the Mughal imperial idea ofsulh-i kull, or ‘Peace with All’ religions. I argue that theikraroaths are paradigmatic examples of ‘post-Islam’ or Islam after the messianic suspension of its scriptural law. I show how Alevis seek to maintain their suspension of monotheism through ritual practices of animal sacrifice and music as well as the replacement of standard monotheistic oaths with post-Islamic oaths. Focusing on a recent liturgical reform movement led by the shrine of Hacı Bektaş in central Turkey, I demonstrate how the shrine works to maintain Alevis’ suspension of monotheism within the constraints of modern secularism, in part by reinterpreting secular constraints in terms of post-Islamic Alevi values, thereby highlighting elective affinities between post-Islam and secularism.

Jurema In Contemporary Brazil: Ritual Re‐Actualizations, Mysticism, Consciousness, And Healing

AbstractThis article proposes an exposition and analysis of perceptions intrinsic to rituals carried out with the use of the jurema plant, especially when mixed with Syrian rue (juremahuasca) in contexts of contemporary esoteric re‐actualizations in Brazil. These rituals are conducted by people who look at jurema as a spiritual path, once acquainted with its psychedelic properties. We highlight the mystical attributes and the cultural bricolage elaborated by these individuals, who conduct ceremonies in ritual spaces in which participants experience altered states of perception and consciousness. Considered as an entheogen, jurema leads to states of mystical transformation in people. Such personal changes are often considered by users as the rhetoric of healing. Life stories and ethnographic contexts form the background of the article, which seeks to advance understandings about jurema based on speculations around the intertwining of the themes of consciousness, mysticism, and healing.

Buddhist Ethics as a Path: A Defense of Normative Gradualism

This essay defends a new interpretation of Buddhist ethics: normative gradualism. According to normative gradualism, what we have normative reason to do depends on our stage along the Buddhist spiritual path. The essay shows how normative gradualism can justify distinctive features of Buddhist ethics and reconcile consequentialist and eudaimonistic interpretations of Buddhist moral thought.

Mysticism and Theosophy in the Service of the Regime: Azharite Scholars and the Challenges to Religion-State Relations under Mubarak

Abstract Challenged by Salafi Islam, Sufism managed to reassert itself in Egypt by acquiring new roles in society while emphasizing commitment to the Sharia. This article explores the role played by the religious organs of the state in promoting Sufism under President Hosni Mubarak, in the context of growing challenges to religion-state relations during this period. Focusing on the thought of ʿAlī Jumʿa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt (2003–2013), and the current Shaykh al-Azhar Aḥmad Muḥammad Aḥmad al-Ṭayyib, it also assesses the contribution of popular preachers, many of whom were graduates of al-Azhar, to this mystical discourse. The study aims to demonstrate that these popular preachers shared with the Azharite scholar some form of identification with theoretical mysticism, reflecting a broad inclination towards Sufism within Egyptian society. The Shaykh al-Azhar and the Grand Mufti sought to prove the compatibility between spirituality with its esoteric and introspective basis and Islamic law with its more worldly and structured dimension, by incorporating a theosophical debate within an apologetic exchange with Western thought. While this encounter with mysticism did not represent a new phenomenon, the novelty was in its political direction, in which a Sufi-oriented worldview became a tool to strengthen the regime’s position in its struggle against Islamist movements. The regime’s growing dependence on its religious institutions to counter the challenge of political Islam enhanced the bargaining-position of al-Azhar and Dār al-Iftāʾ, providing them leverage to advance the path of Islam and mitigate the regime’s secular orientation. While many popular preachers backed moderate Islamism, the religious officials of al-Azhar and Dār al-Iftāʾ relied on mysticism to support a highly supervised state-sponsored Islam. The reliance on the spiritual path to support diverse political trends demonstrates the all-encompassing and dynamic nature of theoretical mysticism as it was infused with rationalism, new knowledge, politics and a Sharia-based worldview.

Sisterhood in 5D

Sisterhood in 5D

Studi Komparasi Konsep Tuhan dalam Mistisisme Jawa dan Advaita Vedanta Adi Śańkarācārya

Mysticism gives a different nuance in defining the concept of God. Because this is related to the individual experience of those who reach the mystical consciousness, awareness of God in mysticism cannot be reached by reason or empirically but through the way of the senses in mind. This article attempts to explain the concept of God in Javanese mysticism and Advaita Vedanta Adi Śańkarācārya. The method used in this research is (library research). The results of this study are 1) the concept of God in Javanese mysticism (Sangkan Paraning Dumadi) and Advaita Vedanta (Brahman as the highest and absolute reality) is monistic theism, namely understanding God as one (transcendent monotheism). 2). In the view of Javanese mysticism, the universe is sourced from God and will return to God, while in Advaita Vedanta, apart from Brahman as an absolute reality, everything else, including nature, is an illusion of Maya. 3). To achieve God's consciousness, Javanese mysticism emphasizes doing Heneng, Hening, Henong, and Catur Lampah Laku, with the spiritual path to reach Manunggaling Kawula Gusti. Whereas in Advaita Vedanta, the union between Atman and Brahman can be achieved by removing the veils of Maya and avidya (ignorance).

Menkıbelerde bir af dilenme makamı olarak eşik

Eşik seen in many fields from the oldest mythical narratives to modern literary texts and generally defined in dictionaries as “the low step at the bottom of the doorway” carries out a highly important function while interpreting the relation between murshid (spiritual director) and murid (seeker) in tasawwuf culture. According to conventional wisdom, a murid who wants to transfer from zahir (outward) to batin (inward) and to walk confidently on the spiritual path needs to put his head in eşik of his murshid. Thus, murid expresses his devotion and surrender to his murshid. From this perspective, eşik symbolizes humility, devotion, and giving up the ego. Eşik having such a deep meaning is also used in hagiographies while asking for forgiveness for a mistake. Murids who follow their nafs (ego) in a moment’s heedlessness and hurt the feelings of their murshid ask for forgiveness as waiting on eşik of murshid and finally they achieve these goals. One of the best examples of this shows itself in the famous hagiography of eşik between murshid Tapduk Emre and his murid Yûnus Emre. However, this is not the only example in the hagiographies of the use of eşik as a scale of asking for forgiveness. It is seen that a similar situation occurred between murshid Zengî Ata and his murid Seyyid Ahmed Ata, murshid Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli and his murid Molla Sadeddin and murshid Emir Külâl and his murid Behâeddin Buhârî and the murids who commit a fault try to be forgiven by their murshids as putting their heads in eşik of their murids. Firstly, this study deals with the meaning of the term, eşik in tasawwuf culture, then, eşik as an expression of regret is scrutinized in the framework of the sample hagiographies.

Doran's Being in Africa

<i>Doran's</i> Being <i>in Africa</i>

Al-Ghazali’s Qur’anic Sufi Hermeneutics: Study on the Story of Abraham In Search of God

The existence of hermeneutics in the Islamic world, especially in the interpretation of the Qur’an is quite problematic. Some Muslim scholars consider hermeneutics to be inapplicable in interpreting the Qur'an. moreover, historically hermeneutics has a close relationship with the tradition of biblical understanding. However, al-Ghazali in his book Jawāhir-ul Qur'ān has introduced hermeneutics-based ta'wil. This article aims to discuss the concept of the Qur’anic sufi hermeneutics developed by Imam Al-Ghazali. This study is a library research with deductive method. The research data were analyzed using Edward Husserl's phenomenology investigation to highlight the illumination of al-Ghazali's method to reach the essence of the text. The results of the study found that the discovery of the essence of the text can be achieved by mystical intuition rather than categorical intuition. Al-Ghazali asserts that individuals who seek the spiritual path are endowed with mystical intuitive abilities. Therefore, mystical experiences and spiritual readers help to uncover the hidden layers and meanings of the Qur'an. As indicated in his interpretation of Q.S al-An'am: 76-78 about Abraham's contemplation when seeking the essence of God. According to al-Ghazali, it shows how Ibrahim uses a higher faculty than the cognitive faculties of sensory perception, creativity and reason. His interpretation of Surah al-An'am relies solely on mystical intuition and cannot be understood by anyone who is not inclined towards such an interpretation.

Сатышевское медресе: преподаватели, выпускники, история религиозных зданий

The madrasah in the village of Satyshevo, Mamadyshsky district of Kazan province (modern Sabinsky district of the Republic of Tatarstan) was one of the oldest rural madrasas in the province. The activity of the Satyshevsky madrasah begins no later than the middle of the 18th century (after the 1750s). In the 19th – early 20th centuries it was one of the largest rural madrasas in Russia. At the beginning of the 19th century, the training center consisted of 3 wooden buildings, and by the beginning of the 20th century, a complex of mektebe and madrasah of 7 buildings was being created. At the beginning of the 20th century, a second parish was allocated in the village and another mosque was being built. The teachers and students of the madrasah were famous imams and recognized theologians in the Volga-Ural region. The madrasah in Satyshevo village had extensive educational ties with the Muslims of the main educational centers of Kazan, Orenburg, Troitsk, Bukhara and Dagestan. The founder of the madrasah should be considered Imam Abdurrashid bin Kadermukhammad. The next famous imam and mudarris was Ibrahim bin Jagfar as-Satyshi. After him, Mukmin ben Budach continued his spiritual path in Satyshevo. One of the famous imams and mudarris of the Satyshev madrasah was Yarulla bin Bikmukhammad (1794–1869). His son Mubaraksha continued his spiritual ministry at the Satyshevo Mosque. One of the students of Yarulla hazrat was Muhammad bin Ali (Mukhammet Mukhammetgaleev), his name is associated with the further development of teaching in the Satyshev madrasah. After his death in 1902, the position of the first imam passed to his son – Abdrakhman Mukhametov, and the second imam in the documents is indicated by the son of Mubaraksha hazrat – Gabdulla. The teaching program at the madrasah was old-fashioned, classical. It is known from the preserved description of the library of the madrasah that there were a large number of manuscripts and books published in Russia and Turkey.

«КУЛЬТУРА МОВЧАННЯ» ЯК ІНСТРУМЕНТ «ПОЛІТИКИ ГОЛОСУ»

The «culture of silence», as well as the «politics of the voice», are interpreted differently in the Eastern and Western traditions. For example, in Japanese culture, silence acts as a spiritual practice and is evidence of a person's level of education. In archaic cultures, silence was also part of a person's spiritual path, his formation, and his search for himself. It is characteristic of a Western person to consider silence in a slightly different way. For her, silence, first of all, is a sign of inability to express oneself, one's position, etc. That is why in Western culture preference is given to the voice as a confirmation of one's will. The key opposition underlying European culture is the binary of sound and its absence. European culture attached great importance to the word. Speaking for a European means, first of all, self-defense and self-affirmation, defending oneself and one's place in the social structure, and accordingly silence is perceived, as a rule, in three modes: or as something abnormal; or as a sign of surrender; or as an attack on another person expressed in a certain way. For Europeans, a person who does not give voice, a will that is not expressed by voice, in the social sense is equal to zero. Precisely because of this, power structures that operate only by voice, on the one hand, do not perceive gestures of silence, or if they do, it is only as a sign of consent, and on the other hand, they are the voice they fear, bow to and which admit. That is precisely why, based on the analyzed material, we come to the conclusion that silence is not always golden. For a government that only pursues the «politics of the voice» a person's silence indicates nothing but consent and submission. Silent resistance means absolutely nothing to the power structures. And in a person who gradually gets used to only perceiving the voice of the conditionally stronger, the experience of resistance, the experience of expressing personal will gradually atrophies, he is drawn into a paranoid tendency and fear of being revealed or visible.

«Небожительница с шапкой из волос»: о жизни и даосских деяниях Тянь Сянь-гу

The article is devoted to the problem of the female spiritual path in the Daoist school of Complete Perfection (Quanzhen). The Quanzhen school was famous for actively attracting followers, regardless of gender and social status. One example of lower-class women who converted to Daoism and became abbess of monasteries was the Daoist Tian Xian-gu. For twenty years, she did not comb or wash her hair, collecting it upstairs in a high hairstyle, for which she received the nickname “Celestial Lady with a Hat of Hair” (Fa-guan Xian-gu). Despite the fact that Tian Xian-gu came from a peasant family, thanks to her eccentric appearance and extraordinary abilities, she was worshiped as a saint and a temple was erected in her honor. In memory of her Daoist deeds, the Stele conferring the highest decree [on the monastic abode of the name] “The Palace of Ultimate Perfection and Endless Longevity” (Chi ci Jizhen wanshou gong bei) was installed in it by the Yuan scholar and writer Zhang Yang-hao (1270–1329) which served as the source of this study. The most important mile­stones of her spiritual path, listed on the stele, such as reclusion, begging, asceticism, purification of the heart, are explained through the poetic and prosaic instructions of the first patriarchs of the Quanzhen school. The ques­tions of improving the Daoists nuns in the point of view of the philosophical, religious, social, historical and cultural ideas that existed in the medieval China and had a great influence on the further evolution of Daoism and its institution of monasticism are studied on the example of the female monastic tradition in XIII–XIV centuries.

«Ей, гряди, Господи Иисусе», или Тайна смерти Гоголя: К 170-летию со дня кончины

The author of the article addresses the issue of N. V. Gogol’s death, analyzes his last words, behind which one can clearly hear the well-known saying of the saint close to Gogol’s soul Apostle Paul. The work shows that the righteous Christian death of Gogol became the pinnacle of his spiritual path, the last step of the ladder built in his soul which he climbed all his life. The Church Slavonic semantics of the word “requirement” is explained on the margins of Gogol’s Bible, it is assumed that the word “requirement” is used by the writer as Church Slavonic in the meaning: “need, necessity.” Some of Gogol’s thoughts are given about death and its impact on the people around him, educating a person from a young age in such a way that he always understands the real meaning of life, so that death is not an accident for him. It is shown that the words engraved on Gogol’s tombstone express the most important thing in his life and work: the desire to acquire the Holy Spirit and the preparation of the soul for a meeting with the Lord.

Особенности моделирования художественного пространства в сказке Софьи Прокофьевой «Королевство семи озёр»

The features of modeling artistic space in Sofia Prokofieva’s fairy tale “Kingdom of Seven Lakes” (2004) are interpreted. The interaction of parallel worlds – real and fairytale – takes place in a fairy tale through dynamic metamorphoses of space: an uninhabited house turns out to be a portal to a magical land, a mysterious staircase is a path to an unknown world. In “Kingdom of Seven Lakes”, one of the ways to model space is the complete disappearance of real coordinates and the miraculous appearance of a new world from “nowhere”. Spatial characteristics and metamorphoses of the fairy tale space, the mythologeme of the ladder and the key, the opposition of horizontal – vertical, disappearance – appearance, openness – isolation, infinity – limitation, the coordinates of the demonic and heavenly worlds in Prokofiev’s work are subject to the movement of ethical thought. The downward movement, on the one hand, carries the semantics of growing danger, fear, doom, approaching death, on the other hand, it marks a magical transition into a fairy tale and back into the real world. The vertical – horizontal dialectics represents the motive of the main character’s journey in his movement towards an unknown goal. The adventures of the protagonist in the fairy tale universe with its spatial dynamics and the growing tension of struggle and movement determine Alyoshka’s actions, which require mercy, patience and courage from him and ultimately led to the salvation of the wonderful kingdom. His journey through the fabulous lakes symbolizes certain stages of the character’s spiritual path. The space of Evidentis Castle has a special status in the fairy tale. In the work there is an implicit opposition of heaven and hell, which has spatial characteristics. The sulfur lake, both in its name and in appearance (lack of air and in general real space in it, all-burning fire) marks a hellish place, while the revived royal castle of Evidentis appears as an image of universal happiness, love and unceasing fun, an eternal feast in divine bosom. Modeling of multidimensional and ambivalent space has a great discursive significance in the “Kingdom of Seven Lakes” and makes it possible to realize in the fairy tale the most important motif of the path – the path of growing up, knowing the world and self-knowledge of the young character, finding the higher meanings of being.

Whole Faith: The Catholic Ideal of Emilia Pardo Bazán by Denise Dupont

Reviewed by: Whole Faith: The Catholic Ideal of Emilia Pardo Bazán by Denise Dupont Jennifer Smith DENISE DUPONT. Whole Faith: The Catholic Ideal of Emilia Pardo Bazán. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University Press of America, 2018. 242 pp. In Whole Faith: The Catholic Ideal of Emilia Pardo Bazán, Denise DuPont aims to give a comprehensive overview of the Galician author's spiritual beliefs. The book consists of a preface, an introduction, four chapters, and a two-page conclusion. In the substantial introduction, DuPont shows how Pardo Bazán's commitment to Roman Catholicism imbued her thinking on a wide array of topics from feminism and politics to artistic production. For the Galician writer, Catholicism also held promise as a path to national regeneration. She rejected socialism and anarchism as solutions to economic inequality and advocated for "the Catholic idea of charity as the only solution to poverty" (22). Furthermore, she viewed art, beauty, and aesthetics as both fundamental to Catholicism and life. Chapter one focuses on Pardo Bazán's Franciscan worldview, based mainly on her work San Francisco de Asís (1882). The Franciscanism she envisions is contemplative, socially active, feminist, and concerned with artistic beauty. The Third Order, to which Doña Emilia herself belonged, did not require a vow of celibacy or strict mendicancy and was, therefore, particularly attractive to women who did not want to sacrifice their family lives to follow the spiritual path. Pardo Bazán also argues that Franciscanism offers a solution to social inequality in its advocacy for the communal sharing of wealth. She claims that if society chose to eschew the path of Catholic charity, socialism and communism would gain ground as the only viable alternatives to address widespread poverty. Pardo Bazán's presentation of Leo Tolstoy's "anti-Franciscan" spiritual conversion is the subject of chapter two. She was particularly concerned with Tolstoy's renunciation of his craft as a novelist. She viewed it as a rejection of a charism, or gift, from the Holy Spirit. Moreover, by rejecting his literary talents, "[t]he Russian writer sacrificed aesthetics, luxury, and the arts and thus sinned against beauty and truth" (94). Pardo Bazán also criticized Tolstoy's condemnation of art, learning, and civilization as an erroneous exaltation of the man of nature in the vein of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Finally, she rejected the Russian author's condemnation of erotic love as unnatural and misogynistic and characterized his religious practices as rooted more in pride than in true spiritual humility. Chapter three explores Pardo Bazán's pilgrimage to Italy for Pope Leo XIII's jubilee, a journey initially recounted in installments on the pages of El Imparcial and later collected in Mi romería (1888), and her trip to Belgium chronicled in Por la Europa católica (1901). In the former work she recounts the pope's confirmation of her literary vocation as a gift from God and again portrays Catholicism's advocacy of social justice and charity as an antidote to the abuses of capitalism and as a moral alternative to socialism and communism. In the latter work, it is made clear that her embrace of Catholicism was not a repudiation of modernity. Instead, holding up Belgium as a model of an advanced Catholic nation, she asserts that Catholicism was uniquely equipped to unite a diverse and divided people and to move nations forward. Also of significant import in this work is her visit to the Ghent Museum that houses Van Eyck's [End Page 248] altarpiece the "Mystic Lamb" as it comes to represent the "poetic vision of her ideal: unity achieved by the body and blood of the Mystic Lamb" (173). Following up on this idea, the final chapter, chapter four, is titled "Toward the Lamb with the Lamb," representing Pardo Bazán's idea that every person should try to progress towards the lamb in spiritual perfection, while simultaneously accepting God's grace throughout the process. DuPont explores how Pardo Bazán emphasized this message in three plays Cuesta abajo (1906), El becerro de metal (1906), and Juventud (1905-06), in her praise of dancing charities such as "garden-parties," and in...