1,626 research outputs found

    The Inheritance of this Moment: An Exploration of Temporality, Subjectivity, and Liberation in Non-Dual Contemplative Practice and Psychotherapy

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    This dissertation considers the meaning of ā€œpresent-moment awarenessā€ and its role in psychological healing and transformation. The current conversation around mindfulness, a secularized practice with roots in Buddhist contemplative traditions, has largely unfolded within a dualistic framework in which subject and object are separate from one another as well as from a discrete entity called a moment. While widely appreciated for its capacity to foster well-being and insight, mindfulness as construed above remains disconnected from Buddhist psychologyā€™s non-dualistic view of experience, which radically challenges our ordinary understandings of subjectivity and temporality. In the current project, I sought to explore this non-dualistic perspective phenomenologically, and to highlight its potential intersection with psychotherapeutic theory and practice. To this end, I worked with Peter Fenner, Ph.D., a non-dual teacher and former Buddhist monk, exploring contemplative instructions from a Tibetan Buddhist tradition known as Dzogchen. These so-called pointing-out instructions involve a teacher ā€œpointing-outā€ to their student ā€œthe nature of mind,ā€ the non-dual reality held to be already present but habitually unrecognized in their experience. Over 11 meetings, I worked with Peter as he abided within the recognition of non-dual awareness, reading and commenting on five different pointing-out instructions from masters in the Dzogchen lineage and spontaneously engaging me in conversation regarding my own understandings. I wrote phenomenological descriptions of what it was like to work with Peter and the instructions, and then analyzed the different texts in terms of what they might suggest about subjectivity, temporality, suffering and healing. From this analysis emerged four themes that cohere as a single way of being: Immediacy, Letting Go, Not Knowing, and Relating Intimately. I then explored how these might already be implicit within the psychotherapy process. Through a consideration of psychotherapy in terms of the relational context, the clientā€™s experiencing, and shifts in understanding, I suggested various ways that effective psychotherapy can be understood as an attenuated expression of non-duality. Insofar as we realize that the gap between ourselves, experience, and time is in fact imagined, and we can never truly be separate from ā€œthis moment,ā€ we might discover novel possibilities for psychotherapeutic theory and practice

    The rDzogs-chen distinction between mentation and excitatory intelligence

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    The rDzogs-chen thinkers of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition are unique in presenting a highly developed account of mind and intelligence that remains grounded in experience while avoiding the pitfalls of reductionism. This study focuses on a distinction, important for understanding the rDzogs-Ā­chen contribution, between mentation (sems) and excitatory intelligence (rig-pa). Mentation refers to the non-optimal operations in which the experiential field becomes structured into the subjective grasping of projects that elicit interest. It is marked by the repetition of habitual patterns and by a dimming of the cognitive potential. Excitatory intelligence, on the other hand, involves an optimizing energy that restores the fluidity to experience. Here the dynamics of evolutionary change are accessed. To set the stage for a discussion of the rDzogs-chen contributions to the understanding of mind, an account of the philosophical debate amongst the Buddhist schools of philosophy is first presented

    History education for nation-building in exile : The case of Tibetan refugee schools in India

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    History education is often deemed essential to the construction of national identity and to the project of nation-building. History teaching, in particular, serves to promote and legitimize a certain category of historical knowledge as the official knowledge and participates in the reproduction of the existing social relationships. However, the issue of how sub-nation groups like refugee communities construct their ethnonational identity and the image of their historical legacy via the teaching of history is an understudied one. As such, this research examines role history teaching plays in engendering a collective national identity for the Tibetan refugee children in India. By employing critical discourse analysis of the history textbooks of the Tibetan refugee schools and thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews held with fifteen history teachers, this study analyzes the key features of nation-building project of the Tibetan exiles and how it manifests itself in the curricular and pedagogical practices of history education. The findings of the research show that the teaching of history in the Tibetan refugee schools carries an overriding burden of political and cultural agenda. The discursive repertoires present in the textbooks construct an image of a lost homeland for the young Tibetans born in exile and offer them a victimized subject position. The results also indicate that the history education is deployed to subvert the dominant Chinese colonial narrative on Tibetan history and Sino-Tibetan relationships, and to reveal the colonial nature of the Chinese rule in Tibet. Yet it fails to question the traditional power structure of the Tibetan society. In stark contrast, it perpetuates the dominant Buddhist narrative of Tibetan history. Therefore, it is reasoned that the deployment of critical and decolonial pedagogy in the teaching of history is selective and is guided primarily by political motivations rather than by its interest in questioning power and domination. Based on the findings of this research, it is argued that refugees and other communities in diaspora generally live in a vulnerable socio-political climate where the use of history for the construction of a collective ethno-national identity is more pertinent and urgent. Under such a scenario, the disciplinary goals of the teaching of history remain subservient to the pursuit of nationalist goals. It is also argued that Indiaā€™s pluralistic and flexible system of education, which allowed the Tibetan refugees to develop a mother-tongue based schooling with a culturally-relevant curriculum, provides an interesting model that can potentially benefit multicultural countries in addressing the question of diversity and representation in education

    The Water In Which We Swim: The Influence of the Contemplative on Higher Education in American (Capitalist) Culture

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    The 20th century brought about the development of an increased climate of capitalist influence on every aspect of American life, including and especially on higher education. Simultaneously, as more and more purposes of higher education have come to reflect values of capitalist culture, a movement towards new ways of teaching and learning has begun to emerge in the academy. These new ways of teaching and learning value relationship, introspection, and inquiry based on critical reflection. Many of them have their roots in the contemplative traditions of Asia. Guided by the framework of Paulo Freire and Parker Palmer\u27s broad visions for the purpose of education, this multiple-case study, focused on six participants, explored the influence of traditionally trained Tibetan Buddhist teachers on American faculty members in American higher education. The study\u27s findings illustrate this influence in the form of three major themes: Care For (Even Love) Your Students; Think Critically; and There Is Value in Authentic Voices from Other Traditions. This study informs practice for stakeholders in teaching and learning in higher education

    YONGHEGONG: IMPERIAL UNIVERSALISM AND THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF BEIJING'S "LAMA TEMPLE"

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    Yonghegong ("Palace of Harmony and Peace"), popularly known in English as the "Lama Temple," is often described as Beijing's largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monastery, but from its establishment in 1694 during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) to the present, Yonghegong has continued to evolve physically and functionally, from imperial prince's residence, to "travelling palace" (xinggong), to imperial ancestral shrine and Tibetan Buddhist monastic college, and finally to its current role as monastery, monastic college and museum. Despite its history and ubiquity as a Beijing landmark and destination for pilgrims and tourists, it has received limited academic attention. Furthermore, previous studies have emphasized the site as a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, downplaying its political significance. This study will provide a more comprehensive interpretation of Yonghegong as an expression of the Qing ideology of imperial universalism, focusing on the site during the reign of its major patron, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1735-1796). In order both to describe and interpret the multidimensional complexities of Yonghegong in a systematic fashion, I will employ as a heuristic device an interpretive model for the site inspired by two aspects the Indo-Tibetan tradition of the mandala: symbolic mapping and spatial ordering. The many symbols at the site will be arranged according to what I call the "three spheres" that center on the person of the Qianlong emperor: microcosm, the somatic sphere (symbols of the emperor's presence and personal history at the site); mesocosm, the socio-politcal sphere (multicultural symbols of the emperor's legitimacy); and finally macrocosm, the eschatological sphere (symbols of the emperor's role as enlightened ruler, ushering in the coming of the next buddha, Maitreya). Interpretation of the three spheres at Yonghegong is then applied first to the site's external features (e.g. site plan, architecture, what I call the "outer mandala") and then to examples of the internal features (e.g. sculptures, inscriptions, what I call the "inner mandala"). This study will both contextualize much of the overlooked symbolism of the Qianlong-era art and architecture at Yonghegong, as well as provide the first comprehensive interpretation of the site as a whole

    XX gs.mistiskās antropoloģijas dimensijas: Hesihasma un Tibetas budisma salīdzinājums

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    PētÄ«jums ir veltÄ«ts komparatÄ«vajai reliÄ£iski-filozofisko ideju problemātikai un mēģinājumam saskatÄ«t saikni starp idejām un to arhetipiski empÄ«risko zemtekstu. Lai salÄ«dzinātu Tibetas budisma un hesihasma antropoloÄ£iskās idejas un to soterioloÄ£iski empÄ«riskās konsekvences, ir izmantota M. Eliades fenomenoloÄ£iskā metode. Izņemot arhetipiskā kopsaucēja meklējumus, darbā ir analizētas divu tradÄ«ciju atŔķirÄ«bas ar A. Pjerisa izstrādātās reliÄ£iju klasifikācijas palÄ«dzÄ«bu. Saskaņā ar to budismu varētu kvalificēt kā gnostisko, bet kristietÄ«bu ā€“ kā agapeisko reliÄ£iski-filozofisko ideju kopu. Darbs sastāv no četrām daļām. Pirmajā ir iztirzāts reliÄ£ijas bÅ«tÄ«bas jautājums, meklēta atbilstoÅ”a pieeja un metodoloÄ£ija un ir apskatÄ«ti avoti. Otrajā daļā ir veikta divu tradÄ«ciju svarÄ«gāko antropoloÄ£isko jēdzienu komparatÄ«vā analÄ«ze, treÅ”ajā ir vilktas paralēles starp apziņas intraversijas pakāpēm tantriskajā budismā un hesihasmā, bet ceturtajā ir salÄ«dzinātas antropoloÄ£isko un soterioloÄ£isko ideju somātiskās konsekvences abās tradÄ«cijās. Parādot kopējās arhetipiskās ideju bāzes klātbÅ«tni hesihasmā un tantriskajā budismā, promocijas darbs rada pamatu un izejas punktu citiem pētÄ«jumiem, kas bÅ«tu veltÄ«ti Rietumu tradicionālās reliÄ£iskās apziņas transformācijai un meta-terminoloÄ£ijas izstrādāŔanai.The research is dedicated to the comparative analysis of the philosophically religious ideas and to the attempt to discover the link between the ideas and their empirically archetypal background. In order to compare the anthropological ideas in Hesychasm and Tibetan Buddhism and their soteriologically empirical consequences, the phenomenological method of Mircea Eliade has been employed. Along with the analysis of the common archetypal base, the clue to differences is looked for. Here the classification of religions elaborated by Aloysius Pieris has been used. In accordance with that Buddhism has been qualified as belonging to the gnostic philosophically religious ideological complex whereas Christianity represents the agapeic one. The thesis consists of four parts. The first one is dedicated to the definition of religion, to the search for the appropriate approach and methodology and to the survey of sources. The comparative analysis of the basic anthropological notions of Hesychasm and tantric Buddhism is discussed in the second part of the present research. In the third part the parallels between the stages of the introversion of consciousness in the mentioned traditions are looked for whereas the forth part is devoted to the somatic consequences of the soteriological and anthropological ideas. In the present thesis the universal experientially archetypal basis of both religious traditions has been discovered becoming a starting point for researches devoted to the transformation of the Western traditional religious consciousness and to the problems of metaterminology

    Impermanence: Exploring continuous change across cultures

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    Nothing lasts forever. This common experience is the source of much anxiety but also hope. The concept of impermanence or continuous change opens up a range of timely questions and discussions that speak to globally shared experiences of transformation and concerns for the future. Impermanence engages with an emergent body of social theory emphasizing flux and transformation, and brings this into a dialogue with other traditions of thought and practice, notably Buddhism that has sustained a long-lasting and sophisticated meditation on impermanence. In cases drawn from all over the world, this volume investigates the significance of impermanence in such diverse contexts as social death, atheism, alcoholism, migration, ritual, fashion, oncology, museums, cultural heritage and art. The authors draw on a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, Buddhist studies, cultural geography and museology. This volume also includes numerous photographs, artworks and poems that evocatively communicate notions and experiences of impermanence
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