<p><strong>Creator's Description:</strong> This is designed as an undergraduate textbook on Tibetan Buddhism. The general perspective is similar to that of <em>Civilized Shamans</em>, but the scale and detail are more appropriate for undergraduate usage, and the book includes supplementary material that will I hope be useful in that context. I have also taken the opportunity to cover a number of areas not dealt with in detail in the earlier book (e.g. gender, national identity, Tibetan Buddhism in the world today).A companion website will be available shortly with further material, including links to videos and a set of powerpoints which includes full colour versions of the illustrations in the book. An e-book version is also forthcoming with Journal of Buddhist Ethics Online Books. This lively introduction is the ideal starting point for students wishing to undertake a comprehensive study of Tibetan religion. It covers the development and influence of Tibetan Buddhism and the key schools and traditions, including Bon. Geoffrey Samuel helps students get to grips with a complex set of beliefs and practices and provides a clear sense of the historical, cultural and textual background. Important contemporary issues such as gender, national identity and Tibetan Buddhism in the world today are also addressed. Illustrated throughout, the book includes a chronology, glossary, pronunciation guide, summaries, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading that will aid understanding and revision. (2012-04-13)</p>
The initial stages of the Mindfulness movement involved a limited set of meditative practices which derived from modernist forms of Buddhism in Asia and the West and had been restated in terms distant from those of life and practice in Asian Buddhist societies. Early research focussed on the effects and therapeutic efficacy of this modernized and secularized set of practices, which could be assimilated with relative ease within contemporary scientific thought and biomedical practice. However, as the Mindfulness movement has grown, it has provided an invitation to consider the much wider range of meditative forms existing within Asian Buddhist traditions. The chapter discusses some of these meditative forms, along with parallel contemplative practices within Hindu and Daoist traditions. A better understanding of this multiplicity of contemplative forms and techniques and that of the cultural and philosophical context which they assume and imply can both stimulate an expansion and rethinking of Western modes of scientific thought, and aid us to develop a more varied and productive range of therapeutic applications.
Lesion and neuroimaging studies suggest the amygdala is important in the perception and production of negative emotion; however, the effects of emotion regulation on the amygdalar response to negative stimuli remain unknown. Using event-related fMRI, we tested the hypothesis that voluntary modulation of negative emotion is associated with changes in neural activity within the amygdala. Negative and neutral pictures were presented with instructions to either "maintain" the emotional response or "passively view" the picture without regulating the emotion. Each picture presentation was followed by a delay, after which subjects indicated how they currently felt via a response keypad. Consistent with previous reports, greater signal change was observed in the amygdala during the presentation of negative compared to neutral pictures. No significant effect of instruction was found during the picture presentation component of the trial. However, a prolonged increase in signal change was observed in the amygdala when subjects maintained the negative emotional response during the delay following negative picture offset. This increase in amygdalar signal due to the active maintenance of negative emotion was significantly correlated with subjects' self-reported dispositional levels of negative affect. These results suggest that consciously evoked cognitive mechanisms that alter the emotional response of the subject operate, at least in part, by altering the degree of neural activity within the amygdala.
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The aim of this study was to assess the acceptability and feasibility of Vinyasa yoga as an adjunctive treatment for depressed patients who were not responding adequately to antidepressant medication. The authors also planned to ask participants for qualitative feedback on their experience of the class and to assess change over time in depression and in possible mediating variables. The authors recruited 11 participants in 1 month for an 8-week open trial of yoga classes. They found that 10 participants completed follow-up assessments, 9 of 10 were positive about their experience, and all provided feedback about what was and was not helpful about yoga, as well as barriers to class attendance. Over the 2-month period, participants exhibited significant decreases in depression symptoms and significant increases in an aspect of mindfulness and in behavior activation. This pilot study provided support for continuing to investigate Vinyasa yoga as an adjunct treatment for depression. The next step required is a rigorous randomized clinical trial.
<p>Contents: Introduction | Stories and sources | The second urbanisation of South Asia | Two worlds and their interactions | Religion in the early states | The origins of the Buddhist and Jain orders | The Brahmanical alternative | Interlude: asceticism and celibacy in Indic religions | The classical synthesis | Tantra and the wild goddesses | Subtle bodies, longevity, and internal alchemy | Tantra and the state | The later history of yoga and tantra | Postlude</p>
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We have seen already that panentheism thrives even in religious traditions rejecting theism. The chapter suggests that for doctrinally atheistic religious traditions, such as Buddhism, religious praxis rather than doctrine affords a window into expressions of panentheism. In Tibetan Buddhism, Samuel notes there is not a focus on the interactions with God as omnipotent deity; deity in this tradition is much more diffuse, with conceptions of karma and the cultivation of subtle energies filling in the gaps a deity might otherwise occupy. In this chapter, the theme of panentheistic connectivity finds expression in the transformations that occur on the bodily level through practices that generate connections between a subtle, spiritual life force and the physical body. The Tibetan Longevity Practices discussed operate on this principle. The implicit panentheism of this longevity practice demonstrates a pervasive and lively panentheistic world view. Even if this panentheistic perspective is frequently doctrinally unacknowledged, it remains a potent force in religious life.
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OBJECTIVES: To understand depressed individuals' experiences in a 10-week hatha yoga program.DESIGN: In a randomized controlled trial, participants were assigned to either 10 weeks of hatha yoga classes or a health education control group. This report includes responses from participants in yoga classes. At the start of classes, average depression symptom severity level was moderate.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: After 10 weeks of yoga classes, we asked participants (n=50) to provide written responses to open-ended questions about what they liked about classes, what they did not like or did not find helpful, and what they learned. We analyzed qualitative data using thematic analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Elements of yoga classes that may increase acceptability for depressed individuals include having instructors who promote a non-competitive and non-judgmental atmosphere, who are knowledgeable and able to provide individualized attention, and who are kind and warm. Including depression-related themes in classes, teaching mindfulness, teaching breathing exercises, and providing guidance for translating class into home practice may help to make yoga effective for targeting depression. Participants' comments reinforced the importance of aspects of mindfulness, such as attention to the present moment and acceptance of one's self and one's experience, as potential mechanisms of action. Other potential mechanisms include use of breathing practices in everyday life and the biological mechanisms that underlie the positive impact of yogic breathing. The most serious concern highlighted by a few participants was the concern that the yoga classes were too difficult given their physical abilities.
While much recent scholarship on Tantra has tended to distance it from the world of pragmatic ritual healing, mediumship and spirit-possession, and treat it primarily as an elevated mode of pursuit of enlightened consciousness, Frederick Smith’s recent book The Self Possessed is the most comprehensive presentation so far of the reverse position, that all of these modes of interaction with the divine, whether to do with healing, sorcery or spiritual liberation, share common assumptions and a common idiom. Here, and in other recent writing, Smith presents the idea of entry, pervasion or possession (āveśa) as a fundamental trope in Indic thought, encompassing everything from conception (seen as the individual jīva taking over possession of the embryo) to Tantric ritual, the temporary occupation of another body and malevolent spirit-attack. If this is true, however, does this suggest that we are applying the wrong set of categories to understand Indic and perhaps also other religious traditions? This article sketches an alternative mode of looking at the field of “possession,” broadly defined, and explores some of its implications.
Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.
Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.
Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy.--Publisher website.
The intention of this chapter is to complement Tadeusz Skorupski'sprimarily textually-based account with a more ethnographic
description of religion, health
<p>A review by Geoffrey Samuel of F. Michael, <em>Rule by Incarnation: Tibetan Buddhism and its Role in Society and State</em>.</p>
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