Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-142
Author(s):  
Patricia Sauthoff

The Conclusion examines the conception of the body in medieval India. This body was vulnerable to demons and reliant on deities for its continued existence. For the Tantric practitioner, the divinized body is part of a psychophysical organism. The protective rites of the Netra Tantra reveal that the name of an individual overcome with illness works as a ritual substitute for that person. This is not to say that the physical body of the person is not important. The body is central to ritual practice. When the mantrin places the mantra upon the body (nyāsa), he creates a Tantric body that itself becomes a ritual tool. The body and the mantra become fused. This allows the mantra to heal the body.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Armand

Rituals of incorporation (utarnu) of numinous ontologies in Himalayan Tantric ritualisms represent an interesting field for developing a reflection on different phenomenologies of the body. From the physical body of the tantrika (Tantric practitioner), the formal remains of an individual atman-Self, I investigate the experiences that make it a receptacle for a numinous Other. This article is an attempt to identify some distinctive Tantric features in a ritual practice of incorporation (chema puja) among the Newar communities of the Kathmandu Valley. Such incorporations are supported by an essential narrative link which describes the figure of Siva-Mahadeva as the transmitter of knowledge of tantra-mantra, generating a direct esoteric filiation with the ritual practitioner. Through these incorporation processes, the tantrika achieves a perpetual alternation of two morphologically stable manifestations where the two natures, human and divine, merge into a single form, versus a fragmentation where the two distinct natures remain visible under two Gestalts. By proposing a neurocognitive anthropological approach, I will address the notions of Self and Alien in Hindu Tantric rituals of incorporation, where tantrikas' physical bodies become the encounter spaces where the Self merges and dissolves into the 'numinous' Other, in a bistable mode. In this way, I will be able to reconstruct the neural foundations of these endogenous experiences, mainly localized in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) of the human brain, representing the fundamental core basis of these ritual practices of visualization and merging with a deity in Newar Tantrism and shamanism.


Author(s):  
Anurag Asija

In modern life, people generally try to accomplish too much in too little time, consequently they accumulate a lot of stress in their lives. In that time, yoga plays an important role to alleviate the stress and rejuvenate the body. In the times, yoga was a form of Bhakti. Rishi Patanjali, rightly called the father of yoga, who around 200 b.c. gave us the present literary form of yoga doctrine in his famous treaties Yoga Sutra. In modern times, the value of yoga is being increasingly recognized for general and it’s preventive and curative effects. Yoga does not conceive man having a physical body but on the contrary, it emphasizes the greater values of the mind which characterizes his personality, Thus, yoga leads to ultimate physical health and happiness together with the achieve of mental and patience.


Author(s):  
Amy Hetherington

A lama is a spiritual leader or guider of the dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. When a lama dies their spirit is said to move into the body of an infant born shortly after their death, and this child is called a tulku. The word tulku translates to the Sanskrit word nirmanakaya. This means "pure physical body," and is in reference to a fully enlightened being. In the following essay, I engage in a discussion about the childhood experiences and notions of individuality of Tibetan tulkus. Due to the shortage of academic material on this topic, I draw on personal written accounts of specific tulkus and from these make my own inferences and conclusions. By exploring notions of discipline, familial relationships, personal autonomy, identity, and exploitation, I argue that the recognition and identification as a tulku does not allow one to experience an ordinary childhood and deprives one of pursuing a normative or undisturbed upbringing. In this essay, I utilize the term ‘normative’ to mean any version or rendition of childhood that the child would have experienced had they not been identified as a tulku. I hope my findings will be useful in further discussions about whether a child’s putative identity changes their right to access a typical childhood characterized by family, leisure, and personal exploration, or whether their tulku status overrides and reconditions this right.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 333-349
Author(s):  
Isabelle Choinière ◽  

The mediation of the performative body raises the question of the re-evaluation of the lived body in relation to phenomena of re-creation or re-composition involving the sensible and somatic body when it is affected by technology and incorporates its effects. To understand this phenomenon, this essay examines the interrelation of the notions of corporality (a notion which concerns the physical body in its materiality, or the anthropomorphic body), corporeality, and embodiment through a transdisciplinary approach and as an anchoring to a dynamic of self-eco-organization. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy underpins the very foundations of this research and will allow us to reflect on the new status of the contemporary body in technological contexts. Two main notions will be used. “Corporeality”, as a form of the lived body and a transdisciplinary concept and embodiment as an act of integration by the body – here in a technological environment. In the evolution of the interrelation between the body and the changing environment, the two are in trans-relation, a trans-formation occurs. To conclude, we propose to analyze these new “realities” in a Merleau-Pontian and Nietzschean interconnected approach, that is, through a philosophy of becoming, a philosophy that flows through the body: being a body, doing, risking and creating – a philosophy that resonates with this trans-formation.


Author(s):  
Susanne Ravn

I denne artikel kombineres fænomenologi og etnografiske metoder med det formål at beskrive, hvorledes dansere bruger deres kropsbevidsthed og arbejder med deres bevægelsesfornemmelse. Artiklens formål forfølges i to empiriske undersøgelser. Den første undersøgelse har afsæt i professionelle danseres daglige praksis – relateret til henholdsvis ballet og moderne danseteknikker. Dansernes beskrivelser viser, at kroppens fysikalitet kan være nærværende for bevidstheden som en fornemmelse, uden at der er tale om et refleksivt foretagende, og uden at kroppen fremtræder som objekt. Denne fornemmelse udgør en vigtig ekstra, eller tredje, dimension af dansernes kropslige selvbevidsthed og deres bevægelsesekspertise. Den anden undersøgelse omhandler argentinsk tango og sportsdans. I begge former for pardans har partnerens bevægelser helt grundlæggende betydning for dansernes bevægelsesfornemmelse. Fænomenologisk set er der tale om en kropslig ekstension: Den bevægelsesfælleshed, der etableres i interaktionen, er en betingelse og et udgangspunkt for sansningen af bevægelserne. Dansernes beskrivelser peger dog også på, at interaktionen kan være i fokus i forskellig grad. De to fænomenologisk relaterede analyser udfordrer dermed ideen om at kroppen skulle være fraværende for bevidstheden, når dansefærdighederne beherskes. I stedet er en tredje dimension af dansernes kropslige selvbevidsthed central for danserens præstation, og fornemmelser af bevægelsesfællesheder bearbejdes strategisk. Søgeord: tværvidenskabelig metodologi, danseforskning, professionelle dansere, argentinsk tango, sportsdans. Interweaving phenomenological explorations and ethnographical methods this paper aims at contributing to explicating how dancers use their sense of the physical body and its movements when training and performing their expertise. The aim is pursued in two analyses. The first analysis focuses on the practices of professional dancers, who in different ways are trained in ballet and contemporary techniques. Their descriptions reveal how the body’s physicality is present to their experience in a non-objectifying way while dancing. This kind of experience is to be considered an extra dimension of the dancers’ bodily self-consciousness, which concerns what the body feels like in a physical sense when undergoing the movement. The second analysis, which is based on the practices of tango dancers and elite sports dancers, focuses on how they come to form a shared body when dancing with a partner. Phenomenologically described, their bodies extend: their sense of movement includes the “other” in a fundamental way and unfolds on the level of operative intentionality. However, these dancers also make us aware that experiencing the body as extended and shared does not only “happen” but is worked strategically throughout their practice. Accordingly, the two phenomenological analyses challenge the idea that in the skilled performance, the expert is absorbed in the doing. Rather, an extra dimension of bodily self- consciousness is important to the dancers’ way of performing – and the dancers’ sense of movement involves continual processes of mutual incorporation. Keywords: interdisciplinary methodology, dance research, professional dancers, Argentinean tango, sportsdance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Cossu ◽  
Emilio Loi ◽  
Mauro Giovanni Carta ◽  
Alessia Bramanti

Background: The physical activity has been indicated as an experience that can help achieve positive, self-oriented own body awareness. This awareness is an aspect that tends to get worse with age. Objective: Our study aims to verify the internal consistency of a questionnaire on physical awareness in a sample of Italian elders; a secondary objective is to measure if there is a relationship between physical awareness and perceived level of physical activity. Methods: Cross sectional study on a consecutive sample of elderly people was administered the “Physical Body Experiences Questionnaire simplified for active aging (PBE-QAG)”, inspired by the “Physical Body Experiences Questionnaire”, modified, simplified and adapted to be used in the elderly over 65. To elderly people the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha was also used to assess internal reliability of the total PBE-QAG. The factor structure was evaluated through Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFAs). Results: The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.8 for the “body-mind relationship” scale, 0.81 for the “accepting your body” scale, 0.83 for the “awareness of physical skills” scale, and 0.65 for the “awareness of physical limits” scale. Cronbach’s alpha for the total PBE-QAG was 0.89. The CFA indicated a model with the 4 factors (CFI = 0.989, TLI = 0.984, RMSEA = 0.076). People who conducted physical activity assiduously or regularly and over 10 minutes showed a better score to the PBE-QAG than those who declared a sporadic activity and for “less than 10 minute”, respectively. Conclusion: Our study revealed that the PBE-QAG shows an excellent total internal consistency. In the Italian sample of elderly people the questionnaire shows the model with the 4 factors described in literature.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110407
Author(s):  
Peng Liu ◽  
Lan Lan

This article examines the Chinese imperial body as “simultaneously part of nature and part of culture” and considers the interactions between the cultural body and physical body in sociological terms. The examination elaborates on the physical body as the manifestation of the demands of society mediated by cultural meanings. Bodily changes, such as castration, which Peng Liu argue is a trade between the physical body and cultural body in meeting the demands of Imperial Chinese society, affect the cultural embodiment of the body. This article examines the bodily actions of head eunuchs and how they interact with the emperor in the space of the Forbidden City during Imperial China. Eunuchs have undertaken an invasive physical operation to not only survive but thrive in imperial society. This reflects the constraints, struggles, and disciplining of the physically castrated and culturally embodied being.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-65
Author(s):  
Christèle Barois

The representation of the process of human life is at the heart of questions about longevity, rejuvenation practices and possibly those which aim at immortality. The key term for “age” in medieval India is vayas, which means “vigour”, “youth” or even  “any period of life”, that is to say  exactly the same meaning as ours (duration of life). As a criterion for the examination of the patient, vayas is invariably divided into three periods: childhood, intermediate age and old age, precisely defined in the ayurvedic saṃhitās. It seems that vayas might be a relevant gateway to the cross-disciplinary understandings of age in medieval India, and therefore to the conditions of its (relative) mastery.  


Author(s):  
Gavin Flood

Meditation has been integral to Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions, in particular involving visualization or visual contemplation, practiced as part of ritual and also in its own right in order to achieve the goals of liberation from the cycle of reincarnation and also to achieve pleasure or power in this and other worlds. Visual contemplation is particularly focused on the body envisioned as being pervaded by a vertical axis at a subtle level, along which are located different levels of experience associated with different levels of the hierarchical cosmos. Power is awakened through meditation that rises up through these levels up to the very highest realization. This visual contemplation is thought to be of the subtle body as the support of the soul that leaves the physical body at death. There is also meditation without visualization that emphasizes the flow of pure awareness. This essay examines these practices in the major Hindu tantric traditions focused on the deity Śiva with some reference to the traditions of the Goddess, Viṣṇu, and Buddhism. These traditions influence the later Yoga tradition and have been transformed in the modern West.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Mandell ◽  
Jeremy Smoak

This study discusses how a material religions approach might be applied to the study of Israelite religions. After providing a discussion of recent theory on space and the body in the study of religion, we give several suggestions for how these ideas can apply to Israelite tomb and temple spaces. Our approach brings the study of Israelite religious texts and material culture (back) into the broader study of material religion. To this end, we prioritize the role that the body plays in shaping perceptions of these spaces and in determining the use of things in ritual practice.


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