Immersive Contemplative Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-84
Keyword(s):  
Contemplative Practice

Empirical Findings on the Health Benefits of Mantram Repetition: A Portable Contemplative Practice

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Bormann ◽  
Steven Thorp ◽  
Julie L. Wetherell ◽  
Samantha Hurst
Keyword(s):  
Health Benefits ◽  
Contemplative Practice

Contemplative Principles of a Non-dual Praxis: the Unmediated Practices of the Tibetan ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig) Tradition

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-240
Author(s):  
Eran Laish
Keyword(s):  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Common

This article focuses on the main contemplative principles of the ‘Heart Essence’ (sNying thig), a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that is characterized by a vision of non-duality and primordial wholeness. Due to this vision, which asserts an original reality that is not divided into perceiving subject and perceived object, the ‘Heart Essence’ advocates a contemplative practice that undermines the usual intuitions of temporality and enclosed selfhood. Hence, unlike the common principles of intentional praxis, such as deliberate concentration and gradual purification, the ‘Heart Essence’ affirms four contemplative principles of non-objectiveness, openness, spontaneity and singleness. As these principles transcend intentionality, temporality, and multiplicity, they are seen to directly disclose the nature of primordial awareness, in which the meanings of knowing and being are radically transformed. Therefore, the article will also consider the role of these non-dual contemplative principles in deeply changing our understanding of being and knowing alike.

Choir

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Pryce
Keyword(s):  
Formal Group ◽  
Body Awareness ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Positive Knowledge

Expanding on the notion of “keeping intention,” introduced in Chapter 2, Chapter 5 shows how contemplative Christians refine their capacity to “keep attention” and cultivate “contemplative senses” through formal group rituals, body awareness techniques, and the construction of aesthetic environments. It notes the contemplative Christian concept of the Body of Christ in which individual bodies and the collective body are perceived as interconnected entities with expandable and contractible boundaries. The chapter describes the monastic Daily Office and how non-monastic contemplatives adapt monastic rites to their lives outside monasteries. Introducing the important relationship between agency and habitus in contemplative practice, the chapter also develops a model that explicates the process of changing perception, called “contemplative transformation,” as an ever-moving ritualization between “posture” (intentional cataphatic ritual action and positive knowledge) and “flow” (apophatic, ambiguous “inner gestures” and “unknowing”).

scholarly journals Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Correlate with Psychosocial Development in Contemplative Practitioners and Controls

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 728
Author(s):  
Omar Singleton ◽  
Max Newlon ◽  
Andres Fossas ◽  
Beena Sharma ◽  
Susanne R. Cook-Greuter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Adult Development ◽  
Psychosocial Development ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Posterior Cingulate

Jane Loevinger’s theory of adult development, termed ego development (1966) and more recently maturity development, provides a useful framework for understanding the development of the self throughout the lifespan. However, few studies have investigated its neural correlates. In the present study, we use structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the neural correlates of maturity development in contemplative practitioners and controls. Since traits possessed by individuals with higher levels of maturity development are similar to those attributed to individuals at advanced stages of contemplative practice, we chose to investigate levels of maturity development in meditation practitioners as well as matched controls. We used the Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP) to measure maturity development in a mixed sample of participants composed of 14 long-term meditators, 16 long-term yoga practitioners, and 16 demographically matched controls. We investigated the relationship between contemplative practice and maturity development with behavioral, seed-based resting state functional connectivity, and cortical thickness analyses. The results of this study indicate that contemplative practitioners possess higher maturity development compared to a matched control group, and in addition, maturity development correlates with cortical thickness in the posterior cingulate. Furthermore, we identify a brain network implicated in theory of mind, narrative, and self-referential processing, comprising the posterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and inferior frontal cortex, as a primary neural correlate.

Traveling the U

2013 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
John Hardman ◽  
Patricia Hardman
Keyword(s):  
Initial Phase ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Effective Range ◽  
Effective Capacity ◽  
Contemplative Practice ◽  
Theory U ◽  
Contemplative Practices ◽  
Systematic Process ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Business As Usual

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is not difficult to grasp conceptually. Not so easy to enable is the effective capacity to activate the U’s enormous potential to shift individuals and organizations from a mindset entrenched in a business-as-usual paradigm to one of creativity, disruptive innovation, and sustainable repositioning. Does a systematic process exist that may facilitate the suspension of Scharmer’s notions of judgment, cynicism, and fear so that organizations may free up a more effective range of human faculties in order to solve problems and drive change? The authors propose that such a process is indeed available and can be found in contemplative practices of purposeful meditation. In this chapter, they offer a series of meditations designed to work at each level of the U. This begins with a contemplative practice intended to help suspend habitual patterns of thinking or “downloading,” the first stage in the U, followed by meditations focusing and integrating the heart and will. This initial phase of the process expands the individual’s capacity to truly “let go” old ways of thinking and to make possible the co-creative state of “presencing.” This stage, the downswing of the U, is followed by a collective meditation designed to facilitate the “letting come” or upswing of the U, which translates into the creative, collaborative crystallization of new ideas, leading to prototyping and mainstreaming of innovations.

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