Buddhist Meditation and the Ethics of Human Augmentation

Thai Buddhist meditation practice tradition has its long history since the Sukhothai Kingdom about 18th B.E., until the present day at 26th B.E. in the Kingdom of Thailand. In history there were many well-known Buddhist meditation master teachers, i.e., SomdejPhraBhudhajaraya (To Bhramarangsi), Phraajarn Mun Puritatto, Luang Phor Sodh Chantasalo, PhramahaChodok Yanasitthi, and Buddhadasabhikkhu, etc. Buddhist meditation practice is generally regarded by Thai Buddhists to be a higher state of doing a good deed than doing a good deed by offering things to Buddhist monks even to the Buddha. Thai Buddhists believe that practicing Buddhist meditation can help them to have mindfulness, peacefulness in their own lives and to finally obtain Nibbana that is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. The present article aims to briefly review history, and movement of Thai Buddhist Meditation Practice Tradition and to take a case study of students’ Buddhist meditation practice research at the university level as an example of the movement of Buddhist meditation practice tradition in Thailand in the present.

Download Full-text

Perspectives

10.1093/oso/9780199674923.003.0056 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Szollosy

Keyword(s):

New Technologies ◽

Human Relationships ◽

Cultural Imagination ◽

Personal Lives ◽

The Public ◽

Social Organizations ◽

The Social ◽

Human Augmentation ◽

Public Imagination

This chapter introduces the “Perspectives” section of the Handbook of Living Machines offering an overview of the different contributions gathered here that consider how biomimetic and biohybrid systems will transform our personal lives and social organizations, and how we might respond to the challenges that these transformations will inevitably pose to our ‘posthuman’ worlds. The authors in this section see it as essential that those who aspire to create living machines engage with the public to confront misconceptions, deep anxieties, and unrealistic aspirations that presently dominate the cultural imagination, and to include potential users in questions of design and utility as new technologies are being developed. Human augmentation and enhancement are other important themes addressed, raising important questions about what it means fundamentally to be ‘human’. These questions and challenges are addressed through the lens of the social and personal impacts of new technologies on human selves, the public imagination, ethics, and human relationships.

Download Full-text

Research on the transcendence of bodily differences, using sport and human augmentation medium

Augmented Humans Conference 2021 ◽

10.1145/3458709.3458981 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ryoichi Ando ◽

Isao Uebayashi ◽

Hayato Sato ◽

Hayato Ohbayashi ◽

Shota Katagiri ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Human Augmentation

Download Full-text

Computing as a tool for human augmentation

IBM Systems Journal ◽

10.1147/sj.253.0306 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 25 (3.4) ◽

pp. 306-320 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

W. J. Doherty ◽

W. G. Pope

Keyword(s):

Human Augmentation

Download Full-text

A Study on Propagation in the COVID-19 Era and the Future Revitalization of Buddhist Meditation

10.33645/cnc.2021.04.43.4.1003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 1003-1019

Author(s):

Young-Mi Kim

Keyword(s):

Buddhist Meditation ◽

The Future

Download Full-text

THE DALAI LAMA AND ACADEMIC RESEARCH TO THE 85TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 14TH DALAI LAMA

Journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS ◽

10.31696/2618-7302-2020-4-149-161 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 149-161

Author(s):

Alla M. Shustova ◽

Keyword(s):

South India ◽

Academic Research ◽

Single Atom ◽

Altered States ◽

Common Goal ◽

Dalai Lama ◽

Buddhist Meditation ◽

Fundamental Knowledge ◽

The Common ◽

The Universe

The article is dedicated for the 85th anniversary of His Holiness Dalai Lama the 14th Tenzin Gyatso and considers his contribution to establishing the dialogue between academic research and spirituality. It depicts main points of Dalai Lama’s way in science, the results of which he described in his book ‘The Universe in a Single Atom. How Science and Spirituality Can Serve Our World’. In this book His Holiness tried to explain the possibility of reaching a unified vision of the world, based not only on science but also on spirituality. Dalai Lama is sure of the necessity of the dialogue between science and Buddhism; he believes that there are certain points, where science and Buddhist philosophy come very close to each other, and may form a good base for such a dialogue. It is for example non-theistic character of both science and Buddhism, the similarity of their methods of cognition, along with the common goal of attaining the truth. Dalai Lama raises one important question: Should there be a place for ethics in science? Giving the positive answer, he then proves it expressly. For several decades Dalai Lama has been undertaking active efforts to facilitate the dialogue between science and spirituality. Recently Russian scholars have also joined this process. By Dalai Lama’s initiative two big conferences were held under the aegis of the program “Fundamental knowledge: dialogues of Russian and Buddhist scholars”. As a result of these meetings the joint Russian and Buddhist research center was organized in South India to study the altered states of conciseness, basing on various types of Buddhist meditation.

Download Full-text

Concentration and Visualization Techniques in Buddhist Meditation

The Oxford Handbook of Meditation ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808640.013.19 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nobuyoshi Yamabe

Keyword(s):

Fifth Century ◽

The Body ◽

Early Form ◽

Significant Development ◽

Buddhist Meditation ◽

Esoteric Buddhism ◽

Reflective Thought ◽

Visual Approach ◽

Per Se ◽

Visualization Techniques

This chapter outlines the early form and development of Buddhist meditation. First, it discusses the “application of mindfulness,” especially “mindfulness of the body,” which can be largely classified into two types of practice. One is “mindfulness per se,” without reflective thought, and the other is a more reflective or visual approach. “Mindfulness per se” (in particular, mindful breathing) was transmitted to East Asia and remains the cardinal method there. The chapter discusses close ties between traditional mindfulness and Japanese Sōtō practice. It then moves on to describe meditation on the decomposition of a corpse, which is a representative form of the more reflective and visual type of practice, involving the observation of a dead body in its stages of decomposition. This is found in early scriptures. Later texts came to teach a more elaborate method of “grasping the images” of a corpse. A notable development in visualization is that the images seen by the practitioner came to include ones that were more enigmatic. The discussion finally turns to another significant development in Buddhist meditation, one which involves Buddha visualization. Its undeveloped form is found in early Mahayana sutras, but a fully developed version employing statues as aides for visualization is found in later meditation texts from the fifth century onward. This type of visualization was inherited by Esoteric Buddhism and is still practiced today.

Download Full-text