Philiminality

There is an apparent  contradiction between Zen way of life and scientific studies of nature.  However, on the fundamental level they have in common search for  reality: through critical examination of facts, acceptance of  impermanence of things and phenomena, and non-reliance on scriptures.  Implementing and understanding common ground in both outlooks can lead  to finding the meaning of human existence, personal flourishing and  happiness.

Tai Chi is a popular method of self-cultivation and health enhancement that goes back to a 17th-century combination of martial arts and healing exercises (daoyin). The latter are first documented in the 3rd century BCE and today activated, under biomedical auspices, in the practice of qigong...

Contradictions (and, arguably, the acceptance thereof) pervade Buddhist  Philosophy. What is the point of those contradictions? In this talk, I  shall argue that contradictions are an important soteriological  instrument (upāya) for the practitioner. The enigmatic catuṣkoṭi, a  statement to the effect that every proposition holds, does not hold,  both holds and does not holds, and neither holds nor does not hold, is  noteworthy in this context...

The purpose of many  computer products in the area of information and communications  technology is to capture the user’s attention, distract it from the  actual place where the user is situated, and export it to some virtual  space where advertisers practise their persuasion. The enterprise has  been enormously successful, though the effects on users aren’t always  benign (anxiety, depression, etc)...

A growing number of philosophers are recognizing the value of  psychoanalysis in enriching our understanding of rational psychic  integration—a central task within the Platonic-Aristotelian ethical  tradition...

It is well-known that Stoic  ideas about ethical guidance and the therapy of emotion influenced the  formation of modern cognitive therapy. This paper outlines those links  and also explores how far the two practices are parallel in their aims  and methods with special reference to Epictetus’ ‘Discourses’  and ACT therapy...

Zen kōans serve a didactic function within the institution of Buddhist  schools, with teachers using them to help their pupils reach  enlightenment. In this paper, I suggest that Platonic dialogues function  similarly to Zen kōans in their inducement of aporia. Thus, reading and understanding the role Zen kōans are intended to play within Buddhist schools illuminates the role of aporia in Western philosophy...

Buddhist ethics shares with  Plato a rationalist orientation in the weak but crucial sense that a  correct view of reality is the final goal, and that seeking and  attaining this goal is transformative. This implies a further  similarity, namely that the focus of ethical concern is on  transformation of view, from which transformation of character (or  experience) follows...

It is well-known that modern strands of psychotherapy—like  Beck’s cognitive-behavioural therapy or Ellis’ rational emotive  therapy—have been influenced by the Stoics and their take on the nature  of emotions. It is not the world which causes our emotional upheaval, the Stoics and therapists propose, but how we construe the world through our mediating beliefs...

In the Theaetetus,  Plato ascribes a metaphysics to relativism according to which there are  no stable objects or properties. In effect, the world dissolves and  there is nothing we can refer to in speech. En route to this revisionist  picture, Plato toys with expressions that might be suitable to talk  about a world in flux: something is no more tall than not tall, no more  cold than not cold, etc...