Sententiae
March 31, 2026
Olena Kalantarova
Douglas Duckworth's book examines Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, focusing on the Nyingma and Dge-lugs-pa schools, particularly their views on the nature of mind and reality. The review highlights Duckworth's analysis of the distinction between conventional and ultimate truth, the role of emptiness, and the concept of buddha-nature. It emphasizes how Tibetan thinkers, especially from the Nyingma tradition, articulate a non-dualistic understanding of consciousness and its relationship to the external world, engaging with the hard problem of consciousness through a Buddhist lens. The work situates these philosophical debates within the broader context of Tibetan scholasticism and contemplative practice.
RUDN Journal of Philosophy
March 31, 2026
Oleg T. Ermishin
Merab Mamardashvili and Alexander Pyatigorsky developed a 'metatheory of consciousness' in their joint work 'Symbol and consciousness' (completed 1974, published 1982), describing the structure of consciousness and seeking a universal synthesizing category. They viewed consciousness as a combination of content and form, a sphere of symbols and interpretations, and called their approach 'symbology,' where different symbol systems arise through understanding. Mamardashvili later focused on consciousness and individual self, moving toward 'real psychology'—concrete consciousness turned to life phenomena—while Pyatigorsky developed 'observational philosophy' combining phenomenology and Buddhist theory, emphasizing an impersonal observation process and the external observer as a structure of consciousness.
Sententiae
March 31, 2026
Anastasia Strelkova
1 citation
The paper analyzes three key concepts in Buddhist philosophy of consciousness—citta, manas, and vijñāna—and examines challenges in translating them into Ukrainian. It argues that adequate translation requires comparing terms across Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and other traditions, and translating the entire system of Buddhist terminology rather than isolated terms, to avoid incompatibility. The author applies an original approach to Buddhist "philosophy of emptiness," interpreting it broadly as a union of three constituents: emptiness of things, emptiness of concepts, and emptiness of consciousness. An analysis of a passage from Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa (II.34) illustrates the need for systematic translation.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
March 31, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
Across several philosophical and spiritual traditions—Neoplatonism, Advaita Vedānta, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Taoism, and Kabbalah—reflective inquiry that exhausts the subject–object structure of experience converges on a concept of bare existence, bare presence, or bare awareness at the threshold of the sayable. These traditions display striking structural convergences despite divergent doctrinal content, articulating a minimal-dual consciousness as an introspective limit-concept. The analysis employs phenomenological, metaphysical, and psychological approaches, distinguishing convergent structural insights from divergent metaphysical commitments. The conclusion advocates a pluralistic approach that honors both the shared boundary-experience and the irreducible particularity of each tradition's insights, offering an open cartography of the "unsayable."
Wah Academia Journal of Global Religions
March 30, 2026
Salvia Islam, Hamza Bin Anees, Aiman Aiman
Spiritual longing in Ghani Khan's Pashto poetry functions as a form of devotion rather than emotional yearning, according to a qualitative thematic analysis. The study identifies patterns of desire, separation, and ecstatic suffering that align with Mansur al-Hallaj's doctrine of fanā (self-annihilation). Ghani Khan sustains longing as an existential condition that destabilizes the ego and guides the self toward fanā, rather than resolving desire through symbolic union. The paper reconfigures longing as worship, where devotion is enacted through sustained yearning, self-dissolution, and spiritual risk, contributing to Pashto literary studies and comparative mysticism.
Ukrainian Religious Studies
March 25, 2026
Павло Володимирович Ковальчук
Buddhist meditation is defined across three domains—ancient Pāli texts, modern applied literature, and scientific research—as training the mind to be aware of its own processes and to weaken resistance to the feeling tones of experience. Despite differences in terminology and methods, all three perspectives agree on this core definition.
Religions
March 20, 2026
Byoungjai Lee
1 citation
A commentary on an ancient Buddhist text describes five hundred monks who, during intensive meditation, experienced perceptual disturbances, fear, somatic distress, and cognitive impairment—symptoms that map closely onto a modern taxonomy of meditation-related difficulties. The Buddha prescribed five protective practices: loving-kindness meditation, protective chant recitation, contemplation of impurity, mindfulness of death, and arousal of religious urgency. This sequential system progresses from emotional reframing of fear to deconstruction of bodily and existential attachment, culminating in restored soteriological motivation. The ancient prescriptive system offers a meaning-centered complement to contemporary contemplative science, bridging phenomenological classification and intervention.
Scientific Reports
March 18, 2026
Jonas T. T. Schlomberg, Daniel Meling, Robin Grylka et al.
The acute subjective effects of psychedelics are thought to be key to their therapeutic benefits, but conventional measurement methods may be biased. Using natural language processing to analyze phenomenological interviews from a randomized trial of DMT/harmine versus placebo during meditation in experienced meditators, the study found that meditation under DMT/harmine produced different thematic content and greater experiential diversity than meditation under placebo, though semantic overlap existed. The analysis detected well-known primary effects and subtle language patterns, including frequent use of Buddhist concepts and spiritual jargon regardless of condition. Findings suggest shared features between meditative and psychedelic states, a strong drug-context interconnection, and potential synergistic effects.
Journal for social science archives
March 17, 2026
Dr. Sherhzad Ameena Khattak, Salvia Islam, Malik Umer Bin Ajmal
Self-negation in Ghani Khan's Pashto poetry, analyzed through the mystical philosophy of Mansur al-Hallaj and the doctrine of fanā (annihilation of the self), is not a denial of life but an existential condition that enables authentic vision and spiritual awareness. Using qualitative thematic analysis, the study finds that Ghani Khan translates metaphysical self-annihilation into lived human experience through images of fragility, transience, and decay, reconfiguring fanā as both a spiritual and existential process. This situates his work within the Hallajian tradition, highlighting self-negation as a central poetic and philosophical principle.
International Journal of History and Archaeology Research Studies
March 16, 2026
S Sajeer
Between the eighth and early nineteenth centuries, Tibetan Buddhist monastic traditions encountered indigenous animist cosmologies in the hill societies of present-day Arunachal Pradesh. Monpa and Sherdukpen communities in the west selectively adopted Gelugpa and Nyingmapa Buddhist elements while retaining animal sacrifice, spirit propitiation, and shamanic healing. Eastern communities such as the Adis, Apatanis, Galos, and Nishis maintained their Donyi-Polo and related animist traditions largely unchanged. This differential reception was shaped by the political economy of Tibetan monastic expansion centered on Tawang Monastery (founded c. 1680–81), trans-Himalayan trade routes, and ecological constraints. Syncretism was an active, creative negotiation, not passive reception. The Treaty of Yandaboo (1826) severed trans-Himalayan connections, and British colonial ethnography later imposed categorical distinctions that obscured integrated local practice.
Philosophies
March 13, 2026
Tina Röck
Reality is best understood as fundamentally dynamic and interdependent, or processual, by bringing together process thought, phenomenology, and the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism. This view shapes how we speak about, investigate, and understand the natural world. A phenomenological reading of process is brought into dialogue with Buddhist thought. Key points of convergence between phenomenologically clarified process philosophy and Madhyamaka are mapped, and the epistemological and practical consequences of viewing reality as impermanent and dependently arising are considered through Whitehead's and Nāgārjuna's views.
International Journal of Advanced Academic Studies
March 1, 2026
Kashi Nath Pandey
Buddhist teachings, including the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, mindfulness, and meditation, align with modern psychological therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, mindfulness-based interventions, and positive psychology. Empirical research supports the role of these practices in reducing stress, anxiety, and depression while enhancing well-being. The integration of ancient Buddhist wisdom with contemporary mental health approaches shows its ongoing relevance for addressing psychological distress.