University of Antwerp
11 papers in the library · 40 citations · publishing 2023-2026
Religions January 29, 2023 Federico Divino 13 citations
The Sutta Nipāta, an early collection in the Pāli canon, reveals how archaic Buddhist doctrine was shaped through dialogue with orthodox and established powers in 6th century BCE India. The text also sheds light on contemplative practices aimed at the 'absolute' (paramattha and brahmavihāra), an area often overlooked in meditation studies.
Religions July 21, 2023 Federico Divino 7 citations
Personal crisis during deep meditation can be understood differently depending on the tradition. In contemporary mindfulness practices, such crisis appears as a 'crisis of presence,' whereas in traditional Buddhist meditation it involves the dissolution of the subject-object distinction. Drawing on Ernesto De Martino's concepts, the article argues that this phenomenon should be recognized as significant rather than negative. Modern mindfulness, detached from its Buddhist roots, has been criticized for reinforcing neoliberal and capitalist modes of cognition. Traditional Buddhist meditation aims for samādhi, a serene 'end of the world' where self-world boundaries dissolve. The article urges mindfulness researchers to explore this dimension for fuller contemplative benefits.
Philosophies April 25, 2025 Federico Divino 5 citations
Archaic Buddhism, as recorded in the Pāli Canon, contains a well-articulated theory of knowledge that includes a sophisticated view on language and its role in perception and cognition. The paper argues that Buddhist considerations on language are comparable to Saussure's early linguistic theories and address fundamental issues in the philosophy of perception and theories of cognition. This comparison offers a technical approach to the problem of consciousness, aiming to structure a systematic dialogue between the philosophy of mind and language, cognitive sciences, and linguistics, thereby providing an original perspective on these topics through Buddhist thought.
Religions February 24, 2023 Federico Divino 5 citations
Ancient Buddhism framed complete healing as the ascetic goal of ending the world—transcending ordinary experience through disciplined awareness and presence. Drawing on medical anthropology and historical-philological methods, the analysis shows that early Buddhist asceticism reconciled transcendence with healing by reflecting deeply on awareness and presence. The article contributes to the conceptual history of Buddhist medicine by examining how the ascetic problem of the 'end of the world' served as a path to total health.
Cogent Arts and Humanities July 16, 2025 Federico Divino 4 citations
The Pārāyanavagga, an early Buddhist text, is argued to express a theory of intentionality. Comparing it with Husserl’s phenomenology and Peirce’s phaneroscopy, the paper contends that the text presents contemplative practice as an exercise in deconstructing semiosic forces—unconscious processes that shape intentionality and cognition of the world. The goal is to transcend these forces into a state of Beyondness, surpassing intentionality and cognitive mechanisms of world-construction. This transcendence is hypothesized to occur through three fundamental semiosic forces, one primary and two subordinate. The article offers a semiological reading in comparative analysis with phenomenology, not a philological analysis.
Philosophies August 27, 2025 Federico Divino 2 citations
Buddhist thought and Peircean semiotics share a concern with how signs shape perception and cognition. From its earliest formulations, Buddhism adopted contemplative practice as a means of liberation from the effects of semiosis—the continuous process of sign interpretation. This article hypothesizes that the Buddhist concept of nāmarūpa (name-and-form) represents this semiosic process. After examining perceptual and sensory processes underlying nāmarūpa, the paper analyzes occurrences of this term, proposes its semiosic functions, and explores how contemplative practice aims to disengage from the power of signs.
Anthropology of Consciousness January 12, 2025 Federico Divino 2 citations
Anthropology must make consciousness a central focus to fully understand human experience. The field has evolved from positivist roots through phenomenological and ontological turns, yet still struggles with dualistic thinking, especially the separation of self and other. The author's ethnographic work on contemplative practices such as Buddhist meditation and mindfulness shows how this bias persists even in studies of meditation. Drawing on Buddhist philosophy, the article proposes 'mindful ethnography' as a way to overcome dualism. Consciousness is presented as a fundamental concern that can reshape anthropological inquiry and offer a more nuanced understanding of humanity.
Journal of Contemplative Studies August 6, 2024 Federico Divino 2 citations
A new method combining ethnography and visual elicitation uses mandala-like images to capture how consciousness evolves during meditation. Adapted from Jungian psychology for qualitative fieldwork, the approach centers on participants' direct meditative experiences, iterative multistage mandala drawing, and a deliberate break from conventional artistic norms. A case study illustrates the visual data obtained from meditation sessions, revealing the transformative character of contemplative practice. The method marks a shift in ethnographic focus toward meditation and examines the dissolution of subjective boundaries inherent in such contexts.
Humans January 14, 2026 Federico Divino
Early Buddhist Pāli sources present cognition as a layered process arising from the interplay of sensory and affective domains, culminating in semiotic determinations (nāmarūpa) and the proliferation of conceptual constructs. Drawing parallels with Peircean pansemioticism, the article argues that both traditions treat phenomena as sign-constituted events, and that contemplative practice can interrupt habitual chains of semiosis. By bridging Buddhist phenomenology with cognitive science and semiotics, the Buddhist model—with its precise technical vocabulary and analyses of attention, perception, and conceptualization—offers tools for understanding and modulating cognitive processes in theory and practice.
Philosophies January 12, 2026 Federico Divino
In Pāli Buddhist texts, language and cognition are deeply intertwined: signs structure cognitive processes and semiosis drives the proliferation of concepts and percepts, organizing a shared yet partly subjective world. Drawing on linguistics, semiotics, and biosemiotics, the paper provides a vocabulary for understanding Buddhist reflections on these issues and offers a genealogical inquiry into why language holds a pivotal role in Pāli Buddhism.
January 1, 2025 Federico Divino
A three-year doctoral project combines ethnography with theoretical and methodological inquiry to examine consciousness from an anthropological perspective through contemplative practices, broadly defined to include any practice fostering mindful awareness via bodily discipline. The study critiques standard ethnographic methodology and develops a variant that uses multi-layered drawings as visual devices to elicit narratives of subjective experience from participants engaged in meditation or contemplation. Although the number of participants was small, the author argues that the data are significant for qualitative research focused on individual subjectivities rather than collective experiences.