A Gift from the Buddhist Monastery: The Role of Buddhist Medical Practices in the Assimilation of the Opium Poppy in Chinese Medicine during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

This paper aims to critically appraise the incorporation of opium poppy into medical practice in Song-dynasty China. By analysing materia medica and formularies, along with non-medical sources from the Song period, this study sheds light on the role of Chinese Buddhist monasteries in the process of incorporation of foreign plants into Chinese medicine. It argues that Buddhist monasteries played a significant role in the evolution of the use of opium poppy in Song dynasty medicine. This is because the consumption practices in Buddhist monasteries inspired substantial changes in the medical application of the flower during the Southern Song dynasty. While, at the beginning of Song dynasty, court scholars incorporated opium poppy into official materia medica in order to treat disorders such as huangdan  and xiaoke , as well as cinnabar poisoning, this study of the later Song medical treatises shows how opium poppy was repurposed to treat symptoms such as diarrhoea, coughing and spasms. Such a shift in the medical use of the poppy occurred after Chinese literati and doctors became acquainted with the role of the flower in the diet and medical practices of Buddhist monks across China. Therefore, the case study of the medical application of opium poppy during the Song dynasty provides us with insights into how the spread of certain practices in Buddhist monasteries might have contributed to the change in both professional medical practices and daily-life healthcare in local communities in that period.

Adding historical depth to definitions of mindfulness.

Research on Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) is hampered by semantic ambiguity surrounding the term 'mindfulness'. Understanding the core quality involved in such research could be improved by adding historical depth to definitions of mindfulness, based on more detailed information on mindfulness from text-historical and doctrinal sources in the Buddhist traditions. Particular applications of mindfulness in current clinical usage could be compared to related approaches or doctrinal teachings in Buddhist traditions as part of an ongoing cross-disciplinary dialogue between academics in Buddhist studies and in psychology under the shared aim of deepening our understanding of what mindfulness involves and how it operates.

"This Fathom-Long Body": Bodily Materiality and Ascetic Ideology in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Scriptures.

An outside observer might be excused for assuming that Buddhists, being focused on transcendence, would have little interest in investigating the body's structure or constituent parts in any detail. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Bodies and body parts have in fact long been ubiquitous subjects of contemplation, speculation, and veneration in Buddhist circles. This article discusses representative examples of Chinese Buddhist scriptures from the medieval period that forward an ascetic ideology, with special attention to how the corporeal body is spoken about in such texts. It shows that the very Buddhist writings that were most concerned with teaching ascetics how to transcend the material world in fact focused a great deal of meticulous attention on the corporeal body and drew heavily on Indian medical concepts in forwarding that agenda.

Techniques for nothingness: Debate over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen in early-twentieth-century Japan.

This paper explores a debate that took place in Japan in the early twentieth century over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen. The debate was among the first exchanges between psychology and Buddhism in Japan, and it cast doubt on previous assumptions that a clear boundary existed between the two fields. In the debate, we find that contemporaries readily incorporated ideas from psychology and Buddhism to reconstruct the experiences and concepts of hypnosis and Buddhist nothingness. The resulting new theories and techniques of nothingness were fruits of a fairly fluid boundary between the two fields. The debate, moreover, reveals that psychology tried to address the challenges and possibilities posed by religious introspective meditation and intuitive experiences in a positive way. In the end, however, psychology no longer regarded them as viable experimental or psychotherapeutic tools but merely as particular subjective experiences to be investigated and explained.

Erich Fromm's Involvement With Zen Buddhism: Psychoanalysts and the Spiritual Quest in Subsequent Decades.

The first section of this paper covers Erich Fromm's profound involvement with Zen Buddhism, culminating in his co-authoring the book Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis in 1960. It details why this was a groundbreaking endeavor, as it countered the pervasive psychoanalytic denigration of spiritual traditions, practices, and experiences. The second section describes the effect of Fromm's Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis on the author of this paper, as he came to clinical psychology and psychoanalysis from involvement in Indian philosophy. The third section is a case study of a spiritually advanced Hindu woman seen in intensive short-term psychoanalytic therapy in Bombay, describing the interface of the spiritual with psychoanalytic therapy. The fourth section explains what eventually led to a sea change in psychoanalytic attitudes toward spiritual traditions and practices, with a small but significant group of psychoanalysts becoming involved in one or another spiritual practice, and working with patients also so involved.

An Aspect of the History of Medicine in Ancient Korea as Examined through Silla Buddhist Monks'Annotations on the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease"in the Sutra of Golden Light (Suvarnabhasa-sutra).

Nearly nothing is known of medicine in ancient Korea due to insufficient materials. With several extant prescriptions and esoteric methods of treating diseases alone, it is impossible to gauge in depth the management of medicine during this period. If one exception were to be cited, that would be the fact that the annotations for understanding the contents on Indian medicine in the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease" in the Sutra of Golden Light, a Buddhist sutra originating from India, reflected the medical knowledge of Buddhist monks from Silla (57 BC-935 AD) who were active immediately after the nation's unification of the two other kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula (668 AD) such as Wonhyo (617-686 AD), Gyeongheung (620?-700? AD), and Seungjang (684-? AD). Along with those by other monks, these annotations are collected in the Mysterious Pivot of the Sutra of Golden Light, which was compiled by Gangyo(835-871 AD), a Japanese monk from the Heian era (794-1185 AD). Representative versions of the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease" in the Sutra of Golden Light include: a classical Chinese translation by the Indian monk Dharmaksema (385-433 AD); the eight-volume edition by Chinese monk Baogui, which differs little from the preceding work in terms of the contents of the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease"; and the ten-volume edition by Yijing (635-713 AD), who had full-fledged knowledge of Indian medicine. When the contents of the annotations thus collected are examined, it seems that Wonhyo had not been aware of the existence of the ten-volume edition, and Gyeongheung and Seungjang most certainly used the ten-volume edition in their annotations as well. Especially noteworthy are Wonhyo's annotations on the Indian medical knowledge found in the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease" in the Sutra of Golden Light. Here, he made a bold attempt to link and understand consistently even discussions on Indian and Buddhist medicine on the basis of the traditional East Asian medical theory centering on the yin-yang and five phases (wuxing). In accordance with East Asia's theory of the seasonal five phases, Wonhyo sought to explain aspects of Indian medicine, e.g., changes in the four great elements (catvari maha-bhutani) of earth, water, fire, and wind according to seasonal factors and their effect on the internal organs; patterns of diseases such as wind (vata)-induced disease, bile (pitta)-induced disease, phlegm (slesman)-induced disease, and a combination (samnipata) of these three types of diseases; pathogenesis due to the indigestion of food, as pathological mechanisms centering on the theory of the mutual overcoming (xiangke) of the five phases including the five viscera (wuzang), five flavors (wuwei), and five colors (wuse). They existed in the text contents on Indian medicine, which could not be explicated well with the existing medical knowledge based on the theory of the five phases. Consequently, he boldly modified the theory of the five phases in his own way for such passages, thus attempting a reconciliation, or harmonization of disputes (hwajaeng), of the two medical systems. Such an attempt was even bolder than those by earlier annotators, and Wonhyo's annotations came to be accepted by later annotators as one persuasive explanation as well. In the case of Gyeongheung and Seungjang, who obtained and examined the ten-volume edition, a new classical Chinese translation produced following Wonhyo's death, annotated the "Chapter on Eliminating Disease" based on their outstanding proficiency in Sanskrit and knowledge of new Indian and Buddhist medicine. This fact signifies that knowledge of the eight arts of Ayurvedic medicine in India was introduced into Silla around the early 8th century. The medical knowledge of Wonhyo, Gyeongheung, and Seungjang demonstrates that intellectual circles in contemporary Silla were arenas in which not only traditional East Asian medicine as represented by works such as the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi Neijing) but also Indian medicine of Buddhism coexisted in almost real time.

First Direct Dating for the Construction and Modification of the Baphuon Temple Mountain in Angkor, Cambodia.

Architecture represents key evidence of dynastic practice and change in the archaeological world. Chronologies for many important buildings and sequences, including the iconic temples of medieval Angkor in Cambodia, are based solely on indirect associations from inscriptions and architectural styles. The Baphuon temple, one of the last major buildings in Angkor without textual or scientifically-derived chronological evidence, is crucial both for the context and date of its construction and the period when its western façade was modified into a unique, gigantic Reclining Buddha. Its construction was part of a major dynastic change and florescence of the Hindu-Mahayana Buddhist state and the modification is the key evidence of Theravada Buddhist power after Angkor's decline in the 15th century. Using a newly-developed approach based on AMS radiocarbon dating to directly date four iron crampons integrated into the structure we present the first direct evidence for the history of the Baphuon. Comprehensive study of ferrous elements shows that both construction and modification were critically earlier than expected. The Baphuon can now be considered as the major temple associated with the imperial reformations and territorial consolidation of Suryavarman I (1010-1050 AD) for whom no previous building to legitimize his reign could be identified. The Theravada Buddhist modification is a hundred years prior to the conventional 16th century estimation and is not associated with renewed use of Angkor. Instead it relates to the enigmatic Ayutthayan occupation of Angkor in the 1430s and 40s during a major period of climatic instability. Accurately dating iron with relatively low carbon content is a decisive step to test long-standing assumptions about architectural histories and political processes for states that incorporated iron into buildings (e.g., Ancient Greece, medieval India). Furthermore, this new approach has the potential to revise chronologies related to iron consumption practices since the origins of ferrous metallurgy three millennia ago.

Mindfulness en perspectiva / Mindfulness into perspective

El Midfulness (Mf) es un tipo de psicoterapia basada en el budismo y que tiene un uso creciente en trastornos de ansiedad, afectivos y por dolor. Una de sus principales técnicas es la focalización de la atención en el momento presente. Al tener una fundamentación explícita en las prácticas espirituales budistas, y al proceder de un entorno cultural oriental, su aplicación clínica debe buscar mecanismos para facilitar su encaje. Se realiza una revisión narrativa con el objetivo de proporcionar la integración del Mf con otras técnicas de psicoterapia. Se clarifican concretamente: 1) los orígenes budistas comunes al Mf y a otras formas de psicoterapia y 2) la integración del conocimiento sobre los mecanismos neurobiológicos del Mf en los actuales modelos de neurociencia. Se concluye que el Mf puede integrarse con otros programas psicoterapéuticos y que sus postulados son falsables en el diálogo científico actual con la neurociencia clínica (AU)

Mindfulnes (Mf) is a Buddhism based type of psychotherapy and has an increasing application in anxiety, affective and pain disorders. Focusing of attention in present moment is one of its mainly techniques. As it has an explicit foundation in Buddhist spiritual practice, and also proceed from an eastern cultural environment, implementation in the clinical practice should be provided. A narrative review is performed in order to facilitate Mf integration with other psychotherapy techniques. Manly to aspects are addressed: 1) Mf common Buddhist origins and other psychotherapy types and 2) inclusion of Mf neurobiological mechanism knowledge in present neuroscience models. We conclude that Mf can be integrated with other psychotherapy programs and that contain falsifiable assumptions on current scientific dialog with clinical neuroscience (AU)

Is mindfulness Buddhist? (and why it matters).

Modern exponents of mindfulness meditation promote the therapeutic effects of "bare attention"--a sort of non-judgmental, non-discursive attending to the moment-to-moment flow of consciousness. This approach to Buddhist meditation can be traced to Burmese Buddhist reform movements of the first half of the 20th century, and is arguably at odds with more traditional Theravada Buddhist doctrine and meditative practices. But the cultivation of present-centered awareness is not without precedent in Buddhist history; similar innovations arose in medieval Chinese Zen (Chan) and Tibetan Dzogchen. These movements have several things in common. In each case the reforms were, in part, attempts to render Buddhist practice and insight accessible to laypersons unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy and/or unwilling to adopt a renunciatory lifestyle. In addition, these movements all promised astonishingly quick results. And finally, the innovations in practice were met with suspicion and criticism from traditional Buddhist quarters. Those interested in the therapeutic effects of mindfulness and bare attention are often not aware of the existence, much less the content, of the controversies surrounding these practices in Asian Buddhist history.

The contemporary mindfulness movement and the question of nonself1.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and other "mindfulness"-based techniques have rapidly gained a significant presence within contemporary society. Clearly these techniques, which derive or are claimed to derive from Buddhist meditational practices, meet genuine human needs. However, questions are increasingly raised regarding what these techniques meant in their original context(s), how they have been transformed in relation to their new Western and global field of activity, what might have been lost (or gained) on the way, and how the entire contemporary mindfulness phenomenon might be understood. The article points out that first-generation mindfulness practices, such as MBSR and MBCT, derive from modernist versions of Buddhism, and omit or minimize key aspects of the Buddhist tradition, including the central Buddhist philosophical emphasis on the deconstruction of the self. Nonself (or no self) fits poorly into the contemporary therapeutic context, but is at the core of the Buddhist enterprise from which contemporary "mindfulness" has been abstracted. Instead of focussing narrowly on the practical efficacy of the first generation of mindfulness techniques, we might see them as an invitation to explore the much wider range of practices available in the traditions from which they originate. Rather, too, than simplifying and reducing these practices to fit current Western conceptions of knowledge, we might seek to incorporate more of their philosophical basis into our Western adaptations. This might lead to a genuine and productive expansion of both scientific knowledge and therapeutic possibilities.

Sangye Gyatso (1653-1705) and the medical paintings of Tibet.

Sangye Gyatso played a major role in the politics of 17th century Tibet, and was the originator of the medical paintings that encompassed the full scope of Tibetan medicine.The depictions became an important aid in medical education, and was heavily influenced by Buddhist thinking. The paintings arose in a visual culture dominated by religious art.

[Encounters and re-encounters - philosophy and religion of the physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker]. / Begegnungen und Wiederbegegnungen--Philosophie und Religiosität des Physikers Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker.

(1) Quantum theory deals not just with reality but with the physical (scientific) reality of its objects. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker understood this to imply that scientific knowledge of objects converges with philosophical knowledge of their objectivity but did not succeed in rounding off physics. (2) We are actors as well as spectators not only in scientific knowledge but in political processes as well, particularly by means of science. It is, therefore, not justified to deny political responsibility even in 'basic research'. Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker identified classical physics as the venture of knowledge without love but believed that this boundary could be transcended. The apparent neutrality of science must not be tolerated by the churches, however. (3) In religion Weizsäcker felt most at home in Buddhist spirituality, this being akin to Christian spirituality which has been more or less lost by the Christian churches. Yet he tried to support his church and to participate in its actions. (4) Lack of love corresponds to an excess of power in the religious critique of science. In both respects Weizsäcker presented the mirror to industrial society but people in general did not recognize their image. The Max-Planck-Society, however, shut up Weizsäcker's "Institute for the study of the conditions of life in the modern world" (Starnberg 1970-1980) as soon as possible. (5) Weizsäcker always refrained from exerting any power except that of reason or truth. According to Lao Tse this is the power least perceived as such. In politics he generally followed the mainstream after once having been tempted to action in 1941/42. His influence on German society was based on his charismatic spirituality.

[Weizsäcker and Indian philosophy - a new beginning in negotiating the dualism of mind and matter?]. / Weizsäcker und die indische Philosophie-- ein Neubeginn für die Uberwindung des Dualismus von Geist und Materie?

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's thought is centred around the idea of the unity of reality. He tries to express this idea in his interpretation of quantum physics as well as on the background of neoplatonic thinking. Even his interest in Indian philosophies is based on this concept that would overcome the dualism of mind and matter as well as the dualism of subject and object. On this basis he also tries to reflect on his own inexpressible "mystical" experience in Tiruvannamalai, India, interpreting it with the help of the experience he has been told about by the Indian thinker Gopi Krishna. This is the concept of prana (vital energy) that he uses to find a common terminological ground for physical and mental events. According to Indian Advaita Vedanta, the non-dualistic interpretation of the Vedantic scriptures, reality is based on a non-dual oneness that is self-reflective, transparent and neither immanent nor transcendent but beyond any category. It is pure bliss in its self-expression. Human "mental" experience is a reflective mode of this one reality, subject and object coincide. The result is a holistic psycho-somatology. In view of these ideas Weizsäcker reformulates the notion of "matter". It is less an interaction of particles with specific mass than a non-dual net of interrelations and information, and this would correlate with a concept of mind (consciousness) that could be conceptualized as the energy of self-reflectivity in that very process.

Environmental reconstruction of Tuyoq in the Fifth Century and its bearing on Buddhism in Turpan, Xinjiang, China.

The Thousand Buddha Grottoes of Tuyoq, Turpan, Xinjiang, China were once a famous Buddhist temple along the ancient Silk Road which was first constructed in the Fifth Century (A.D.). Although archaeological researches about the Grottoes have been undertaken for over a century, the ancient environment has remained enigmatic. Based on seven clay samples from the Grottoes' adobes, pollen and leaf epidermis were analyzed to decipher the vegetation and climate of Fifth Century Turpan, and the environmental landscape was reconstructed in three dimensions. The results suggest that temperate steppe vegetation dominated the Tuyoq region under a warmer and wetter environment with more moderate seasonality than today, as the ancient mean annual temperature was 15.3°C, the mean annual precipitation was approximately 1000 mm and the temperature difference between coldest and warmest months was 24°C using Co-existence Approach. Taken in the context of wheat and grape cultivation as shown by pollen of Vitis and leaf epidermis of Triticum, we infer that the Tuyoq region was an oasis with booming Buddhism in the Fifth Century, which was probably encouraged by a 1°C warmer temperature with an abundant water supply compared to the coeval world that experienced the 1.4 k BP cooling event.

[Studies on Yakushi Buddha and its medicinal container].

In Japan, there are about 250 Yakushi Buddha (i.e., Buddha of Healing) statues in Buddhist temples. They are listed as Important Cultural Properties and 14 of them are National Treasures. Belief in Yakushi Buddha was especially prevalent from the 7th to the 13th centuries in Japan. The oldest wooden Yakushi Buddha statue is in Horin-ji Temple in Nara. Among the approximately 250 Yakushi Buddha statues, about 200 have medicinal containers-or rarely, a bowl-in the palm of the left hand. However, these medicinal containers are wooden blocks. Very recently, it was found that the Yakushi Buddha statue in the Suho-Kokubun-ji Temple in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan has a medicinal container in the palm of his left hand, in which an offering (i.e., 220 g of materials) was found. The date on the reverse side of the lid places the offering at October 12, 1699. The offering is composed of five cereals (rice, barley, wheat, soybean and azuki bean), five medicinal plants (Acori graminei, Acori calami, Ginseng, Flos caryophylli and Lignum santali albi) and six minerals (rock crystals, purple and blue lead glass, CaCO3 particles, and silver and golden foils). Recently, the pharmacy educational program was extended from four to six years in order to meet clinical pharmacy requirements for patients. From studying the Buddha of Healing and its medicinal container described above, the author suggests that, in addition to pharmaceutical bioscience, philosophical concept be studied as part of the history of pharmacy in the future.

Childbirth in aristocratic households of Heian Japan

This paper focuses on childbirth in Japan's aristocratic households during the Heian period (794-1185). Drawing on various sources, including court diaries, visual sources, literary records, and Japan's first medical collection, with its assortment of gynaecological and obstetric prescriptions, as well as Buddhist and other ritual texts, this short excursion into the cultural history of childbirth offers an insight into how childbirth was experienced and managed in Heian Japan. In particular, it addresses the variety of ideas, knowledge systems and professionals involved in framing and supporting the process of childbirth in elite households. In so doing, it casts light on the complex background of early Japanese medicine and healthcare for women (AU)

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