Speakers

The Establishment of Mindfulness in Buddhist Meditation: Where and How?

In many Suttas of the Pali Canon, such as Ānāpānasati Sutta, there lies an expression, “parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā” which means ‘establishing mindfulness in front of him’. The question is: what does it mean by “parimukhaṃ”? Some view that it is a physical location around the face, the tip of the nose, etc. While other view that it is not related to any physical location, but rather a figurative word, which means establishing mindfulness with a meditative object. This paper aims to examine the different interpretations of 'parimukhaṃ' and presenting possible interpretations conforming with the context of Buddhist meditation.

Cooperative Functions of Mindfulness and Full-Awareness in Meditation According to Pali Buddhism

Sati and sampajañña are the essential mental factors in any type of Buddhist meditations. Especially sati, often translated as "mindfulness" which furnished the name of "Mindfulness Meditaion", has been paid attention in recent years. We will make clear the meanings and functions of sati and sampajañña defined in Pali Buddhism, and introduce the notable cases where those two are related with disappearance of suffering in body and mind. Furthermore, we will discuss how the cooperative functions of the two, or sampajañña accompanied by sati works around mental troubles like delusion in meditation.

Why Sati and Sampajañña often go hand in hand in Buddhist Texts

The compound satisampajañña often used in the Buddhist texts in order to interpret two aspects of the functionality of mind at which sati is the concentration aspect of the mind and sampajañña is the wisdom aspect of the mind. In other words sati is not necessarily wisdom but it is the representation of samādhi or concentration and sampajañña conveys the application of wisdom aspect to the sati. At the operation level sati kicks in, which is followed by applying wisdom aspects. Therefore both sati, remembrance and sampajañña, well comprehension operate together. Pali Mūla texts explain how the satisampajañña operates but the concept itself lacks any explanation but the classical commentaries do explain some aspects of sampajañña including the opposite concept, asampajañña in relation to sati. This paper attempts to distinguish sati from sampajañña based on the early Buddhist texts and their classical commentaries.

How to deal with the negative mind functions which arise in the Mindfulness viewing from the Chinese text

How to deal with the negative mind that arises when observing the mind is an important theme in Meditation. East Asian literature, especially Tendai's "Moho Chiquan, Makashikan", states that the past is remembered or that hallucinations occur. In such cases, five types of responses are presented. In particular, there is an interesting statement that he rejects magical hallucinations with a strong heart. I will survey these appraches.

Meditation and the Possibilities of Taking Measurements

The Yogācāras constructed the system of Vijñānavāda. This means that the system is constructed based on experiences of yoga practitioners. One might then imagine the elements in the system appear in the form of data by quantifying experiences of practitioners. However, although the earliest Vijñānavāda literature clearly shows empirical backgrounds, later highly complex Vijñānavāda makes it difficult to find correspondences between described experiences with data taken by instruments. The presenter envisions that it would be useful to consult how data from experiments are analyzed in the fields of neuroscience and mindfulness in finding correspondences between Vijñānavāda theories and data taken from practitioners’ experiences. This paper explores the possibility of finding such correspondences.

Meditation and brain network/cognitive function

The brain can be considered as a vast network for information processing. Our cognitive functions, such as attention, language, and memory, are supported by this network. Recently, the meditation has drawn attention as a driving force to change the brain network and cognitive functions. I’ll introduce our recent studies on 1) the network states during meditation using a functional magnetic resonance imaging, and 2) effects of the short-term meditation on cognitive function (attention) using psychophysical experiments.

Two Approaches of Mindfulness Teachings : Mahasatipatthana Sutta and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

This article aims to study mindfulness teachings, in terms of objectives, principles and practices, in two approaches: Mahasatipatthana Sutta and Mindfulness - Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and to analyze their similarities and differences. It was a documentary-based research. It was found that the objective of the first approach or Mahasatipatthana Sutta was Nibbana. its principles were Right Effort, Right View, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration, and its practices were based on 4 foundations: body, sensations, mind and dhamma. The second approach focused on alleviating suffering of people in everyday life, such as stress or unhealthy relationship. Its principles were thoroughly Dhamma - based consideration, such as non-judgment, acceptance, which were practiced in the community of learning, dialogue, along with formal and informal mindfulness practices, such as mindful breathing. The two approaches were similar in an aspect that they included other crucial dhamma as equal importance as mindfulness in the teachings. However, since their objectives were different, their principles and practices to serve the goals were different as well. Different objectives derived from different meanings given to "suffering". MBSR emphasized on abilities in coping with challenges in everyday life; mindfulness was basically a therapeutic tool. Mahasatipatthana Sutta's teaching went more deeply into causes of arising and passing away of suffering, which were phenomena in the mind of practitioners, and the root of all kinds of suffering. In conclusion, different meanings of suffering induced different mindfulness teachings in these two approaches.

Dealing With Hindrances Associated With Contemplative Practice:
The Perspective of Japanese Zen Buddhism

In Zen Buddhist traditions, meditation(zazen) is generally considered as the basic practice on the way to enlightenment. In addition to the positive effects of meditation, there are also some side-effects or even adverse effects recorded in Zen Buddhist textual resources. This paper will focus on the literature of Musō Soseki (夢窓疎石), one of the most important Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk in Medieval Japan, to examine how did the Zen master manage to deal with the hindrances occurred during his contemplative practices.
In the Musō kokushi nenpu 夢窓国師年譜 (Chronology of the State Master Musō), it is recorded that at the age of 27, Musō experienced hallucinations twice during his practice at Unganji Temple 雲巌寺. And in his representative work Muchū Mondōshū (The Dialogues in a Dream), Musō gave out a systematic explanation on the topic of Makyō, which refers to side-effects or hindrances that arise during the practice.
Based on these records related to Musō Soseki, this paper will shed light on the way of dealing with hindrances associated with contemplative practice in the tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism.

A mechanism of effectiveness in mindfulness meditation and how to cope with unpleasant experiences

Recently, mindfulness meditation is increasingly gaining attention in clinical psychology. Meta-analysis of its effectiveness shows medium effect size on reduction of depression, anxiety and stress response. I will talk about a mechanism of effectiveness of mindfulness meditation from the standpoint of “attention” in clinical psychology and then introduce our recent study and related literature on how to cope with unpleasant experiences in mindfulness meditation.

The mechanism of mindfulness intervention for depression and anxiety: Estimating the fluctuation of mind-wandering during meditation by EEG

Mindfulness training based on Buddhism meditation has been shown to be effective for psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Mindfulness training has been known to have various aspects, including awareness of body sensation, attention and emotion regulation, and so on. However, the mechanism of mindfulness training is sufficiently unknown. We developed the method to estimate the fluctuation of mind-wandering during meditation by EEG to study the mechanism. We will discuss the action mechanism of the mindfulness-based intervention for people who complained of depression and/or anxiety based on the fluctuation of mind-wandering.

Mindfulness for undergraduate students: experiences from the subject of Contemplative Education, Thailand

Undergraduate students can be considered as early adults (age 18-35), whose developmental task is to learn to adjust oneself to a new stage of life in many aspects, such as choosing a career, building relationships, and finding one's own identity and ways of living. These young people have to face stress, pressure from friends and families, uncertainty for the future, etc. Therefore, the role of universities is not only advancing student's academic knowledge but also helping them develop emotional and social intelligence. At Sakon Nakhon Rachaphat University, Thailand, I teach in the subject of Contemplative Education, which aims to help students to connect with oneself, to connect with others, and to connect with society and environments. This subject functions as a space where students can feel free to explore their inner world; including thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs, and to discover their purpose in life. For about 7 years teaching this subject, I have been using mindfulness practice as the core of learning, which is presented to students in 2 modes; mindful meditation and mindful living.

Firstly, at the beginning of each class, we practice short mindful meditation together; such as focusing on the breath, guided meditation, listening to a song with a focus on its beats and meaning. Also, sometimes we go outside the classroom and practice opening five senses to surrounding in nature. These practices help students pause from busy daily life, calm their minds, and prepare readiness to learn. Secondly, for mindful living, we integrate mindfulness in the practices of self-investigation with freewriting or arts, in which students contemplate a given topic, such as their life-changing experiences, the vision of success, etc. Students are reminded to accept their true thoughts and feelings and to let go of their self-critiques, fear, or pressure to make it perfect. After that, students share their stories in pairs or groups with mindful listening practice. That means they listen to each other wholeheartedly and compassionately at the present with no prejudices. Furthermore, some activities aim to create an understanding of how students' actions can affect society and environment. Therefore, they go through their daily routines and habits with full awareness and are inspired to do less harm to themselves and others; such as eating and shopping more carefully, or treating people with care and respect.

Overall, from students' reflections, the keywords of their learning are 1) relaxation, 2) understanding self and others, 3) unfolding personal potential, 4) feeling grateful and caring beyond themself, 5) more confident in decision making, 6) self-belief that one can be free from old habits and transform to be the better version of oneself.