Buddhist Practice for the Crises That Face Us

Dear Colleagues,

After some years of studying Yoga Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha left that practice and meditated until he attained enlightenment some time later in the 6^th century B.C. His practice traveled eastward, until it was brought to Honolulu in 1913 by a Soto Zen priest and later to California. It became popular in North America in the 1950s when it was associated with Beat writers and Beatniks; it retained its popularity when later, too, Zen and other writers published and teachers arrived. Over time it became integrated into teaching, forms of therapy and self-help practices, all of which were primarily devoted to individual development. At the same time, there was a growing marketing agenda to sell everything from clothing to jewelry to holidays, and further, reported business uses emerged with intent to develop more productive and compliant employees. Though they primarily utilized mindfulness practices, many of these uses were exploitive and worked against what the Buddha had discovered and taught (Purser and Loy 2013).

What has become known as mindfulness is largely attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s formulation, ”Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn 1995, p. 4). Mindfulness has been widely utilized for the purposes of destressing and focusing. While this is valuable, the practice that the Buddha developed is much richer in potential for human actualization and action. The literature of the traditions is an enormous resource, but I will mention here Karen Armstrong’s work (2019), which both grounds Buddhist practice in natural human capacities and supports its ability to address the multiple crises that we now face. Armstrong draws heavily on the work of Iain McGilchrist (2019), whose analysis of the research finds that the right-brain hemisphere’s focus is holistic; it focuses on the body and the body’s place in the world as a holistic entity. It is crucial to the formation of the self, including the development of empathy and a sense of justice. Its attention includes the person’s spiritual experience, their creation of music and the arts, and, in all of this, the creation and use of metaphor. The left hemisphere depends on the right for its information, its input from the world, which it is able to analyze and break down into parts. Thus, it is the basis of science and technology. He argues that we need balanced co-operation of both hemispheres for maximal human development (McGilchrist 2019).

In her focus on the role of the right-brain in the development of oral cultures’ spiritual practices, Armstrong states that the use of metaphor functions not to inform but to inspire. Thus, the metaphoric nature of Buddhism, as an oral tradition, gives it the level of flexibility that is necessary to address the challenges of new environments in an ever-changing world. Additionally, Buddhism’s key terms are clearly grounded in the human right-brain capacities. Two teachings that are important for the grounding of our actions, of particular value in the modern day, are sunyata, or the non-essentialized nature of all things, and pratitya samutpada, or dependent co-arising, and their interconnectedness (Loy 1992).

The essays in this special edition of “Religion” will focus on Buddhism as an oral culture and spiritual approach that is grounded in innate human capacities, which, in conjunction with left-brain science and technology, can address the multiple contemporary crises with which we are faced.

Authors who are interested should submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words, summarizing their intended contribution prior to preparing their manuscripts. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue, and then full manuscripts will be solicited. Please send the abstract to Guest Editor Dr. Deborah Orr, dorr@yorku.ca. 

Timeline: Proposals should be submitted by August 31, 2021. Deadline for manuscript Submissions is December 31, 2021. There will be no fee for publications of accepted proposals.

Reference

Armstrong, Karen. 2019. The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. 1995. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Loy, David. 1992. Avoiding the Void: The Lack of Self in Psychotherapy and Buddhism. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 24: 151–180.

McGilchrist, Iain. 2019. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Purser, Ron and David Loy. 2013. Beyond McMindfulness. Available online: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beyond-mcmindfulness_b_3519289 (accessed on 20 March 2018).

Dr. Deborah Orr
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Buddhism
• Buddhist practice
• Sunyata/Emptiness
• Pratitya Samutpada/Interconnectedness
• “right” action
• social, political and environmental change