Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T11:26:55.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Buddhism, meditation, and ‘the inner world’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

CAMPBELL PURTON
CAMPBELL PURTON*
Affiliation:
School of Education, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK
*
e-mail: purtonc@hotmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Buddhist meditation seems to involve giving attention to one's thoughts and feelings, to one's ‘inner world’. In this article I explore what is involved in such talk of one's inner world, with special reference to Wittgenstein's claim that ‘the inner’ is a delusion. The article explores the nature of thoughts and feelings, and suggests that we cannot fully understand what is involved in meditation without some consideration of its ethical and religious context. I conclude with some reflections on how the pictures we naturally employ in thinking about meditation can lead us into a misleading metaphysical view of ‘the inner’.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 183 - 197
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Canfield, John V. (1975) ‘Wittgenstein and Zen’, Philosophy, 50, 383–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canfield, John V. (2007a) Becoming Human: The Development of Language, Self, and Self-Consciousness (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Canfield, John V. (2007b) ‘Wittgenstein on fear’, in Moyal-Sharrock, D. (ed.) Perspicuous Presentations: Essays on Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), 12–27.Google Scholar
Cleary, Thomas (1993) The Flower Ornament Scripture (Boston: Shambhala Publications).Google Scholar
Cook, Francis (1977) Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (London: Pennsylvania State University Press).Google Scholar
Fogelin, R. (1987) Wittgenstein, 2nd edn (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Gendlin, Eugene T. (1978/2003) Focusing, rev. edn (London: Rider).Google Scholar
Gendlin, Eugene T. (1996) Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy (New York: Guilford Press).Google Scholar
Gudmunsen, Chris (1977) Wittgenstein and Buddhism (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Hacker, Peter (2010) ‘In one's head: review of Galen Strawson's Selves’, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Sue (1996) Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism (London: Luzac Oriental).Google Scholar
Harvey, Peter (1995) The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Hudson, H. (1973) ‘Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism’, Philosophy East and West, 23, 471–481.Google Scholar
Kabat-Zinn, Jon & Davidson, Richard (eds) (2011) The Mind's Own Physician (Oakland CA: New Harbinger Publications).Google Scholar
Namgyal, Dakpo Tashi (2001) Clarifying the Natural State, Kunsang, Eric (tr.) (Hong Kong: Rangyung Yeshe).Google Scholar
Ñanamoli, Bhikkhu (2001) The Life of the Buddha (Onalaska WA: Pariyatti Publishing).Google Scholar
Phillips, D. Z. (1977) ‘On wanting to compare Wittgenstein and Zen’, Philosophy, 50, 338–343.Google Scholar
Purton, Campbell (2014a) The Trouble with Psychotherapy: Counselling and Common Sense (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Purton, Campbell (2014b) ‘Wittgenstein and the expression of feelings in psychotherapy’, Philosophical Investigations, 37, 152–166.Google Scholar
Read, Rupert (2009) ‘Wittgenstein and Zen: one practice, no dogma’, in Garfield, Jay L. & Tilemans, Tom J. F. (eds) Pointing at the Moon: Buddhism, Logic, Analytical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 13–24.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1844/1966) The World as Will and as Representation, Payne, E. F. J. II (tr.) (New York: Dover Publications).Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen (2009) Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sujata, Victoria (2011) Songs of Shabkar: The Path of a Tibetan Yogi Inspired by Nature (Cazadero CA: Dharma Publishing).Google Scholar
ter Hark, Michel (1990) Beyond the Inner and the Outer: Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).Google Scholar
Vesey, Godfrey N. & Bleau, Renée (2013) Inner and Outer: Essays on a Philosophical Myth (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Willis, Janice (1982) On Knowing Reality: The Tattvartha Chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi (Delhi: Motilal Banaridass).Google Scholar
Williams, Leonard (1980) Samba and the Monkey Mind, rev. edn (London: Allison & Busby).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1963) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969) On Certainty (Oxford: Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980) Culture and Value, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1992) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, II: The Inner and the Outer (Oxford: Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009) Philosophical Investigations, 4th edn (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell).Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009 PPF). ‘Philosophy of psychology – a fragment’, in Philosophical Investigations, 4th edn (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell), 182–243.Google Scholar