The Philosophy of No-Mind

The Philosophy of No-Mind
Author: Nishihira Tadashi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-05-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350233013

"Translated into English for the first time, leading Japanese philosopher, Nishihira Tadashi, explores the deeply experiential philosophy of losing yourself in the reality of the present. He takes us on a tour through the history of Zen, the gatekeeper of the philosophy of no-mind D.T. Suzuki, the Noh theory of Zeami and Takuan's treatise on swordsmanship. Nishihira pulls together the threads of this genealogy of no-mind, showing the richness of the concept and its essential connection to the paradoxical task of becoming fully human"--

Mind Without Mind

Mind Without Mind
Author: Marek T Komar
Publisher: Mk Publishing
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781777519100

The path of mental mastery is difficult and mysterious, which is why few finish the journey. Mind without Mind is about unlocking your greatest asset - your mind. Free workbook download with purchase.

The Philosophy of No-Mind

The Philosophy of No-Mind
Author: Nishihira Tadashi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2024-04-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 135023303X

Nishihira Tadashi, one of Japan's leading philosophers, introduces the deeply experiential philosophy of no-mind (mushin). In everyday Japanese, mushin is when one loses oneself in the reality of the present and becomes one with it, resulting in one's best performance. However, behind this everyday use is a concept that touches the core of Japanese spirituality. This book explores no-mind in its dynamic complexity. It is both the letting go of the calculations of mind and at the same time the arising of a vibrant consciousness in unity with reality. This gives rise to various tensions: Is it about negating or affirming self? Is stillness or activity? How does it relate with social ethics, or religious transcendence? And what is stopping no-mind from descending into mere mindlessness? These tensional facets are explored through philosophy and history of thought in Japan, from pre-Buddhist Japanese thought, to Zen Buddhism in D.T. Suzuki and Toshihiko Izutsu, to swordsmanship and Noh theater. These historical approaches are brought to the here-and-now, dialoguing with psychology, ethics, and the experiences of everyday life, and ending with two preliminary practical explorations-What does it mean to care for another and to educate from the point of view of no-mind?

Philosophy of Mind

Philosophy of Mind
Author: Jaegwon Kim
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0429974485

This book explores a range of issues in the philosophy of mind, with the mind-body problem as the main focus. It serves as a stimulus to the reader to engage with the problems of the mind and try to come to terms with them, and examines Descartes's mind-body dualism.

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing
Author: Dan Arnold
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231518218

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death (its continuity is what Buddhists mean by "rebirth"), they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism. By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments (chiefly his apoha theory of meaning and his account of self-awareness), Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics (proponents of the orthodox Brahmanical Mimasa school as well as fellow Buddhists from the Madhyamaka school of thought), whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy.

The Zen Doctrine of No Mind

The Zen Doctrine of No Mind
Author: Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki
Publisher: Weiser Books
Total Pages: 164
Release: 1991-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780877281825

Dedicated largely to the teaching of Hui Neng, this volume covers the purpose and technique of Zen training, and goes further into the depths of Zen than any other work of modern times. Here we find no reliance on scripture or a Savior, for the student isshown how to go beyond thought in order to achieve a state of consciousness beyond duality.

What is a Mind?

What is a Mind?
Author: Suzanne Cunningham
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780872205185

Designed for a first course in the philosophy of mind, this book has several distinctive features. Unlike any other book of its kind, it offers extensive treatment of the emotions and of the problem of other minds. Throughout the text insights from other relevant disciplines--psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, computer science--are integrated into a philosophical framework. A section is devoted to a concise discussion of the factors to consider when assessing any theory. An ongoing series of Notes on Terminology explains each of the technical terms used. Each chapter is followed by a list of Issues for Discussion, and Suggested Research Projects--short, focused assignments that introduce the reader to materials of interest outside the text.

The Philosophy of No-mind

The Philosophy of No-mind
Author: Nishihira Tadashi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022
Genre: Mind and body
ISBN: 9781350233041

"Nishihira Tadashi, one of Japan's leading philosophers, introduces the deeply experiential philosophy of losing yourself in the reality of the present, guiding us through a concept found at the centre of Eastern spiritual thought. Translated into English for the first time, Tadashi defines no-mind, Mushin, as something arising after something is extinguished. He addresses each of the tension points that give the term its vitality: is it attained by waiting or by practice? Can it ever be reconciled with social ethics? Is it self-affirmation or self-negation, stillness or activity? His thorough account of the Japanese philosophy of no-mind pulls together the historical and philosophical threads and covers the history of Zen Buddhism, the philosophy of D.T. Suzuki and Takuan's treatise on swordsmanship. He discusses its everyday usage in Japanese and its old usage as an insult, following its transformation into a positive meaning via Zen. Alive to the complexities of translating no-mind into English, Tadashi's introduction makes the essential connection of no-mind to the paradoxical task of becoming human."--

Attention, Not Self

Attention, Not Self
Author: Jonardon Ganeri
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2017
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198757409

Jonardon Ganeri presents an account of mind in which attention, not self, explains the experiential and normative situatedness of human beings in the world. Attention consists in an organisation of awareness and action at the centre of which there is neither a practical will nor a phenomenological witness. Attention performs two roles in experience, a selective role of placing and a focal role of access. Attention improves our epistemic standing, because it is in the nature of attention to settle on what is real and to shun what is not real. When attention is informed by expertise, it is sufficient for knowledge. That gives attention a reach beyond the perceptual: for attention is a determinable whose determinates include the episodic memory from which our narrative identities are made, the empathy for others that situates us in a social world, and the introspection that makes us self-aware. Empathy is other-directed attention, placed on you and focused on your states of mind; it is akin to listening. Empathetic attention is central to a range of experiences that constitutively require a contrast between oneself and others, all of which involve an awareness of oneself as the object of another's attention. An analysis of attention as mental action gainsays authorial conceptions of self, because it is the nature of intending itself, effortful attention in action, to settle on what to do and to shun what not to do. In ethics, a conception of persons as beings with a characteristic capacity for attention offers hope for resolution in the conflict between individualism and impersonalism. Attention, Not Self is a contribution to a growing body of work that studies the nature of mind from a place at the crossroads of three disciplines: philosophy in the analytical and phenomenological traditions, contemporary cognitive science and empirical work in cognitive psychology, and Buddhist theoretical literature.