Paul Dennison
preprint
Default sensory consciousness, as examined across philosophy, psychoanalysis, Buddhist thought, and neuroscience, is contrasted with the consciousness arising in jhāna meditation. The discussion extends to neuroscience models of nested hierarchies within self-organizing systems and their associated Markov blankets, exploring implications for consciousness in those systems. A brief discussion addresses the outermost hierarchical system—planet Earth interacting with worldwide societies—and the likely information geometries linking outer with inner, in light of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hartelius, Glenn, Berkhin, Igor
Transpersonal psychology sometimes borrows Buddhist terms without respecting the precise distinctions those terms carry within Buddhist doctrine. From a Buddhist perspective, equating Buddhist concepts with those from other traditions is misguided and produces interpretations that no longer represent Buddhism. For instance, translating certain Buddhist terms as referring to a shared universal consciousness is an error because Buddhism explicitly rejects that idea. It is also inappropriate to assume that the generic, cross-traditional altered state of nondual awareness posited in some transpersonal circles relates to nirvana or other advanced Buddhist states. Buddhist practices aim at achieving specific knowledge and capacities, not altered states.
Anthony Paul Zanesco, Brandon King, Katherine A. Maclean et al.
1 citation
After one month of intensive daily Vipassana meditation training, participants showed improved response inhibition accuracy and reduced reaction time variability on a 32-minute task compared to matched controls. They also reported increased concentration during the task, but not changes in effort or motivation. Critically, the increases in concentration predicted improvements in reaction time variability, linking the subjective experience of concentrative engagement with objective attentional stability. These results corroborate phenomenological accounts from contemplative traditions that meditation training leads to stable, clear attentional engagement, and suggest that meditators' felt experience accurately reflects measurable changes in performance.
BHĀBANAGARA International Journal of Bengal Studies
July 17, 2026
A review of Keith Edward Cantú's book recovers the life and teachings of the Tamil yogi Sri Sabhapati Swami (c. 1828–1923/24), arguing that his Śivarājayoga synthesized Tamil Vīraśaiva traditions, Śaiva Siddhānta, Advaita Vedānta, Haṭha and Rājayoga, Tamil Siddha body theories, and Purāṇic mythology. Sabhapati transformed from a regional ascetic into a transregional teacher through print, translation, travel, and discipleship, with Bengali scholars mediating his entry into North Indian and English-language contexts before Vivekananda. His teachings were reinterpreted in Theosophical, Thelemic, and American metaphysical settings, demonstrating that modern yoga developed through complex interactions among regional traditions, colonial education, vernacular print, and global esotericism, not a simple divide between authentic premodern and corrupted modern forms.
JMIR research protocols
July 17, 2026
Lillian Ofori Ward, Cate Bailey, Prai Wattanatakulchat et al.
A protocol for a prospective longitudinal cohort study will follow 600 beginner meditators in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom over one year to investigate whether regular meditation practice improves quality of life and mental well-being. The study will compare effects between secular and spiritual practitioners, assess cost-effectiveness in terms of quality of life, and track the incidence and functional impact of any adverse effects. Participants report practice frequency and duration weekly via an app, with monthly sampling of quality of life, well-being, practice characteristics, costs, and adverse effects. Data collection began in October 2025; results are expected in January 2028.
Journal of Contemplative Studies
July 16, 2026
Rae Dachille
Buddhist metaphors for the deceptive nature of appearances do not necessarily mean the phenomenal world should be dismissed; understanding why things appear as they do is central to realizing how they truly are. This article examines how Tibetan author Drakpa Gyeltsen (1147–1216) uses experience and metaphor to bridge illusory appearances and wisdom. In his root text and commentary on the inseparability of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, he employs about thirty-two examples to establish the three piths of practice: all phenomena are mind; mind is illusion; and illusion is natureless. Unlike typical Mahāyāna examples, Drakpa Gyeltsen emphasizes what it feels like to inhabit the illusion. Tantric examples embed teachings in a ritual program synthesizing contradictory aspects of experience, guiding the adept through initiation and sādhana toward exemplary wisdom.
Nova prisutnost
July 15, 2026
Hrvoje Vuković
The paper proposes a 'second epochē': a methodological gesture that, alongside the classical suspension of 'belief in the world,' additionally suspends the assumption of a necessary intentional structure of consciousness. This opens phenomenological analysis to descriptions of experiences without a clear subject–object relation (contemplative, micro-phenomenological, and pre-reflective states). The core of the work articulates three ontological figures of such consciousness: (1) Henry's auto-affective immanence of life as self-manifestation without distance; (2) Buddhist non-dual awareness (rigpa) as a 'luminous' presence without an object; (3) the late-Husserlian pre-reflective core of time and affectivity as the condition of possibility...
Open MIND
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
This article presents a scholarly exposition of the book 'Ganesha: Break the Chain,' proposing a cross-cultural paradigm for breaking generational chains of psychological and ancestral constraint through the figure of Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles, in conversation with African diaspora understandings of crossroads deities such as Eshu-Elegba. The authors situate the text within Dravidian-Tamil folk religion, especially Pillaiyar worship in Tamil Nadu, and track resonances across Yoruba/Ifa cosmology and Thai-Brahmanical-Buddhist articulations.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Shumake, Robert S. (ajarn Shaman Shu | Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Phd | Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal)
This paper presents the first ethnomycological study of psilocybin ceremony authored from within the African initiatory tradition, by an initiated lineage-holder who holds tri-lineage authority as an Oluwo (Yorùbá/Ifá high priest of Osain), Swamikal (Hindu/Dravidian Vedic soma authority), and Ajarn (Thai Buddhist master teacher). Based on participant-observation across more than 300 guided sacred mushroom ceremonies at an urban ashram, with ceremonial doses of 5–10 grams, the study documents a four-part typology of healing: the Successful-but-Armored, the Carrier of Unprocessed Grief, the Interruption of Addiction, and the Spiritually Hungry.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 14, 2026
Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola, Ajarn Shaman Shu, Shri Suryanarayana Swamikal et al.
The Divine Pymander is an interpretive translation and commentary on the Corpus Hermeticum that argues for a Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) foundation beneath Western esotericism. Written by a cross-initiatory team holding authority in Ifá, Thai Buddhism, Hindu/Dravidian traditions, and Western scholarship, the paper combines lived ritual knowledge with textual-historical analysis. It finds that the Hermetic figure of Nous (divine mind) parallels Kemetic concepts of a creative divinity, that a lineage of mediated transmission through Hellenistic syncretism and Renaissance reception shaped Western esotericism, and that an initiatory perspective alters philological reading by integrating ritual praxis with textual exegesis. The authors propose that comparative initiated scholarship yields fresh angles on Nous, revelation, and theosis across cultures.