Robert H. Sharf

Bio: Robert H. Sharf is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Buddhism & Chinese buddhism. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 19 publications receiving 808 citations. Previous affiliations of Robert H. Sharf include University of Michigan & University of California.

Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience

Abstract: The category “experience” has played a cardinal role in modern studies of buddhism. Few scholars seem to question the notion that Buddhist monastic practice, particularly meditation, is intended first and foremost to inculcate specific religious or “mystical” experiences in the minds of practitioners. Accordingly, a wide variety of Buddhist technical terms pertaining to the “stages on the path” are subject to a phenomenological hermeneutic—they are interpreted as if they designated discrete “states of consciousness” experienced by historical individuals in the course of their meditative practice.

The Zen of Japanese Nationalism

Abstract: Le Zen a pris dans la pensee des occidentaux un sens particulier: celui d'une pratique historique et transculturelle de la pure subjectivite. C'est une vue populaire, conceptuellement incoherente et une mauvaise lecture de la doctrine Zen traditionnelle. En fait,le Zen classique est une des formes les plus rituelles du monachisme bouddhiste. Ce portrait cavalier a une origine;le Zen a primitivement ete percu par les occidentaux a travers le prisme deformant de proselytes japonais comme Suzuki dont l'influence intellectuelle sur les sectes Zen japonaises etablies est negligeable. En outre, celles-ci considerent des gens comme Suzuki comme des academistes marginaux n'ayant pas l'entrainement suffisant pour etre des maitres

Is mindfulness Buddhist? (and why it matters):

Abstract: Modern exponents of mindfulness meditation promote the therapeutic effects of "bare attention"--a sort of non-judgmental, non-discursive attending to the moment-to-moment flow of consciousness. This approach to Buddhist meditation can be traced to Burmese Buddhist reform movements of the first half of the 20th century, and is arguably at odds with more traditional Theravāda Buddhist doctrine and meditative practices. But the cultivation of present-centered awareness is not without precedent in Buddhist history; similar innovations arose in medieval Chinese Zen (Chan) and Tibetan Dzogchen. These movements have several things in common. In each case the reforms were, in part, attempts to render Buddhist practice and insight accessible to laypersons unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy and/or unwilling to adopt a renunciatory lifestyle. In addition, these movements all promised astonishingly quick results. And finally, the innovations in practice were met with suspicion and criticism from traditional Buddhist quarters. Those interested in the therapeutic effects of mindfulness and bare attention are often not aware of the existence, much less the content, of the controversies surrounding these practices in Asian Buddhist history.

Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise

Abstract: This title re-evalutes the encounter between Indian Buddhism and Chinese civilization. It argues that although the Chinese were cognizant of the foreign origins of Buddhism, their actual exposure to South Asian clerics and Sanskrit texts was limited throughout medieval times.

Coming to terms with Chinese Buddhism

Abstract: metaphysical hypothesis; it could be observed, tested, and applied in the fields of politics, divination, and the arts. Tradition holds that Tsou Yen (ca. 250 B.C.), the father of the so-called Naturalists (Needham’s rendering of yin-yang chia ), originated the five-phase/yin-yang system, while Tung Chung-shu (179–104 B.C.?) is credited with turning this system into a fullfledged cosmology.5 The fundamental ingredients of correlative thought, however, are found scattered throughout the Chou classics and clearly predate Tsou Yen. The earliest extant literary references to the five phases are found in the Hung-fan (Great Plan) chap80 Historical and Cosmological Background ter of the Shang-shu (Book of Documents). The dating of this chapter has been a subject of some controversy (as is true of all the chapters of the Shang-shu), but most would agree that the Hung-fan is a post-Confucian work that predates the second century B.C.6 Most of the characteristic elements of the later, fully developed five-phase system can be traced to a few scattered references in the Hung-fan such as the following: I have heard that of old time Kun dammed up the inundating waters, and thereby threw into disorder the arrangement of the five elements.. . . Of the five elements—The first is named water; the second, fire; the third, wood; the fourth, metal; the fifth, earth. The nature of water is to soak and descend; of fire, to blaze and ascend; of wood, to be crooked and to be straight; of metal, to obey and to change; while the virtue of earth is seen in seed-sowing and ingathering. That which soaks and descends becomes salt; that which blazes and ascends becomes bitter; that which is crooked and straight becomes sour; that which obeys and changes becomes acrid; and from seed-sowing and ingathering comes sweetness.7 Mention of the five phases can also be found in the Kan-shih (Oration at Kan) chapter of the same text, which further connects the harmonious well-being of the state to the fulfillment of ritual duty on the part of the ruler: “The prince of Hu wildly wastes and despises the five elements, and has idly abandoned the three acknowledged commencements of the year. On this account Heaven is about to destroy him, and bring to an end the favor it has shown to him” (Legge 1961:3.153). Vitaly Rubin has put forward the speculative but nonetheless cogent thesis that the theory of the five phases was originally independent from the notion of yin-yang (Rubin 1982). Rubin designates the early five-phase scheme outlined in the Hung-fan a “primitive classification scheme” à la Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss. According to Rubin’s reading of the Shang-shu, the five phases originally constituted a spatial model as opposed to the temporal model of the cyclic activity of yin and yang. The system of repeating five-phase cycles that became popular in the Han would then be the result of the synthesis of the two systems by Tsou Yen and his followers. The few remaining fragments from Tsou Yen’s work take the Hungfan a step further in claiming that each of the five phases (earth, wood, metal, fire, water) comes to dominate in turn by conquering the one preceding. This cyclic pattern is manifest in the succession of dynasties, each of which bears the characteristics of the phase (hsing) with which it is associated. The Han period saw the proliferation of numerous Cosmology of Sympathetic Resonance 81 variations in both the sequence itself and the manner in which the progression was understood. Eberhard has shown that of a total of thirty-six possible sequences, sixteen are actually found in the Han and pre-Han texts at his disposal (although two of the sequences, “mutually producing” and “mutually overcoming,” became more or less standard).8 In addition, the five phases were correlated with innumerable other groupings of five, including the five seasons, five cardinal points, five tastes, five smells, five musical notes, five planets, five ministries, five colors, five instruments, five grains, five sacrifices, five organs, five emotions, and so on; Eberhard lists over a hundred sets, which vary significantly from text to text.9 It is apparent that we are not dealing with a single theory, but rather with a mode of theorizing, one that was not without its detractors. Yet it proved tremendously influential not only in later Juist and Taoist thought but also in Buddhist exegesis. (The proliferation of five-tiered p’an-chiao, or “tenet classification,” schemes is but one Chinese Buddhist innovation that suggests itself here.)10 This tendency to analyze the world in terms of a delimited number of natural categories or classes (lei ) became one of the hallmarks of Chinese cosmological thought. The translation of lei as “natural category” or “class,” however, is unfortunate if unavoidable, as lei, like hsing (phase), is more an active force than a static category. As Munakata observes: “Every existence, substantial as well as phenomenal, is a product of a certain combination of the basic forces of yin and yang. Thus it is very natural to think that a thing or a phenomenon is at once a physical being and a force which interacts with other forces.”11 One striking characteristic of the Chinese system is the manner in which such categories and the objects within categories are related to each other by virtue of their position within a fixed sequence. Referred to as “coordinative” and “correlative thinking” by Needham and “categorical thinking” by Bodde, it is here that the Chinese penchant for finding repeating patterns and order throughout the cosmos is most apparent.12 Bodde elegantly summarizes categorical thinking as follows: Among items belonging to a common category, a particular affinity exists between those having the same relative position within their respective sequences. For example, the property common to such diverse items as fire, summer, south, bitter taste, burning smell, heat, the planet Mars, feathered creatures, beans, the hearth sacrifice, the 82 Historical and Cosmological Background lungs, the tongue, joy and many more, is that each of them is number two within its particular sequence of five. Affinities of this kind should be thought of as functioning more along lines of spontaneous response (the response of one stringed instrument to another the same in pitch) or of mutual attraction (the attraction between iron and the lode stone), than of mechanical impulsion (the impact of one billiard ball upon another). It is evident that such correlations not only cut across the usual categories of time and space, the abstract and the concrete, but also bridge the apparent gap between the human and the natural worlds. These two worlds, in fact, actually merge to form a single continuum, the halves of which are so closely interwoven that the slightest pull or strain on the one spontaneously induces corresponding pull or strain on the other. (1981a:351–352) Sympathetic Resonance The Shih-shuo hsin-yü records a most interesting, although probably apocryphal, exchange between the Buddhist monk Hui-yüan (332–416) and Y in Chung-k’an (d. 399/400): “Y in Chungk’an once asked the monk Hui-yüan: ‘What is the essence of the I ching?’ Hui-yüan replied: ‘Stimulus-response is the essence of the I ching.’ Yin said: ‘When the bronze mountain collapsed in the west and the numinous bell responded in the east, is that [what you mean by] the I ching?’ Hui-yüan smiled without answering.”13 This passage refers to a story extant in at least two versions. According to the biography of Fan Ying found in the Hou-han shu (Book of the Later Han Dynasty, 112a.14b–17a), during the reign of Han Shun-ti (r. 126–144) a bell below the emperor’s hall sounded of itself. Fan Ying explained: “Min Mountain in Shu (Szechwan) has collapsed. Mountains are mothers in relation to bronze. When the mother collapses, the child cries.” In due time Shu reported that indeed a mountain had collapsed, and the time of the collapse matched precisely the time the bell had sounded. Another version of the story has a palace bell ringing by itself for three days and nights during the reign of Han Wu-ti (r. 140–187 B.C.). An astrologer explained: “Bronze is the child of the mountains, and mountains the mother of bronze. Speaking in terms of the yin and yang, the child and mother are responding to each other. I’m afraid some mountain is about to collapse, and that’s why the bell is first crying out.” News of the collapse of a mountain more than twenty li distant arrived after three days (Mather 1976:123–124). Cosmology of Sympathetic Resonance 83 The spontaneous response of the bronze bell to the collapse of the bronze mountain many li distant is an apt illustration of the principle of kan-ying, “stimulus-response” or “sympathetic resonance.” Kanying is a mode of seemingly spontaneous response (although not in the sense of “uncaused”) natural in a universe conceived holistically in terms of pattern and interdependent order. Resonance is the mechanism through which categorically related but spatially distant phenomena interact. It would seem that the development of correlative systems preceded the notion of sympathetic resonance, and Henderson has argued that the former need not entail the latter; that is, not all correlated phenomena resonate with each other (1984:22–25). Be that as it may, by the Han the notion of resonance was explicitly used to explain or rationalize the mechanism behind the elaborate system of correlated categories generally known as five-phase thought. The notion of sympathetic resonance is deceptively simple: objects belonging to the same category or class spontaneously resonate with each other just as do two identically tuned strings on a pair of zithers. One of the earliest references to the resonant behavior of musical instruments—no doubt the single most persuasive demonstration of the principle of resonance—appears in the Chuang-tzu: “[The Master] tuned two lutes, placed one in the

Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation:

Abstract: During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and "key to building more resilient soldiers." Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and poor methodology associated with past studies of mindfulness may lead public consumers to be harmed, misled, and disappointed. Addressing such concerns, the present article discusses the difficulties of defining mindfulness, delineates the proper scope of research into mindfulness practices, and explicates crucial methodological issues for interpreting results from investigations of mindfulness. For doing so, the authors draw on their diverse areas of expertise to review the present state of mindfulness research, comprehensively summarizing what we do and do not know, while providing a prescriptive agenda for contemplative science, with a particular focus on assessment, mindfulness training, possible adverse effects, and intersection with brain imaging. Our goals are to inform interested scientists, the news media, and the public, to minimize harm, curb poor research practices, and staunch the flow of misinformation about the benefits, costs, and future prospects of mindfulness meditation.

Why ritualized behavior? Precaution systems and action parsing in developmental, pathological and cultural rituals.

Abstract: Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This "swamps" working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model.

Investigating the phenomenological matrix of mindfulness-related practices from a neurocognitive perspective.

Abstract: There has been a great increase in literature concerned with the effects of a variety of mental training regimes that generally fall within what might be called contemplative practices, and a majority of these studies have focused on mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation practices can be conceptualized as a set of attention-based, regulatory, and self-inquiry training regimes cultivated for various ends, including wellbeing and psychological health. This article examines the construct of mindfulness in psychological research and reviews recent, nonclinical work in this area. Instead of proposing a single definition of mindfulness, we interpret it as a continuum of practices involving states and processes that can be mapped into a multidimensional phenomenological matrix which itself can be expressed in a neurocognitive framework. This phenomenological matrix of mindfulness is presented as a heuristic to guide formulation of next-generation research hypotheses from both cognitive/behavioral and neuroscientific perspectives. In relation to this framework, we review selected findings on mindfulness cultivated through practices in traditional and research settings, and we conclude by identifying significant gaps in the literature and outline new directions for research.