Book contents
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A Shakespearean Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 ‘A Spiritually Enlightened Individual’
- 2 ‘The Resources of a Much Earlier Phase of the Tradition’
- 3 The Distractions of Baruch Spinoza
- 4 Immanuel Kant: ‘To Regard as Petty What We Are Otherwise Anxious About’
- 5 Wittgenstein’s Cool Temple
- 6 Rilke, Shakespeare … and a Little Freud
- 7 Concealment and Revelation
- 8 Mindfulness and the Form of a Philosophical Life
- 9 Epictetus: ‘The Beginning of Philosophy …’
- 10 Ted Hughes: Evaporation, Translation, Translocation
- 11 Philosophy as an Inventive Convergence of Methods
- 12 Richard Norman: ‘The Truths It Contains Are Human Truths’
- 13 Perspectives: Marmalade Stains on the Breakfast Table
- 14 David Hume: Wanting the Natural Sentiments of Humanity
- 15 ‘What is the Difference between Love and God’s Love?’
- 16 ‘Peace, Wild Wooddove, Shy Wings Shut’
- 17 ‘Only a Little Snivelling Half-Wit Can Maintain That’
- 18 ‘The World Is Too Much with Us’
- 19 Of Self and SELF, of Ātman and Anātman
- 20 ‘I Am Myself Alone’
- 21 The Five Heaps or Skandhas
- 22 ‘We Claim That There Is a Person, but We Do Not Say That He Is an Entity’
- 23 Birds, Frogs, and Tintern Abbey
- 24 Human Resources and Hubris
- References
- Index
8 - Mindfulness and the Form of a Philosophical Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2021
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A Shakespearean Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 ‘A Spiritually Enlightened Individual’
- 2 ‘The Resources of a Much Earlier Phase of the Tradition’
- 3 The Distractions of Baruch Spinoza
- 4 Immanuel Kant: ‘To Regard as Petty What We Are Otherwise Anxious About’
- 5 Wittgenstein’s Cool Temple
- 6 Rilke, Shakespeare … and a Little Freud
- 7 Concealment and Revelation
- 8 Mindfulness and the Form of a Philosophical Life
- 9 Epictetus: ‘The Beginning of Philosophy …’
- 10 Ted Hughes: Evaporation, Translation, Translocation
- 11 Philosophy as an Inventive Convergence of Methods
- 12 Richard Norman: ‘The Truths It Contains Are Human Truths’
- 13 Perspectives: Marmalade Stains on the Breakfast Table
- 14 David Hume: Wanting the Natural Sentiments of Humanity
- 15 ‘What is the Difference between Love and God’s Love?’
- 16 ‘Peace, Wild Wooddove, Shy Wings Shut’
- 17 ‘Only a Little Snivelling Half-Wit Can Maintain That’
- 18 ‘The World Is Too Much with Us’
- 19 Of Self and SELF, of Ātman and Anātman
- 20 ‘I Am Myself Alone’
- 21 The Five Heaps or Skandhas
- 22 ‘We Claim That There Is a Person, but We Do Not Say That He Is an Entity’
- 23 Birds, Frogs, and Tintern Abbey
- 24 Human Resources and Hubris
- References
- Index
Summary
The popular reception of Buddhism is marked by interest in meditation, but particularly by the proliferation of ‘mindfulness’ courses and the ubiquity of talk of mindfulness. The practices are mainly beneficial, though not universally so, and there are contraindications well known to teachers and practitioners in the world of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). An interesting main source of their popularity and availability is that, notwithstanding fundamentalist protests about heathenish practices, there seems to be no necessity to sign up in advance to any kind of ‘religious belief’ and this makes it all seem both unthreatening and non-sectarian, especially perhaps compatible with a secularist mindset. But to that extent, it is also neutral territory, the common ground, in fact, of a possible practical virtue in its natural setting.
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- Spirituality for the GodlessBuddhism, Humanism, and Religion, pp. 54 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021