Meditation, Yoga, and the Dao

Catalog description

Asian Spiritual Practices and their Modern Concepts: What is the purpose of life, and how is this purpose to be realized? This course will examine four influential Asian spiritual traditions that offer a variety of answers to these questions, two of which originated in ancient India (Buddhism and that component of the Hindu religious traditions known as yoga) and two in China (Confucian and Daoist traditions of self-cultivation). Each of these traditions in its own way argues that the true potential of a human being is realized only through a process of transformation, which leads from a condition of deficiency (characterized variously as suffering, ignorance, lack of vitality, imbalance, and ultimately mortality) to a condition of true freedom and happiness. The course will examine these traditions both in their original Asian contexts and in the adaptations in Western culture, paying particular attention to research that provides scientific models for thinking about the value of such transformative practices.