When making decisions, people tend to overweigh the impact of losses compared to gains, a phenomenon known as loss aversion. A moderate amount of LA may be adaptive as it is necessary for protecting oneself from danger. However, excessive LA may leave people few opportunities and ultimately lead to suboptimal outcomes. Despite frequent reports of elevated LA in specific populations such as patients with depression, little is known about what psychological characteristics are associated with the tendency of LA. Based on (...) the neurobiological studies of LA, we hypothesized that positive psychological wellbeing may be negatively associated with people's tendency of LA. In the present study, we set out to test this hypothesis in a sample of young adults. We evaluated LA using a decision-making task in which subjects were asked to decide whether to accept or reject a series of coin-toss gambles. Our results revealed that individuals with more advanced personal growth as assessed by the Ryff's Psychological Well-being Inventory showed reduced LA. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating an association between positive psychological wellbeing and LA. These findings suggest that personal growth might be employed as interventional targets for correcting excessive LA in vulnerable populations. (shrink)

In recent years, research in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) has made rapid progress. It is expected that robots and AI will play a part in the field of nursing and their role might broaden in the future. However, there are areas of nursing practice that cannot or should not be entrusted to robots and AI, because nursing is a highly humane practice, and therefore, there would, perhaps, be some practices that should not be replicated by robots or AI. Therefore, (...) this paper focuses on several ethical concepts (advocacy, accountability, cooperation, and caring) that are considered important in nursing practice, and examines whether it is possible to implement these ethical concepts in robots and AI by analyzing the concepts and the current state of robotics and AI technology. Advocacy: Among the components of advocacy, safeguarding and apprising can be more easily implemented, while elements that require emotional communication with patients, such as valuing and mediating, are difficult to implement. Accountability: Robotic nurses with explainable AI have a certain level of accountability. However, the concept of explanation has problems of infinite regression and attribution of responsibility. Cooperation: If robot nurses are recognized as members of a community, they require the same cooperation as human nurses. Caring: More difficulties are expected in care-receiving than in caregiving. However, the concept of caring itself is ambiguous and should be explored further. Accordingly, our analysis suggests that, although some difficulties can be expected in each of these concepts, it cannot be said that it is impossible to implement them in robots and AI. However, even if it were possible to implement these functions in the future, further study is needed to determine whether such robots or AI should be used for nursing care. In such discussions, it will be necessary to involve not only ethicists and nurses but also an array of society members. (shrink)

BackgroundWhether and how to disclose genomic findings obtained in the course of genomic clinical practice and medical research has been a controversial global bioethical issue over the past two decades. Although several recommendations and judgment tools for the disclosure of genomic findings have been proposed, none are sufficiently systematic or inclusive or even consistent with each other. In order to approach the disclosure/non-disclosure practice in an ethical manner, optimal and easy-to-use tools for supporting the judgment of physicians/researchers in genomic medicine (...) are necessary.MethodsThe bioethics literature on this topic was analyzed to parse and deconstruct the somewhat overlapping and therefore ill-defined key concepts of genomic findings, such as incidental, primary, secondary, and other findings. Based on the deconstruction and conceptual analyses of these findings, we then defined key parameters from which to identify the strength of duty to disclose (SDD) for a genomic finding. These analyses were then applied to develop a framework with the SDD matrix and systematic decision-making pathways for the disclosure of genomic findings.ResultsThe following six major parameters (axes), along with sub-axes, were identified: Axis 1 (settings and institutions where findings emerge); Axis 2 (presence or absence of intention and anticipatability in discovery); Axis 3 (maximal actionability at the time of discovery); Axis 4 (net medical importance); Axis 5 (expertise of treating physician/researcher); and Axis 6 (preferences of individual patients/research subjects for disclosure). For Axes 1 to 4, a colored SDD matrix for genomic findings was developed in which levels of obligation for disclosing a finding can be categorized. For Axes 5 and 6, systematic decision-making pathways were developed via the SDD matrix.ConclusionWe analyzed the SDD of genomic findings and developed subsequent systematic decision-making pathways of whether and how to disclose genomic findings to patients/research subjects and their relatives in an ethical manner. Our comprehensive framework may help physicians and researchers in genomic medicine make consistent ethical judgments regarding the disclosure of genomic findings. (shrink)

Interventions performed on a pregnant woman's body can affect the fetus in multiple ways. Such effects can be harmful to beneficial to the fetus. Unfortunately, the effects of new drugs and compoun...

In their comprehensive review article, De Bie et al., using some references, discreetly point out that pregnant women’s decision in Domain III to undergo fetal extraction via C-section should conti...

Volume 24, Issue 10, October 2024, Page 101-103.

Volume 24, Issue 10, October 2024, Page 101-103.

The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. Edited by Steve Heine and Dale Wright. Oxford University Press, New York 2000. xii, 322 pp. £30.00, 13.95. ISBN 0-19-511748-4, 0-19-511749-2.

Koan Zen is a philosophical practice that bears a strong family resemblance to Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy. In this paper I hope to show that this resemblance is especially evident when we compare the Zen method of koan with Wittgenstein's suggestion, towards the end of his Tractatus, about what would constitute the only correct method in philosophy. Both koan Zen and Wittgenstein's method set limits to the reach of philosophical discourse. Each rules metaphysical speculation out of bounds. (...) Neither, however, represents a rejection of the metaphysical. Where Wittgenstein enjoins silence in the face of the unsayable, a silence that allows the metaphysical to show itself, koan Zen calls for concrete demonstrations of that which cannot be captured in rational discourse. I attempt to illustrate this through discussion of a number of koans that serve as reminders that the philosopher (and Zen master) should say nothing except what can be said. (shrink)

Zen students described their experiences when working with koans, and a phenomenological method was used to identify the structure of those experiences. Zen koans are statements or stories developed in China and Japan by Zen masters in order to help students transform their conscious awareness of the world. Eight participants including 3 females and 5 males from Southern California with 1 to 30 years of experience in Zen answered open-ended questions about koan practice in one tape-recorded session for each (...) participant. Refl ection yielded the following thematic clusters: (a) motivation, (b) approaches to working with koans, (c) experiences while working with koans, (d) experiences of insight into koans, (e) working with a teacher, and (f ) transformation. Participants described positive transformations including better control of emotions and concentration, better awareness of prejudices and biases with the ability to suppress those types of habitual associations, and a new relation to and acceptance of spiritual questions and doubts. (shrink)

The consummate Soto Zen master, Dogen (1200?1253), expressed himself in creative ways that reflected fundamental insights of Chan/Zen Buddhism while responding to the needs of his time and place, i.e., Kamakura era Japan. His early training in Tendai and Rinzai Zen lent rigor and force to his Soto Zen experiences and expressions. This paper explores Dogen's new light on causality and morality purity, vis-à-vis Song dynasty Chan approaches by examining (1) his comments, early (1244) and late (ca. 1252), on the (...) Fox Koan, and (2) his discussions about Dream and ?veridical? experience. By showing the inexorability of causality, Dogen revealed the need for moral purity in achieving enlightenment qua freedom. Even in the vertigo of emptiness, the purified Soto Zen Buddhist adept discerns and effects equilibrium and, by extension, fairness, in experience, practice and affairs, as ongoing endeavors, as skilful means to impact and transform, not just Buddhist adepts, but one's world. (shrink)

: A hallmark of Dogen's legacy is his introduction of Chinese Ch'an koan literature to Japan in the first half of the thirteenth century and his unique and innovative style of interpreting dozens of koan cases, many of which are relatively obscure or otherwise untreated in the annals. What constitutes the distinctiveness of Dogen's approach? According to Hee-Jin Kim's seminal study, Dogen shifts from an instrumental to a realizational model of koan interpretation. While this essay agrees with (...) some features of Kim's approach, especially his emphasis on the importance of language, it is argued that Kim overlooks the diversity of aims and intentions in Dogen's use of rhetorical and narrative strategies to highlight diverse doctrinal and ritual themes. There is no single underlying view of koans for Dogen, who continually modifies his interpretive approach to particular cases in order to articulate specific themes. (shrink)

Leonard Norman Primiano (1957–2021), esteemed folklorist and ethnographer of religion, relied for 16 years on assistive technology to speak. Described by an anonymous reviewer as “our ever-vanguard of thought, work, and ethics, not to mention creativity, funkiness, and joy,” Primiano brought a reverential delight to his vocation and inspired a reverential delight in return. This essay reflects on Primiano as a radiant example of the capacity for wonder.

A new translation with critical commentary of sixty Zen Koans - the first book to place the koan in its tradition of supernatural narratives.

A collection of modern Zen teaching stories, or koans, compiled and commented on by an Australian Zen teacher.

The work argues that the koans of Zen Buddhism have several intriguing non-accidental parallels with the short stories of Catholic author Flannery O'Connor. Both typically portray characters in a state of non-enlightenment in which they are egoistically obsessed with something which prevents them from perceiving and properly responding to the real world around them. Both present the characters with some opportunity for enlightenment, which they may or may not take up. Both come in a variety of forms, in order to (...) portray and address a rich variety of ways in which such obsessions become obstacles to human self-understanding and fulfillment. And both are ultimately presented for the sake of the listener or reader, who may recognize in the stories parallels to their own state, and perhaps take a lesson therefrom on their own journey towards what Zen calls enlightenment, or what Christians call grace. (shrink)

Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters. Steven Heine. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford 2001. xiv, 200 pp. £18.99. ISBN 019 513 586 5.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters, and: The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen BuddhismEric Sean NelsonOpening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters. By Steven Heine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 200 pp.The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. Edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 322 pp.The Zen koan is mysterious to many and its significance (...) remains disputed by scholars. Is it a challenging therapeutic device, to be left behind like a raft after crossing the river, or a self-transparent statement of the liberated mind? Is it a logic-defying paradox or does it have its own performative rationality? Is it a spontaneous and often irreverent oral expression or a complex and staged literary form understandable within its context? Is it a narrative with multiple levels of meaning or something that potentially interrupts the work of meaning, narrative coherence, and conventional understanding?Although paradoxical and even shocking language occurs in other traditions, these two provocative volumes illustrate the uniqueness, significance, and interpretive difficulty of one of Zen's primary practices. Both works are valuable contributions to understanding the context, development, and meaning of the koan from its origins and growth in T'ang and Sung China to later Japanese developments.Steven Heine's Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters includes translations of sixty koan cases, selected traditional commentary, and his account of each case. This rich work gathers significant koans about Zen's encounter with its "other" from a variety of koan collections compiled in Sung China and Kamakura Japan.The volume is organized around the theme of "opening a mountain." Masters opened up mountains for Zen by confronting and converting local spirits, hermits, and other forces that would prevent or endanger its practice. It refers more broadly to the confrontation and contest between Zen masters and figures representing supernatural forces, indigenous and popular religiosity, and rival forms of practice such as that of the isolated hermit without vows and outside the Buddhist community.The koans are presented and discussed in five sections concerning: (1) supernatural mountain landscapes; (2) irregular rivals such as hermits, wizards, and dangerous women; (3) supernatural experiences in which bodhisattvas, demons, and magical animals are encountered in dreams and visions; (4) the use of symbols of authority and transmission such as the flywhisk; and (5) experiences of confession, repentance, self-mutilation, death, and the afterlife.Heine argues that emphasizing the ritual, symbolic, and cultural dimensions of the koan complements understanding it as using paradoxical language to free one from the reification of language through aporia and double-binds. He insightfully shows through his translations and discussions the often ignored mythological and religious dimension of many koans. Even when koans use mythic or supernatural elements ironically, it is still in reference to such a context of belief. Since the outcomes [End Page 284] of these confrontations between Zen iconoclasm and irregular practices and unconventional beings are often uncertain, the koan embodies these tensions between supernaturalism and iconoclasm, ritual and meditative clarity, devotion and enlightenment. Zen masters are not always unambiguously victorious in their confrontations and competition with popular religion in these stories of opening mountains and taming and converting spirits, shamans, hermits, unconventional and rival women (such as the "Zen grannies" and the nuns of cases 23-26), and other irregular practitioners and dangerous forces.Zen iconoclasm is best exemplified by Lin-chi (J.:Rinzai), known for his advice to kill the Buddha and the patriarchs, who forbade travel to Mount Wu-t'ai, where popular devotional Buddhists believed Mañjus´rī appeared (see cases 13-15). Lin-chi's Mañjus´rī cannot be seen on sacred mountains but is manifested in your own activity. However, even some koans involving Lin-chi focus on his ambiguous success in dealing with P'u-hua (cases 16, 57), an irregular practitioner attributed with magical powers. Despite such warnings, the bodhisattva of compassion's sacred mountain continued to appeal to ordinary Buddhists and even Zen practitioners. In these koans, Zen is not simply demythologizing. It is playing a dangerous game of ironic ambiguity and... (shrink)

When The Sound of One Hand Clapping came out in Japan in 1916 it caused a scandal. Zen was a secretive practice, its wisdom relayed from master to novice in strictest privacy. That a handbook existed recording not only the riddling koans that are central to Zen teaching but also detailing the answers to them seemed to mark Zen as rote, not revelatory. For all that, The Sound of One Hand Clapping opens the door to Zen like no other book. (...) Including koans that go back to the master who first brought the koanteaching method from Japan to China in the eighteenth century, this book offers, in the words of the translator, editor, and Zen initiate Yoel Hoffmann, "the clearest, most detailed, and most correct picture of Zen" that can be found. What we have here is an extraordinary introduction to Zen thought as lived thought, a treasury of problems, paradoxes, and performance that will appeal to artists, writers, and philosophers as well as Buddhists and students of religion. (shrink)

Despite the fact that Chan, especially koan Chan is highly unconventional and perplexing, there are still some principles with which to interpret and appreciate the practice. Each of the five houses or lineages of Chan has its idiosyncratic hermeneutic rules. The Linji House has Linji si liao jian, si bin zhu and si zhao yong among others while the Yunmen House follows Yumen san ju as one of its house rules. Moreover, there is a general inner logic that seems (...) to apply to understanding Chan encounters across lineages. The opportune moment (Chan Ji) of responding swiftly and skillfully and yet always grounding oneself in the openness and flow of the mind highlights the inner logic of the cognition and behavior of Chan Buddhists. This paper attempts to read koans from The Blue Cliff Record in the light of Chan Buddhist hermeneutics. Some aspects and patterns of Chan encounters may appear as rituals that serve either as a provisional means for common people or as an embodiment of enlightened behaviors. Routinized ritualization of Chan life, however, runs counter to the fundamental spirit of freedom and spontaneity of Chan way of life. Much can and needs to be elucidated about the mystified koan Chan experience before we finally resort to the transpersonal experience of noble silence. (shrink)

Steven Heine offers a compelling examination of the Mu Koan, widely considered to be the single best known and most widely circulated and transmitted koan record of the Zen school of Buddhism.

Steven Heine’s latest book on the history of kōans, Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism, is his second monograph dedicated to a single kōan case record. The author’s first such offering, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Kōan, focused on the second case record of the thirteenth-century Gateless Gate collection. Published at the end of the 1990s the text was a response, in many ways, to the two authors who dominated the (...) field of Zen studies during that decade, Bernard Faure and William Bodiford, particularly in regard to the historical relation between monastic Chan/Zen and popular forms of supernatural belief and practice... (shrink)

According to the fox koan, the second case in the Wu-men kuan koan collection, Zen master Pai-chang encounters a fox who claims to be a former abbot punished through endless reincarnations for denying the efficacy of karmic causality. In the end he is liberated by Pai-chang's turning word, which asserts the inexorability of cause-and-effect. Most traditional interpretations of the koan focus on the philosophical issue of causality in relation to earlier Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent origination and (...) emptiness. Dogen, the founder of the Japanese Soto school, devoted two fascicles of the Shobogenzo exclusively to the fox koan. One fascicle supports a paradoxical view of causality and non-causality, the two being "two sides of the same coin"; the second strongly attacks this interpretation and defends a literal reading that asserts causality and denies non-causality. Dogen's apparent change of heart on this topic has inspired scholars of the recent Critical Buddhist methodology to evaluate the merits and weaknesses in Zen's attitude toward ethical issues and social affairs. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan. Steven Heine integrates his own philological analysis of the koan, textual analysis of koan collections and related literary genres in T'ang and Sung China, folklore studies, recent discourse theory, Dogen studies, and research on monastic codes and institutional history to craft an original and compelling work. More specifically, he illuminates a fascinating dimension of the entire Ch'an/Zen tradition as he carefully lays out the philosophical issues in the koan concerning causality/karma and enlightenment, the ethical issues contained therein, the bearing that certain interpretations of causality had on the creation of monastic codes and institutional security in China, the relation between Zen and folk religion as revealed by the koan, and the issue of possible antinomianism in Zen, especially as grappled with by later thinkers such as Dogen and contemporary representatives of Critical Buddhism. Finally he applies theories of "high" and "low" religion and contemporary discourse and in the process rethinks the theories and their applicability across cultures. Far-reaching yet rigorous, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text will not only attract the interest of Ch'an/Zen specialists, but also those studying folklore, popular religion, and issues concerning the nature of discourse and the relation between "high" and "low" religions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen MastersDale S. WrightOpening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters. By Steven Heine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 200. Hardcover $25.00. Paper $17.95.On the beautifully designed cover of Steven Heine's Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters, we gaze at one of the masterworks of Chinese painting, Kuo Hsi's Early Spring, painted in the late eleventh century (...) at what may have been the pinnacle of the Chinese Zen monastic tradition. Allowing our eyes to wander up, down, and across this truly great work, we spot the curved roof of a Buddhist monastery gorgeously nestled in a rugged valley halfway up a towering, mist-covered mountain. No image could more adequately capture the mystique that Chinese Zen monasticism attained in that era and has continued to cultivate into the modern period. Steven Heine's new book masterfully communicates the aura of Zen in those times by highlighting a segment of kōan literature that features the work of Zen masters in "opening a mountain." While it is clear that the mountain in this phrase is really a Zen monastery, and that this phrase became a standard way to refer to the initiation of a new monastery, Heine unravels this act of opening by detailing the enormously interesting historical/cultural tradition behind it.Long before the emergence of the Zen or even the Buddhist tradition in China, mountains symbolized numinous, spiritual power. Early Taoists had already used the image of the mountain as a metaphor of mysterious, otherworldly reality. Chinese [End Page 194] popular tradition pictured the deities residing at these far-off and little-known elevations. Buddhists continued to capitalize on images like this until literature valorizing the T'ang and Sung dynasty Zen masters brought them to their current cultural position. Climbing a mountain, and dwelling there, required the utmost mental and spiritual discipline. Residing in that lofty sphere, one attained a vision of the world that in its depth and breadth trumped any understanding that could be attained in the world below. The mountain recluse and the enigmatic Zen master who drew disciples into remote mountainous regions for mental or spiritual training is by now one of the best known, most powerful images in the world. It is quite understandable that the great Zen masters would "open" their monastic training centers in the kind of setting depicted in Heine's reconstruction of the idea of the mountain in Chinese history.What Heine's analysis makes clear, though, is that there is much more to the act of "opening" than we have hitherto assumed. Prior to the movement of Buddhist monasteries into these remote areas there existed a largely oral tradition concerning enigmatic mountain recluses who, like the legendary Taoist Lao-tzu, had withdrawn from the world in the quest for profound spiritual vision. Popular images of these visionaries were widespread throughout China in the medieval period, and no parallel to them existed in the staid, scholarly world of Buddhist monasticism. The movement of monastic Buddhism into that domain, therefore, necessitated a conflict and melding of images, and the terms in which this ideological battle would take place would not be derived from the rarified philosophical and textual traditions that had made Buddhism so impressive to earlier generations of Chinese converts. Instead, Zen masters would compete for popular recognition in south-central China in terms that were familiar to the residents of that area, namely of magical powers, demons, local deities, and the visions, apparitions, and exorcisms that supported that premodern metaphysical world.The innovation of Opening a Mountain is that, while not denying what Heine calls the "conventional understanding" of the kōan tradition, which has been communicated in largely modern, demythologized, psychological images, the book undertakes the study of kōan literature by being particularly attentive to these clear representations of the extent to which Zen was born and cultivated in a premodern world. Opening new territory in Zen kōan studies, Heine works his way back into the medieval Chinese mentality that would have set the context for the emergence of the kōan tradition... (shrink)

This article explores intersections between critical theory, Buddhism, and film studies in what Jürgen Habermas characterizes as the current ‘post-secular society’. I use A...