The Hidden Presence and Influence of Thai Buddhist Meditation Practices in the UK

泰国佛教禅修在英国的隐秘存在及其影响

• 批准号: 2744494
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2744494
• 关键词: Hidden; Presence; Influence; Thai; Buddhist

This project examines Thai Theravada Buddhist meditation practices in Britain, which are little documented but have informed distinctive practices and groups, among Westerners and Diaspora Buddhists, as well as academia. A study of these practices is significant for what it will tell us about the diversity of Theravada meditation techniques and British Buddhism as well as the potential of these little-studied techniques to contribute to mental health and wellbeing, providing information for future researchers. Traditional Thai meditation is little documented in contrast to the Buddhist-derived Mindfulness that began to gain global popularity from the 1970s onwards. Yet the Thai practices were transmitted to the UK earlier, beginning in the 1950s, when Westerners first attempted to establish a Buddhist monastic community in the UK. They offer very distinctive features including a greater focus on physical transformation and on the attainment of deep meditative states. They reflect a greater range and diversity of techniques with histories going back centuries. In contrast, Mindfulness is drawn from a limited range of Buddhist traditions, primarily from modern Burmese vipassana (insight practices), Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. The traditions linked to Mindfulness and Mindfulness itself have therefore been the focus of most scholarship. Meanwhile, the many other types of Buddhist meditation techniques have largely been ignored. While this has begun to change , there has been no systematic study of those Thai traditions that came to the UK, how they have fared during the growing rise of Mindfulness and how they compare to it. Furthermore, some of the Thai traditions that came to the UK are older and distinctive. They include both old and new forms of Thai meditations, demarcated by a radical shake-up during the colonial period that caused once-popular pre-modernisation methods to be less emphasised. Yet Britain, with its early reception of a variety of Thai traditions, as well as its combination of secular, Diaspora and convert practice groups, is an obvious place to conduct research on these practices. Mindfulness has become popular in Britain for a number of reasons including its reputed contribution to wellbeing, legitimated by scientific studies, and commodification out of which people can make money. Since the Thai practices have gone through neither process, I anticipate different values placed on them by their practitioner communities to emerge through this study. While Mindfulness on the whole de-emphasizes the source Buddhist and ethical framework, I anticipate from my initial investigations that these Thai-based practices elicit distinctive responses to the Buddhist sources, including a drive towards in-depth study of complex Buddhist doctrines concerning ethics, psychology and causality.My overall questions are: what Thai techniques are present in the UK, how different are they from more familiar techniques, how influential have they been in and beyond British Buddhism, and why is less known about them? Further, how do the values placed on them by practitioners differ from those placed on Mindfulness, and how do these values influence the dispositions of the groups? Do they warrant the attention of social and neuroscientific investigations into their contribution to wellbeing?My methodological approach includes multi-sites ethnographic fieldwork applied to communities of Thai Buddhist Meditation Practices.Ethnographic methods will include exploring available text sources, participant observation, in-depth interviews and oral history. These open-ended methods will potentially allow for flexibility and the emergence of unexpected information due to the subjective nature of the topic. Oral history will play an important role in gaining first-hand information from informants as oral tradition is an integral part of Buddhism's teacher-pupils relationships.

该项目研究了英国的泰国小乘佛教冥想实践，这些实践很少有记录，但为西方人和散居佛教徒以及学术界的独特实践和团体提供了信息。对这些实践的研究意义重大，因为它将告诉我们小乘冥想技巧和英国佛教的多样性，以及这些很少研究的技巧对心理健康和福祉的潜力，为未来的研究人员提供信息。传统的泰国冥想很少被记录下来，与佛教衍生的正念相反，从20世纪70年代开始在全球范围内流行。然而，泰国的做法被传递到英国更早，开始于20世纪50年代，当西方人第一次试图在英国建立一个佛教寺院社区。它们提供了非常独特的特征，包括更注重身体的转变和达到深度冥想状态。它们反映了更大范围和多样性的技术，其历史可以追溯到几个世纪以前。相比之下，正念来自有限的佛教传统，主要来自现代缅甸的内观（内观实践），禅宗和藏传佛教。因此，与正念和正念本身相关的传统一直是大多数学术研究的焦点。与此同时，许多其他类型的佛教冥想技巧在很大程度上被忽视了。虽然这种情况已经开始改变，但还没有系统地研究那些来到英国的泰国传统，它们在正念日益兴起的过程中是如何发展的，以及它们与正念的比较。此外，一些来到英国的泰国传统更古老，更独特。它们包括泰国冥想的新旧形式，以殖民时期的激进变革为分界，导致曾经流行的前现代化方法不那么受重视。然而，英国，其早期接受各种泰国传统，以及其世俗，散居和转换实践团体的组合，是一个明显的地方进行研究这些做法。正念在英国流行有很多原因，包括它对幸福的贡献，科学研究的合法性，以及人们可以赚钱的商品化。由于泰国的做法都没有经历过这两个过程，我预计他们的从业者社区对他们的不同价值观，通过这项研究出现。虽然正念总体上不强调佛教和伦理框架的来源，但我从我的初步调查中预计，这些以泰国为基础的实践会引起对佛教来源的独特反应，包括对有关伦理，心理学和因果关系的复杂佛教教义的深入研究。我的总体问题是：在英国有哪些泰国的技术，它们与我们更熟悉的技术有什么不同，它们在英国佛教内外的影响力有多大，为什么人们对它们知之甚少？此外，从业者赋予他们的价值观与正念的价值观有何不同？这些价值观如何影响群体的倾向？它们是否值得社会和神经科学研究关注它们对幸福的贡献？我的方法论方法包括应用于泰国佛教冥想实践社区的多地点民族志实地考察。民族志方法将包括探索可用的文本来源，参与者观察，深入访谈和口述历史。由于专题的主观性质，这些开放式方法将有可能允许灵活性和意外信息的出现。口述历史将在获得第一手资料方面发挥重要作用，因为口述传统是佛教师生关系的一个组成部分。