What is "contemplatives"

Usage examples of "contemplatives".

These claims of Theravada Buddhist contemplatives obviously appear incredible in light of our commonsense assumptions about the mind.

I became so drawn to the integrated worldview, values, and way of life presented by the Tibetan scholars and contemplatives with whom I studied that for years I sought total immersion in this culture that was so far removed from my own.

I have sought out such encounters myself, including participating in a meditation retreat with the Dalai Lama and a group of Christian contemplatives in Prato, Italy, during the spring of 1999.

In part II, I present an alternative matrix of theories and practices for exploring consciousness, drawing from the writings of Western scholars and contemplatives such as Augustine, William James, Hilary Putnam, and Robert Forman and Eastern scholars and contemplatives such as Buddhaghosa, Vasubandhu, Asanga, and Padmasambhava.

When it came to probing the nature of subjective mental events or consciousness itself, these early philosophers had little to say, in comparison, for instance, to the contemplatives and philosophers of India during that same era.

During this era, the Devil figures prominently in the writings of Christian contemplatives and theologians, who appeared to be in constant fear of Satanic intrusion in prayer and all other aspects of the spiritual life.

However, Augustine and later Christian contemplatives maintained that while the nature of the mind cannot be discovered by observing external phenomena, it can be discovered by withdrawing the mind from all appearances that have been added onto it.

Hindu and Buddhist contemplatives, on the contrary, claim that even the most sublime contemplative states may be sustained for hours or even days on end and their residual effects may be permanent.

Theravada Buddhist contemplatives claim that physical reality may be mentally altered by the contemplative manipulation of the counterpart signs.

These two contemplatives, who were brothers, are among the most authoritative proponents of the school of Mahayana Buddhism, which remains today a living tradition among Tibetans and other Asian societies.

To understand these two qualities in terms of Buddhist psychology, one must note that Buddhist contemplatives commonly assert that the continuum of awareness is composed of successive moments, or pulses, of cognition having finite duration.

Thus, these contemplatives, in concert with Jewish, Christian, and Hindu contemplatives, present us with the truly astonishing hypothesis that joy arises from the very nature of consciousness once it is free of the afflictions of laxity and excitation and is disengaged from all sensory and mental appearances.

Even when the mind is settled in meditative stabilization without human conceptual constructs, it is not considered by Buddhist contemplatives to be entirely free of all traces of conceptualization.

Scientists and contemplatives alike are challenged to distinguish between their conceptual superimpositions upon experience and the actual evidence that is being presented to their senses, including the sense of mental perception.

Many contemplatives, on the other hand, seek to disengage from their conceptually structured experiences derived from both sensory and mental perception and to enter a state free of all subjective constructs.