Introduction to “Cognitive Science and the Study of Yoga and Tantra”

Abstract

The range of disciplines known as the Cognitive Science of Religions (CSR), which has emerged in recent decades, embraces many areas and specializations within the Academy, including cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, and religious studies. The results of this exploration, some of which are offered in this Special Issue before you, are intriguing, profound, and yet still preliminary. As will be noted below, this "preliminary" nature of CSR is due to the fact that our scientific knowledge of the neurological system-let alone of how the mind "works"-is still in mostly early phases. Techniques in imaging and scanning the brain, as well as in understanding patterns and processes in perception and cognition, are advancing with every day, yet we are still at some remove from making all but the most general or speculative statements. This does not, of course, mean that we have to stand by and wait for the technology to improve or to reach some critical point. As with any meaningful discipline in scholarship and science, CSR proceeds in halting but definite steps, and we hope that the essays in this issue demonstrate what some of us in the area of Tantric Studies can provide to the dialogue. None of these essays are by cognitive scientists, so we ask our colleagues in the sciences to consider how the dialogue might be furthered through their own efforts in understanding Tantra.For those unfamiliar with Tantric Studies (itself a fairly recent interdisciplinary field of academic pursuits), 1 the field is one which examines "Tantra", a broad range of originally pan-Asian religious traditions connected to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, and various indigenous communities. As with the ongoing scholarly dispute over basic methodologies, terminology and vocabulary in CSR, there has been lively debate over the key term of "Tantra", as well as how far back it goes in history. 2 Dating from no later than the 4th century CE in South Asia, Tantra is difficult to define, but perhaps best regarded through the lens of a "polythetic" category as proposed by Douglas Renfrew Brooks. 3 Tantra may be regarded as historical systems of ritual practices in which an individual engages with a layered cosmology, utilizing diverse senses, cognitive capacities, and sexuality in order to achieve elevated states of consciousness and embodied liberation. There are innumerable iterations of Tantra, ranging from theistic to nontheistic, although most seek to "reverse" the flow of cosmic process and manifestation in order to lead the individual to some heightened, typically unitive, state. On the history of Tantric Studies and the Society for Tantric Studies (STS), see (Hayes 2011(Hayes , 2012a. As recent scholarship is most prolific, the essays in this Special Issue of Religions only examine small segments of the field. For an excellent introduction to the study of Tantra, including translations of many texts, see White (2000). On selected aspects of the history of scholarship on Hindu Tantra see Brooks (1998), Urban (2003) and Hayes (...

Sexbots: Drawing on Tibetan Buddhism and the Tantric tradition

“…One development which might prove helpful in the light of the pragmatic sympathy towards scientific approach which characterises Tibetan Buddhism is the burgeoning research into yoga, Tantra and the subtle body (Hayes and Timalsina, 2017;Loizzo, 2016), as well as into the neuroscience of orgasm (Klimaj and Safron, 2016;Safron, 2016), which has been seen as similar to alternate states of consciousness induced by hallucinogens (Sayin, 2018). Research in neuroscience into how we may achieve and consciously move between altered states of consciousness through bodily practices like Tantric yoga and via hallucinogens has been recommended as a means of promoting health, flourishing and enhanced dying (Mackenzie, 2014b).…”

Conceptualising Bhāvana: How do contemplative Hindu traditions inform understanding emotions and well-being?

“…It is also understood by tradition that this particular insight and experience of consciousness is not immediately accessible to all humans and therefore a series of contemplative practices are prescribed and derived to arrive at this 'recognition' of nature of consciousness. In the recent years, Timalsina has illuminated extensively on this aspect of contemplation and healing practice from the religious studies and Hindu tantra perspective, (Hayes & Timalsina, 2017;Timalsina, 2008) Affective processes: Four Indian knowledge traditions perspectives based on motivation Contemplation has been in increasingly in discussion with increased research in Yoga, Buddhism and cognitive neuroscience. With a more than 100 year recent history of intellectual exchange between East and West, several profound transformations have occurred in the Euro-American mindset about psychology and contemplation as part of psychology, with an increasing recognition of religion and spirituality in well-being.…”

“…It is also understood by tradition that this particular insight and experience of consciousness is not immediately accessible to all humans and therefore a series of contemplative practices are prescribed and derived to arrive at this ‘recognition’ of nature of consciousness. In the recent years, Timalsina has illuminated extensively on this aspect of contemplation and healing practice from the religious studies and Hindu tantra perspective, (Hayes & Timalsina, 2017; Timalsina, 2008)…”

“…The person is baddha -bound due to these. A more detailed discussion on these can be found in several texts and interpretations of the Yoga sutra of Patanjali ((Bharati, 2001; Dave & Bhole, 1989; Hayes & Timalsina, 2017)…”

Modern Transformations of sādhanā as Art, Study, and Awareness: Religious Experience and Hindu Tantric Practice

“…Tantric Studies is emerging as one of the areas in the modern Academy that is moving forward in its critique and reexamination of some older ways of thinking as well as its engagement with contemporary Cognitive Sciences and Neurosciences. For examination of ecstasy, religious experience and mysticism, see McDaniel (2018) and her sources; for Cognitive Sciences and the study of yoga and tantra, see Hayes (2011); Timalsina (2015); and Hayes and Timalsina's Religions Special Issue (Hayes and Timalsina 2017), and the contributors to that volume.…”