Study, Reflection, and Cultivation: Integrative Paths to Wisdom from Buddhist and Comparative Perspectives

This special issue elucidates the articulation between discourse and experience within the development of wisdom, mainly in Buddhism, both in dialog with the West and for teaching mindfulness in contemporary education. Wisdom, as the “right view,” represents the eye or guiding principle of the path that was taught by the Buddha according to three progressive stages: (1) the “wisdom born from study”; (2) the “wisdom born from reflection”; and (3) the “wisdom born from cultivation.” Two articles explore this model in Indian Buddhism and its relationship with mindfulness, as well as in the later debates with Advaita Vedānta regarding truth and self-transformation. Three articles investigate this model further from Asaṅga and Vasubandhu in India to Xuanzang in China, and then as an educational paradigm in the Japanese school of Tendai according to Saichō, or as a heuristic device to approach mindfulness in the Zen philosophy of Dōgen. The next three articles focus on Tibetan Buddhism, considering meditation manuals as facilitating the transition from scholarship to practice and discussing mindfulness in the progressive path of wisdom versus the sudden insight of Dzogchen and how the threefold wisdom model is central to the contemporary revival of Buddhism in Eastern Tibet. The last three articles examine the threefold wisdom model in terms of its larger methodological relevance for Buddhist studies and for facilitating dialog with other disciplines. Following the inspiration of Pierre Hadot, the model is compared with early Greco-Latin philosophy and ultimately applied to secular mindfulness-based programs in educational contexts.