Immeasurable Joy

"Being One Meditation of a "Bodhisattva Vaibhāṣika

Bibliographic Data

ID4951901
AuthorsHenry Albery (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume16
Issue8
Pages967
Publication date2025-07-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16080967
OpenAlexW4412913776
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited19

This paper considers the practice of immeasurable joy (muditā) as presented in the so-called Yogalehrbuch, a seventh century Sanskrit "yoga manual" from Qïzïl, on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin. It demonstrates that the author of the text, whose purpose is to describe the journey of a yogin on the path to the awakening of a Bodhisattva, relied on some version of the *Vibhāṣā, the voluminous treatise on Buddhist metaphysics from which the Vaibhāṣika school derives its name. Identifying several parallels between the two texts, it presents a new edition of select passages of the manuscript from the preface to immeasurable joy which constitute what the text terms a theory of practice (prayoganirdeśa). On this basis, it is shown that the specific principles of Vaibhāṣika ontology and phenomenology conveyed by this theory come to be instantiated at the experiential, structural and representational levels of the practice (prayoga), which the text primarily serves to example

Bodhisattva · Buddhism · Meditation · Theology · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access