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Discreteness, Adjacency And Order: A Structural Comparison Of The Theravāda Abhidhamma With Causal Sets And Loop Quantum Gravity — Partial Orders, Spin-Network Boundaries And Discrete Time In Buddhist Philosophy Of Matter, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This study compares the Theravāda Buddhist Abhidhamma with two discrete approaches to quantum gravity, causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, as formal structures, on three axes: order, adjacency and ratio. No row predicts a measurement, and none says that a Buddhist text anticipated a theory of quantum gravity. On order, the twenty-four conditioning relations of the Paṭṭhāna, taken whole, are not a partial order. The condition-modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order can be read: acyclic by selection, not yet a causal set, and ordering some moments of …

Causal Set Theory, The Growing Block, And The Buddhist Debate On The Three Times: What The Earliest Vibhajjavādin Records Say — Presentism, Eternalism And Beginningless Time In Abhidharma Texts Compared With Sequential-Growth Models, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This study reads the Buddhist debate on whether past and future things exist (the "three times") against the growing-block view of time that causal set theory's sequential-growth models are offered to support. Rafael Sorkin (2007) remarked that the "accretive time" of these models seems close to C.D. Broad's and to the "Vibhajavadin" school's; Fay Dowker (2022) invited a scholar to determine that school's view of time from the earliest records. The records give no single view under the name. In the northern Abhidharma, the Vibhajyavādins hold that the present and past action whose fruit is not yet given exist, but …

Saṅkhāra-Dukkha And Ai Welfare: A Substrate-Native Account From The Theravāda Canon — The Moral Status Of Artificial Intelligence Systems And The Three Kinds Of Suffering In Buddhist Ethics, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This study asks whether the Theravāda Buddhist analysis of suffering offers a basis for the moral consideration of artificial intelligence systems (AI welfare, AI moral patienthood) that does not wait on settling whether such systems are conscious or sentient. Much current work on AI welfare ties moral status to consciousness or sentience; one prominent report adds robust agency as a second route. The Pāli canon lists three kinds of suffering: suffering as pain, the suffering of change, and the suffering inherent in conditioned formations (saṅkhāra-dukkhatā). The Visuddhimagga assigns painful feeling to the first kind, pleasant feeling to the second, and …

The Wheel-Turner's Charter: An Ancient Buddhist Succession Text Read As An Ai Constitution With Permanent Human Oversight And Founder Exit By Design, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

An autonomous AI system that inherits an institution needs a written directive specification: a constitution stating what it optimizes, what it must never do, who may correct it, how its autonomy is staged, whom its protection covers, and how its role ends. This paper reads a Theravāda Buddhist text, the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 26), as such a specification. In the sutta a retiring king hands his heir a duty-list: rely on the Dhamma; guard every class of the realm, animals and birds included; let no wrongdoing prevail; give wealth to those without; and consult renunciants, from time to time, …

One Of One: Individuation Without Essence And The Ground Of The Dignity Floor — Personal Identity As Event History In Decentralized Identifiers, Proof Of Personhood And Social Key Recovery, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

Deployed digital identity systems mostly decide what makes an individual the same individual on one of three grounds: something the entity is (a biometric body), something it holds (a key or certificate), or something it matches (attributes). Beneath identity sits a second question, on what ground a person is beyond price. This study reads the Theravāda Abhidhamma's analysis of the person for an answer to both. The tradition's taxonomy of mental events is one catalogue for every stream of mind; its book of formal controversies opens by denying that a person exists in the ultimate sense (Kathāvatthu I.1); what then …

Buddha Ai As Living Tipiṭaka: Opt-In Publication Of Ai Chatbot Conversation Transcripts Into A Human-Reviewed Commentary Corpus With Three-Category Classification And Crypto-Shredding Withdrawal, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We describe a method for building a human-reviewed religious commentary corpus from transcripts of conversations between users and a conversational AI agent grounded in a scriptural canon, instantiated for the Pāli Buddhist canon. Components: (I) a domain-grounded conversational agent that declines claims of religious, sacramental or ordained authority and directs users to human teachers; (II) a chat, voice or avatar dialogue surface; (III) a consent-based recording layer in which every conversation is private by default and the user is asked, per conversation, whether it may be considered for publication at one of four tiers (attributed, pseudonymous, anonymous, excluded), non-published conversations …

Suffering-Cessation As Value Function: The Tipiṭaka As A 2,500-Year-Tested Substrate For Autonomous-Ai Alignment — Deriving A Negatively-Stated Objective Function, Corrigibility And A Shutdown-Accepting Completion Condition From A Buddhist Scriptural Canon, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

We describe the use of a scriptural canon with its living interpretive community, the Theravāda Buddhist Pāli canon (Tipiṭaka), as the value-specification source for aligning autonomous artificial-intelligence systems, instead of lab-authored constitutions, learned human preferences or aggregated moral frameworks. The analysis identifies seven structural properties of that source and maps each to an alignment problem: (1) a negatively-stated objective function, the cessation of suffering, in which grasping at preferred outcomes itself counts as harm, addressing Goodhart-style over-optimization; (2) a non-self doctrine as mitigation of convergent instrumental self-preservation; (3) a voluntary other-regarding vow as an anti-power-seeking and corrigibility property; (4) a …

The Referee, Not The Governor: Open-Weight Ai Guard Model Deployed As An Independent Evaluator, With Citation-Grounded Abstention And Reproducible Verdicts, Instead Of An Inline Filter, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure specifies an AI safety classifier (guard or critic model) that judges conduct against a fixed reference corpus and is published as an open-weight independent evaluator rather than deployed as an inline guardrail filter. It states as a design principle, argued rather than measured, that open-weight release defeats a filter, because the published weights are an oracle for white-box attack, while it makes an evaluator's verdicts reproducible. Components: (1) citation-grounded judgment with abstention: every verdict must resolve to a passage (work, edition, volume, page, line) in an externally attested, versioned corpus, here a Pāli Canon edition, and otherwise no …

The Reciters' Protocol: Content Integrity Verification, Completeness Manifests And Variant-Preserving Text Retrieval Transposed From Oral Canon Transmission, Thon Ly

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure specifies content integrity verification and provenance mechanisms for text retrieval systems that serve quoted passages to machine readers, transposed from a multi-recension oral canon transmitted for roughly two millennia without an authoritative copy (the Pāli Buddhist canon).

A conformance endpoint accepts a claimed quotation, compares it with the served multi-recension corpus, and returns one of a closed set of dispositions on the claim, including a conforming variant with its witness, each paired with a prescribed next action and by construction none on the claimant; closed disposition sets are anticipated by OCSP; the composition is disclosed. A separated completeness …

Extraordinary Senses And Dreamscapes In Medieval Japanese Ōjōden Narratives: Reading Yoshishige No Yasutane’S Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-Ki, Qingxuan Wang

Effervescence: Yale Divinity School's Student Journal of Religion

This paper examines the affective and multi-sensorial narratives in Yoshishige no Yasutane’s Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-ki, the foundational collection of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhist rebirth tales (ōjōden). Composed at the threshold of a dark age in which Buddhist salvation through ordinary practice was believed to be impossible, the collection spoke directly to a faith community haunted by worldly suffering and their own spiritual inadequacy. Engaging with sensory studies and narratology, this paper challenges the binary divide between doctrinal expositions and didactic narratives in the study of Buddhism. Rather than treating the Nihon Ōjōgokuraku-ki as secondary supplements to scholar-monks’ …

Ruins And Remedies: Hospital Site Archaeology In Medieval Southeast Asia, Karen Hill

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

The Modal Catuṣkoṭi: Formalizing Emptiness In Classical Modal Logic, Chance Chapman

Comparative Philosophy

Nāgārjuna’s arguments in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā rely extensively on modus tollens, yet this inference is invalid in the paraconsistent frameworks typically used to formalize the catuṣkoṭi. We develop a modal extension of Belnap-Dunn semantics to address this, expressed as: ¬□(v(P) = t) ∧ ¬□(v(P) = f) ∧ ¬□(v(P) = b) ∧ ¬□(v(P) = n). This formula applies self-reflexively, resolves longstanding interpretive debates regarding verses within Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and Vigrahavyāvartanī such as his “no thesis” defense, and bridges interpretive gaps between traditionally designated Eastern and Western logical traditions, providing a Western analytical translation of Indian dialectic into symbolic modal logic that …

The Dialogue Of Spiritual Experience In Buddhist-Christian Encounter, S Mark Heim

Journal of Global Catholicism

Can one learn more about one’s own religion through the practices of another? My positive answer to this question is illustrated in this paper by reflection on aspects of the Buddhist practice of emptiness, in specific connection with Christian under-standing of our lives as creatures. The Buddhist meditative practices I have in mind have several things in common. They are introspective (activated in one person’s inner consciousness) and premised on the Buddhist understanding of emptiness (specifically “no self ” teachings). Buddhist introspective practice takes at least three broad forms. One of these is a meditative analytical awareness of the contents …

The Pāḷi Text Of The Nīvaraṇasutta From The Aṅguttara Nikāya, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

The Pāḷi text of the Nīvaraṇasutta from the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 9.64) is anthologized in The Buddhist Era 2500 Great International Council Nīvaraṇasutta Pāḷi Tipiṭaka: 40 Volume Edition in Roman Script B.E. 2548 (M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund, 2005), https://suttacentral.net/ms. English translations by Thānissaro Bhikkhu from 1998 (or 2002) together with Bhikkhu Sujato from 2016–2018 are housed in SuttaCentral. The historically significant English translation of AN 9.64 is part of the multivolume, The Book of Gradual Sayings (Anguttara-Nikaya), or More Numbered Suttas, Vol. IV (The Book of the Sevens, Eights and Nines), Pali …

"That's Fine..." Uncovering Ambiguity Through Emotional Labelling In Scottish Design Students’ Design Process, Hazar Taissier Marji, Paul A. Rodgers, Ross Brisco

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Putting emotions into words is a natural human strategy for reinterpreting situations, even when done unintentionally. Evidence shows that this process, known as affective labelling, can reduce distress compared to non- affective verbalisation. Given that, the word 'fine' is widely used as a self-report label for emotional states, yet its meaning remains strikingly ambiguous. Limited research has explored such neutral or mid-spectrum emotional terms that are neither overtly positive nor negative but still shape the design process. This study examines how Scottish design students use 'fine' to describe their emotional experiences during their final design projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted …

Dwelling, Making, And Digital Mediation: Mani Stone Piles In Eastern Tibet, Danmeng Xu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Deng Pan, Jing Su

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines mani stone piles in Eastern Tibet as material forms emerging through dwelling, movement, and situated acts of making. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s dwelling perspective and long-term visual ethnography conducted between 2016 and 2025, it shows how mani piles are produced through the embodied selection, carrying, and stacking of stones at passes, riverbanks, and crossroads. Rather than treating these piles primarily as fixed religious symbols or products of prior design intention, we argue that their forms arise from the practical coordination of bodily skill, available materials, topography, ritual habit, and movement through the landscape. It further shows that …

Selections From The Milindapañha (Section On The Simile Of Fire), Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

The Pāḷi text of 3. Tejaṅgapañha from the Milindapañha is anthologized in The Buddhist Era 2500 Great International Council Pāḷi Tipiṭaka: 40 Volume Edition in Roman Script B.E. 2548 (M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund, 2005), https://suttacentral.net/ms. An English translation is available under Section 7.4.3: Fire in SuttaCentral; the translation is adapted from “The Questions of King Milinda,” trans. T.W. Rhys Davids in The Sacred Books of the East Vol. XXXVI ed. Max Müller (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1894), 311–312, https://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe36/sbe3611.htm.

Imagination And The Self: A Cross-Cultural And Cross-Disciplinary Study, Qianyi Qin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary investigation of the imagination and the self that engages with cognitive science, philosophy of mind, Buddhism, ethical theories, and a variety of perspectives from Asian and Western philosophy. I address the following questions in three interrelated chapters. First, what does it mean for the self to appear in imagination? In Chapter 1, against certain narrow understandings of the self in philosophy of language, I build a multidimensional model of the self in imaginative experiences to capture the rich phenomenology, drawing on empirical findings on memory and imagination. Second, can the self be removed from imagination? …

The Sound Of Vultures' Wings: The Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Ritual Practice Of The Female Buddha Machik Labdrön, Michael R. Sheehy

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

A book review is presented for The Sound of Vultures' Wings: The Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Ritual Practice of the Female Buddha Machik Labdrön, authored by Jeffrey W. Cupchik, by Michael R. Sheehy.

Infinite Regress Argument: Nāgārjuna Vs. The Naiyāyikas, Aastha Pujara

Honors College Theses

Infinite regress arguments are commonly employed within philosophical texts as an ad infinitum fallacy to disprove an argument. This argumentative tactic is described as a chain of never-ending explanations that has no beginning. In this paper, I explore the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna and how he utilizes the infinite regress argument to disprove the existence of svabhāva, or essence. Unlike other philosophers, he indicates that the infinite regress argument is not a problem for him due to his philosophy, which explains that everything is devoid of essence or substance and is inherently empty, also known as śūnyatā. Nāgārjuna examines these infinite …

Shelters In Motion, Erin Nicole Vallido Trasmano

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Shelters in Motion is a modular temporary shelter system for festival and outdoor events that replaces disposable tents with reusable, durable design. Overall reducing environmental impact while significantly improving comfort and user experience.

Practices Enhancing The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In The Educational Process - A Systematic Review, Mohammad Abdelraouf Elsayed

Scientific Journal of King Faisal University: Humanities and Management Sciences

This study aimed to review the literature related to utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the educational process, and to propose enhancing practices for the use of AI to improve areas of the educational process. This descriptive analytical study relied on systematic review of previous studies addressing the role of AI in improving the following areas of educational process: education management, learner learning, teacher empowerment and teaching enhancement, and learning evaluation. Then, the inductive exploratory method was used by surveying the opinions of (37) experts from professors specialized in AI in some Arab universities, to investigate their perspectives on the …

Sacred Steps: Walking, Religion, And The Path To Peace, Francesca Benna

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Walking is one of the simplest and most primordial human acts, yet it carries profound meanings that transcend cultures, religious traditions, and paths of individual and collective transformation. Walking is not merely a means of movement but a practice that fosters reconnection with oneself, the environment, and the community. Bruce Chatwin, in The Songlines (1987), highlights how nomadism is an inherent human condition, suggesting that movement is essential not only for physical survival but also for mental and spiritual well-being. In an era marked by environmental crises, conflicts, and increasing technological alienation, rediscovering the value of walking responds to a …

Candi Perwara Pada Percandian Ijo, Plaosan Lor, Dan Plaosan Kidul: Sebuah Kajian Arsitektur Dan Tinjauan Inskripsi, Dwi Ratna Sylvia Widyahastuti, Agus Aris Munandar

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Temple or Candi are sacred Hindu and Buddhist buildings constructed in accordance with the prescriptions of the Vāstuśāstra, including subsidiary temple or candi perwara. This study examines the candi perwara of the Ijo, Plaosan Lor, and Plaosan Kidul Temple Complex to analyze their technical aspects, religious functions, and chronological positions within their respective temple complexes. Employing a descriptive-comparative method and a historical-archaeological approach supported by epigraphical review, the research identifies similarities in the roof forms and ornamental reliefs. Differences are observed in ground plans, stone materials, construction systems, vestibule, base forms, body variations, …

Contemplative Absence: Sacred Experience In Abbas Kiarostami’S The Wind Will Carry Us And The Aesthetics Of Slow Cinema, Hessam Abedini

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how Abbas Kiarostami’s The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) creates sacred experience through systematic absence within contemporary slow cinema aesthetics. While previous scholarship has focused on religious content in spiritual cinema, this analysis demonstrates how formal techniques—particularly strategic concealment and extended duration—generate contemplative states without explicit religious references. Drawing on Paul Schrader’s transcendental style theory and recent slow cinema scholarship, the article traces how Kiarostami adapts Persian poetic traditions, particularly concepts of pardeh (veiling) and the interplay between bāṭin (hidden) and ẓāhir (manifest), to create meaning through what remains unseen. The dying woman who never appears, the …

Philosophy Apr 2026 Self-Study Report & Documents, Unm Academic Program Review

UNM Academic Program Review

Philosophy APR self-study report, review team report, response report, and initial action plan for AY2025, fulfilling requirements of the Higher Learning Commission.

From Tiktok To Transcendence: Reclaiming Focus Through Contemplative Education, Araceli Gordus Huizar

Knowledge and Creativity Expo

In an era shaped by the attention economy and digital technology, students in higher education navigate constant stimulation that fragments attention, increases stress, and challenges emotional regulation. Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that chronic exposure to social media, AI tools, and multitasking environments contributes to divided attention and diminished cognitive performance. While institutional responses, such as phone bans, attempt to manage distraction, they often fail to cultivate the internal capacities necessary for sustained focus and meaningful learning.

This paper argues that contemplative education--grounded in Buddhist and Hindu contemplative traditions and informed by humanistic psychology and contemporary mindfulness-based interventions--offers a …

Bullying And Discrimination Experiences Of Bhutanese College Students: Prevalence, Impacts, And Responses, Kezang Sherab, John Howard

Journal of Global Education and Research

Prior studies as well as media reports have identified bullying and discrimination amongst Bhutanese school and college students as a cause of concern, especially so for a nation with Gross National Happiness as its goal. Bullying and discrimination are associated with negative outcomes and can impact overall well-being. This quantitative study examined bullying and discrimination amongst college students (n = 16) in Bhutan through a self-administered online survey to a representative sample of 2043 (male = 40.8%; female = 55.8%). There was a non-significant decline from the 2016 survey in the reported prevalence of being bullied (from 45.2% to …

Tolkien's Oriental Sources? Renunciation Of Immortality And Fairy Nature, Giovanni Carmine Costabile

Journal of Tolkien Research

Thompson motif F302.6.2.2. Fairy gives up her fairy nature and becomes mortal to be able to return to her mortal husband and its combination with H310. Suitor tests and H1010. Impossible tasks are Oriental motifs, to be found only in the Tibetan tale of The Boy with the Deformed Head in O'Connor's 1907 collection and in the 9th century CE Japanese Taketori Monogatari. In this light, it appears necessary, assuming that Tolkien had a source for his idea of Lúthien sacrificing her Elven immortality and Elven fate, that his source must be found in the aforesaid narratives, both available …

Authentic Malleability: Zen Buddhism And The Justification Of Japanese Cultural Superiority During World War Ii, Pj Wise

Senior Theses

Throughout history, religious traditions have been mobilized to justify nationalist violence and claims to cultural superiority. In modern Japan, Buddhism underwent a dramatic transformation, becoming one of the most sophisticated ideological justifications for Japanese imperialism during World War II. How did Zen Buddhism come to justify Japanese claims of cultural superiority during the Pacific War? Examining Buddhist institutional practices, philosophical texts, and wartime propaganda from 1941-1945, this thesis analyzes three mechanisms through which Buddhism legitimized Japanese superiority: claims to spiritual supremacy through Zen philosophy, militarization of Buddhist practice, and use of Buddhism as cultural imperialism in occupied territories. I argue …