Since the time of ancient Greece, Western civilization has been underpinned by a desire to establish the self as an individual. Psychology in the West had its beginnings in psychoanalysis, which aims to effect self-healing in a patient suffering from mental disorders. Buddhism is underpinned by the idea of no-self. This does not mean to abandon the self. The basic stance of Buddhism is to aspire for peace of mind through the practice of meditation, whereby one examines one’s present state of being to see whether or not one’s self-image, arbitrarily created over time, accords with one’s original self. We call this Buddhist psychology in contrast to the psychology of the West.
The Yogācāravihāra Institute of Buddhist Psychology conducts research on the mind on the basis of the Yogācāra (Yoga Practice) teachings of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
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The Prayer and Practice Project
The Institute is linked to a Complex Systems Research Unit at Tsukuba University called "The Dynamics of the Mind: Interdisciplinary Research on the Mind Based on Cultivated Practice." We have been conducting joint research since 2018, when we obtained a Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering) for the research project "An Empirical Study of Buddhist Meditation and Mindfulness through Cooperation between Buddhism, Psychology, and Brain Science" (principal investigator: Kenryō Minowa). For further details, see Basic Ideas.