The Buddhist tradition offers a reductionist view of the subject – the ‘weak’ view - which appears to undercut concern for the consequences of action. The doctrine of morally conditioned rebirth – that is, the perpetuation of a persistent individual through death - entails a ‘strong’ view. Each view has a bearing on morality, and each is problematic: the two seem incompatible. The notion of rebirth and the associated doctrine of karman are deeply connected with this. It is in this complex that I find what I call ‘the identity problem’. I give a general account of Buddhist ethics, placing it within the tradition of ‘virtue ethics’. I show the impact of the identity problem to be large but not total. I deal also with some related topics in Buddhist doctrine: anātman, the heterodox ‘Person school’ and the ‘two-truths’ notion. I consider the bearing of Parfit’s arguments for his version of reductionism on the problem’s solution. Their support for the ‘weak’ view is real but limited. When Parfit deals with the consequences of reductionism for morality, his conclusion is uncertain. When I consider these arguments on their merits, I find them largely unpersuasive. Parfit’s account of reasons for action, with some qualifications, is acceptable, and welcome in its vindication of disinterestedness. I consider how it stands with Buddhist ethics in this light and offer restatements of the doctrines of karman and rebirth. In the case of karman, I develop the idea of a guiding metaphor and suggest how it may be applied; in that of rebirth I draw on a broader Buddhist tradition of meditation practice and benvolence. This restatement leaves the ‘strong’ view more sustainable, and its compatibility with the ‘weak’ view less problematic for morality. I then present the Buddhist ethical scheme as largely intact, if with slightly diminished coercive force.

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This thesis seeks to examine to what extent certain Buddhist theories of causation are comparable with the causal theories of some British empiricist philosophers. The thesis starts with an introduction. Its first chapter critically analyses Hume's causal theory, while the second points out that its similarity with the causal theories of Buddhist logicians such as Santaraksita and Kamalasila. Both Hume and these logicians criticised the concepts of causal efficacy and production, and analysed causal connections merely as relations of unvarying sequence. The third chapter critically analyses Mill's causal theory (and, to a certain extent, that of Berkeley), indicating that cause' is a collective name for a complex set of conditions. The fourth chapter points out that the Buddhist 'Theravada' and 'Sarvastivada' schools anticipated Mill's theory of the multiplicity of conditions. Moreover, the 'Sarvastivadins' introduced concepts similar to that of Mill's 'negative conditions'. We also tried to compare and contrast Russell's theory of 'functional interdependence' with Buddhist causal theories. In addition, we suggested that by different devices the Buddhist philosophers and Mill saved themselves from the inconguity of admitting any arbitrary sequence as a causal sequence. Chapter V tries to prove that the Buddhist formula of the 'twelve-membered dependent Origination' contains the incipient attempts of analysing causation only in terms of 'necessary and sufficeint conditions. Chapter VI shows that the concepts of causation and production are co-extensive. Thus there is a dilemma of explaining causation without production. Realization of this probably led the 'Madhyamika' philosophers to deny causation from the Absolute standpoint. Chapter VII points out that the absence, in Buddhist philosophy, of any distinction - corresponding to that made by some recent Western philosophers - between reasons for actions and causes does not invalidate our comparative study. The appendix to chapter I reiterates Hume's thesis, viz., that causes and effects are not related by logically necessary connections, pointing out that its validity is not disapproved by the recent theories of some philosophers, e.g., Blanshard and Kneale.

Yinshun (1906-2005) is regarded as one of the eminent monies representative of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. He has been valued for his large corpus of writings and scholarly achievement, as well as for his contribution to the change and development of Chinese Buddhism in the twentieth century and his influence on the formation of the future Chinese Buddhist community. Yinshun undertook the mission of re-commenting on and re-promoting the study of the Madhyamika scriptures. His efforts provoked a revival of interest towards the Madhyamika School among contemporary Chinese Buddhist and, a reassessment of the writings of Nagarjuna within Chinese Buddhism. This research reveals the Madhyamika patterns in Yinshun's works and practice and argues that the Madhyamika dimension of Yinshun should be interpreted within the context of the religious, intellectual and national restoration that twentieth-century China was subject to. At that time Chinese Buddhists came to create a new theoretical framework on which to base the new Buddhism, and adopted the latter as a symbol of the new Chinese identity. Yinshun articulated his own mission to restoring Chinese Buddhism, and the first part of his plan was the establishment of new standards of authority and a modem orientation towards tradition. For this purpose, he theorised a "negotiation strategy" that combined the figure and teachings of Nagarjuna with the mainstream Chinese San-lun doctrine. This work aims to present a still unexplored level of analysis of Yinshun, as well as an unprecedented reconstruction of the modern history and exegesis of the Madhyamika/San-lun in China. Finally, with the argument that Yinshun's negotiation between traditions was intended for a Buddhist recovery of the nation, this dissertation can also locate itself in the discipline of historical studies of China.

This thesis intends to add to the field a sense of how deities pervade ordinary life in Tibetan cultural regions and what this means for those who live there. The study thus aims to develop understandings of the types of ritual healing which take place in this environment, one wherein landscapes are inhabited and experienced as embodiments of spirited agencies. In the thesis I suggest that, for my fieldwork regions of the Rebgong valley at least, ritual healing can best be understood a process by which beings are brought into right relations, both mutually and in connection with other beings, human and deity. I suggest here that all practices, whether ritual or medical, pertaining to health and well-being in Rebgong are predicated upon this type of epistemology; a cultural matrix of healing. This matrix is one in which healing is by definition is about humans and deities maintaining right relationship. I explore what this sensibility means for those who live in the Rebgong valleys primarily through ethnographic accounts of three particular ritual practices in Rebgong villages: the renewal of the labtsé tributes to the mountain gods, the Leru harvest ritual, and the performance of a tantric ritual cham dance. Forms of ritual healing I discuss in the thesis include circumambulation, medical and tantric practices, those of the trance or spirit mediums, dance and divination. I argue that all these rites and practices connected to health and well-being in a broad sense can be understood under one cultural matrix of healing in which spirited agency is focal. I argue that inherent to understanding this matrix is a focus on how deities, as embodied landscapes, appear within it, and how they are understood to exist and interact with human affairs, particularly those relating to health and well-being. In this regard, themes that I explore throughout the thesis are those of luck, purification, empowerment, embodiment and blessing. The study is intended, in a Bakhtinian sense, as a body of words which do not bring closure but rather seek to engage in a dialogical conversation that simultaneously responds to past scholarship and anticipates response.

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This thesis is concerned with an exploration of counsellors’ and clients’ lived experiences of Buddhist Counselling, an indigenous Buddhist-based counselling approach in Thailand. Over the past decade, Buddhist Counselling has received a growing interest from Thai counselling trainees and practitioners, and it has also expanded to serve Thai people in various settings. Research on Buddhist Counselling is very limited and most of the existing studies in the field have focused on measuring the effectiveness of the approach. While these studies have consistently indicated the positive effects of Buddhist Counselling on psychological improvement across several population groups, the significant questions of how Buddhist Counselling brings about such outcome and how it is experienced are still largely unanswered. Moreover, existing research is concentrated much more on clients’ views than counsellors’ views, although counsellors’ views of their counselling practice can also serve as a knowledge base of the field. This thesis thus sets out to contribute to rectifying this omission by exploring Buddhist Counselling from the perspectives of both counsellors and clients. The thesis is based on two qualitative studies. The first study addressed Buddhist Counselling from the perspective of five counsellors through a focus group and semi-structured interviews. The second study explored Buddhist Counselling from the perspective of three clients, using two semi-structured interviews with each of them. All data received were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The study reveals counsellors’ and clients’ overall positive experience of engaging in Buddhist Counselling. Central to the accounts of the counsellors are the following perceptions: that their practice of Buddhist Counselling is culturally congruent with the existing values and beliefs of both themselves and their clients; that their personal and professional congruence is key to their therapeutic efficacy; and that they enhance such congruence through their application of Buddhist ideas and practices in their daily lives. Key to the clients’ accounts is their emphasis on the significant roles of the counsellors’ Buddhist ideas and personal qualities, and of their religious practices in facilitating healing and change. Key shared findings from both studies reveal that the participants’ accounts of their cultural background and their experiences of Buddhist Counselling are intertwined. Adopting hermeneutics to address this intertwinement, I reveal the cultural and moral dimensions underlying the practice of Buddhist Counselling. Based on such revelation, I suggest that Buddhist Counselling in particular, as well as psychotherapy in general, should be better understood as a historically situated, culturally bound, and morally constituted activity of people who are concerned with improving the quality of their lives and their community, rather than the transcultural and merely relational work of morally-neutral practitioners.

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Through a philosophical analysis of realist interpretations of Madhyamaka Buddhism, I will argue that the Madhyamaka is not well represented when it is represented as nihilism, absolutism or as some non-metaphysical alternative. Indeed, I will argue that the Madhyamaka is misrepresented when it is represented as anything; its radical context sensitivity entails that it cannot be autonomously volunteered. The Madhyamaka analysis disrupts the ontic and epistemic presuppositions that consider inherent existence and absolute truth to be possible and necessary, and so the ultimate truth, śūnyatā, is not an absolute truth or ultimate reality. However, I will argue that śūnyatā does qualify as a universal truth and should be understood as a context-insensitive, non-propositional truth in a non-dual dependent relationship with the multitudinous context-sensitive, propositional truths. This analysis will prove helpful in an investigation of those tensions, discernible within Buddhist modernism and the discourse of scientific Buddhism, that arise when Buddhist apologists claim a timeless modernity and a non-hostility with respect to contemporary worldviews. I will argue that apologists can resolve these tensions and satisfy their intuitions of timelessness, but only if they are willing to foreground the crucial distinction between their Buddhist worldview (their context-sensitive propositional truths) and their Madhyamaka attitude towards that worldview (the context-insensitive truth of śūnyatā). I will go on to generalise this result, showing that this Madhyamaka analysis opens up the possibility for frictionless co-operation between any and all worldviews, and that we therefore have a philosophical basis for a workable and sensitive theory of worldview pluralism. I will find it necessary to defend this position by demonstrating that, despite its context-insensitivity, the ultimate truth’s non-dual relationship with conventional truth mitigates against moral and epistemic relativism. I will further substantiate my claim as to the universal truth of śūnyatā by showing that, in Karan Barad’s ‘agential realism’, we find a revealing example of śūnyatā being articulated from within a non-Buddhist context. Thus, I hope to demonstrate some of the good effects of the Madhyamaka message, and show that this message can only be communicated clearly when it is distinguished from the discourses of Buddhism. In this manner, not by giving it a voice but through finding its voiceless authority, I hope to enable the Madhyamaka speak to the West.