Bridging Ecologies through Contemplative Technologies: Existential Relevance of Huatou 話頭 and the Huayan sanmei men 華嚴三昧門 for Oxytocin and Environmentally Sustainable Behavior

Abstract

Contemplative technologies in the form of Buddhist practices that challenge the sense of self and thereby enhance the experience of interrelationality are viable strategies for addressing existential concerns such as the environmental crisis. Much of the existing research on Buddhism and ecology neglects to measure environmentally sustainable behavior or engage with empirical research. Likewise, experiments measuring the effects of contemplative practice on oxytocin, a neuropeptide hormone often implicated in interrelational contexts, are scarce. This study explores the existential relevance of Chan and Huayan practices for oxytocin and environmentally sustainable behavior. Using empirical methods, it reports on an experimental fieldwork study among international participants in a one-month retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. Salivary oxytocin, recycling, and food waste were measured, while phenomenological reports of experiences during contemplative practice were also obtained. Results of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay indicate a marginal increase in oxytocin following Chan practice of the huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” which targets the sense of self, consistent with phenomenological reports reflecting an interrelational, ecological sense of self through huatou. Results also indicate increased recycling and decreased food waste by mass as a function of time on retreat. While the precise mechanisms explaining why participants exhibited more environmentally sustainable behaviors are currently unclear, the discussion proposes an empirically testable framework for bridging ecologies that links emotion, sense of self, and behavior. Contemplative practices may contribute to changes in oxytocin and environmentally sustainable behavior through activation of existential, aesthetic emotions such as doubt and awe, thereby inducing changes in the practitioner’s sense of self, which they may then experience as interrelated with broader ecologies, a possibility awaiting further research. The huatou fieldwork and proposed follow-up study on the Huayan sanmei men thus shed light on the relevance of contemplative technologies from Chinese Buddhism for bridging ecologies in the existentially relational sense.

1. Introduction

“We must see the organism and environment as bound together in reciprocal specification”.

(Varela et al. 1993, p. 174)

“In the body of each being are various lands, in the lands, beings”.

(Huayan jing tr. Cleary 1993, p. 764)1

“The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself”.

(Bateson 1972, p. 501)

Coining the term ecology,2 zoologist Ernst Haeckel first offered a working definition encompassing its panoramic scope: “By ecology, we mean the whole science of the relations of the organism to the environment including, in the broad sense, all the ‘conditions of existence’” (quoted in Stauffer 1957, p. 140). Inclusive from its inception, ecological theory has since been applied to a range of fields, both philosophical and practical. Especially keen on contemplating selves and interrelational dynamics between microcosm and macrocosm are the varieties of Buddhism, arguably among the more fruitful fields to interface with ecology. The present research explores the existential relevance of two contemplative technologies from Chinese Buddhism—huatou 話頭 and the Huayan sanmei men 華嚴三昧門—for environmentally sustainable behavior and oxytocin (a hypothalamic neuropeptide hormone expressed in primarily interrelational contexts) through a fieldwork experiment involving huatou and a proposed follow-up study on the Huayan sanmei men, while further offering an empirically testable framework for bridging ecologies that links Buddhist practices to emotion, sense of self, and behavior.

2. Bridging Ecologies

Previous attempts to relate Buddhism to ecology largely focus on comparing Buddhist teachings of interrelationality to the theoretical foundations of deep ecology, a social movement rooted in environmental philosophy. Its progenitor, eco-philosopher Arne Næss, characterizes deep ecology as entailing “organisms as knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations” (Næss 1973, p. 95), imagery resembling Indra’s net (Ch. yintuoluo wang 因陀羅網, di wang 帝網; Skt. indrajāla), a cosmic web of intersecting threads, at each vertex of which are embedded iridescent, multifaceted jewels, mutually reflecting all others. While discussing Buddhist environmental philosophy, Francis Cook highlights the ecological perspective which “views existence as a vast web of interdependencies in which if one strand is disturbed, the whole web is shaken” (Cook 1989, p. 213), thus invoking Indra’s net in an ecosystemic capacity. Examining systems theory alongside dependent origination (Ch. yuanqi 緣起; Skt. pratītyasamutpāda), Joanna Macy emphasizes that “we are also as interrelated as parts of a tree—out of whose interweaving relationships we cannot fall, for we are they” (Macy 1991, pp. 219–20), imagery which likewise resembles Indra’s net in its arborescent meshwork. David Barnhill even argues that Buddhism may help clarify and refine deep ecology (Barnhill 2001, p. 78) through its discussion of relationships among phenomena, simultaneously highlighting distinctness and interrelatedness, both of which are key to discussions of self and relationality (pp. 85–86). Multiple scholars have found value in placing Buddhist interrelationality, variously expressed, in dialogue with ecological theory, though none have endeavored to scientifically corroborate the connection, making the intersection between Buddhism and ecology an area worthy of empirical investigation.

The Huayan jing 華嚴經, after which Huayan 華嚴3 adopts its name, houses a body of teachings especially ecological in content. Given the vastness of the Huayan corpus and limits of space in the present article, a modest handful of examples will be examined here. Consider, for instance, a verse from Chapter 1, “The Wonderful Adornments of the Leaders of the Worlds” (Shizhu miaoyan pin 世主妙嚴品), which implies that nature may be a source of Dharma (Ch. fa 法): “Far-reaching practice—the stage of oceanic wisdom,/Totally comprehending all aspects of the teachings,/Appearing in all lands like space:/The voice of these teachings comes from the trees” (Cleary 1993, pp. 146–47).4 While it receives little commentarial attention, such imagery can nonetheless be interpreted as giving reason to safeguard nature as a potential source of the Buddha’s teachings and site of enlightenment. Perhaps even suggesting a form of ecological reciprocity, a passage from Chapter 26, “The Ten Stages” (Shidi pin 十地品), alludes to mutual containment between individual bodies (Ch. shen 身; Skt. kāya) and lands (Ch. sha 刹; Skt. kṣetrā): “In the body of each being are various lands, in the lands, beings” (Cleary 1993, p. 764).5 Interpreted broadly in light of ecology, each instantiation of embodiment houses micro-ecologies and is itself in turn housed by macro-ecologies, the health of which are mutually entangled. What we do to the environment, we do to ourselves. Inclusive of the entire dharmadhātu (Ch. fajie 法界), Chapter 33, “Inconceivable Qualities of Buddhas” (Fo busiyi fa pin 佛不思議法品), features a list of ten exhaustive knowledges (Ch. dabian zhi 大遍知; Skt. sarvajña) with which all Buddhas are endowed, the eighth, ninth, and tenth of which are relevant to ecology through their interrelational insights: “They know all phenomena come from interdependent origination. They know all world systems exhaustively. They know all the different phenomena in all worlds, interrelated in Indra’s net” (Cleary 1993, p. 925).6 The relationship between the dharmadhātu and Indra’s net is especially significant to the existential and ecological application of Huayan philosophy as practice. While a comprehensive assessment of the entire Huayan jing and other Huayan treatises is not feasible here, their interrelational contemplations find a home in the broad field of ecology.

Previous work converges around the consensus that the Huayan jing and Huayan Buddhism are sources of ecological insight. Environmental ethics philosopher Holmes Rolston III contends that, contrary to the anthropocentric view emphasizing human dominion over nature, the Huayan jing offers a biocentric view (Rolston 1987, p. 182). Barnhill (2001) in environmental studies likewise insists that “Huayan has provided the fullest Buddhist philosophy of nature” given its detailed analysis of both the part–whole relation and the part–part relation (p. 84), thus highlighting the Huayan perspective on relational holism, which “affirms and focuses on individuals as well as the whole, […] upholds the integrity and importance of relationships” (pp. 99–100), and “helps us realize that we can value both individuals in their concrete relationships as well as the total field of relationships of which we are a part” (p. 102). In other words, all phenomena are equally embedded in the Huayan vision of Indra’s net, yet each is simultaneously its own. Rather than fold the many into one in such a way that collapses and conflates them, both the manifold and its individualities are preserved in the net’s myriad distinct yet integrated pieces. Each jewel is uniquely its own microcosm, yet simultaneously intertwined and of the same cloth, reflecting all other jewels in the vast net as macrocosm. Existentially, all phenomena are interdependently originated, existing not in and of themselves, but embedded in a tapestry defined by its intersecting threads. With damage to one node, one strand of netting, the entire ecosystem is at risk of unraveling.

Affirmation of the Huayan jing and Huayan Buddhism as sources of ecological insight is also reflected in a sampling of the available literature in Chinese. For instance, the integrity referenced in general systems theory, according to which living organisms or ecological systems are constituted by interrelationships among their internal elements, runs parallel with the Buddhist teaching of dependent origination, which regards the dharmadhātu and any single condition as a whole composed of various conditions (Chen 2015, p. 478).7 Contemplation of the dharmadhātu in the form of the Huayan fajie guan 華嚴法界觀 has been called the pinnacle of dependent origination and is believed to provide an in-depth theoretical foundation for ecological holism and symbiotic environmental protection (Lai 2010).8 In the Huayan framework, that all dharmas are empty and have no intrinsic nature allows them to mutually blend and integrate without obstructing or obscuring their differences (Zhao 2015, p. 335).9 Specifically, Indra’s net expresses the idea that all phenomena in the universe are in complex multi-level interrelationships and has thus been deemed the most appropriate metaphor for the integrity of the phenomenal world (Zhang and Ren 2003, p. 45).10 On this basis, humanity may move beyond an anthropocentric view of human beings as holding priority in the ecosystem, just as we should not mistake a single jewel in isolation for the entirety of Indra’s net (Shan 2007, p. 126).11 Although it is unrealistic to pin the hope of changing the environment and maintaining ecological balance on Buddhism, ecological ethics and practices in Buddhist culture are nonetheless significant for ecological and environmental protection (Bi 2013, p. 124).12 Building upon such theoretical foundations, the Huayan jing and Huayan Buddhism are worth further investigation for their existential and ecological relevance.

However, the Huayan jing and Huayan Buddhism are not without their skeptics. Although at times favorable in his attitude toward both, Rolston questions the relevance of Indra’s net as a causal model comparable to empirical discoveries in ecosystems and instead emphasizes its function as a metaphor model describing operations in ecosystems, either by direct mapping or by an interlevel translation from metaphysics to science (Rolston 1987, p. 182). Unfortunately, Rolston neglects to substantiate his assertions with reference to either primary texts from Huayan Buddhism or empirical literature. For instance, consider parallels between the Huayan jing’s references to the pores of the body containing infinite lands13 and discoveries of environmental pollutants such as microplastics in the human body, including their detection in the bloodstream (Leslie et al. 2022) and placental tissue (Ragusa et al. 2021). While these findings post-date Rolston’s skepticism by decades and the Huayan jing’s metaphysics by millennia, Rolston also neglects to engage with scientific studies contemporary to him. Research into the vulnerability of human lungs to radioactive particles (Booker et al. 1967) was already underway a full 20 years before the publication of Rolston’s article, while environmental pollutants were found in human follicular fluid (Trapp et al. 1984), crucial to fertilization and the development of a viable embryo, several years prior. Yet Rolston and his contemporaries in comparative Buddhist-ecological research regrettably make no mention of such scientific studies despite their existential and ecological relevance.

While the purpose of passages on pores of the body from the Huayan jing, having no concept of microplastics or other such contemporary concerns, is not explicitly to predict or warn against the effects of environmental degradation, they nonetheless can be integrated into a fusion of Buddhist and ecological horizons, where “old and new are always combining into something of living value” (Gadamer 2004, p. 305). Hermeneutical research on Huayan Buddhism suggests a mere attempt at historical reconstruction risks presenting only corpse-like information having nothing to do with the present existence (Obert 2023, pp. 25–26). “The real meaning of a text, as it speaks to the interpreter,” writes Gadamer,” does not depend [only] on the contingencies of the author and his original audience [...] for it is always co-determined also by the historical situation of the interpreter” (Gadamer 2004, p. 296). Multiple further examples abound for comparison, but suffice it to say that Rolston and other skeptics neglect to cite or reference emerging technologies and empirical findings either supporting or opposing the relevance of the Huayan jing and Huayan Buddhism for contemporary ecology. Nor have most researchers examined Huayan practice, an area almost entirely neglected by existing studies.

Relevant to ecology and more amenable to scientific investigation as a function of Buddhist practice is oxytocin. An existentially salient neuropeptide, oxytocin’s life-facilitating functions include its contributions to reproduction, childbirth, and nursing (Lee et al. 2009), hence family ecologies. Beyond immediate kin, oxytocin also contributes to increased generosity toward strangers (Zak et al. 2007), thereby implicating broader social ecologies. Given that oxytocin often implicates interrelational dynamics, oxytocin is existentially relevant to ecology. The experimental fieldwork that follows specifically investigates the effects of huatou, a form of contemplative technology from Chan Buddhism, on oxytocin alongside potential connections to environmentally sustainable behavior. Meanwhile, a proposed follow-up study discusses the Huayan sanmei men, a form of contemplative technology from Huayan Buddhism, given its practical potential for bridging inner and outer ecologies. The role of oxytocin in bridging ecologies in the existentially relational sense originally put forth by Haeckel is thus worth further investigation, especially in the context of contemplative technologies.

3. Contemplative Technologies

Buddhist practices represent a rich toolbox of contemplative technologies, “rigorous, replicable methods” in the study of consciousness “that science needs [in order] to expand its scope and encompass all of reality, including the subject pole of experience” (Wallace 2021, p. 3). B. Alan Wallace deems meditation training a form of contemplative technology that develops the primary tools to directly explore mental phenomena (Wallace 2007, p. 111). Contemplative technologies hence entail introspective examination of individual minds and thus investigation of inner ecologies, which may be defined in a phenomenologically intrasubjective sense as the contents of consciousness and their relational structures, such as the relationship between emotion (e.g., doubt, awe, etc.) and sense of self. Contemplative technologies also entail application to outer ecologies, which may be defined in a phenomenologically intersubjective sense as networks of social and environmental interactions among organisms, such as behavioral relationships between humans and the non-human world. In Buddhist contexts, a thoroughgoing contemplation of inner ecologies transforms the practitioner’s engagement with outer ecologies. The present research intends to illuminate the role of two contemplative technologies, huatou and the Huayan sanmei men, in their use of existential, aesthetic emotions (doubt and awe) to invoke empirically measurable changes in sense of self (as constituted by ecologically interrelational dynamics, potentially reflected in the variability of oxytocin and phenomenological reports) alongside environmentally sustainable behaviors, thereby offering a framework for bridging inner and outer ecologies.

Few studies attempt to investigate the relationship between contemplative practices and environmentally sustainable behavior. A single study reports no effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on self-reported pro-environmental behavior (Riordan et al. 2022), while another study identifies positive correlations between mindfulness meditation and self-reported pro-environmental behavior (Jacob et al. 2009). However, both studies relied entirely on survey, in which behaviors can be easily misrepresented, and on mindfulness, one of many varieties of contemplative practice that is often secularized and severed from its Buddhist roots. While theoretical work on Buddhism and environmentalism has been undertaken, no experimental research exists bridging these fields.

Likewise, the variability of oxytocin as a function of contemplative practice is relatively uncharted territory in both scientific research and religious studies. Although oxytocin has been investigated extensively in the context of mother–infant relationships (Feldman et al. 2007), empirical examination of changes in oxytocin as a function of Buddhist practice, or other traditionally religious contemplative technologies, remains entirely neglected. While a relationship between self-reported spirituality and endogenous oxytocin has been observed (Holbrook et al. 2015), scientific literature investigating contemplative practice and oxytocin is remarkably scarce. In non-religious contexts, previous research suggests secularized yoga therapy can increase oxytocin among patients with schizophrenia (Jayaram et al. 2013) while secularized mindfulness can increase oxytocin among psychology students (Bellosta-Batalla et al. 2020). Although exogenous oxytocin has been administered as an antecedent to meditation in order to examine their combined effects on emotion (Van Cappellen et al. 2016), such research neglects to examine the effect of meditation on subsequent endogenous oxytocin. The possible link between various other contemplative technologies and oxytocin is unknown.

No scientific studies to date have examined the effects of traditional Buddhist practices in naturalistic religious contexts on both neuroendocrine and behavioral measures. Highlighting different variables in non-naturalistic lab settings, some have experimentally investigated contemplative technologies from Chinese Buddhism, including nianfo 念佛 and huatou 話頭. Briefly, nianfo translates approximately to “Buddha recitation (or recollection)” and involves verbal or silent repetition of the name of Amitābha Buddha (“Namo Amituofo” 南無阿彌陀佛 or “Amituofo” 阿彌陀佛 in Chinese language contexts). Meanwhile, huatou translates approximately to “head (or source) of speech” and involves silent repetition of a short phrase or word, often excerpted from the broader context of a traditional narrative exchange between a Buddhist teacher and student. Nianfo may induce focus and can be accompanied by visualization of Amitābha’s Pure Land, a realm of respite from suffering. Huatou may induce insight into the topic of inquiry (such as “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” to be discussed in detail shortly). Empirically most relevant to this article are, first, a study on the effects of nianfo, characterized as a form of repetitive religious chanting, on decreased brain activity associated with stress and fear (Gao et al. 2017) and, second, recent work on the differential effects of huatou, characterized as a form of self-inquiry, between two exclusively male samples: (1) lay, beginner meditators, among whom no significant effects were observed, and (2) monastic, long-term meditators, among whom huatou helped detach from the concept of self, as reflected by decreased differences in brain activity in response to self vs. other images (Gao et al. 2023). Previous research classifies self-inquiry as belonging to the deconstructive family of meditation, which “aims to undo maladaptive cognitive patterns by exploring the dynamics of perception, emotion, and cognition and generating insights into one’s internal models of the self, others, and the world” (Dahl et al. 2015, p. 519). Such research, by its own admission, neglects relevant outer ecologies and their contexts, including religion, instead dealing only with inner ecologies in the form of cognitive mechanisms and phenomenological targets of meditation, acknowledging that “if we are to fully understand these practices, it will also be important to study the wider context within which these practices are engaged” (Dahl et al. 2015, p. 521). Therefore, the present research intends to integrate scientific theories and methods more equitably with contemplative technologies utilized in Chinese Buddhist contexts, attempting a recontextualization of meditation by situating it within some of its more explicitly religious ecologies.

3.1. Huayan Practice as Contemplative Technology

Often treated as a philosophical school, the practical innovations of Huayan Buddhism are frequently overlooked despite their immense potential for inducing an interrelational or ecological sense of self. Broadly, Huayan meditation involves progressing through “increasingly more holographic perspectives on a single phenomenological manifold” (Fox 2009, p. 73; Fox 2013, p. 185; Fox 2015, p. 269) and culminates in a vision of reality reflecting all phenomena as “omnipotentially present and mutually non-obstructing” (Fox 2015, p. 284). Of existential relevance, to fully realize the Huayan vision of the world requires transcending a mere intellectual grasp of its system and instead embodying its experiential account of existence, the actual living of which entails drastically altering one’s ethical stance in relation to others (Cook 1989, p. 228). Huayan offers methods for putting an understanding of interrelationality into practice. Its practices translate its complex philosophy into an experience of the relationship between parts and whole, organisms and environment. Multiple Huayan practices await systematic investigation, a sampling of which will be examined here.

Beyond their theoretical appeal, the insights provided by Huayan Buddhism into the interrelational structure of reality have practical inspirations and implications. A foundational treatise and basis for Huayan practice is the Huayan fajie guanmen 華嚴法界觀門, attributed to the tradition’s first patriarch, Dushun 杜順 (557–640 CE). The Huayan fajie guanmen’s conceptual innovations were products of Dushun’s meditative encounter with the Huayan jing and were “explicitly intended as devices by means of which the grand visions and vistas of that immense scripture could be incorporated into an individual’s practice of meditation and thereby transformed from text into religious experience” (Gimello 1976, p. 129). Such devices function as contemplative technologies for practical illustration of the Huayan jing’s otherwise potentially overwhelming content, including its cosmically all-encompassing interrelational imagery. Further reflecting its practicality, Zongmi’s commentary on Dushun’s Huayan fajie guanmen deems it a distillation of the essential meaning of the Huayan jing in light of Dushun’s meditative experience, presenting the truths of the Huayan jing from the perspective of religious practice, a hermeneutical approach that differs significantly from traditional scholastic exegesis (Gregory 1991, p. 8). Also relevant to practice is the Huayan wujiao zhiguan 華嚴五教止觀, likewise attributed to Dushun.14 Its fifth section specifically invites the audience into the experience of entering the jewels of Indra’s net (Obert 2000, p. 127). Thus, not only do Huayan metaphysics directly inform Huayan meditation (Fox 2015, p. 260), Huayan meditative experiences are grounds for the metaphysical insights expressed in Huayan texts.

Despite distillation, the contents of the Huayan fajie guanmen 華嚴法界觀門 remain surprisingly dense. The text includes three contemplations (1. zhenkong guan 真空觀, 2. lishi wuai guan 理事無礙觀, 3. zhoubian hanrong guan 周遍含容觀), each with multiple philosophically abstruse subdivisions, which collectively “represent a successive progression through increasingly correct ways of looking at the world, culminating in the Huayan vision of a world comprising a multitude of phenomena existing in complete interpenetrative harmony” (Hammerstrom 2020, p. 170), a viewpoint from which “one sees the entirety of reality as a grand profusion of interrelated and interdependent phenomena, a wholeness wheeling in a cosmic dance of arising and passing away” (Hammerstrom 2020, p. 144). Originally, contemplation of the dharmadhātu (fajie guan 法界觀) was practiced as a contemplation of dependent origination (yuanqi guan 緣起觀), through which the objective was “to observe the myriad phenomena of the universe in their totality and in their absolute interdependence with one another” and in which “one should see the entire universe in a mote of dust” (Hammerstrom 2020, p. 171). Such interrelational imagery of macrocosm within microcosm is reminiscent of Indra’s net, an awe-inducing visual with potential ecological applications that was uniquely developed and emphasized by Huayan Buddhism, though arguably lacking full potency in the Huayan fajie guanmen.

A striking image of Indra’s net is conjured by a set of meditation instructions in the more existentially and ecologically evocative Huayan wujiao zhiguan 華嚴五教止觀. The text includes five “gates” or methods (1. fayou wowu men 法有我無門, 2. sheng ji wusheng men 生即無生門, 3. shili yuanrong men 事理圓融門, 4. yu guan shuang jue men 語觀雙絕門, 5. Huayan sanmei men 華嚴三昧門) and has been characterized as “a systematic description of successive stages of mental stabilization and analytic contemplation” (Cleary 1983, p. 12) containing rich philosophical ideas and rigorous rational argumentation (Yu 2009, p. 172). Opening with a familiar medicinal metaphor, Dushun makes clear the purpose of the five methods:

Prescriptions are designed in response to illness; when the illness is ended, the prescription is finished with. Medicine is dispensed to quell attachments; when attachments are gone, the medicine is done with. Since illnesses are manifold, the medicines given are not one. According to potentials, progress and practice differ; therefore techniques are not the same.

(Cleary 1983, p. 45)15

The five methods Dushun prescribes can thus be understood as contemplative technologies to be applied medicinally, as appropriate to the practitioner-patient’s existential illness. Although the Huayan wujiao zhiguan appears to have played a less central role in Huayan than the Huayan fajie guanmen, its weaving of the meditator into Indra’s net makes it significantly more existentially and ecologically evocative.

Whereas the Huayan fajie guanmen presents contemplation of the dharmadhātu (fajie guan) in philosophically convoluted terms inaccessible to the average person, the Huayan wujiao zhiguan presents it by way of a far more accessible proxy: the image of Indra’s net. Indeed, the dharmadhātu’s tendency to elude description is evident in the Huayan jing itself: although the term fajie appears frequently in the Huayan jing, it is never addressed separately, treated systematically, philosophically defined, explained, or analyzed (Oh 1979, p. 78; Fox 2015, p. 268). The dharmadhātu refers to worlds encompassing “the myriad factors of experience […] the manifold of data that is apprehended and cognized by human consciousness” (Fox 2009, p. 73). Unfortunately, for the ordinary worldling, the dharmadhātu’s nebulosity makes its contemplation especially arcane. A clearer picture comes into focus through Indra’s net as the dharmadhātu,16 particularly as illustrated in the Huayan wujiao zhiguan. Its fifth and final practice, the Huayan sanmei men, directly invokes the imagery of Indra’s net, a simile for a “coalescing whole that can only be envisaged through the most encompassing contemplation” of radiant jewels functioning as “living mirrors that have the power to perceive and to reflect each other and the entire universe” (Yu 2007, p. 315). Such visualization depicts the relationship of mutual containment of each dharma or “quanta of experience” within all others (Fox 2013, p. 182). Interestingly, the Huayan sanmei men describes the meditator sitting within the net’s jeweled structure.17 The visual content of the Huayan sanmei men, which viscerally situates the meditator directly in Indra’s net, is thus of particular relevance to the integration of contemplative technology with ecology.

Although Huayan practices are of special interest to the empirical study of Buddhism and ecology, they are seldom widely or explicitly taught in Chinese Buddhist contexts. Rather than a departure from Huayan, more broadly circulated Chan methods may induce a comparable pivot in perspective. Among other fusions, Huayan has been synthesized with Chan across multiple historical iterations (Wang 2020; Wei 1998; Yoshizu 1985).18 Drawing a common thread, Robert Buswell highlights the correlation between Huayan and Chan in their interrelational scope: “In seeing the macrocosm of the universe reflected in the microcosm of the individual, the Ch’an conception of enlightenment is framed in terms evocative of the summum bonum of Hua-yen philosophy, the ‘multivalent interfusion of all phenomena’” (Buswell 1987, p. 356). Thus, Chan and Huayan understandings of interrelational ecology are significantly overlapping. As shall be shown, huatou and the Huayan sanmei men function as complementary contemplative technologies for challenging and resolving existential matters concerning the sense of self and its relationship to broader ecologies.

3.2. Huatou Practice as Contemplative Technology

Huatou 話頭19 is a form of meditation most often associated with the Linji Chan tradition of Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. Starting with Chan Master Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163 CE), Linji methods shifted from the literary gongan 公案 to the practical huatou (Hsieh 1994, pp. 66–67), a contemplative technology that has been characterized as existential (Yü 1979, p. 226; Buswell 1987, p. 353; Levering 2013, p. 362; Eichman 2016, p. 282; Adamek 2020, p. 136). The huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?”20 has been attributed to either Chan Master Zhenxie Qingliao 真歇清了 (1089–1151 CE) of the Caodong School or Chan Master Zhiche Duanyun 智徹斷雲 (1309–? CE) of the Linji School, but likely traces its origins to Pure Land Master Youtan Pudu 優曇普度 (1255–1330 CE) of the White Lotus School.21 According to Chün-fang Yü’s pioneering work, both gongan and huatou can be regarded as an “opening wedge” in the sudden and intuitive apprehension of a new reality (Yü 1979, p. 221), creating a clearing or opening for its onrush (Yü 1979, p. 224). Though it can simply refer to a means of creating an entry point, an opening wedge is also a surgical device that shifts pressure from the damaged side of a joint to its healthier side. As painful and invasive as surgeries are, their purpose is to relieve unpleasantness. By interpreting the phenomenology and functioning of gongan and huatou as comparable to a medical procedure and instrument, both practices are instilled with connotations of contemplative technology for the transcending of suffering.

Practices involving gongan and huatou, however, may appear crude in their use of blunt force and brute power. Both gongan and huatou are characterized by a complex emotional and phenomenological palette: from “bewilderment, frustration, anxiety, and anger” (Yü 1979, p. 221) to “perplexity, bursting, power, and interfusion” (Buswell 1987, p. 349). The power of great doubt (Ch. dayi 大疑) stirred by gongan and huatou is comparable to the force of saṃvega, an existential, aesthetic emotion that functions as a catalyst for a reorienting pivot in perspective, prodding one to realize the danger in complacency and pushing one out of it through the sheer shock of witnessing existential, often unpleasant truths, otherwise disguised by the illusion of worldly enchantment (Liang and Morseth 2021, p. 215). While saṃvega may accidentally arise through encounters with death or stories of suffering, it can also be intentionally induced through meditation (Brons 2016, pp. 84–85). Both gongan and huatou instigate saṃvega, the existential urgency to resolve the great matter of life and death (Ch. shengsi dashi 生死大事).

Importantly, the transmutation of doubt into faith is key to the success of huatou, making it an especially potent contemplative technology. Exploring its similarities to existentialism, Wendi Adamek refers to huatou as an “active device” that makes use of the non-duality of doubt and faith (Adamek 2020, p. 146). Likewise, Miriam Levering deems huatou an “innovative verbal tool” that concentrates and harnesses the power of uncertainty and doubt, primarily through its approach to mortality, “a critical node in samsaric experience”, in order to enable its practitioners to reach a feeling of ease that Dahui calls “saving strength” (Levering 2013, p. 362). The ease associated with saving strength (Ch. shengli 省力) is reminiscent of the serene faith of pasāda, another existential, aesthetic emotion, especially as it synergizes with the existential urgency of saṃvega: “Saṃvega devoid of pasāda can feel meaningless, like the anxious itch of agitation, a debilitating ache without purpose. Pasāda helps regulate and redirect saṃvega’s oppressive dismay and dissatisfaction, harnessing and channeling those energies into purposeful practice” (Liang and Morseth 2021, p. 207). Doubt is to saṃvega as faith is to pasāda; gongan/huatou as contemplative technology functions to transmute the former into the latter. Perhaps relevant to faith, oxytocin is associated with increased trust (Kosfeld et al. 2005) and buffers against decreased trust following betrayal (Baumgartner et al. 2008). In combination with the abundance of research on oxytocin in interrelational contexts, the potential relationship between oxytocin and trust lends itself to the following hypothesis. Oxytocin may also be activated by contemplative technologies that invoke doubt or other self-transcendent emotions and transmute them into faith or trust—including the existential certainty that one is inextricably embedded in broader ecologies, of which all are equally part.

While ostensibly verbal in methodology, the purpose of huatou is not to indulge discursive contemplation, but to exhaust and transcend it. The renowned Chan monk Xuyun 虛雲 (1840–1959 CE)22 illustrates the existential characteristics of huatou as a form of contemplative technology by invoking another medical analogy:

The aim of this method was to use a single thought to oppose and arrest myriad thoughts because the masters had no alternative. It was like an operation which became imperative when poison had been introduced into the body. There were many kung ans (devised by the ancients but) later only hua t’ous were taught such as: “Who is dragging this corpse here?” and “What was my fundamental face before I was born [i.e., before my parents gave birth to me]?” In the present day, the masters use the hua t’ou: “Who is the repeater of Buddha’s name?”

(Luk 1970, p. 23)23

Whether in its pre-natal or post-mortem forms,24 the methodology of huatou may be characterized as leveraging the beginnings of a thought to still all thought, without relying on the full rational faculty or pursuing thought to its furthest end. Its use of language functions as a form of “spiritual homeopathy” in which a minimal yet potent dosage of the “poison of words” is utilized in order to “cure the malady of conceptualization” (Buswell 1987, p. 348). The self-referential content of huatou is an expedient and ought not reify or reinforce the assumption of any self-existent referent. Dahui’s instructions offer additional clarification for the practice of huatou by way of negation:

When you observe it, do not use extensive evaluation, do not try to explicate it, do not seek for understanding, do not take it up when you open your mouth, do not make meaning when you raise it, do not fall into vacuity, do not hold onto your mind waiting for enlightenment, do not catch a hold of it when your teacher speaks, and do not lodge in a shell of no concerns.

(Heller 2009, p. 301)25

Parallel to its provisional use of language, the existential urgency that huatou conjures in the form of saṃvega is likewise not to be indulged, but to be exhausted and transcended. As Dahui confirms, “While one can access the path through the gate of expedients, it is a sickness to conserve expedients and not discard them” (Buswell 1987, p. 349).26 Once a medicine serves its purpose and the patient is free of disease, that medicine is to be discontinued lest it become an addiction or poison,27 just as a raft is to be set aside upon crossing a river and reaching the further shore.

4. Methods

In order to begin to bridge a conspicuous gap in existing research, experimental fieldwork was conducted in July 2016 at Fo Guang Shan 佛光山, a prominent Chinese Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. Prior to data collection, Institutional Review Board approval was obtained, an Environmental Health and Safety Report was filed, and research was endorsed by the Retreat Coordinator, a monk and Vice Abbot of Fo Guang Shan at the time of the study. Prospective participants were screened in advance and excluded for use of hormonal medications that may interfere with oxytocin levels. Although 36 participants initially enrolled in the study, only 32 participants remained after withdrawal or providing incomplete data, while 30 participants were included in the final dataset after exclusion of outliers. Participants were international retreatants from North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific, ages 19–31 (M = 24.75, SD = 3.14; 16 males, 14 females). All participants were attendees of the 2016 Fo Guang Buddhist Monastic Retreat (FGBMR), a one-month immersive study-practice program on Chinese Buddhism.

The FGBMR program consisted of a variety of Buddhist study and practice opportunities intended for participants “interested in experiencing authentic Chinese Buddhist monastic life”. Over the course of the one-month retreat, participants were introduced to Chinese Buddhist doctrine through lectures by monastics and professors, Chinese Buddhist chanting liturgy (e.g., Pure Land Dharma Assembly), Chinese Buddhist meditation practice (e.g., huatou Chan), and community service in the form of assisting with common chores around the monastery, among other activities.

For the nianfo component of the study, saliva samples were collected in cryovials at two time-points, three hours apart, at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on a single evening, 30 min before and shortly after a period of nianfo practice. The period of nianfo practice consisted of a Pure Land Dharma Assembly (Ch. Jingtu fahui 淨土法會). Participants were first briefed on visualization of the Pure Land, while the assembly proper began with slow repetition of “Namo Amituofo” 南無阿彌陀佛 and gradually increased in pace to fast repetition of “Amituofo” 阿彌陀佛. Participants were led in nianfo by a small team of Buddhist nuns, who recited into a microphone and played liturgical instruments such as the wooden fish (Ch. muyu 木魚) and hand bell (Ch. yinqing 引磬). A longer period of vocal recitation while standing, walking, and sitting was followed by a shorter period of silent meditation on the Pure Land. The practice period ended with a Pure Land dedication liturgy.

For the huatou component of the study, saliva samples were collected in cryovials at two time-points, three hours apart, at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on a single afternoon, 30 min before and shortly after a period of huatou practice. The period of huatou practice consisted of alternating sitting meditation and walking meditation in silence. The Retreat Coordinator, a Buddhist monk, provided participants with simple instructions to meditate on the huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” 念佛是誰, which was contextualized by the Pure Land Dharma Assembly attended by participants four days earlier. Participants were permitted to simply meditate on the question “Who?”

Immediately after data collection, samples were stored in a monastery freezer. Nine days after huatou data collection and 13 days after nianfo data collection, samples were shipped on dry ice from Taiwan to the United States. Samples arrived semi-frozen at the receiving laboratory 36 h later and were stored in a laboratory freezer. Two months after arrival at the laboratory, assays were performed on the samples. During data collection, participants were required to produce at least one milliliter of saliva in the two-milliliter vial provided to them in order to remain viable once samples were centrifuged and the aqueous layer was aliquoted. All samples underwent extraction, after which oxytocin was measured through enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using commercially available oxytocin ELISA kits (Enzo Life Sciences, Inc., Farmingdale, NY, USA).

Food waste and recycling were also measured throughout the retreat. Unbeknownst to participants, at quasi-random intervals during the one-month window under investigation, plates were collected after formal lunch meals in the monastery’s dining hall, while the contents of recycling receptacles in common areas were gathered after break periods. Both were measured by mass in order to track relative volume of food waste and recycling as a function of time on retreat. Food waste was collected onto a single receiving plate, weighed, and divided by the sample size to produce an averaged value. Recycling contents were likewise weighed as a single unit in a bin. However, given the impracticality of verifying whether all participants contributed to recycling, in addition to significantly greater variability in individual contributions to recycling, the resulting mass was left as a total instead of averaged through division by an estimated sample size of recycling contributors. Recyclable materials available to participants were plastics in the form of beverage bottles, whose quantity of usage remained consistent throughout the retreat, as verified by visual inspection and counting of used bottles on the days of data collection. Signage around the trash and recycling receptacles consisted of bilingual labels in both traditional Chinese characters and English specifying the content of the receptacle. Neither recycling nor food waste were topics discussed by the retreat staff and participants over the course of the one-month program. All reported values are the net weight, reflecting the tare weight subtracted from the gross weight. Quantifiable recycling and food waste were thus treated as ecologically viable alternatives to mere self-reported survey measures of environmentally sustainable behavior.

Phenomenological reports were also solicited from participants in the form of journal entries following each practice. Participants were provided with pens and paper and were given the prompt: “Please describe your experience during [huatou/nianfo] practice”. There was no time limit to the journaling task and participants were allowed to write as much or as little as they wished.

5. Results

All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 28.0.1.0. Following common practice, statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Both datasets, for nianfo and huatou, were first analyzed separately through paired-samples t-tests. Results of analysis reveal a slight decrease in salivary oxytocin concentration as a function of nianfo practice and a slight increase in salivary oxytocin concentration as a function of huatou practice. Although both practices resulted in quantifiable changes in oxytocin, neither the results of nianfo (t(29) = −1.252, p = 0.221, Cohen’s d = −0.229) nor huatou (t(29) = 1.545, p = 0.133, Cohen’s d = 0.282) reached the threshold for statistical significance. The increase in salivary oxytocin concentration as a function of huatou practice, however, approaches statistical significance and remains viable for discussion and follow-up. Hence, a within-subjects repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also conducted combining both nianfo and huatou datasets. Results of analysis reveal a marginally significant time*practice interaction effect (F(1,27) = 3.728, p = 0.064), such that oxytocin increased after huatou practice and decreased after nianfo practice. In other words, the mean oxytocin values for each practice trended in opposite directions as a function of time.

Assessment of food waste and recycling also revealed quantifiable trends reflective of environmentally sustainable behavior: an overall decrease in food waste and increase in recycling by mass. Despite no change in the amount of food or recyclable material available to participants over the course of the testing period, participants produced less food waste and more recycling as a function of time on retreat.

Phenomenological reports of practice yielded a variety of experiential accounts. Representative examples from huatou include:

“Definitely the most immersive experience so far. Almost like being inside and a part of a fractal pattern—of human bodies […] of consciousness. I was able for the first time so far to overcome the discomfort of sitting upright by thinking about the idea of no-self”.

“I felt varying degrees of out-of-body experience. Certainly there was a loss of individual identity […] My sense of ‘I’ was melded with a bigger, more universal, sense of ‘we’. Yet, I felt very awake—not mindless or diminished in terms of attention and clarity”.

Representative examples from nianfo include:

“The chanting was a very metaphysical experience. At some point the words stopped becoming words and more of a fluid sound”.

“As soon as I shut my eyes I felt an invigorating rush. Almost a bit like vertigo, I felt a sense of momentum, which was in tune with my visualisation of soaring across grass hills towards a bright sky with a glowing Buddha. I also saw ‘electric’ sparks and streaks”.

“The experience was very unusual. At times it felt psychedelic. I stopped understanding the words o mi tuo fo and just heard sounds. I couldn’t distinguish the words at one point”.

Interpretation of phenomenological reports will be carried out in the following discussion.

Oxytocin data for pre- and post-measures of nianfo and huatou are presented in

Table 1. Salivary oxytocin concentration. Values reported are means (M), standard deviations (SD), and standard errors (SE) for pre- and post-nianfo and huatou. All units are in picograms per milliliter (pg/mL).

Time-Practice	Mean (M)	Standard Deviation (SD)	Standard Error (SE)
pre-nianfo	36.4652	25.63092	4.67954
post-nianfo	31.8623	20.05921	3.66229
pre-huatou	37.6425	21.58006	3.93996
post-huatou	44.2473	30.67912	5.60122

and Figure 1a,b. Food waste data are presented in

Table 2. (a) Food waste by mass. (b) Recycling by mass.

(a)
Day	Average Mass (grams)
2	8.07
9	1.72
14	1.28
21	3.27
(b)
Day	Total Mass (grams)
5	41.1
10	168.1
15	279.6
20	254.8

a and Figure 2a. Recycling data are presented in Table 2b and Figure 2b.

6. Discussion

The presently reported fieldwork is the first of its kind to experimentally evaluate endogenous oxytocin as a function of Buddhist contemplative practice. Given that oxytocin is usually expressed in interrelational contexts, its increase following the introspective practice of huatou may initially appear to be an anomaly. However, huatou, especially when invoking the question “Who?” as in the present study, explicitly targets the meditator’s sense of self. Consistent with targeting the sense of self,28 Yunqi Zhuhong 雲棲袾宏 (1535–1615 CE) affirmed the use of doubt as a form of investigation,29 while Hanshan Deqing 憨山德清 (1546–1623 CE) linked huatou directly to self-investigation.30 By investigating, even interrogating, the sense of self, huatou may thus induce an altered sense of self, such as self-transcendence. Self-transcendence is linked to oxytocin. Previous research indicates that exogenous oxytocin administration increases self-reported measures of spirituality, interconnectedness, meaning, purpose, and self-transcendent positive emotions following meditation (Van Cappellen et al. 2016). Additional research likewise confirms that oxytocin implicates the sense of self. Oxytocin is associated with decreased self-focus (Liu et al. 2013), increased other-focus (Bartz et al. 2011), and decreased self–other distinction (Zhao et al. 2016). Hence, the link between huatou and oxytocin likely entails self-transcendence or another form of altered sense of self, consistent with the existential function of huatou in targeting the sense of self and the expression of oxytocin in interrelational contexts in which the sense of self is shaped by its broader ecologies.

Indeed, while both nianfo and huatou yielded vivid experiential accounts via phenomenological reports, only huatou directly implicated the sense of self. As reported above, post-huatou, one participant commented, “I was able for the first time so far to overcome the discomfort of sitting upright by thinking about the idea of no-self”, while another wrote, “Certainly there was a loss of individual identity […] My sense of ‘I’ was melded with a bigger, more universal, sense of ‘we’”. In contrast, post-nianfo, participants were more likely to describe their visual and auditory experiences, which did not directly implicate a sense of self.

Alterations in the sense of self are induced by contemplative technologies from Chan Buddhism, both anecdotally and experimentally. Buswell paints a vivid picture of the self-transcendence process in the context of huatou:

Whereas previously all of one’s experiences were seen to revolve around one’s self, and interpreted as either self or other, through k’an-hua practice the mind opens into a new, all-inclusive perspective from which the limiting “point of view” that is the ego (ātmavāda) is eliminated. Awareness now has no fixed locus. The distinctions ordinarily perceived between self and other disappear, and consciousness expands infinitely, encompassing the entire universe both spatially and temporally.

(Buswell 1987, p. 355)

Such alteration in the sense of self is consistent with a previous study on the effects of huatou practice among Chinese Buddhist monks, whose brain waves reflected greater flexibility in self-schema processing via decreased differences in self-oriented vs. other-oriented neural activity (Gao et al. 2023). These findings begin to address previously acknowledged gaps in existing scientific research regarding forms of insight that may arise through self-inquiry (Dahl et al. 2015). Contemplative insight into the malleability of the self–other boundary, found instantiated in neuroelectrical correlates such as brain waves and neuroendocrine correlates such as oxytocin, may in turn contribute to behavioral change reflective of increased awareness of interrelational ecologies, a possibility awaiting further empirical research.

Especially relevant to ecology and the huatou results of the presently reported fieldwork, the prevalent role of oxytocin in the parent–child bond also reflects the role of oxytocin in existentially shaping one’s sense of self. Previous research has demonstrated a cross-generation transfer of oxytocin from parents to children through caregiving, shaping both affiliative biology and social behavior (Feldman et al. 2013). Hence, oxytocin plays a part in shaping relational habituations, which are generalizable from parent–child contexts to broader ecologies. Relevant to deep ecology, according to Næss, to have a home and thus develop a sense of self in an ecological capacity is shaped not only by interactions with one’s mother and father, but also by interactions with the broader manifold of the natural world (Næss 1989, p. 164).31 This ecological self is evident to infants and is “always situated in environments” (Neisser 1999, p. 207), hence largely defined by its relational positionality or embeddedness in the ecosystem. The ecological relationship between sense of self and oxytocin, both particularly malleable in an infant’s early years and measurably altered by interaction between children and parents, perhaps sheds new light on the possible implications of Chan practices inquiring into one’s original face before one was born.32 That light may be as follows. If huatou can increase oxytocin, parallel to increases in oxytocin within parent–child ecologies, then it seems plausible that both huatou and the parent–child relationship act on the sense of self in order to achieve such effects.

6.1. Limitations

Despite their novelty and potential, the huatou oxytocin results are to be treated with caution. The huatou samples were obtained during the first day of a seven-day Chan retreat, a point at which participants were introduced to huatou in simple terms. Due to unforeseen challenges in the data collection process, no subsequent measures of oxytocin were obtained from participants in later huatou practice further into the seven-day Chan retreat. Additionally, the study’s use of huatou practice was partially dependent on nianfo practice, given that the huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” built upon earlier participation in nianfo several days prior, making the results of huatou difficult to disentangle from nianfo. Further, participants did not strictly comply with standard methodology for the huatou “Who recites the Buddha’s name?” and were instead permitted to utilize variations on the question “Who?” as they deemed fit to their circumstances. It must also be noted that in phenomenological reports solicited in the form of journal entries, multiple participants expressed skepticism toward nianfo practice. A set of representative examples include:

“I am not into this chanting liturgic stuff. Strange for me”.

“Tonight’s Pure Land service was interesting, but it didn’t get me anywhere”.

“I approached this evening’s chanting service with the usual scepticism”.

“During the session I kept thinking that I wanted it to be over. The service was also opposed to my own personal beliefs, so it was particularly hard to maintain focus. I felt bitter and couldn’t wait for it to be finished”.

While such doubt may be phenomenologically comparable to that intentionally instigated through huatou, its target (nianfo) is not the traditional target of huatou practice. Thus, further research is needed in order to examine the effects of standardized forms of huatou, with and without nianfo, among participants across multiple time-points, including those who are more familiar with these contemplative technologies, whether long-term lay practitioners or monastics, especially in comparison to an active control group.

The behavioral results are also to be approached tentatively. Most notably, huatou was not the sole or main contemplative technology utilized during the one-month program and it is therefore not possible to attribute changes in environmentally sustainable behavior exclusively or primarily to huatou. Although it is certainly possible that recycling and food waste habits were influenced by alterations in the sense of self, including an interrelational or ecological sense of self, the naturalistic study design did not permit rigorous testing of this possibility. The precise mechanisms by which environmentally sustainable behaviors may change as a function of contemplative practice, as well as which practices do or do not contribute to such effects, require further investigation.

Given that the relationship between oxytocin, sense of self, and behavior is not entirely clear, future studies would benefit from methodological improvements and use of statistical techniques such as multiple regression, mediation, and moderation analysis. More frequent measures of oxytocin should be obtained both as a function of contemplative practice and throughout a typical day’s activities, ideally in closer temporal proximity to occasions of environmentally sustainable behavior, in order to evaluate whether contemplative practice reliably increases oxytocin and whether oxytocin is directly linked, possibly via its interrelational implications, to improvements in environmentally sustainable behavior. Additional experiments should also assess a greater range of environmentally sustainable behaviors as ecologically viable dependent variables while more precisely modeling interactions between independent variables, mediating variables, and moderating variables that contribute to behavioral change. With improvements in experimental design and data collection, more rigorous statistical methods could be employed to clarify the relationship between oxytocin, sense of self, and behavior.

Future research would further benefit from an ethnographic approach in which interviews are conducted with retreat participants. While phenomenological reports were solicited from retreatants, their reports describe their experiences of the practices (huatou, nianfo) in which they participated. Asking retreat participants about their experiences in the broader context of the one-month program, including their reflections on environmentally sustainable behavior and explanations for why they may have produced less food waste or more recycling, as well as how their sense of self may or may not have been a contributing factor in their behaviors, would significantly enhance future research.

It must also be acknowledged that meditating on Chan aphorisms, though potentially transformative of individual behaviors, is of questionable relevance to collective enactment of environmental policies necessary for systemic change in response to the rapidly worsening ecological crisis ravaging the globe. Rolston identifies what he believes to be the practical limitations of Buddhist rhetoric about interdependence: “That is Zen poetry, and the West cannot expect to derive water law in Colorado from it, stipulating minimum stream flow for endangered fish species. It can only produce a reverence for the stream; and water law will follow” (Rolston 1987, p. 186). The gap between poetry and politics, philosophy and practice, appears wide indeed, at least upon first glance.

Yet several intermediate steps can begin to bridge the gap. Rolston’s critique recognizes a relationship, albeit indirect, between reverence and law. When philosophy is translated into practice—to the extent that it fundamentally shifts inner ecologies, including the relationship between existential, aesthetic emotions (e.g., doubt through huatou and awe through the Huayan sanmei men) and sense of self (e.g., as constituted by ecologically relational dynamics, potentially reflected in the variability of oxytocin and phenomenological reports), which are subsequently embodied through outer ecologies, including behavioral relationships between humans and the non-human world (e.g., in the form of environmentally sustainable behavior)—then contemplative technologies may in fact offer the beginnings of a scalable solution to ecological crisis.

6.2. Continuations

While doubt through huatou is one route toward bridging ecologies, awe through the Huayan sanmei men is another. Deemed the “quintessential collective emotion” (Bai et al. 2017), awe involves overpowering and novel sensory experiences, transforming the individual and influencing their embrace of new values (Keltner and Haidt 2003), particularly through its effects on membership in universal categories of self-concept (Shiota et al. 2007). Recent research demonstrates that awe decreases self-importance, increases a sense of global citizenship, increases values of interconnectedness and appreciation of diversity, and increases donation allocations to global vs. local charities (Seo et al. 2023). Awe also increases willingness to volunteer time to help others (Guan et al. 2019; Prade and Saroglou 2016; Rudd et al. 2012) and willingness to give money to others, including sharing in virtual games (Piff et al. 2015), donating to a stranger in need (Guan et al. 2019), and sharing hypothetical lottery winnings (Prade and Saroglou 2016). Directly implicating ecology, awe increases self-reported environmentally sustainable behavior (Yang et al. 2018; Zhao et al. 2018). Most relevant to Rolston’s critique, both art and religious experiences induce awe (Shiota et al. 2007). Whether “Zen poetry” or contemplative technologies that begin to dissolve the rigid boundaries of one’s sense of self and existentially situate it in its larger ecological contexts, both wield similar potential for initiating the cascade from self-transcendent emotional states to behavioral change.

As an offshoot from the huatou results, I thus propose a follow-up study on Huayan meditation. Multiple contemplative technologies from Huayan Buddhism are viable candidates for inducing neuroendocrine and behavioral outcomes, but for the sake of brevity and due to its ecological relevance, one Huayan practice is highlighted, the Huayan sanmei men from the Huayan wujiao zhiguan attributed to Dushun. Whereas the variation of huatou from the reported fieldwork posed the question “Who?” as a form of existential inquiry, the Huayan sanmei men is seemingly oriented around the question “Where?”33 Such emphasis on positionality is consistent with Neisser’s contextualization of the ecological self, insofar as “we are continuously aware of ourselves as physically located and active in a particular environment” (Neisser 1999, p. 207) along with characterization of the environmental orientation forwarded by Næss, in whose framework of deep ecology, the human self can only come to know itself through others (Valera 2018, p. 662). The Huayan sanmei men offers a complementary contemplation of interrelational ecology.

In the Huayan sanmei men, an interrelational vision of ecological reciprocity is evidenced through the image of Indra’s net, a vastly arrayed and all-inclusive cosmic web adorned with iridescent, multifaceted jewels at each of its interstices. Any given jewel as microcosm reflects and thus contains the entire tapestry as macrocosm. While all jewels are reflected in every other jewel, each remains simultaneously unique, an example of how Huayan reconciles identity and difference, part and whole, which are mutually defining (Fox 2013, p. 183; Fox 2015, pp. 266–67). Invoking a complementary idea, neurophenomenologist Francisco Varela identified autopoiesis as a mode of self-organization in which local and global are “braided together” through reciprocal causality (Varela 1991, p. 84). Autopoiesis has been further developed into ecopoiesis, originally expounded by geneticist Robert Haynes in reference to “the fabrication of a sustainable ecosystem on a currently lifeless, sterile planet” (Haynes 1990, p. 180) and later expanded by psychiatrist Alexander Kopytin to encompass “a form of ecological intimacy implying the interaction and interpenetration of different living systems” (Kopytin 2020, p. 6). Embodying the view of the jeweled net (i.e., Indra’s net) as organism (「珠網機體論」Yu 2009, p. 182), the Huayan sanmei men is arguably the most existentially and ecologically relevant contemplative technology from Huayan Buddhism. Ecologically, each aspect of nature can be visualized as a jewel in the net, where local and global, part and whole, intersect. Damage to any particular node in the ecosystem impacts its entire structural integrity. A single jewel fully constitutes the net, such that its collective structure begins to unravel if any of its constituents are compromised, sending ripples cascading throughout the entire ecosystem.

As a distinctly Huayan practice, the Huayan sanmei men draws upon the awe-inducing aesthetics of Indra’s net, describing the meditator sitting within and thus woven directly into its cosmically all-encompassing structure. In the Huayan sanmei men, Indra’s net simultaneously functions as (1) a simile for perfect interfusion (Ch. yuanrong 圓融),34 (2) an object of contemplation,35 (3) an embodied visualization,36 and (4) an illustration of mutual non-obstruction (Ch. wuai 無礙).37 The awe-inducing potential of Indra’s net is therefore relevant to self-transcendence and other phenomenological shifts in sense of self, which may find expression in elevated oxytocin and environmentally sustainable behaviors. Given that the Huayan sanmei men prescribes a method for putting the philosophy of interrelationality into practice, its functions as a contemplative technology and implications for bridging ecologies deserve further investigation.

7. Conclusions

Huatou and the Huayan sanmei men are two contemplative technologies from Chinese Buddhism with potential for bridging ecologies by inducing changes in emotion, sense of self, and behavior. Although Huayan Buddhism has yet to be examined through a synthesis of religious studies and empirical methods, the available evidence in related research areas is promising. Data from multiple previous experiments suggesting a relationship between oxytocin and sense of self, including the preliminary findings from the reported experimental fieldwork on huatou, combined with theoretical work on the ecological relevance of Huayan Buddhism, provide a basis for further investigation. While the experimental fieldwork results require replication in a more statistically robust capacity and with methodological improvements to the study design, they nonetheless offer possible insight into the existential relevance of contemplative technologies. The significance of this research includes not only its forging of interdisciplinary relationships, but also extends to urgently needed practical applications. In our increasingly globalized world under growing threat of intergroup conflict and ecological crisis, contemplative technologies that challenge the practitioner’s sense of self and thereby enhance the experience of interrelationality are viable strategies for addressing existential concerns. The reported experimental fieldwork on huatou and proposed follow-up study on the Huayan sanmei men begin to fill major gaps in previous research, bridge inner and outer ecologies, and pave the way for further interdisciplinary research in contemplative science with potential to transform “the relations of the organism to the environment including, in the broad sense, all the ‘conditions of existence’” (Haeckel quoted in Stauffer 1957, p. 140).