Paper short abstract:

Taking traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice of prostration as its case study, this paper would like to discuss the way in which this intense engagement, both of the body and the mind of the practitioner, could be considered as the embodiment of the hyperaesthetic utopia in its own right.

Paper long abstract:

Whether performed at the Buddhist pilgrimage places like Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, India, or the privacy of one's own room anywhere in the West, numerous Tibetan prostrations drastically affect the practitioner's mind and the body, putting him/her in the specific relations towards him/herself as well as towards the cultural-religious symbols it tries to works with. With the unprecedented popularity which Tibetan Buddhism has been gaining it the West since the 1960s, this traditional religious practice has become common among the Western Buddhists too, however revealing and opening itself to new perspectives and interpretations.

Having this in mind, one is asked to consider in what relationship do we find body/mind, sensations, emotions and moods (and furthermore personal beliefs and interpretations) with the practice of prostrations? Anthropologists define the relationship between emotions and cultural-religious symbols in numerous ways. Evans-Pritchard explains that 'emotional states must differ not just from person to person but also within a person in different occasions, even during the same ritual.'

Using the analytical concepts of Leiba, Körpera as well as tantric symbols (cultural objectifications) such as the subtle body, the paper examines the possibility of the embodiment of a particular tantric body/mind as a different way of being (Csordas, Samuel). The paper will examine does and how traditional practice of prostration fall under the category of hyperaesthetic embodiment, in the Western environment of new-age practices as well as in the more traditional Buddhist setting and interpretation.