Contemporary psychology and neuroscience keep finding benefits to the emotion of awe, which appears as a spiritual emotion given it makes one more prosocial and less attached to material objects.
Does Buddhism talk in any way about this emotion?
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Are you saying that mudita and awe are connected? – Eggman Nov 13 at 12:08
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I can’t find any obvious correspondence to awe among the cetasikas or kleshas, but it could possibly compare to saddha or pasada. Perhaps awe is mentioned elsewhere in the suttas.
Personally I lean towards looking at awe as a type of ignorance, because it seems to me like a somewhat blind faith, as opposed to the investigative approach in buddhism.
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I once heard a astronomer responding to someone asking "Doesn't knowing what is in the night sky make you less appreciative of it's beauty?" And they responded that knowing what's up there actually increases their awe because they can fully appreciate the scale of what they're looking at and feel how amazing it is that all of it exists in the first place. Awe and knowledge are not exclusive from each other. – Muuski Nov 13 at 16:52
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Awe in the Western, Christian worldview corresponds roughly to the Zen concept of satori: a sudden awakening to true nature. The interpretations differ on philosophical and dogmatic grounds, obviously, but the experience — a sudden involution of perspective, with a consequence sense of wholeness, oneness, and 'flow' — is common to all faiths.
