Buddhist insight meditation (Vipassanā) and Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction": an example of dedifferentiation of religion and medicine?. Issue 3 (2nd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schlieter, Jens
• Is Part Of: Journal of contemporary religion. Volume 32:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 447
• Page End: 463
• Publication Date: 2017-09-02
• Subjects: Mindfulness -- mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) -- Buddhism -- medicine -- dedifferentiation -- healing; Religions -- Periodicals; Religions -- History -- 20th century -- Periodicals; 200
• DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2017.1362884
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1353-7903

Abstract

Abstract: For about 25 years, mindfulness meditation has attracted growing attention. Developed in the context of a traditional Asian religious tradition, mindfulness meditation originally served soteriological goals. In therapeutic settings, it has been claimed, it has become a secular 'consciousness technology'. So far, studies have mainly been interested in clinical evidence for salutogenetic effects. Questions about if and how practices such as "Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction" (MBSR) are to be conceptualized as 'religious' still require further analysis. To provide a more fitting criteriology, we propose to distinguish between 'salvific' ('liberating') and 'salvetive' ('healing') settings of meditation, with the latter denoting a more 'therapeutic' outlook. It will be argued that MBSR bears elements of salvetive and salvific meditation. In the paradigm of a functional differentiation between 'religion' and 'biomedicine', MBSR's presence in biomedical institutions seems to provide a counter-example, which will be discussed in the final section.