Meditation Sickness
Juhn Y. Ahn
The Oxford Handbook of Meditation October 8, 2020 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198808640.013.45 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 7 |
| Key points | Argues that Buddhist traditions conceptualized failures in concentration and insight as 'meditation sicknesses,' with concerns about insight especially prominent in Mahayana, Chan, and Zen sources. |
Abstract
Abstract Buddhists commonly assumed the path to liberation to require perfect concentration or supernatural insight, or the combination of the two. Concerns were therefore often voiced about the inability to attain concentration and the possibility of insight going awry. Buddhists came to regard these undesirable conditions as sickness and called them meditation sicknesses. This chapter provides an overview of canonical Buddhist discourses about these two meditation sicknesses. It begins with a discussion of the hindrances to the attainment of concentration and then proceeds to discuss concerns about insight, which were voiced mainly in Mahayana and Chan and Zen sources.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 6
- Incidence and Predictors of Meditation-Related Unusual Experiences and Adverse Effects in a Representative Sample of Meditators in the United States Clinical Psychological Science January 6, 2025
- Relationships between Religious and Scientific Worldviews in the Narratives of Western Buddhists Reporting Meditation-Related Challenges Journal of Contemplative Studies July 23, 2025
- Prevalence and Predictors of Self-Reported Adverse Experiences in Digital Meditation Training: 2 Randomized Controlled Trials JMIR Mental Health June 12, 2026
- The roles and impacts of worldviews in the context of meditation-related challenges. Transcultural Psychiatry August 1, 2023
- DEBATE: The inevitable decline of mindfulness. Child and Adolescent Mental Health November 2022
and 1 more in the library