Vipassana meditation: one woman's narrative.

Vipassana meditation, a practice widely accepted in Thai culture, offers a strategy for managing stress and anxiety by addressing somatic responses. This article presents a first-person narrative of the embodied experience of practicing Vipassana meditation in Thailand, describing what occurred and how it unfolded. The narrative aims to provide insight into the personal, lived experience of this traditional therapy, which is increasingly attracting Western visitors to Thai Buddhist centers for preventative health and well-being. The cultural acceptance of such complementary therapies in Thai health care may offer lessons for contemporary Western health care.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In Thailand there is cultural acknowledgement of a range of traditional therapies (including complementary therapies) used in Thai health care. Meditation enjoys wide acceptance within Thai culture and attracts strong participation from western visitors to Thai Buddhist Centres because of growing interest in personal health for future preventative health problems. The extensive use of complementary therapies in health care and the cultural acceptance of such therapies as meditation for stress-release and as a personal health strategy for maintenance of well-being are possible lessons to be learned in contemporary western healthcare. In this paper the practise of vipassana meditation offers a strategy to manage such health care issues as somatic responses including stress and anxiety. This article provides a narrative of one person's lived embodied experience of vipassana meditation in Thailand. It has been presented in narrative form to provide an insight into what happened and how it happened.