Imagination-Based Loving-Kindness and Compassion Meditation: A New Meditation Method Developed from Chinese Buddhism.

A meditation method from Chinese Buddhism, developed by Zhiyi, uses imagination to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion, limiting the content of imagination during practice. This contrasts with Theravada Buddhist free association and Tibetan Buddhist tonglen methods. Zhiyi's approach may be more suitable for participants without religious beliefs because it involves helping others entirely through imagination. The article outlines a mental-health training program based on this method and discusses its limitations and future research directions, noting that empirical studies are needed to compare its effects and applicability with other meditation methods.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Many loving-kindness and compassion meditation methods used in psychological research are derived from Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism. Zhiyi (), a representative figure of Chinese Buddhism, proposed a different meditation method, namely, imagination-based loving-kindness and compassion meditation. The current article introduces the imagination-based loving-kindness and compassion meditation proposed by Zhiyi and compares it with meditation methods from Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism. Zhiyi's method limits the content of imagination during meditation, which can be an essential supplement to the free association method derived from Theravada Buddhism. Zhiyi's method of helping others entirely through imagination differs significantly from the tonglen method derived from Tibetan Buddhism and may be more suitable for participants without religious beliefs. Based on Zhiyi's source text and previous psychological studies, a mental-health training program for imagination-based loving-kindness and compassion meditation is proposed. The limitations of Zhiyi's method and the future directions for empirical research on Zhiyi's method are also discussed. The differences between Zhiyi's method and other methods in terms of effects and applicable populations need to be examined in future studies.