Meditating for Mental Health? Modern Predicaments and Buddhist Responses in Republican China
Matteo Sgorbati
Religions May 2, 2026 DOI: 10.3390/rel17050550 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Keywords | China Ideology Mental health Framing construction Opposition politics Aesthetics Mental illness Modalities |
| Key points | Argues that Master Taixu and Jin Sheng converged in framing mental illness as a fundamental cognitive obstruction, with meditation alone insufficient as a remedy. |
Abstract
This paper examines the discourse surrounding the relationship between meditation and psychological well-being from a historical perspective. While both Buddhist practitioners and psychotherapists aspire to a state of health, they appear to diverge on what this goal entails and how to achieve it. Influential voices such as Conze and Jung have argued that psychotherapy and Buddhist meditation are incompatible: psychotherapy helps individuals adjust to contemporary society, whereas Buddhism is ultimately designed for detachment from worldly life. At its core, this view rests on an ideological opposition between “tradition” and “modernity,” with the latter interpreted as an exceptional condition. Using Buddhism in Republican China (1912–1949) as a case study, this paper examines how Master Taixu (1890–1947) and the lesser-known mental hygiene advocate Jin Sheng (ca. 1900–?) responded to emerging mental health concerns and the global diffusion of related therapeutic techniques. Analyzing the modern predicament in which the Buddhism–mental health dialogue places them, this research argues their convergence in framing mental illness as a fundamental cognitive obstruction, with meditation alone insufficient as a remedy.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |