Conditional Empowerments

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationship between Buddhist meditation, psychology, and disability through a Global Religious History perspective. It argues that the modern understanding of Buddhist meditation as an emancipatory and universally accessible practice emerged within the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century intersections of Orientalist scholarship, psychological science, and eugenic thought. Central to this development was the translation of Buddhism into a form of “Buddhist psychology,” which redefined meditation as a technique of mental cultivation while embedding assumptions about normative bodies and minds. Building on this genealogy, the chapter demonstrates how contemporary mindfulness and meditation discourses continue to produce only conditional forms of empowerment. Physical disability is sometimes revalued as providing privileged access to suffering, whereas psychological disability is framed as a deficit to be managed or overcome. In both cases, empowerment remains tied to ideals of able-bodiedness and cognitive normativity. By situating these dynamics within both Euro-American contexts and Sri Lanka, the chapter highlights how global translations of Buddhist psychology intersect with local histories of nationalism, gender, and post-war reconstruction. It shows that disability is differently valorized, medicalized, or marginalized depending on its alignment with dominant social narratives, revealing empowerment as a historically contingent and unevenly distributed category.