Buddhist insight meditation ( Vipassanā ) and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction”: an example of dedifferentiation of religion and medicine?
Journal of Contemporary Religion September 2, 2017 DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2017.1362884 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Mindfulness meditation |
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Citations | 19 |
| Key points | The authors propose a distinction between 'salvific' ('liberating') and 'salvetive' ('healing') settings of meditation and argue that MBSR bears elements of both. They contend that MBSR's presence in biomedical institutions seems to provide a counter-example to the paradigm of functional differentiation between 'religion' and 'biomedicine'. |
Abstract
For about 25 years, mindfulness meditation has attracted growing attention. Developed in the context of a traditional Asian religious tradition, mindfulness meditation originally served soteriological goals. In therapeutic settings, it has been claimed, it has become a secular ‘consciousness technology’. So far, studies have mainly been interested in clinical evidence for salutogenetic effects. Questions about if and how practices such as “Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction” (MBSR) are to be conceptualized as ‘religious’ still require further analysis. To provide a more fitting criteriology, we propose to distinguish between ‘salvific’ (‘liberating’) and ‘salvetive’ (‘healing’) settings of meditation, with the latter denoting a more ‘therapeutic’ outlook. It will be argued that MBSR bears elements of salvetive and salvific meditation. In the paradigm of a functional differentiation between ‘religion’ and ‘biomedicine’, MBSR’s presence in biomedical institutions seems to provide a counter-example, which will be discussed in the final section.
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 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 9
- THE ‘UNIVERSAL DHARMA FOUNDATION’ OF MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION: NON-DUALITY AND MAHĀYĀNA BUDDHIST INFLUENCES IN THE WORK OF JON KABAT-ZINN Contemporary Buddhism July 3, 2018
- The association between mindfulness, resilience, and academic achievement of pharmacy students in Saudi Arabia Frontiers in Public Health October 22, 2024
- Secularization and its ethical consequences: orthodox Israeli Jews sanctifying ‘mundane’ Buddhist meditation Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute September 18, 2022
- Vipassanā Meditation in Contemporary Psychiatry: Transformation of a Buddhist Practice into a Mental Health Intervention Kamali: Jurnal Ilmu Agama June 26, 2026
- Biopolitics of Techno-Mindfulness: Anthropological Reflections on the Issue of Modern App-Based Training of Focused Attention Humans October 21, 2025
and 4 more in the library