Embodied Practice and the Rearticulation of Ethical Life in Chinese Buddhist Mindfulness
Jinhua Liu, Kang Wang
Religions October 24, 2026 DOI: 10.3390/rel17111244 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that the ethical and religious force of breath-based attention depends on how institutional relations are reorganized, proposing three ideal types—therapeutic decoupling, hybrid translation, and Buddhist normative reintegration—and contends that bodily awareness acquires ethical significance when sensation and affect are tied to discernment, restraint, relational responsibility, communal discipline, and a cultivation horizon beyond immediate self-regulation. |
Abstract
The same act of attending to breathing may function as a step on a Buddhist path, a stress-regulation technique, or an exercise in a public meditation course. This article asks how the relations that give embodied attention religious and ethical force are reorganized when practice moves across institutions. It first traces how Indic sati/smṛti was rendered through Chinese nian (念) and incorporated into broader Chinese contemplative systems, then examines modern reformulations by Taixu, Yinshun, Sheng Yen, and Hsing Yun, and finally compares three primary contemporary settings: Dharma Drum Mountain, Fo Guang Shan, and modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Chinese healthcare, using published ethnographies as participant-level corroboration. The comparison follows five questions: who authorizes the practice, how entry techniques are organized, how bodily experience is interpreted, what conduct is expected, and how efficacy is judged. Three recurrent configurations emerge as ideal types—therapeutic decoupling, hybrid translation, and Buddhist normative reintegration. Bodily awareness acquires ethical significance when sensation and affect are linked to discernment, restraint, relational responsibility, communal discipline, and a horizon of cultivation that can order action beyond immediate self-regulation. This relational account shifts the analysis of Buddhist modernity toward the decoupling and recoupling of normative connections across institutions.
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
Cites 6
- Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 2000
- On some definitions of mindfulness Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
- The Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory: Extensions, Applications, and Challenges at the Attention–Appraisal–Emotion Interface Psychological Inquiry October 2, 2015
- Teaching Transnational Buddhist Meditation with Vipassanā (Neiguan 內觀) and Mindfulness (Zhengnian 正念) for Healing Depression in Contemporary China Religions March 21, 2021
- The Effects of a Modified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program for Nurses: A Randomized Controlled Trial Workplace Health & Safety October 29, 2018
and 1 more in the library