Tradition & Innovation in Contemporary Japanese Religions: A Case Study of Japanese Zen Buddhism & American Mindfulness

In recent years, the mental practice of “mindfulness” has been experiencing quick growth and popularity in the U.S., Canada, Australia, among other countries. Particularly in the U.S., mindfulness as a daily practice has penetrated into multiple sectors of society, moving beyond its root of Buddhist meditation and its earlier psychotherapeutic application (Wilson 2014). As this seemingly universally applicable “mindfulness” is being propagated and popularized outside of the U.S., the study of local manifestations and the flow of transnational mindfulness can help illuminate future trends and possibilities of not just mindfulness but also the broader issues of spirituality and mental wellbeing in contemporary society. My current research is based on the framework of a case study of mindfulness – maindofurunesu in contemporary Japan.

Specifically, I focus on the case of Japanese Buddhist intellectuals, who are often more acquainted with discourses outside Japan and have reasons to present their findings and opinions to the interested lay audience. In order to accomplish the investigation, the proposed research will use two complementary methods: document interpretation, and thematic and frame analysis, and comparative studies. I aim to identify and assess the particularly relevant and potentially more widely applicable factors that influence the reception of mindfulness. Furthermore, moving forward these factors can potentially be used to contextualize discourses on mindfulness more broadly construed, and also to build a theoretical framework to anticipate the reception of mindfulness. In this talk, I focus on three factors: Buddhist intellectuals, and especially American Buddhist intellectuals’ self- awareness and self-positioning within global Buddhism, the wide spectrum of conceptions of what it means for Buddhism and Buddhist practices in particular to be “no-gain”, and the varied perceptions of the relationship, existing and hypothetical, between Buddhism and mental health broadly construed.

Anh Tu Duong is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the Japan Center of Munich University (LMU), Buddhist Studies. 

Der Vortrag findet in Präsenz statt. Ort: Japan-Zentrum der LMU, Seminargebäude am Englischen Garten, Oettingenstr. 67, 80538 München, Raum 151.