Global Buddhism, Science & Mindfulness (Modern Era) (jan 1, 1900 – jan 1, 2025)

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In the 19th–21st centuries, Buddhist teachers, texts, and migrants brought Zen, Vipassanā, and Tibetan practices into Europe and North America, where they met psychology and science. Thinkers like D. T. Suzuki, the Vipassanā revival, Tibetan lamas in exile, and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR shared meditation techniques, ideas of impermanence and non-self, and the language of “mental health” and “stress reduction” with secular audiences. [18][19] Because these practices were framed as scientific and personal rather than “religious,” meditation moved into clinics, apps, schools, and offices—and Buddhism itself was reshaped to highlight inner experience over ritual or monastic authority. [18][20] This mixing also sparked conflict: critics argue that selling “mindfulness” without its ethical and communal framework turns a path meant to reduce greed and harm into a tool for coping with them, forcing both Western institutions and Buddhist communities to ask who controls these practices, whose values they serve, and what is lost when sacred disciplines become marketable skills. [20][21]

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