The Zen of Mindfulness: Uncovering the Meaning of Mindfulness in Japan

Abstract

The contemporary mindfulness movement, while Buddhist in its inspiration and origins, tends to be presented as an American phenomenon that, when replicated in other countries, takes much the same form as it does in America. Yet in the case of Japan, a distinctively and self-consciously “Japanese” mindfulness has emerged as a result of the country’s long and complicated Buddhist history, the demands of its particular social structure, and the degree to which its citizens reflect on their own cultural uniqueness (“Japaneseness”). This study explores mindfulness—a phenomenon characterized even by its practitioners as amorphous and multivalent—by looking at some of the ways it is characterized in Japan: as a mode of community-building, as therapeutic, as Vipassana, as Zen, and as a distinctively Japanese practice. It does so by drawing on popular mindfulness literature as well as participant observation of the Buddhist organizations Zen 2.0, the Mindfulness Village, and the International Zen Culture Center (IZCC). While mindfulness practitioners in Japan take part in a larger transnational movement, with new books on mindfulness continuing to be translated into Japanese even as home-grown mindfulness books are on the rise, the distinctive developments of mindfulness in Japan hint at the hidden diversity that emerges as it takes root in various countries around the world.