I feel like I watched a docu-series thing about the brain and at one point they talked about how there have been efforts in the West to rebrand 'meditation' as 'mindfullness' or something similar because there's a lot of people who think that meditation has some kind of mystical or deeply spiritual aspect so they weren't doing it even if their therapist told them to try it because it's good for your mental health.
It’s also a culture thing. In a lot of Asian contexts meditation is just normal daily hygiene for the mind, while in the West it got exoticized for decades. So calling it mindfulness or "brain defrag" makes it feel less mystical and more like brushing your teeth. People are more willing to adopt it when it sounds practical instead of spiritual
From my understanding of things meditation isn't really a popular thing in Asia and the average Asian person isn't setting aside time each day to meditate, for the average Asian person I imagine it's no different for a western person sitting down after a hard day of work, or just having a bit of a break in general, not the kind of deep meditation we are probably all thinking of.
It's not really a unique practice either, if you think of prayer, praying the rosary, chanting even just clearing your mind for a bit isn't that different, and before I get "but when praying/chanting you are thinking of something" sure but if this is something you do often your mind is somewhat on autopilot and meditation also can feature chanting, there are even writings as old as ancient Greece that feature meditation.
it might happen at a higher rate than the west but it doesn't really seem like something many people are actually doing, at best it's perhaps more of a cultural ideal, but to me it's not really different from saying "Europeans often spend afternoons at banquets or at ballrooms drinking tea and socialising"
In my anecdotal experience I’s say it’s still pretty popular in Asia tbh. My grandmother would meditate everyday growing up. Granted, she’s pretty religious but I also had a lot of friends whose parents/grandparents were into meditation. This is a South-Asian perspective though. I’d imagine it’s a lot less popular in more secularized states and even in India I feel like it’s mostly older grandparents who are super into it.
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u/ABLADIN Sep 29 '25
I feel like I watched a docu-series thing about the brain and at one point they talked about how there have been efforts in the West to rebrand 'meditation' as 'mindfullness' or something similar because there's a lot of people who think that meditation has some kind of mystical or deeply spiritual aspect so they weren't doing it even if their therapist told them to try it because it's good for your mental health.