American Buddhism and Healthcare

Abstract

Abstract Mindfulness and other therapeutic meditations have increasingly been researched scientifically, lauded in the mainstream media, and broadly popularized and adopted across US society. All of this attention to meditation has tended to overshadow the wide range of other practices that American Buddhists engage with in pursuit of health and well-being. This chapter begins to address that lacuna by providing an introduction to the complete spectrum of Buddhist healing practices currently being used by American Buddhists. It introduces data from recent interviews with thirty-six Buddhist healers based in the United States—clerics, lay meditation teachers and sangha leaders, traditional medicine practitioners, and healthcare industry professionals who actively promote Buddhist therapies and practice them with clients or patients. The author gives both a summary of the data collected as well as an analysis of four distinct “positionalities” that emerge from the interviewees’ responses.