2. The majority of the West has the notion that
Buddhism is not a traditional religion. From media
analysis, this can be seen in the way Westerners
incorporate mindfulness, meditation, and yoga
practices into their lives and how they are talked about. In
the West, the focus of these practices are their health
benefits while in the East they are an
important part of religious tradition.
The reasons behind the practices are
very different and the West has detached
itself from the practices’ historical roots.

3. The West
People in the west are obsessed with health. In
Western society the focus of
mindfulness, meditation and yoga practices is
fitness and well-being. These practices are
only important for the physical and mental
advantages they provide.

4. The West: Physical Benefits
“Yoga has been practiced for more than 5,000 years, and
currently, close to 11 million Americans are enjoying its health
benefits.”
• This statistic was found on a popular health website, WebMD. Several of
the health benefits that this article argues that one will receive are:
decreasing stiffness, tension, pain, and fatigue in the muscles; increasing
range of motion in the joints; stretching the soft tissues of the body;
building strength and endurance of the muscles; and improving posture.
• This article really wants to persuade their readers how much physical
benefit can come from yoga. It says, “In one study, participants had up to
35% improvement in flexibility after only eight weeks of yoga.”
http://www.webmd.com/balance/the-health-benefits-of-yoga

5. The West: Physical Benefits
Another article, from YogaMax, claims, “Yoga teaches us to
take slower and deeper breaths to improve the function
of our lungs by increasing the amount of
oxygen to the body. It helps in bringing mobility,
flexibility and reduces aches and pains. All our
muscles, ligaments, tendons are strengthened.
It can also help in controlling the weight of our
body. Yoga improves the circulation of our body. It aids in
lowering heart rate.”
http://www.yogamax.net/what-is-true-indian-yoga.html

6. The West: Physical Benefits
• Furthermore, in a blog from the Huffington Post, a woman provides for her
readers nine yoga poses that will “enhance your immune system, strengthen
and awaken your muscles, and pave the path for your most refined listening in
any moment of your day.”
• The point of this women’s blog is to promote the great health benefits one can
obtain from doing yoga. She shows her readers how to do the specific poses to
gain the immense benefits.
In all three of the articles mentioned, the focus is on the various ways a person
can physically benefit from yoga.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elena-brower/yoga-wellness_b_1092453.html?ref=healthy-living-spirit#undefined

7. The West: Physical Benefits
• This trend has become embedded into our
culture. Across YMCA’s in the United States many
yoga classes are being offered. Such classes
demonstrate poses like:
Hundreds of different yoga poses are being taught
for physical strength and flexibility

8. The West: Physical Benefits
Yoga is now even taking flight.
In this clip, ABC’s Good Morning America discusses the
new fad of cocooning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB9YFlOVe2E (right
click on URL, click “open Hyperlink”)
Even Western news shows are motivated to
promote the health aspects of yoga

9. The West: Mental Benefits
The mental aspects of
meditation, mindfulness, and yoga are
also very important to Westerners.
• First, yoga is deemed important
because it connects body and mind.
In one article, “9 Yoga Poses to
Connect the Body and Mind,” the
author defines the quest for
fitness, “The ideal is to feel fit both in
our bodies and in our emotional • Meditation is also seen as connecting
lives.” She believes that yoga, while the mind and body. In Leslie
aligning the physical body also raises Davenport’s blog she says that ten
the ability to store and transfer minute meditation nourishes
energy between different storage “body, heart and soul.” She also
modes. After practicing yoga she says, “ Each entry will address the
believes that you become more physical, psychological and spiritual
relaxed and open in uncomfortable facets of a unique life challenge.”
situations or transitions.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elena-brower/yoga- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-davenport/meditation-tips-
_b_1097870.html
wellness_b_1092453.html?ref=healthy-living-
spirit#undefined

10. The West: Mental Benefits
• In addition, Eddie Stern argues that just talking about the
physical benefits of yoga do not do it justice. He believes
that it takes a lot of mental effort and dedication to receive
all of the possible benefits that yoga offers. He says, “There
is no physical aspect of yoga that can be excised from the
rest of the practice, because yoga, by definition, addresses
the mind, and when the mind is addressed, the rest of our
organism is altered as well--physical as well as non-
physical.”
Even though he argues that yoga practices today are
flawed, he still sees them as being important in the
concept of health. Yoga is about the mind and the body.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-stern/flawed-yoga-studies-_b_1078981.html?ref=healthy-living-spirit

11. The West: Mental Benefits
The mental benefits are widely
acknowledged.
• A well being Ph.D.
expert, Robert Puff, declares
that “Whether it’s breath
meditation, mantra meditation
or walking meditation, the
mental rhythms we create give
us a break from the constant
agitation of the ‘monkey
mind.’” He also says that
meditation overtime will
decrease stress and increase
relaxation. Meditation creates rhythm.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meditation-
modern-life/201111/meditation-the-move

12. The West: Mental Benefits
Another article reviews studies that show that mindfulness-based
therapy has very positive mental effects.
• Toho University School of Medicine in Japan found that after 20
minutes of mindful breathing participants “had fewer negative
feelings, more of the mood-boosting neurotransmitter serotonin in
their blood, and more oxygenated hemoglobin in their prefrontal
cortex, an area associated with attention and high-level processing.
• A similar study at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany found that
participants were able to “sustain mindful contact with their
breathing, reported less negative thinking, less rumination and
fewer of other symptoms of depression.”
Many people believe that mindfulness could be a useful tool to
prevent depression.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=therapy-in-the-air

13. The West: Mental Benefits
We also found an article
talking about meditation
in the context of the
stressful holiday season.
• This article points to
meditation as one way to
prevent the characteristic
stress people feel around
the holidays.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-
davenport/meditation-tips-_b_1097870.html

14. What’s Left Out?
• These sources illustrate a very clear picture that what
makes yoga, meditation and mindfulness so appealing
to Westerners is the physical and mental related
benefits.
• None of these sources present the historical and
religious aspects of these practices. There is no
mention that these practices came out of the Buddhist
tradition or that they have been modified from their
original purpose. The majority of popular media
presents meditation, mindfulness and yoga in a way
that leaves all of this out. The purpose of these practice
for Buddhists is very different from how the West uses
them.

15. Buddhism
Traditionally, Buddhists meditate in order to escape
from suffering through reaching enlightenment. The
Buddha was the first one to use meditation to reach
enlightenment. He saw old age, sickness, death and
a renunciate. Because of these things that he
witnessed he was motivated to find a way out of the
cycle of life, death and rebirth. The goal of Buddhism
is to escape samsara.

16. Buddhism
• One practice of mediation is to visualize a mandala, death, the
body, colors, or Buddha virtue. In these practices one focuses solely
on this visualization.
• Another practice, called Zen Buddhism, is mind-to-mind
transmission of knowledge. Zazen is the most prominent form.
This is where you focus on a nonsensical statement (koan) to help
you see the emptiness of the world. You’re supposed to destroy
your preconceived notions of the world.
Buddhists recognize that nothing is permanent in this life.
Meditation and yoga help you realize this. These practices are
part of the Buddhist religious tradition. They are spiritual
practices, not forms of exercise or therapy.

17. Separation from roots
These Buddhist ideas are no longer
part of the practices in the West. Even
though mindfulness, yoga and meditation
have developed from these Buddhist ideas
most Westerners have taken them and
separated them from the spirit in which they
were intended. In popular Western media the
traditional concepts are not mentioned.

18. Purposeful Separation
Westerners sometimes even make a point not to mention the
practices’ Buddhist roots.
• In this article, a school has taken specific steps to avoid uproar
over teaching yoga in gym class. The development director
says “No namaste…No om. No prayer position with the
hands. Nothing that anyone could look in and think, this is
religious.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/nyregion/in-yoga-classes-at-schools-teachers-avoid-the-
spiritual.html?_r=2&ref=religionandbelief

19. Purposeful Separation
Even when words like “om” and “nomaste” are
used, they are specifically taught in a non-spiritual
way.
• At a place called Karma Kids, an instructor says, “I don’t
look at it as spiritual.”
Furthermore, if a student knows a Buddhist ritual many
instructors firmly deny that they taught it to them.
• The Little Flower Yoga director says, “I have no idea
where she learned a mudra…We never teach mudras.
Kids come with ideas from TV.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/nyregion/in-yoga-classes-at-schools-teachers-avoid-the-
spiritual.html?_r=2&ref=religionandbelief

20. The Separation
Not all Westerners are ignorant of • In the article, “How Yoga Won the
the original purpose of yoga West,” Ann Louise Bardach is very
and meditation. cynical of the West’s take on
yoga. She writes, “If you’re
• In his blog, Swami Jnaneshvara annoyed that your local gas
Bharati declares, “The mere fact station is now a yoga studio, you
that one might do a few stretches might blame Vivekananda for
with the physical body does not having introduced ‘yoga’ into the
in itself mean that one is headed national conversation-though an
towards that high union referred exercise cult with expensive
to as Yoga.” (The high union accessories was hardly what he
refers to recognizing preexisting had in mind.”
union between Atman and
Brahman).
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/h
http://www.swamij.com/traditional-yoga.htm ow-yoga-won-the-west.html?_r=2

21. A Plea to Return
In the media, Westerners do not see
mindfulness, meditation and yoga as coming from a
long religious tradition. Meditation and yoga have a
spiritual purpose in Buddhism. Many Westerners have
ignored this and manipulated meditation and yoga into
totally new practices. Today, mindfulness, yoga and
meditation are now being used for health benefits and
even in clinical settings.
We don’t see this trend stopping unless the media makes
a great effort to educate the population on the origin
of these well-loved practices.

22. Citations
• “The Health Benefits of Yoga,” WebMD, no date available, (http://www.webmd.com/balance/the-health-benefits-of-
yoga).
• “What is True Indian Yoga,” YogaMax, no date available, (Inhttp://www.yogamax.net/what-is-true-indian-yoga.html).
• Elena Brower, “9 Yoga Poses to Connect the Body and Mind,” Huffington Post, 11/15/2011,
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elena-brower/yoga-wellness_b_1092453.html?ref=healthy-living-spirit#undefined).
• “Anti-Gravity Yoga ‘Cocooning’ is Featured on Good Morning America-August 2011”, YouTube, 08/18/2011,
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB9YFlOVe2E).
• Leslie Davenport, “10-Minute Meditation For a More Peaceful Holiday Season,” Huffington Post, 11/19/2011,
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-davenport/meditation-tips-_b_1097870.html ).
• Eddie Stern, “Why Yoga Studies Need to Smarten Up,” Huffington Post, 11/9/2011,
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-stern/flawed-yoga-studies-_b_1078981.html?ref=healthy-living-spirit).
• Robert Puff, “Meditation for Modern Life,” Psychology Today, 11/4/2011,
(http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meditation-modern-life/201111/meditation-the-move).
• Toni Rodriguez, “Therapy in the Air,” Scientific American, 11/29/2011,
(http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=therapy-in-the-air).
• Lopez, Donald S. Jr. “The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to its History & Teachings.” Harper Collins Publishers,
2001.
• “Little Buddha,” Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1993.
• Mary Billard, “In Schools, Yoga Without the Spiritual,” New York Times, 10/7/2011,
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/nyregion/in-yoga-classes-at-schools-teachers-avoid-the-
spiritual.html?_r=2&ref=religionandbelief).
• Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati, “Modern Yoga versus Traditional Yoga,” swamiJ.com, no date available,
(http://www.swamij.com/traditional-yoga.htm).
• Ann Louise Bardach, “How Yoga Won the West,” New York Times, 10/1/2011,
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/opinion/sunday/how-yoga-won-the-west.html?_r=2).
• Class Notes, 10/7/2011; 10/10/2011.