Buddhist Meditation in Britain: 1853-1945

1 Asaf Federman (2015): Buddhist meditation in Britain: 1853 and 1945, Religion, DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2015.1027969

Buddhist Meditation in Britain: 1853 to 1945

Asaf Federmana

Discussions about Buddhist meditation in the West usually focus on the post

1960s period, and explain the popularity of meditation in a context of modernistic

discourses. In this article I suggest that meditation was in fact available in Britain

much earlier than is usually assumed, in a period which was without doubt

‘modern’, yet did not quickly produce mass acceptance of meditative practices in

its host culture. While the migration of meditation was influenced by modernist

discourses, these were sometimes contradictory to each other and hindered

acceptance. I examine how the term meditation itself has evolved, who brought it

first to Britain and why, and the political and social forces that shaped its

trajectory of acceptance and rejection in the first half of the twentieth-century.

Keywords: Buddhism; Meditation; Modernism, Mindfulness

a Minerva Center for Humanities Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

[email protected]

Published online: 13 May 2015.

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2015.1027969

Introduction

The practice of Buddhist meditation has recently gained unprecedented popularity in the

developed world. Of special interest is mindfulness meditation which is based on forms

of Buddhist practice, and is now found in health-care, psychotherapy, education and

business contexts. Unlike other New Age trends like guided imagination or relaxation,

but similar to yoga and acupuncture, it is proclaimed to be a type of knowledge that

migrated between cultures and geographical areas. It is a Buddhist practice adapted for

non-religious purposes.

Explaining why meditation has reached such status was a task David McMahan

(2008) approached within his overall investigation of Buddhist Modernism. Similarly to

others before him he indicates that the modern manifestation of meditation was not a

perfect transplantation of traditional Buddhist practice into a new context, but rather a

new product of modernity itself (see for example Gombrich and Obeyesekere, 1988;

Sharf, 1995). In this regard, he suggests seeing it as part of what Taylor (1989) has

called the ‘massive subjective turn’ that characterises modernity, in which values are

believed to originate from the individual’s innate authority and are therefore heavily

This is the submitted version. For citation see the bottom of the page. Please click here for a free copy of the published version

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2015.1027969

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/cX2nuKVq2AkY3iXYxMrb/full


dependent on subjective experience and personal rational consideration (in McMahan,

2008, 188). While this is helpful, McMahan focuses on post 1960s enthusiasm, and

ignores earlier periods that were, no doubt, modern. On the other hand, other scholars

focused on what can be considered clear-cut examples of modernity at the end of the

nineteenth-century and explored the conditions that afforded the acceptance of

Buddhism outside Asia (Almond, 1988; Tweed, 1992). Strangely, however, the first

half of the twentieth-century usually receives less attention. Regarding meditation, it is

even assumed that during these first decades there was actually ‘no mention of

meditation’ (Bluck, 2006, 7).1

When looking at the historical evidence for meditation in Britain two things

become apparent. One, that meditation existed in Britain much earlier than what is

usually assumed. Two, that there was a diversity of modern discourses that drove its

migration and acceptance, not a single one. Interest in moral rationality, which saw

Buddhism as a promising alternative to the demise of the Church and an ally to science,

was characteristically modern (McMahan, 2004). But so was the interest of late-

Victorian and Edwardian men and women in occult experimentation, spiritual

experiences and magic (Owen, 2007). Meditation was sometimes pulled in opposite

directions; on the one hand it was perceived as ‘an exact science based on psychology’

(The British Buddhist, March 1931, p.286) and on the other hand as a practice that leads

to transcending the intellect and connecting to the ‘Oversoul’ (The Middle Way, May

1945 p.15).

Researching the early stages of meditation in Britain helps not only to expose

the richness of modern discourses, but also to tell an untold story of meditation’s

migration during its early introduction to the West. It provides an opportunity to

examine migration of ideas and practices, a topic that has recently attracted some

attention in the history of science and medicine (e.g., Bala, 2006; Bivins, 2007;

Campbell, 2001; Cook, 2007).

Meditation initially travelled from Asia to Britain as a concept, not a practice: a

concept that was clearly poorly understood by nineteenth-century scholars who had only

scarce textual material to work with. Scholars usually agree that during that period the

interest and study of Buddhism reflected Victorian values more than a genuine

1 Bluck is probably relying (too much) on Humphreys (1967).


understanding of Asian Buddhism (Almond, 1988; Gombrich, 1988; McMahan, 2004;

Swearer, 2010; Tweed, 1992). 2 While this may be true, it is not the only possible

explanation for misunderstanding meditation. The fact that meditative practice was out

of reach for early scholars hindered serious engagement with it. Only after individuals

who learned how to meditate in Burma returned to England around the 1900s a more

nuanced understanding and interest began to grow. However, meditation was not

immediately absorbed into the lives of those interested in Buddhism in Britain even then

because at that time it had been already associated with magic and esoteric practices

thanks to the work of the Theosophical Society and other esoteric organizations. This

created a problem for those British scholars and intellectuals who sought to develop a

rational, moral and scientific version of Buddhism. The term ‘meditation’, therefore,

went through a number of phases that charged it with new meanings: from

contemplation to magical practice, to a way for self-mastery and control, and eventually

a medical method for psychological healing. The tension between some major

discourses of the period – Occultism, moral rationality, psychoanalysis and self-help –

begins to explain why meditation had been initially ignored, then rejected, before being

more widely assimilated.

The meanings of ‘meditation’

The terms ‘meditation’ deserves special attention, because it was a new category in

English that has acquired new meanings during the nineteenth and the twentieth-

centuries. One of the earliest mentions of the word in the context of Buddhist practice is

found in Spence Hardy’s 1853 Manual of Buddhism, where the Sanskrit Buddhist term

dyāna is explained as a form of ‘abstract meditation leading to the entire destruction of

2 Historians agree that in the 19

th century interest in Buddhism was ‘solely oriented towards

ethical and philosophical concepts as they could be extracted from the texts’ (Baumann,

2002, 87). The type of religion emerging from this encounter was at least partly a

reflection of Victorian values and yearning: it was textual, rationalistic, pragmatic,

advocating a return to 'original' forms, universal, and socially active (Baumann, 2002;

Tweed, 1992).


all cleaving to existence’ (Hardy, 1853, 523). 3 The word ‘abstract’ probably aims at

distinguishing this form of ‘meditation’ from a particular type of deep thought on the

mysteries of life, or of God, as in European philosophy and Christian theology. We have

to remember that at this stage the word was not associated with Oriental practices but

more so with prayer and Christian contemplation. Spence Hardy was a British

missionary in Ceylon and he was obviously using the closest term that seemed fitting to

describe something he encountered there. He was probably echoing another British

scholar who had written in the 1820s that ‘dhyān’ is ‘thoughts into pure abstraction’

(Hodgson, 1829, 254).

Hardy’s translation can be seen as an example of what translation theorists

identified as the problem of untranslatability. Catford suggests that untranslatability can

be due to the absence of a relevant ‘situational feature’ in the target language culture (in

Bassnett, 2002, 39). In other words, the target language culture may inhibit the

possibilities of representing a concept of the source culture because the latter lacks

relevant social constructs and experiences. While ‘dhyāna’ is situated within a complex

web of meanings and practices in Buddhist cultures, these were absent in the English

culture in which Hardy and his contemporaries operated. The word meditation was

chosen as an approximation but was still heavily coloured by English and Christian

connotations. However, the influence of language on experience is not mono-

directional, as some theorists suggest. While it is true that ‘experience … is largely

determined by the language habits of the community’ (Sapir, in Bassnett, 2002, 22), it is

3 There are several words in Pāli and Sanskit that would correspond to the word meditation, and

of course many more in other Asian languages. Dyāna (Sanskrit) which was mentioned

above is only one of them. Jhāna is its Pāli equivalent and denotes a state of absorption and

deepening calm. Bhāvanā literally means cultivation, and is used to denote practices that

cultivate beneficial mental states. The Pāli samatha-bhāvanā and vipassanā-bhāvanā, are

probably the most well known examples: the cultivation of calm and insight; but there are

many other qualities that can be cultivated (e.g., mettā, paññā). The terms sati (Sanskrit

sṃṛti) and samādhi are also used in this context, denoting two elements in the Eight-Fold

Path: the development of mindfulness (sati) and meditative concentration (samādhi). It is not

difficult to see that what we call meditation is not an exclusive translation of a single term.

As we shall see in the article different scholar and writers sometimes used this word to mean

different things and to translate different concepts.


also true that language habits are shaped by experience, among other things. The word

meditation, once introduced into English as a translation of an Eastern term, began to

shift and accumulate new meanings and, as discussed in the following sections,

determined the availability of new experiences. The evolutionary process of the term

meditation eventually reached a point of its almost losing its original English meaning.

In 2012 the meditation teacher Sarah McLean told a New York Times reporter

that she had a problem because students in her classes often told her that they could not

stop thinking. Although she explained that meditation is not about not-thinking but is

about creating ‘a new relationship with our thoughts,’ her students’ concerns echo a

popular notion of meditation as an absorption into a thought-less state (New York

Times, 10 May 2012, p.F6). This is practically the opposite of the original meaning of

the word in English, which refers to deliberately contemplating or thinking about

something.4

Spence Hardy felt that he must qualify ‘meditation’ with ‘abstract’ to distinguish

it from the common meaning of the word in English. By the 1870s the ambiguity was

still visible in the most popular literary work on Buddhism. The Light of Asia (Arnold,

1879) refers to meditation only sparsely, but manages to portray it as both an oriental

practice, peculiar enough to fascinate Western readership, and a practice of

philosophical contemplation that was probably familiar to any educated reader.

...

So saying, the good Lord Buddha seated him

Under a jambu-tree, with ankles crossed—

As holy statues sit—and first began

To meditate this deep disease of life,

What its far source and whence its remedy. (p. 22)

The image of a Buddhist monk sitting in meditation was probably familiar to

English readers. The British Museum has received and purchased such images

4 A nineteenth-century dictionary defines meditation as ‘closed or continued thought; the

turning or revolving of a subject in the mind; serious contemplation; reflection; musing’.

The word meditate is defined as ‘to keep the mind in a state of contemplation; to dwell on

anything in thought; to think seriously; to muse; to cogitate; to reflect’ (Porter, 1891).


throughout the nineteenth-century.5 However, a posture reveals very little about what is

actually involved in such ‘meditation’ so that the gap can be filled with almost anything.

Without manuals that describe it, or without first-hand experience, it would have been

very difficult to acquire any real sense of what it actually involves. The gap between the

image and its meaning is then immediately filled with whatever conceptual items are at

hand. In this case, what Buddhists do when they sit ‘with ankles crossed’ is similar to

what European philosophers and Christian theologians do when they contemplate ‘the

deep disease of life’.

When Arnold mentions Buddhist practice later in the poem, he lists:

...Ten Observances

The Dasa-Sil, and how a mendicant

Must know the Three Doors and the Triple Thoughts;

The Sixfold States of Mind; the Fivefold Powers;

The Eight High Gates of Purity; the Modes

Of Understanding; Iddhi; Upeksha;

The Five Great Meditations, which are food

Sweeter than Amrit for the holy soul;

The Jhana's and the Three Chief Refuges. (p.235)

One can hardly imagine that this meant anything to most of his readers, apart

from, perhaps, a handful of scholars. Again ‘the five great meditations’ is what

Buddhist monks do – but it would have to stay mysterious and opaque until one

becomes a Buddhist monk.

By 1911 there were only a few Western Buddhist monks. Some, like the

Englishman Ananda Metteyya, were clearly inspired to travel to Asia by Arnold’s poem

(Harris, 1998) and a few others engaged in studying meditation in Asia even without

ordaining. The medical doctor E.R. Rost was one of them. When he writes about

meditation in 1911 he feels that he must stress that his use of word is ‘opposed to its use

5 For example, a statue of a seated monk in lotus posture was purchased in 1879. (Item

1880.360, The British Museum collection online.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online. Accessed 15 August 2013). Another

early example is a printed book with colour illustrations that depict the Buddha in crossed-

legged posture in various forms (Mitra, 1878).

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online


in ordinary English, where it merely means abstract thinking’ (The Buddhist Review 3:4

1911 p. 300). The word meditation has thus completed the split in meaning, which

would stay with us until this day.

Ideas of meditation appeared in scholarly writings, but in the nineteenth-century

these did not seem to have occupied a central place. One reason for this may be the

intellectual bias of early European scholars who focused on manuscripts and ideas and

ignored the living practice of Buddhism. This may indeed be a reason for ignoring

meditation during this period. However, it is more likely that nineteenth-century

scholars did not have access to meditation as a living practice, and therefore could not

make sense of the little they found in the scriptures about dyāna, sati, samādhi and

bhāvanā. It was not so much a case of being biased as of lacking a reference point

outside the scriptures. Evidence for that is presented below.

A more interesting question is why meditation was ignored even when it was

finally available in the beginning of the twentieth-century. This, I suggest, is because by

that time the word ‘meditation’ had already been appropriated by esoteric societies and

was associated with magic and Occult practices (in themselves expressions of Victorian

interests). Meditation did not lend itself easily to either a serious academic presentation

or to the intellectual interests of Buddhist enthusiasts in the beginning of the 20th

century.

Ignoring meditation (1): inaccessible practice

The Buddhist corpus is huge and unless one is actively looking for meditation texts and

manuals, one is bound to pass them over. The scholarly phase of the ‘counter invasion’

of Britain by Buddhism as Franklin has put it (2008, 7), peaked around the 1880s and

included the publication of The Light of Asia (1879), the founding of the Pali Text

Society (1881) and the translation of key Pali Buddhist discourses in the Sacred Books

of the East series (Rhys Davids, 1881). This earliest collection of translated classics

from the Theravāda canon which Rhys Davids published did not include any discourse

(sutta) that deals with what we may now call meditative practices.6 Rhys Davids also

6 It included the Dhammapada, Sutta-Nipāta, Mahâ-parinibbâna, The Dhamma-kakka-

ppavattana, The Tevigga, The Âkankheyya, The Ketokhila, The Mahâ-Sudassana, The

Sabbâsava (in the original non-standardized spelling).


published more popular books, including the successful Buddhism - The History and

Literature of Buddhism (1896) that proceeded a series of lectures given in America to

the Historical Society of Philadelphia. In sharp contrast to similar introductions at the

end of the twentieth-century, this book does not mention meditation at all. The majority

of the book concerns ‘the secrets of Buddhism’ and focuses on doctrinal issues like

karma, individuality, the noble truths and nirvana. While it states that ‘Buddhist books

are full of descriptions of the means which must be adopted first to get rid of the

delusions,’ (133) it says only that these means entail ‘a co-ordinated activity of moral

earnestness, emotional culture, and intellectual strength’ (141). Meditation is absent. A

rare discussion of the term meditation in his writing suggests that he understood it as a

way of thinking, or contemplation. In 1881 he writes in his introduction to a Sacred Text

of the East volume, that the Pāli term sati, should not be translated as ‘meditation’

because it means ‘the active, watchful mind’, and that the term ‘meditation’ should be

reserved for translating the word samādhi. (Rhys Davids, 1881, 145). Having said that,

Rhys Davids himself chose to translate samādhi as ‘contemplation’ and explains that it

is an ‘earnest thought on the deep mysteries of life’ (145).

If the practice of meditation was available but ignored, it would have been a

proof of the intellectual bias of scholars like Rhys Davids. In reality, it is almost certain

that Rhys Davids and his contemporaries had absolutely no contact with anyone who

was a practitioner of what we might call Buddhist meditation.

Take the Ceylonese Buddhist reformer Anagarika Dharmapāla for example. If

we are to believe Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988) he taught himself to meditate from

a manuscript, as meditation teachers were either rare or not available at all in Ceylon at

the turn of the century. Further evidence comes from the autobiography of Anton Gueth,

who is mostly known as the venerable Ñāṇatiloka Thera. In the early 1900s, he

embarked on a 14 months journey from Germany to Ceylon in order to fulfil his dream

of becoming a Buddhist monk. But like his contemporary Allan Bennett (Ananda

Metteyya), who would play an important role in our story of meditation, Gueth decided

not to ordain in Ceylon, and travelled further to Burma. In his words, ‘It is to be

regretted that in Sri Lanka7 one very rarely meets with laymen, or even monks, who are

earnestly devoting themselves to these two higher stages of Buddhist life’ (Ñāṇatiloka,

7 The use of ‘Sri Lanka’ here is probably an anachronism, added by the editor of the

autobiography, who is himself a Western monk living in contemporary Sri Lanka.


1920 [1949], 46). As he further explained, the ‘two higher stages of Buddhist life’ are

two kinds of Buddhist meditation: vipassanā and samatha. Gueth was ordained in 1904

in Burma and after travelling in Asia for a short while, departed to the Sagaing

Mountains to live in a cave. Only there he finally studied the practice of concentration

and insight meditation under someone whose name is not mentioned in the

autobiography, but who was ‘reputed to be a saint’ (Ñāṇatusita and Hecker, 2008, 27).

Meditation was not ignored by British scholars at the end of the nineteenth-

century. It was simply inaccessible to them. Even if it existed, as it did to some extent in

Burma, it was limited on both sides. From the local side, it was practised in remote

locations, not accessible to the laity, and considered to be an advanced and even

hazardous affair. On the British side, it was unlikely that missionaries and

representatives of the colonial administration would engage in such religious activity in

the first place. The case for scholars based in Britain was even worse; they had even

fewer opportunities to meet with Buddhist teachers or practitioners, at least until the

time of Gueth and Bennett.

It was only in 1910 that Rhys Davids published his translation of a text that is

now considered the locus classicus of Theravada meditation: the mahāsatipaṭṭhāna

sutta, (the Setting Up Of Mindfulness, Rhys Davids, 1910) but as I suggest below, this

was only after the practice of meditation had already arrived in England from Burma

with the pioneering Allan Bennett (Ananda Mettayya).

Ignoring Meditation (2): magic and occultism

As we shall see more clearly below, Buddhist meditation was not gaining much

popularity at the beginning of the twentieth-century, even when it began to be available

through the work of the first Western Buddhist monks. To understand the reasons for

this we need to explore how the term ‘meditation’ was charged with new connotations

outside scholarly circles.

Unlike academic scholars, Theosophists felt more at ease creating a fabricated

notion of authentic Eastern meditation even without direct contact with it. This

approach might have been exactly what distanced responsible academics from the idea

of ‘meditation’ which in Occultists’ imagination was associated with magic, trance and

mystical practices. The founders of Theosophy, Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel

Olcott, popularized the Eastern mysticism of India and Tibet, and later advocated


Buddhism in particular as the most promising living religion to solve the spiritual

problems of the modern world. No doubt Theosophy made significant contributions to

the Victorian imagination of the East as a source of mysterious knowledge. Its version

of Buddhism, however, was more informed by romantic imagination than by real

experience.8 The contested Mahatma Letters of the early 1880s say nothing about

meditative training, but gradually the idea of meditation appears in later writings of

Blavatsky (1893), where it was mainly described in two ways: (a) a magical feat by

which, for example, ‘Dhyani-Buddhas create their celestial sons’ (Vol 2, 122), or (b) a

state achieved by the Buddha during which ‘no worldly phenomena on the physical

plane must be allowed to enter’ (Vol 3, 385). On a similar note, the mystical leader,

magician and occultist Aleister Crowley recalls that his friend Allan Bennett, who had

been a member of a number of esoteric societies including the Hermetic Order of the

Golden Dawn, practiced meditation in England to the extent of gaining magical powers

(in Harris, 1998). In that Occult context, magic was understood as the ability to control

external spiritual forces by the will of the magician.9 After Bennett had ordained as

Ananda Metteyya and learned Buddhist meditation in Burma he dismissed his first

experiences as unimportant breathing tricks (in Harris, 1998).

The association of ‘meditation’ with iddhi, magical powers and super-mundane

forms of knowledge, is not foreign to traditional Buddhism, and this may be why it was

looked upon favourably in Theosophy.10

Yet, this association was exactly what

8 The ‘Mahatma Letters’ supposedly written to Blavatsky and Olcott by Tibetan masters

between 1880 and 1884 were considered a fraud already in 1885 in a report by the Society

of Psychical Research (Hodgson et al., 1885). For a more recent discussion see Brauen et

al. (2004).

9 For a good overview of magic in Theosophy see chapter 10 of ‘Defining Magic’ (Otto and

Stausberg, 2014). The chapter includes the entry ‘Magic’ from the Theosophical Glossary;

See also the letters of Helena Blavatsky (2003).

10 For example, one of the earliest books titled Meditation was published in America by a

Theosophical publishing house, probably around 1907 (Mitchell). No year of publication

is mentioned in this book, but other titles in the same series were published around 1907.


disenchanted rational intellectuals and scholars at the turn of the century. Their version

of Buddhism was of a rational and scientific religion. 11

To take a well studied example, Dhammapāla’s presentation to the World

Parliament of Religions of 1893, before he allegedly learned to meditate from reading

the satipaṭṭhāna, focused on the rational and scientific nature of this religion rather than

its meditative practices (see McMahan, 2004). While today the cultural construct of

meditation sits well within scientific discourse, this was not the case in 1893.

Dhammapāla must have known the association of Theravāda meditation and iddhi,

which did not lend itself as the first topic for a lecture to an American liberal and

rational audience.

Even as late as 1911 an article in the Buddhist Review echoes the tension

between meditation as magic and a more serious approach to Buddhist practice that

must begin with perfecting ‘Right Understanding’ and morality (The Buddhist Review,

1911, p.309). Its author, Dr. E.R. Rost, describes how people asked him during lectures

on Buddhism to give practical lessons in meditation, believing ‘that the trances could be

attained by some device which they thought could be taught like a conjuring trick.’ (The

Buddhist Review, 1911, p.300). This points to a common misunderstanding of

meditation as a way for quickly achieving unworldly states of trance, and Rost does

everything in his writing to distance himself from such aspirations. He suggests, instead,

that contemplation and morality are far more important.

11 The distinction between rational academics and mystics may echo a traditional Theravada

distinction between scholar monks and meditation monks, although the dichotomy is less

pronounced in Buddhism and there is certainly no logical contradiction between the two

approaches. For Buddhists analytical study in the spirit of abhidharma, rational

philosophy and careful investigation of one’s mental states are compatible with beliefs that

meditative practices lead to super-natural powers and mystical discoveries. The

combination is perhaps most pronounces in Tibetan Buddhism that seems to encourage

both analytical study and esoteric meditative practices. In other words, there is no apriori

reason that rationality and meditation could not cohabit. However, as the idea of

meditation was appropriated early on by Theosophists, it took extra conviction on the side

of those critical of Occultism before they could accept that meditation is of value.


This begins to explain why Ananda Metteyya’s efforts to disseminate a new

understanding of Buddhist meditative practices generally failed. Following his

ordination in 1901 Metteyya instantly adopted a missionary model, aiming to transplant

Buddhism in England through local organization, distribution of texts, and local lay

supporters. His missionary activity enjoyed the financial support of a local wealthy

Burmese woman, Mrs. M. M. Hla Oung, who also funded his later visit to England

(Humphreys, 1937). His model of activity was the Christian mission and involved

printed material, indigenous (i.e., British) enthusiasts and, eventually, a visit linked with

an establishment of an institute: The Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland.12

Returning to London in 1908 he brought with him not only a new attitude towards

Buddhism – that of an active participant, not a scholarly observer – but also a better

informed view of meditation. His account of Buddhist meditation was the first manual-

like text to arrive in the West, predating and, perhaps, encouraging the translation of the

mahāsatipaṭṭhāna sutta by Rhys Davids in 1910. 13

Rhys Davids surely met Metteyya as

the former was the first president of the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

What was included in his pioneering text on meditation? It opens with

emphasizing the applied nature of Buddhism: ‘these are things to be done, not

speculated upon; and only the one who practises can obtain the fruits of meditation’

(Metteyya, 1929, 279 italics original). He then surveys various forms of traditional

Theravāda meditation, the Brahma Vihara, the Three Recollections and, finally, what

we may call today ‘mindfulness’ or ‘insight meditation’ but at the time was rendered as

‘reflection’ and ‘analysis’. This technique requires systematically identifying one’s own

negative ‘tendencies’ and changing them gradually by developing ‘mental concentration

on saṅkhāras of an opposite nature’ (241). For example, if one wants to overcome anger

or cruelty, one can devote a definite time every day for ‘meditation on thoughts of pity

12 Imitating the Christian mission was a tactic adopted elsewhere in Buddhist Asia in that

period; see Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988).

13 It was published in the journal A∴A∴. with a slight change in title: The Culture of Mind. As

mentioned to me in an email by the Rupert Gethin on 14th January 2013, there exists a

1908 printed copy of this text. It was then reproduced in 1929 after Metteyya’s death in a

book titled The Religion of Burma and Other Papers, published by the Theosophical

Society in India, from which I cite in this article (Metteyya, 1911, 1929).


and love’ (242). The entire process is then compared to the operation of a complex

steam engine of a ship. But the most important aspect of this essay that stands in

contrast with Western literature on Buddhism at the time was the obvious focus on

practical advice for doing meditation. Certainly referring to his own experience, he

writes: ‘You sit down to meditate on love, for instance; and in half a minute or so you

find you are thinking about what someone said the day before yesterday. So it always is

at first’ (256); he then adds practical advice on how to make this process easier –

referring to time, posture, and place for meditation practice, including some rather

technical details on choosing a venue. Further on he explains ‘mindfulness’ as in the

mahā-satipaṭṭhāna sutta (which he calls ‘the Great Reflection’): ‘Whatever you are

doing, just observe and make mental note of it, being careful to understand what you see

that it is possessed of the three characteristics of Sorrow, Impermanence, and Lack of an

Immortal Principle or soul’ (267-7). Compared with earlier depiction of meditation as a

contemplation of a pious topic, Metteyya offers a structured, detailed, and nuanced

overview which is clearly based on practical experience and aims at personal

transformation. This is far from the idea of meditation as magical trance.

Metteyya was a pioneer in that he was the first to bring practical knowledge of

meditation to the West, knowledge based on direct contact with traditional teaching

transmitted not for academic or philosophical study, but for practical application of

changing one’s mental states and cultivating suitable conditions for achieving the goal

of the Buddhist path to liberation. Given his efforts, his failure is remarkable. The

Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland and its Journal The Buddhist Review

continued to operate in their own right as Metteyya returned to Burma after 5 months,

leaving behind mixed feelings and significant financial debt. He was praised for his

writing and intellect but some internal critics wrote openly that Metteyya failed to

influence ‘cultured London’ (Edward Greenly in Humphreys, 1937, 24-25).14

The Buddhist Review, which was the main record of that visit and the main voice

for Metteyya’s English reference group, remained completely silent on the subject of

14 Metteyya was ill and his stay in England made his chronic asthma worse. He was treated with

heroin and on top of it had to follow a set of complex monastic rules that made unrealistic

demands on his well intentioned hosts. For example he needed two houses because he

could not stay in a house where his female cook was staying. He could not handle money,

and therefore could not travel on his own (Humphreys, 1937).


meditation, focusing instead on public talks, debates and doctrinal discussions.

Christmas Humphreys (1937) does not mention the meditation manual in his account of

the history of Buddhism in England which means that it probably was not published by

the Buddhist Society. The Buddhist Review does not record any event in which

meditation was actually taught and did not reprint the manual either. It was reprinted in

1911 in a non-Buddhist journal, The Equinox, which belonged to an organization lead

by Aleister Crowley that had split from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – a fact

that testifies for the type of soils that were initially ready for such cross cultural sowing.

Ignoring meditation (3): social aspects

Rost’s intellectual elitism, which claims that the masses want meditation that is nothing

but a ‘conjuring trick’, represents the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland

quite well. The society served as gatekeepers and did not let meditation pass through.

The educated elite sought to solve a different problem that meditation had nothing to do

with: how to sustain and justify morality in an emerging non-theistic culture. The

rhetoric used on the pages of the Buddhist Review suggests that personal transformation

through esoteric mental practices was less important than promoting and justifying

Buddhist ethics and rational philosophy.

As another writer put it in 1911,

Buddhism asks from its followers not faith but understanding... its teaching is in

lurid contrast with that of the other great religions. ... [it] asks men to accept that

which they have tried and proved’ and, based on reason, it provides ‘the scientific

answer to the great question ‘why live a moral life?’ (The Buddhist Review Vol3:4

Nov-Dec 1911 p. 313-15)

Meditation was perceived to be foreign to this project. On the other hand the

American Theosophist Henry Bedinger Mitchell writes that ‘the subject of meditation is

of primary importance to every genuine student of occultism’ (1907, 3). In England, the

educated Buddhists of the first two decades of the twentieth-century considered moral

ideas in a rational way, wrote articles, discussed them and formed learned societies.

They tried to distance themselves from what they perceived as the tricks of Occultism

and mysticism and promoted a moral rationalistic and scientific religious movement.


One may wonder, however, why meditation did not ride on the wave of the self-

help movement of that period. Given the prominence of self-help literature, and given

Metteyya’s description of meditation as a means for psychological transformation, the

two seem to match perfectly. An answer to this may lie in the stratification of British

society at the time. Indeed, self-improvement by means of self-talk and ‘psychological’

training was not foreign to English culture.15

The Talisman, New Thought Journal, or

Applied Psychology were all devoted to ‘to practical psychology and self development

through self-knowledge standing for health, happiness and success.’ (Applied

Psychology Jan-Feb 1928 Vol XXII no 118). The journals regularly presented stories of

personal transformation of such kind. ‘The power of personality’, wrote the editor of the

Talisman in 1904, is to be developed through mental practice and controlling one’s

thoughts and habits through ‘constant mental treatment’ (The Talisman, Vol2:20 Dec

1904 p.298 & No 2:14 June 1904 p.204). However, these publications catered to an

altogether different audience than The Buddhist Review. The Editor of the New Thought

wrote in 1904 that his appeal is chiefly to the working classes.

The work-a-day world, to men and women who are not scholars, but those who

have a strong desire to know more of their own selves, what they are, how they

may forward ... They have not been fortunate, have not gained all they would

desire, have not been blessed with either healthy bodies or purses. (The New

Thought Journal and Occult Review No 20 Dec 1904, p. 293).

The Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland could not have been a better

example of the opposite; a learned Society, headed by distinguished scholars, ex-Crown

Service personnel and supported by doctors, and others of independent means. When

Professor E. J. Mills, the Chairman, addressed a group of 300 supporters in Dore

Gallery 35 at New Bond Street in 1912 and talked about a Buddhism that ‘can conquer

human suffering,’ he was clearly making a general social and ethical statement and not

referring to the particular misfortunes of his audience (The Buddhist Review ‘The

Buddhist Review annual report’, Vol4:3 1912 p.191-126). While the Talisman’s reader

aspired to spiritually evolve and escape poverty and ill health, the Buddhist Society

member Mrs. C. B. Hunter, who had just returned from her self-funded visit to Burma

15 For an excellent discussion see Thomson (2006).


and America, was impressed with the people of Burma who were not ‘busy trying to

wrest all the material benefits from their fellow men’ and reminisced of a Buddhist

country that would make its religion ‘a joyous, happy, humane affair, without ambition

for great wealth.’ (209).

The Buddhist Society, influenced by traditional Theravāda thought, perceived

meditation as an elitist activity, fitting only for those who perfected the other elements

of the Eight-fold Path. It was therefore more urgent to discuss philosophy and morality,

which correspond to pañña and sῑla in the Eight-fold Path, than to enter the realm of

meditative trance. Metteyya’s essay actually undermines this notion, at least in part, as

it offers meditation which has immediate and tangible benefits for, for example, states

of anger or cruelty. This was more in line with notions promoted by the emerging mass

meditation movement in Burma, which brought meditation to laity and with fewer

prerequisites than before (see Braun, 2008; Jordt, 2007). But Metteyya’s practical

approach did not cohere with either the image of a mysterious affair for advanced yogis,

or the image of rational morality that suited the members of the Buddhist Society.

Once Metteyya returned to Burma, he was never formally invited back, and the

Buddhist society continued to operate independently, and successfully, by its local

members without advancing or adopting the practice of meditation.16

Meditation was

therefore available in Britain by1908, but in reality it did not catch on until the Buddhist

Society declined after World War I and new institutions, new individuals, and new

social conditions entered the stage.

Spirituality and Inner Experience of the Deep

While the Buddhist Society gradually declined in popularity during the 1920s, two other

organizations grew in England. Both had historical connections with the Theosophical

Society, a fact that may explain the more practical approach to Buddhism and the

relaxed approach to meditation. The Mahabodhi Society was headed by Dharmapāla,

whose initial intention was to set up a permanent monastery in London. Its journal, The

British Buddhist, was first published in October 1926. The Buddhist Lodge was founded

16 Only one early attempt to learn meditation in an organized manner is recorded. Humphries

mentions in passing that in 1909 the arts and crafts sculpture Alexander Fisher was

interested in forming a practice group, but his efforts failed. See Humphreys (1967).


as an official branch of the Theosophical Society in 1924, only to become independent

in 1925. Its aims were ‘to study, teach and attempt to live the fundamental principles of

Buddhism’ (Humphreys, 1937, 53). In 1926, Buddhism in England was formally

launched as its magazine.

The Lodge was more practice-oriented than the old and scholarly Buddhist

Society, and included meditation from its very first moment. Its founder, Christmas

Humphries (1937), recalls that he first encountered Buddhism when he was only 17 and

found that he could ‘with ease sit in a crossed legged position for meditation’ (46). One

may recallthe image of the sitting Buddha in The Light of Asia:for Humphries and

Arnold meditation was embodied in a posture even before it was seriously understood

and practiced.

Humphries’ encounter with meditation was part of his search for a spiritual

substitute for Christianity in the face of his personal tragedy. He had lost his older

brother in the War only a year before, and with it lost his faith in Jesus and God

(Humphreys, 1978, 31-32). His quest for meaning and solace led him to Buddhism

although not as an abstract moral philosophy but as a way of living and a way to

alleviate his personal pain. For him, meditation was a way to enact Buddhism. When he

founded the Buddhist Lodge only a few years later, it had a shrine room with a place for

members to meditate (Almond, 1988, p.7).

The journal of the Mahabodhi Society, the British Buddhist, also voiced new

interest in meditation; in 1927 Charles Spurgeon Medhurst who returned from six-week

visit to Ceylon wrote that ‘for the spiritual Buddhist the true secret is “meditation”’ (The

British Buddhist November 10, 1927). His understanding of the practice, however, was

still very much embedded in the Christian sense of the term, using it as ‘reflection’, and

‘thinking over’, a pious idea.17

In a book published by the Buddhist Lodge in 1928,

titled What is Buddhism?, we find a couple of pages dedicated to The Four Meditations

which included a more nuanced understanding: meditation is explained as ‘constant

attitudes of mind rather than a subject of thought’ ([no author] 1928, 138). If this book

reflected the interest in meditative practices amongst the Lodge members, meditation

17 ‘By meditation on any virtue we become that virtue. If I daily think of Truth, I shall become a

living embodiment of truth... This is the secret of Buddhism – the art of contemplation, the

assimilation of every virtue by meditation.’ (Charles Spuregeon Medhurst, The British

Buddhist Nov. 1927, 10).


can be said to have existed, but in a still very marginal manner. Another significant

point expressed in that book came immediately after the discussion of meditation:

‘mysticism is as much a part of Buddhism as of all other presentations of the Truth.’

(p.143). Interest in mysticism may, of course, be attributed to an already established

Western fascination with the Orient. What is novel here is the tolerance of this direction

within the small Buddhist community in Britain, which previously favoured rationality

and morality.

A few things happened between the Wars that may have afforded the interest in

meditation and its acceptance. At the end of the 1920s, D. T. Suzuki started publishing

his series of essays on Zen Buddhism, offering a new perspective for Westerners who

had been predominantly influenced by Theravāda Buddhism up to that point. His first

series of Essays in Zen Buddhism contained chapters on ‘practical Methods of Zen

Instruction’ and ‘The Meditation Hall and the Ideals of the Monkish Discipline’

(Suzuki, 1927). His Introduction to Zen Buddhism (1934) explains:

Zen ... most strongly and persistently insists on an inner spiritual experience...

Personal experience is strongly set against authority and objective revelation, and

as the most practical method of attaining spiritual enlightenment the followers of

Zen propose the practice of Dhyana [meditation], known as zazen in Japanese. (34)

The book was also cited in Concentration and Meditation by the Buddhist

Lodge (Humphreys, 1935) and in 1936, Suzuki visited England and met with Buddhist

Lodge’s members – an event that is recorded as being impactful (Humphreys, 1967,

41).18

While none of those who promoted meditation in inter-war Britain were simply

direct disciples of the Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky, Theosophy continues to serve as

a background influence. The drive to promote Buddhism as a global and universal

18 Suzuki was a Zen student of Soyen Shaku who presented in the world Parliament of Religions

in 1893. While Soyen could not speak English, his student did and was sent to spend some

time with Paul Carus, the American Theosophist and Buddhist advocate (see Coleman,

2001). Only after his return to Japan, he started his prolific writing career that would

influence the English-speaking world. Suzuki was an educated layman, preaching about

what used to be primarily a monastic practice. There is evidence that he was not only

influenced by Theosophy though Carus but was a Theosophist himself (Algeo, 2007).


movement, the emphasis on spirituality and, in the case of Humphries and the Buddhist

Lodge, even a belief in personal immortality, can all be traced back to Theosophy.

Openness to meditation was natural in this context, as it was in Theosophy itself. It

acknowledged the existence of a deeper and most significant realm that can be touched

and transformed through meditative practice but not through mere rational thinking.

What made the difference was the availability of more accurate teachings on meditation

from Asian sources and Asian visitors to Britain. And most significantly, there was a

sense of urgency to develop inner strength in the face of major political and social

changes. As noted above, personal development and self-help were an existing

phenomenon in England since the self-help movement of the mid-nineteenth-century,

but the growing sense of helplessness in the face of political and economic uncertainly

at the end of the 1920s afforded a search for inner work and spiritual strength. It is

reasonable to imagine that the circumstances in which Humphreys discovered, or better

imagined, Buddhist meditation after losing a family member in the War were common

to others.

The retreat to the inner space of meditation after the War, with its implicit

promises for serenity and transcendence, may serve as evidence to support the thesis

that ‘the subjective turn’ was accelerated by the meltdown of social and political

institutions during the twentieth-century. In Peter Berger’s words, ‘the individual’s

experience of himself becomes more real to him than his experience of the objective

social world. Therefore, the individual seeks to find his “foothold” in reality in himself

rather than outside himself’ (Berger et al., 1973, 78). What is considered true for the

counterculture movements of the second half of the twentieth-century was perhaps

beginning to emerge as early as 1920 in reaction to the horrors of the War that went

hand in hand with a decline in Christian faith. Meditation was understood in this context

as a means for developing inner spirituality and touching the depth of existence which

rationality cannot touch.

Mind control and self-mastery

While the utility of meditation can be interpreted in many ways – for example,

supporting health, connecting to an inner creativity, transcending into cosmic realms

etc. – in the 1930 one ideal repeatedly appears in popular literature: meditation is a

technique for controlling one’s own mind. This is not unreasonable in a period when


external circumstances seemed beyond individuals’ control. Of course, the notion of

controlling the mind is also found in Buddhism as in the metaphors of mindfulness as

taming an elephant and so on, but it should be noted that above all other aspect of

Buddhist practice this conception was most present in the beginning of the 1930s. In a

way, this was a natural continuation of what was described in the previous section, only

that in the 1930s the interest significantly grew and took new forms.

In November 1930, certain members of the Lodge formed a Meditation Circle,

because they felt the existing activities failed to satisfy their spiritual needs and wanted

a ‘heart’ as well as a ‘head’ (Humphreys, 1937, 83). The membership and structure of

the group was somewhat similar to that of other esoteric societies and was confined to

close members and friends of the Lodge. At its height it had about 70 members. An

article on setting up meditation groups was published in 1935 and included guidance on

carefully choosing members, to create a sense of ‘general brotherhood’ (Humphreys,

1935, 222). The book Concentration and Meditation (Humphreys, 1935) was a direct

result of the inner circle experiment. Not only it is a revealing document on the

meditative culture developed in the confines of the Buddhist Lodge, but it indicates the

extent to which meditation was becoming a legitimate and popular subject. A second

edition was issued in the midst of WWII and at least eleven editions and reprints were

issued after that (Humphreys, 1967). When Christmas Humphries reflects back, he

recalls that ‘in the early thirties there was a sudden spate of books on “mind-

development” of every kind’ and adds critically that they all had one aim in common,

‘to enable the practitioner to score off his rivals, in business, love or social climbing’

(preface to the 3rd edition. 1968, v). Indeed the 1930s saw a surge of interest in

meditation at large, and in particular in the subject of control. While the Buddhist

Review, which was discontinued in 1922, was almost silent about meditation, every

volume of Buddhist in England since 1929 had something on it. A piece titled ‘Bhavana

or Mind Purification’ reports on a discussion on ‘mind control’ from June 1929 which

indicates ‘that the keenest interest in the subject prevails amongst our members’

(Buddhist in England 1929 July p. 70). Given what we know about the history of

meditation in England up until this point, it is perhaps not surprising that the report

concluded that knowledge of how to practice mind-control was scarce, and therefore the

readers were asked to write to the editor and offer ‘reliable information as to the best


methods of practical Yoga19

which are harmless and are productive of good results’.

This use of Yoga again reflects an interest in control – while Hatha Yoga is mastery

over the body, meditation is mastery over the mind (p.70).

A long series of articles followed. A translation of Ledi Sayadaw’s Vipassanā

Dῑpani was presented in 1930 with the translator explaining that the text is primarily

relevant for meditation practitioners because ‘before the meditator begins upon his task,

it is necessary that he should know how and through what this Soul-theory is formed

and maintained’ (Buddhism in England, Jan 1930 p.12). Later that year Christmas

Humphries wrote three articles on meditation, dealing with the three last items of the

Eight-fold Path. These are sammā vāyāma, sammā sati and sammā samādhi, which

Humphries confusingly translates as ‘thought’, ‘concentration’ and ‘meditation’

respectively.20

Setting aside Humphries’s inaccurate representation of traditional

Buddhist meditation, what is novel about his articles is the attempt to give practical

advice on how to meditate:

Perhaps the easiest way of beginning is to learn to think of nothing, to empty the

mind of thought... Sleep is often the embarrassing result of such an effort, but try

again. When the mind can be held in subjection for a while without the intrusion of

any thought (not even the thought "How clever I am to be able to think of

nothing"!) learn to think of something, and only that one thing. Whether it be the

chair in which you are sitting or the ring upon your hand is no matter. The

important thing is to think of nothing else, to resist the tendency of the mind to

wander off on a train of thought with the object as its starting point. (p.41)

Another piece on meditation by ‘a novice’ appears in the December 1930 issue

of Buddhism in England (p.142). It explains that the purpose of meditation is ‘to

understand thoroughly ... the real nature of the mind’ and adds that until this is achieved

we cannot expect to be ‘masters of ourselves’ or to put the mind ‘under control’ (ibid).

In January 1931 Mr. and Mrs. Humphries announced that visitors were invited to the

19 In this report meditation and mind control are synonymous, and are considered a type of yoga,

which is as a matter of fact technically correct. In Indian culture and in Buddhism yoga is

a general name for spiritual practice.

20 A common translation today is effort, mindfulness and concentration (Gethin, 1998, 81). See

above for how Rhys Davids translated the last two terms in 1881.


Lodge Headquarter every second Monday evening and that during the meetings

‘Elementary instruction in meditation will also be given’ (Buddhism in England Jan.

1931 p.179). More public talks on the subject were available through the Mahabodhi

Society in London, which advertised in the 1931 volume of the British Buddhist a list of

future public talks on meditation by Dr. A. P. de Zoysa and by the Ven. Vajirañāṇa.

Since 1928 the Mahabodhi Society supported three Ceylonese monks who

settled in London with the hope of establishing a more permanent monastic community.

Ven. Vajirañāṇa was one of them, and his interest in meditation found its way to a PhD

thesis he wrote at Cambridge University between 1933 and 1936. The thesis, which is a

large compendium of almost all types of meditation techniques in Theravāda was

published as book but only much later (Vajirañāṇa, 1975); however, a more immediate

influence on the British understanding of meditation came though his public and private

talks and his intellectual relationship with Grace Lounsbery whose book on meditation

was published by Kegan Paul (Lounsbery, 1935).

Lounsbery’s publication was not only the first book-length accurate exposition

of Theravāda meditation in English, it was also divided into chapters on theory and

practice, the latter of which was explicitly designed for the needs of Westerners. She

was an American who settled in Paris and kept tight connections with a number of

Ceylonese intellectuals and practitioners including Dr. Cassius Pereira, Dr. Fernando, a

forest meditation lay-person named Mahinda and, as stated above, Ven Vajirañāṇa.

While the rhetoric of self-control is perhaps less prominent in her book, her forward

does allude to the socio-political situation, stating that meditation as a means of spiritual

research should attract those who are ‘discouraged by the failure of materialism and the

burden of imposed dogmas’ (p.xv).

In December 1931 Buddhism in England started to publish a column at the end

of each issue under the title ‘the meditation hour’, that continued well into the 1940s,

even after the journal changed its name to The Middle Way in 1943. Another relevant

contribution at the time included an extract from D.T. Suzuki’s article on the practice of

meditation according to the Chinese master Pai-chang, which included very detailed

instructions on how to find the correct posture and how to adjust consciousness. From

the introduction to this article we also learn that a Japanese monk named Guido Ishida

visited London in the previous year and gave meditation instructions (Buddhism in

England Jan. 1931 p.176).


A medicine for spiritual debility

A 1941 editorial in Buddhism in England states that ‘we hear much to-day of the abuse

of power’ and continues ‘let us help to restore spiritual power to its throne, [but] not in

the seat of the vain usurping ego who would add to the ignorance which has plunged the

world in darkness.’ (vol. 16:4). The rhetoric that promoted Buddhism as pure

rationalism was now replaced with rhetoric which favoured spiritual work that touched

the deeper and hidden domains of the psyche that could not be controlled by rational

thinking. The rhetoric of self-mastery and mind control meets here the emerging grand

discourse of psychoanalysis that gained popularity in the English-speaking world.

Meditation was now perceived as a way to enter the hidden spheres of the psyche, and

to change them. Another article from 1941 titled Right Meditation describes meditation

as a way to clean the psyche, but in a spiritual way that transcends concepts and words.

The discourse of religious rationality and scientific Buddhism was turned on its head:

‘...we learn much in such moments, much that takes time to percolate through the

reasoning mind, and that should not be over-analysed. For this is to attempt to translate

a spiritual experience into a mental concept’ (Buddhism in England Vol 16:4 p. 79).

Rationality failed and the world-in-crisis hence required a different approach to alleviate

suffering. The rising popularity of Psychoanalysis was, to a large extent, a product of

the circumstances as well. Unconscious, deep seated, emotional forces drive human

behaviour in a way that cannot be fully controlled – as the events in Europe

demonstrated. Meditation was thought to have the potential to reach these realms and

change them, much as therapy changes the cause of illness:

Medicines are taken to assist this [healing] process rather than to alleviate the

symptoms. In the same way our reaching-out towards psychological or religious

‘medicines’ indicates an awareness of ill-health at deeper levels, a spiritual

debility, a psyche clogged with waste matter, causing restlessness, dissatisfaction

and depression (ibid).

Buddhist circles in Britain gradually opened up to meditation during the interwar

period. The quote from 1941 clearly points to a conceptual link between meditation and

psychological therapy, both conceived of as means to healing ‘spiritual debility’,

dissatisfaction and depression. This can be seen as a variation on the theme of mind-

control that has set the tone during the early 1930s. On the theoretical level, meditation


promised control in a world that offered social and political instability. It was a way for

Buddhists to imagine the possibility of overcoming very tangible miseries by making a

‘subjective turn’ to the psyche itself. At the same time, the psychoanalytical concept of

the psyche as irrational and dangerous territory was gaining popularity in the English

speaking world. Rationality and ethics did not cease being important, but they were

rivalled by the powers of the unconscious. Taming the mind was therefore paramount

for both the sanity of the individual and the welfare of society.

On the practical level, meditation was possible because it was now available

from a number of sources. Ven Vajirañāṇa was a meditating monk residing in London;

There were books and articles on meditation by Suzuki and Lounsbery; and the leaders

of the two main Buddhist organizations, Dharmapala and Christmas Humphreys, had

long been soft to the idea of meditation through their Theosophical background. Finally,

a contribution was made by other occasional visitors from Asia who were educated and

operating within the newly emerging mass meditation movement there.21

Conclusion

Nineteenth-century scholarship was either blind to meditation or unable to make sense

of it with its conceptual tools. Perhaps, as Sharf has argued, meditative experience was

never important in traditional Buddhism in the first place. However, it would be one

step too far to argue that the practice of meditation was never part of the Buddhist

tradition that the scholars endeavoured to translate. It was more a case of it not being

readily available to them, because it was not the type of knowledge that is typically

transmitted through the written word. The interest in textual records pertaining to

meditation followed the migration of meditators, not the migration of scriptures. The

English translation of the mahāsatipaṭṭhāna sutta followed Metteyya’s visit to England

not the other way around.

Of course, meditation as a living tradition was marginal even within Theravāda

Buddhism at the time, as the first encounters of Bennett and Gueth with Buddhist Asia

shows. Developments and reforms in Burma enabled them to study it and made the

migratory process possible in the first place. However, it is clear that Bennett and Gueth

21 The movement in Burma is documented by Jordt (2007) and to some extent by Braun (2008).

For Sri Lanka see Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988). For Japan see Sharf (1993).


left Europe already determined to enact a particular Buddhist practice that involved

‘meditation’ whatever the term meant to them at the time. Their meeting with

Theosophy, Occultism and The Light of Asia afforded this direction and created the

initial enthusiasm.

The complex story of gradual introduction and phased acceptance goes beyond a

single narrative of Buddhist Modernism. There was clearly more than one modern

discourse involved, and the term meditation gradually evolved and acquired different

shades of meaning within these discourses.

The word meditation was first introduced as a translation of dhyāna probably

because of its religious connotations. We can say that the choice of the word in 1853

was almost arbitrary and previous scholars indeed had described similar concepts with

different words. Nineteeth-century scholars noted that the Buddhist concept in question

was not exactly meditation in the Christian sense, but could not fully explain it

positively. At that stage no one really knew what dyāna practice entailed, except that it

was ‘a kind of abstract meditation’. To be reminded, in the Light of Asia, meditation is

not much more than what Buddhists do when they sit crossed legged.

At the turn of the century Theosophists and other mystics believed meditation

had something to do with magic, perhaps relying on a particular association between

dhyāna and iddhi within Buddhism. But simultaneously, Buddhists and scholars who

wished to promote a version of Buddhism that aligned with science, morality and

rationality, ignored it altogether. I have suggested that the lack of scholarly interest was

initially due to a lack of contact with the living practice of meditation and later to a wish

to distance Buddhism from Occultism and magic.

Ananda Metteyya’s effort to import meditation was unique and premature. He

presented a practical, psychological and technical understanding of meditation, but his

British contemporaries ignored this for the most part. During the 1910s meditation

continued to be seen in the public’s imagination as a state of trance, and while

theosophists had nothing against that, Buddhist intellectuals frowned upon the search

for such a ‘conjuring trick’.

Only after WWI do we see a change of interest that evolved together with a new

understanding of meditation as an exploration of inner spiritual experience. Articles

from the 1920s indicate an acknowledgement of a deeper realm that can be transformed

by meditation, but not by rational thinking. Calling the 1930s the ‘boom years’ for


meditation would be an exaggeration, perhaps, but there was definitely a growth of

interest that came with another shift in meaning. This time the term meditation was

widely associated with mind-control and mind-development. In what was apparently a

collapsing political and social world, inner space became an attractive, and probably the

only, arena for exercising control.

In the 1940s the association between meditation and inner exploration took a

psychological turn. The practice of meditation was seen as a means for touching deeper

and hidden domains of the psyche, and a medical language was introduced into the

discourse, reflecting the influence of psychoanalysis. Meditation came to be talked

about as a spiritual medicine for cleaning a psyche which is clogged by waste matter.

The practice of such meditation transcends rationality and its limited powers. It goes

deeper into the hidden realms of the self in order to transform it.

Our investigation stops here, but the story does not. Meditation as a form of

psychological healing continued to fascinate Western minds throughout the second half

of the twentieth-century. The term continued to evolve and other narratives converged

to create what is now a complex linguistic and cultural entity. Meditation is now seen as

a psychological technique, justified by rational and scientific research, a medicine, a

means for spiritual change, transcending the ordinary mind, and at the same time a way

to reconnect with the ordinary (as in mindfulness). Some of this is already captured in

McMahan’s work (2004, 2008), and some would certainly require further research.

References

1928. What is Buddhism: An answer from the Western Point of View. Buddhist Lodge

(no author), London.

Algeo, A.S., 2007. "Beatrice Lane Suzuki: An American Theosophist in Japan." Quest

95, 13-17.

Almond, P., 1988. The British Discovery of Buddhism. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge.

Arnold, S.E., 1879. The Light of Asia, London.

Bala, A., 2006. The Dialogue of Civilization in the Birth of Modern Science. Palgrave

Macmillan, New York.

Bassnett, S., 2002. Translation Studies. Routledge, London.


Baumann, M., 2002. "Buddhism in Europe, past present, prospects", in: Prebish, C.S.

(Ed.), Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. University Of California Press,

Berkeley and Los Angeles pp. 85-105.

Berger, P., Berger, B., Kellner, H., 1973. The Homeless Mind: modernization and

consciousness. Random House, New York.

Bivins, R., 2007. Alternative Medicine? Oxford University Press., Oxford

Blavatsky, H.P., 1893. The Secret Doctrine: the sythesis of science religion and

philosophy. The Aryan Theosophical Press, Point Loma, CA.

Blavatsky, H.P., 2003. The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky. The Theosophical Society of

America, Wheaton, Illinois.

Bluck, R., 2006. British Buddhism: teachings, practice and development. Routledge,

New York.

Brauen, M., Koller, R., Vock, M., 2004. Dreamworld Tibet: Western Illusions. Orchid

Press.

Braun, E. "Ledi Sayadaw, Abhidhamma, and the Developmnet of Modern Insight

Meditation Movement in Burma." PhD Thesis, Harvard, 2008.

Campbell, D., 2001. Arabian Medicine and Its Influence on the Middle Ages.

Routledge.

Coleman, J.W., 2001. The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient

Tradition. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Cook, H.J., 2007. Matters of exchange: commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch

Golden Age. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Franklin, J.J., 2008. The Lotus and the Lion: Buddhism and the British Empire. Cornell

University Ithaca and London.

Gethin, R., 1998. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Gombrich, R., 1988. Theravada Buddhism; a Social History from Ancient Benares to

Modern Colombo. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Gombrich, R., Obeyesekere, G., 1988. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri

Lanka. Motilal Banarsidas, Delhi, India.

Hardy, S., 1853. Manual of Buddhism in its modern development. Partrige and Oakley

London.

Harris, E., 1998. Ananda Metteyya: The First British Emissary of Buddhism. Buddhist

Publication Society, Kandy.


Hodgson, B.H., 1829. "Sketch of Buddhism, Derived from the Bauddha Scriptures of

Nipál." Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2

222-257.

Hodgson, R., Gurney, E., Myers, F.W.H., Podmore, F., Sidgwick, H., Sidgwick, M.,

Stack., J.H., 1885. "Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate Phenomena

Connected with the Theosophical Society." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical

Research 3, 201-400.

Humphreys, C., 1935. Concentration and Meditation. Pelikan, London.

Humphreys, C., 1937. The Development of Buddhism in England by Humphreys: being

a history of the Buddhist Movement in London and the Provinces. The Buddhist Lodge

London.

Humphreys, C., 1967. 60 Years of Buddhism in England.

Humphreys, C., 1968. Concentration and Meditation (3rd ed.). Penguin Books, New

York.

Humphreys, C., 1978. Both Sides of the Circle: The Autobiography of Christmas

Humphreys. George Allen and Unwin, London.

Jordt, I., 2007. Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural

Construction of Power. Ohio University Press, Athens.

Lounsbery, G.C., 1935. Buddhist Meditation in the Southern School: Theory and

practice for Westerners. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. LTD, London.

McMahan, D.L., 2004. "Modernity and the Early Discourse of Scientific Buddhism."

Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, 897-933.

McMahan, D.L., 2008. The making of Buddhist Modernism Oxford University Press,

Oxford.

Metteyya, A., 1911. "The Training of Mind." The Equinox I, 28-59.

Metteyya, A., 1929. The Religion of Burma and other papers. Theosophical Publishing

House, Adyar, Madras.

Mitchell, H.B., 1907. Meditation. Quarterly Book Department New York

Mitra, R.j.l., 1878. Buddha Gayá, the hermitage of Sákya Muni. Bengal Secretariat

Press, Calcutta.

Ñāṇatiloka, T., 1920 [1949]. "Mental Culture." The Wheel 394/6, 46-60.

Ñāṇatusita, B., Hecker, H., 2008. The life of Ñāṇatiloka Thera: The Biography of a

Western Buddhist Pioneer. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy.


Otto, B.C., Stausberg, M., 2014. Defining magic: a reader. Routledge, New York.

Owen, A., 2007. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the

Modern. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Porter, N., 1891. Meditation, in: Porter, N. (Ed.), Wester's International Dictionary of

the English Language: comprising the issues of 1864, 1879, 1884. G&C Merriam & co,

Springfield Mass.

Rhys Davids, T.W., 1881. Buddhist Suttas. The Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Rhys Davids, T.W., 1896. Buddhism: The History and Literature of Buddhism, New

York.

Rhys Davids, T.W., 1910. "The Setting-Up of Mindfulness (The Maha Satipatthana

Suttanta)", in: Davids, T.W.R. (Ed.), Dialogues of the Buddha. Vol. 2. The Pali Text

Society, Oxford.

Sharf, R.H., 1993. "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism." History of Religions 33, 1-43.

Sharf, R.H., 1995. "Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience."

Numen 42, 228-283.

Suzuki, D.T., 1927. Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series. Grove Press, New York.

Suzuki, D.T., 1934. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism. Eastern Buddhist Society Kyoto,

Japan.

Swearer, D.K., 2010. The Buddhist World of South East Asia, 2nd ed. State University

of New York Press, New York.

Taylor, C., 1989. Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Harvard

University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Thomson, M., 2006. Psychological subjects: identity, culture, and health in twentieth-

century Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Tweed, T., 1992. The American Encounter With Buddhism 1844-1912, 2nd ed.

University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London.

Vajirañāṇa, M.P., 1975. Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice. Buddhist

Missionary Society, Kuala Lumpur.

Buddhist Meditation in Britain: 1853-1945

Documents