Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice

Hardback: $80.00
ISBN-13: 9798880702633
Published: April 2026
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Additional Information

360 pages
  • About the Book
  • Everyone knows that meditation is good for your health and wellbeing. However, a percentage of people practicing meditation experience psychotic breaks and related adverse mental and physical side-effects. Are these symptoms of improper practice or an unavoidable part of spiritual cultivation? While contemporary scientific literature is just beginning to document such phenomena, Buddhist communities have for centuries warned practitioners about “meditation sickness,” “wind illness,” “demonic attack” and other potential dangers. Due to language barriers, their important writings have remained virtually unknown in western medical, scientific, and practitioner communities. Here, for the first time, historical and contemporary teachings on the topic from around the Buddhist world have been brought together. The works not only identify these ailments as possible side-effects of meditation practice, but also explain why they arise and how they can be effectively prevented and treated. Meditation Sickness will transform the way we think about meditation in the west.

  • About the Author(s)
    • C. Pierce Salguero, Editor

      C. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He teaches at Penn State University’s Abington College and has been editor-in-chief of Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine since 2016.

    Contributors

    • C. Pierce Salguero
    • Bryan De Notariis
    • Bhikkhu Anālayo
    • Charles DiSimone
    • Eric M. Greene
    • James A. Benn
    • Paul L. Swanson
    • David Carpenter
    • Michael Sheehy
    • Juhn Ahn
    • Leslie E. De Vries
    • Leo Lok
    • Daniel M. Stuart
    • Swe Swe Mon
    • Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
    • Dixuan Chen
    • Francisco Figueroa Medina
    • Trang T. D. Nguyen
    • Céline Coderey
    • Daphne Weber
    • Nathan Jishin Michon
    • Kin Cheung
    • Susannah Deane
    • Ben Philip Joffe
    • Ira Helderman
    • Willoughby Britton
    • David J. Cooper
    • Nathan E. Fisher
    • Jared Lindahl