Meditation serves as an important cultivation method of traditional Buddhism but today is no longer confined to Buddhist monasteries. Traditionally, it is simply defined as a method of awakening in the pursuit of the luminous mind of seeing one’s Buddha nature (minngxin jianxing 明心見性), yet, on the contrary, in the modern western world, meditation has begun to be practiced in even more diversified ways and is linked to a great deal of newly emergent scientific research. Through modern expositions, meditation is reconceived as a technology of the self, suited to the modern needs of the human body and mind, which helps modern people face different kinds of mental difficulties in everyday life. In light of this modern transformation of the meaning of meditation, this paper, from the perspective of cultural translation and through an understanding of the developmental course of various types and forms of meditation in the contemporary western world, considers deeply how meditation has been conceived as a reflexive practice of self-identification for modern people in western society. Especially when meditation is implemented in the realm of everyday life, it provides the function of life-guidance of reflexive practice. An individual, by undertaking meditation, a technology of the self, will help themselves produce a new integral self-identity to face everyday life. This paper argues that this kind of meditation, a technology of the self, which originates in eastern Buddhist traditions, has characteristics of self-care that are emphasized in western ethics. For self-identity in western modernity, meditation offers a potential outlet for reflexive practice.
