Using Satipaṭṭhāna bhāvanā to Help Improve the Mental Wellness of LGBTQ People

Abstract

Nowadays, the population of the sexual minority, who are identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ for short), keeps growing. It is reported that in 2005, 8 million, or 3.5% of the USA population claim to be LGBTQ (Fritzges 2008). Accordingly, in China, the figure of male homosexuals in 2002 was assessed to be about 20 million, while the figure of female homosexuals about 10 million (BAO 2012). LGBTQ people are now more accepted by the society than ever before. However, that does not automatically make all LGBTQ people accept their own identities, instead, they would experience shame and guilty related to internalized homophobia, which will deleteriously affect their mental health and overall wellness. The LGBTQ suicide epidemic continues. Hence, it remains a challenge for the contemporary society to attend the emotional and psychological needs of LGBTQ people. The research on psychological treatments for improving the wellness of LGBTQ people, helping them to fully accept their minority sexual orientation identity, is now in the ascendant. Buddhist-derived practices have also been generally introduced to help the wellness of LGBTQ people, for example, mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation (Fritzges 2008), though there remains a paucity of detailed and well-directed studies. This essay will introduce traditional Buddhist meditation, Satipaṭṭhāna bhāvanā, especially, the mindfulness on the body, Kāyānupassanā, as a potential supportive, healing practice for LGBTQ people. Kāyānupassanā will not only serve as psychological treatment, but also a religious practice to affect the mental health of LGBTQ individuals positively. A detailed analysis on Kāyānupassanā would be given. The procedures on how such meditation could be done to improve the perception of self-esteem of LGBTQ people, and to mitigate the negative feelings such as shame and guilty of them would also be discussed.