Beyond the Brain: A Material Approach to the Social Dimensions of Mindfulness in Chinese Chan Buddhist Coffee Meditation in Hong Kong

Abstract

Mindfulness, rooted in the Pali term sati and ancient Indian Buddhist traditions, was secularized in the United States during the late 1970s. This transformation often involved removing Buddhist ethics and cultivation practices, resulting in a form of mindfulness that is widely applicable but ethically unanchored. While this decontextualization has enabled broad adoption, it raises concerns about unintended consequences due to the absence of ethical guidance. Contemporary mindfulness scholarship is primarily dominated by scientific approaches, which tend to frame mindfulness as a neural activity within the human brain. Philosophical critiques argue that this obscures its social dimensions. Although anthropological studies have acknowledged interpersonal interactions, this paper advocates for a broader conception of the “social” that includes material agency. Drawing on the “materiality turn” in religious studies and anthropology, it challenges anthropocentric views by emphasizing the role of material objects in shaping human experience. This study explores how monks and practitioners at the Dharma Drum Mountain Hong Kong Centre (DDMHK) engage with coffee as a co-agent in cultivating mindfulness. Based on nine months of fieldwork, this study examines the practice of coffee meditation in Chinese Chan Buddhism, where the mindful preparation and consumption of hand-drip coffee serve as a meditative practice. The research reveals that mindfulness involves a process of recollection, transitioning from wang nian (distracted thoughts) to zheng nian (present thoughts). To address the challenge of the “monkey mind,” practitioners use sou yuan jin, a Buddhist term referring to a focal object, as a reminder of zheng nian. In coffee meditation, two focal points are the human body and the coffee, interacting as agents that co-create the mindfulness experience. This interaction exemplifies Alfred Gell’s theory of material agency, providing a perspective on mindfulness that transcends human-centric frameworks and contributes to a more holistic understanding of its practice.

Keywords: Agency; Anthropocentrism; Anthropology; Interdisciplinary; Materiality Turn