The spirituality of Buddhist teens: religious/spiritual experiences and their associated triggers, attributes and attitudes

Abstract

In the quantitative analysis of a survey of 417 13- to 20-year-old Buddhists, the 48% who had undergone a religious or spiritual experience (RSE) were significantly more likely to self-identify as a spiritual person. Buddhists who had undergone RSEs were also more positive about spiritual teachers, a monastic vocation, attitude to Buddhism, supernatural phenomena and mystical orientation. In the qualitative part of the analysis, descriptions of RSEs volunteered by 107 of these teens were compared with non-Buddhist categories for triggers and attributes. For Buddhist teens, triggers seemed to include a higher percentage of positive states of mind, especially those cultivated in meditation. Buddhist RSEs seemed to represent a subset of possible RSE categories previously described suggesting that Buddhist RSEs come from a spiritual root shared with ‘mystics’ of other religions. The article argues that the role of RSEs in Buddhist nurture would seem to concern development of worldview rather than ideology or collectivism.