ASEAN Journal of Religion, Education, and Society, Vol 3, No 1 (2024)

Correlation between Meditation and Religion: Bibliometric Analysis

Jiraporn Chano, Chanatinat Tungtawee, Menglan Luo

Abstract


With increasing globalization and cultural exchange, meditation practices from various religious traditions have spread to various parts of the world. Therefore, this study aims to find a correlation between meditation and religion through bibliometric analysis. Bibliometric analysis methods were used in this research. We carried out a systematic literature search and data extraction by searching through the reference’s manager application, namely Publish or Perish version 7 with the data source coming from Google Scholar for articles published from 2018 to 2024 with the search keywords "("meditation") AND (" religion")”. We analyzed bibliometric indicators, including the number of publications and total citations. The research results show that the highest growth in publications on related topics occurred in 2020 with a total of 188 publications. This is because in 2020 the public's interest in mental well-being increased, especially as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This research also found that the relationship between meditation and religion can vary depending on the particular religious tradition and the way meditation is practiced which can be influenced by the culture of a society. It is hoped that this research will provide broader insight into the contribution of meditation to human spiritual development.