Secular Mindfulness Research Articles

Secular Mindfulness as Skilful Means (Upaya-kaushalya)

AbstractThis paper explores a pivotal question raised by a group of Indian Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) trainee teachers from poor, ex-Dalit communities who converted to Buddhism in the mid-1950s. The question—“How is this MBSR meditation different from the meditation we do as Buddhists?”—highlights the perceived differences between traditional Buddhist meditation aimed at enlightenment and secular mindfulness practices designed to alleviate psychological and emotional distress. Adopting a somewhat heuristic approach, using the Buddhist Wheel of Life, the discussion elucidates how MBSR can be viewed as a contemporary skilful means (upaya-kaushalya) designed to alleviate various forms of suffering without religious affiliation. This perspective aligns MBSR with Buddhist compassion principles, addressing tensions about whether contemporary Mindfulness-based Interventions (MBIs) dilute the Buddha’s teachings (Dharma). By positioning MBIs within the broader context of skill-in-means, this paper underscores their role in extending compassion to those who might not seek traditional religious teachings, thus bridging the gap between secular and spiritual practices. This discussion aims to deepen the understanding of MBSR as a legitimate and compassionate extension of Buddhist principles, adapted for contemporary needs.

The Vedic Foundations of Secular Mindfulness: A Study of Upaniṣad and Yoga Influences

This paper explores the Vedic foundations of secular mindfulness, particularly examining the influences of Advaita Vedānta, Patañjali Yoga, and Haṭha Yoga systems on the development of contemporary mindfulness practices, specifically as popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn through his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. While mindfulness is often recognized for its Buddhist origins, this research highlights the underexplored connections to Vedic contemplative traditions, demonstrating that secular mindfulness may owe a significant debt to these ancient systems. The study delves into key Vedic concepts such as intrinsic wholeness, perpetual availability, and non-duality, and compares them with the philosophical underpinnings of Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness approach. Through an analysis of primary Vedic texts and Kabat-Zinn's own writings, the paper argues that his secularization of mindfulness is not only an innovative adaptation but also deeply influenced by Vedic philosophy, particularly Advaita Vedānta. The findings suggest that secular mindfulness, as practiced today, may be more closely aligned with Vedic traditions than previously acknowledged, offering a new perspective on the historical and philosophical roots of this widely adopted practice.

Interpersonal and individual effects of an app-based Christian and Islamic heart meditation intervention in healthy adults: protocol of a stratified randomised controlled trial

BackgroundThe academic development and widespread adoption of meditation practices for well-being and therapy have predominantly focused on secularised adaptations of Buddhist and Hindu techniques. This study aims to expand the field by investigating Christian and Islamic meditation that emphasize the spiritual significance of the heart through elements of visualisation and recitation. It compares the effects of spiritual heart-centred meditation with mindfulness meditation and a waitlist control, focusing on dimensions of social functioning, psychophysiology, cognition, and mental health.MethodThis study employs a stratified 3-arm randomised controlled method with mixed-method repeated measures across three assessment time points: before intervention (T1), after an 8-week intervention (T2), and at a 3-month follow up (T3). The three conditions include spiritual meditation (either Christian or Islamic), mindfulness meditation (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – MBSR), and a waitlist. Participants will be stratified into Christian and Muslim samples and randomly allocated to the spiritual meditation, MBSR, or waitlist control conditions. Importantly, participants assigned to the spiritual meditation condition will be matched to the spiritual meditation program corresponding to their religion. The intervention will be administered through a mobile phone app with daily 20-minute guided meditation sessions for eight weeks. Primary outcomes pertain to the domain of interpersonal functioning, focusing on prosociality, forgiveness, empathy, and perspective taking. Secondary outcomes include physiology: pain tolerance, pain intensity, stress reactivity assessed via heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), psychophysiological reactivity associated with a forgiveness task as measured through HR and HRV, attention (alerting, orienting, and executive attention networks), and mental health (stress, depression, anxiety, subjective well-being, positive and negative affect).DiscussionThis trial aims to test the effects of an app-based Christian and Islamic meditation, compared to secular mindfulness and a waitlist, using a randomised controlled trial. If the results yield positive outcomes, this study will support the efficacy of these contemplations, offering practitioners a way to enhance their well-being within their religious framework.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT06136676. Registered on 18 November 2023.https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06136676.

The Appamāda as a Foundation for Ethical and Spiritual Development in Modern Mindfulness Practices

This research explores Appamāda as a mindfulness concept with strong ethical and spiritual foundations rooted in Buddhist teachings. The study investigates how integrating Appamāda can enhance modern mindfulness practices, particularly addressing the moral and ethical dimensions often overlooked in secular mindfulness trends. The research utilizes a qualitative approach through library research, gathering data from primary sources such as the Sutta Piṭaka and commentaries and secondary sources from scholarly works on Appamāda. Content analysis examines how Appamāda functions as a foundation for moral and spiritual development within Buddhist teachings and how it can be integrated into contemporary mindfulness practices. The research identifies Appamāda as not merely mindfulness but a profound ethical framework that fosters the cultivation of wholesome qualities and moral awareness. It highlights the gap in modern mindfulness practices, which focus on psychological benefits like stress reduction but often neglect ethical self-awareness. Appamāda enriches mindfulness by incorporating ethical and spiritual elements, guiding individuals towards holistic personal development and liberation from suffering. Integrating Appamāda into modern mindfulness practices offers a more holistic approach to mental and spiritual well-being. It addresses the ethical responsibility that contemporary secular mindfulness lacks, contributing to developing a balanced and ethically conscious mindfulness practice. This has implications for mental health, ethical behavior, and spiritual growth in modern contexts. This study contributes to the growing body of research on mindfulness by reconnecting contemporary practices with their ethical and spiritual roots in Appamāda. It offers a new perspective on mindfulness that extends beyond emotional regulation to include moral development and ethical accountability, providing a comprehensive framework for holistic well-being.

The reincarnation of the Asian Buddhist peril: White Christian nationalism and contestations of mindfulness in K-12 public schools

This article explores legal contestations to school based mindfulness programs in the context of an increasingly overt White Christian nationalist agenda in the United States. By illuminating the force and logic of White Christian nationalism in education, I demonstrate that though Christian organizations’ legal opposition to mindfulness is framed around defending First Amendment Establishment Clause protections in schools, their ultimate objective is to safeguard Christian hegemony and structurally reinforce a racial-religious belief of the US as a White Christian nation. Interrogating the discursive invocation of Buddhism as a “danger” helps to reveal this intention, and its exclusionary function. In this light, I trace how the claims of Buddhist treachery recall and reaffirm 19th century White Christian nationalist imaginations of Asian immigrants as embodying dangerously foreign religions and inassimilable behaviors in order to facilitate their legal exclusion from the nation. Understanding this historical context sheds light on the ways these Christian legal contentions of mindfulness attempt to maintain a historical racial-religious subjugation of Asians as a “Yellow Peril” and inculcate anti-Asian phobias of national invasion. Thus, I also argue that the current legal disputes over mindfulness are not new assertions of White Christian nationalism. Rather, they illuminate the ongoing legacy of White Christian nationalism, and represent attempts to maintain the structure’s hegemonic positioning in the 21st century. In highlighting these arguments, this article demonstrates that we cannot understand the debate around mindfulness in schools (and secular mindfulness programs themselves) without understanding the White Christian nationalist history of Asian racial-religious exclusion in the US.

British Buddhism, secular mindfulness, and the politics of sustainability

ABSTRACT The environment for Buddhist organisations in Britain has changed since the period of their initial establishment. As a result of the rise in popularity of secular mindfulness and the spread of Buddhist teachings, Buddhist groups in Britain are forced to consider their sustainability in a crowded spiritual marketplace. This article examines the recent growth of secular mindfulness teaching by Buddhist groups in Britain, drawing on new qualitative research with British Buddhist groups and teachers. I argue that ‘secular meditation’ approaches have been variously adopted by Buddhist groups to appeal to a wider range of people, bringing in much-needed revenue for financial sustainability as well as carving out greater cultural relevance. However, the boundaries between the ‘secular’ and the ‘Buddhist’ are not always clearly demarcated. As ideas and labels they operate in symbiosis, enabling Buddhist groups to navigate multiple audiences simultaneously, sustaining and developing their position in the public sphere.

Mindfulness Meditation According to the Satipatthana Sutta: A Single-Case Study With Participants as Collaborators

ObjectivesWe explored the effects of a mindfulness program based on the satipatthana sutta (instead of a contemporary Western program), with participants as collaborators, using a single-case experimental design. The main question was whether such a training has positive effects and, if so, whether and how the effects vary across participants and measures.MethodParticipants chose the design (multiple baseline) and the measures to be repeatedly collected. Then they took part in a 6-week mindfulness training based on the satipatthana sutta; finally, they performed a preliminary data analysis of their own results. Reported are a selection of the visual analyses, intraindividual effect sizes (Tau-U), and the results of single-case meta-analyses over participants, as well as a multivariate graphical analysis of interindividual differences.ResultsSubstantial training effects were found on average and for the majority of participants for concentration, mind wandering, decentering, positive affect, and well-being. Effects were small for negative affect, and no effects were found for emotion regulation. However, interindividual variation was high, both in respect to specific measures and concerning the overall effect of the training program. Participants' motivation was found to be very high throughout the study.ConclusionOur findings indicate that a traditional mindfulness program yields effects that are roughly comparable to the effects of secular mindfulness training regimens. Regarding participants as collaborators appears to have a strong motivating effect. And finally, the study demonstrates that using single-case experimental designs (instead of group designs) allows for a more fine-grained analysis of meditation effects. The high interindividual variation points to the possibility that the amount of unexplained variance in group studies is severely underestimated. Results from studies like the current one could have benefits for both theoretical advancement and custom-tailored assignment of specific forms of meditation to specific people with specific aims.

Expanding consumer mindfulness for collective sustainable well‐being: Overview of the special issue and future research directions

AbstractThis special issue focuses on the potential of mindfulness to enhance consumer well‐being. While various disciplines have investigated the psychological and physiological benefits of mindfulness, its potential for consumer well‐being remains largely underexplored. Moreover, there have been concerns about the efficacy of secular mindfulness, which is being criticized for its limited focus on non‐judgmental awareness while neglecting its original contemplative and ethical foundations. This omission is especially problematic when considering mindfulness as an intervention for issues such as overconsumption, addictions, and other harmful habits impacting individuals, society, and the environment. This introductory article expands the definition of consumer well‐being to prioritize the positive feelings and effective functioning of groups and ecosystems over short‐term individual benefits, summarizes the eight articles in the issue, identifies six themes that broaden the scope of mindfulness, and presents a framework for exploring how the special issue articles and future research can promote collective sustainable well‐being.

Mindful eating: A conceptual critical review of the literature, measurement and intervention development.

Background: Defining mindful eating and discussing all it entails has proven to be abstract, open-ended and biased to the interpretation of the researchers and authors in the field. Despite some consensus, different interpretations have led to different psychometric tools and practices not descriptive of mindful eating, contributing towards a replication crisis. Aim/Method: This narrative review will draw on the most appropriate definition of mindful eating in the framework of traditional secular mindfulness literature and discuss how mindful eating psychometrics and practices are unsuitable for precise research. Results/Discussion: A proposal and directive of separation between eating behaviours and decision-making in mindful eating as a way of developing evidence-based practices and psychometric tools are proposed for both clinical and non-clinical use.

Right Mindfulness in Teacher Education: Integrating Buddhist Teachings with Secular Mindfulness to Promote Racial Equity

Despite decades of reform efforts, disparities in schooling persist based on race, threatening the economic and social wellbeing of the United States. Why are there still significant opportunity gaps despite decades of reform efforts to curb inequities? For one, these efforts often overlook the internal habits of mind, or inner nature of inequity, and the ways in which educators may perpetuate racism through unexamined racial biases. Secular mindfulness and its Buddhist origins could help address these harmful habits of mind and transform systems by providing tools for educators to examine their internalized beliefs around race. Realizing the potential of these practices to combat racial inequities in the classroom requires building a stronger bridge between Eastern Buddhism and the individual psychological emphasis of Westernized mindfulness. This critical theoretical paper will examine opportunities for mindfulness interventions in the United States educational context to address inequities through a deeper integration with Eastern contemplative traditions. Implications for researchers and practitioners will be presented to explore how mindfulness practices in the West might be expanded and utilized in service of racial justice.

Sacred vs. secular mindfulness meditation: the influence of presentation priming on therapeutic effectiveness

ABSTRACT Mindfulness is a traditional, spiritual Buddhist practice that has entered the mainstream of applied psychology and become secularised. This study examined the differential influence of the presentation priming of mindfulness meditation—as either a “sacred Buddhist practice” or a “scientifically proven tool”—on its therapeutic effectiveness in a general sample of college students. ANCOVA were run using outcome pretest scores as the covariates and outcome posttest scores as the dependent variables. Results indicated a main effect of condition on depression, anxiety, stress, negative affect, positive affect, happiness, and optimism—suggesting that both mindfulness conditions were therapeutically effective compared to the control condition. Follow-up pairwise comparisons showed that the secular intervention was significantly more effective than the sacred intervention for increasing happiness—suggesting differential therapeutic effectiveness as a function of priming. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Paradoxes of mindfulness: The specious promises of a contemporary practice

The growing popularity of Western secular mindfulness programs in recent decades has frequently been criticized by sociologists. Mindfulness in this line of argument is viewed as the quintessential neoliberal and capitalist technology of the self. However, this – quite justified – functionalist critique does not account for how mindfulness is increasingly being used to escape growth driven-based optimization pressure. We therefore show, on the basis of our extensive empirical field research, how mindfulness is negotiated as a response to contemporary crises and social change, how this phenomenon can be understood as a symptomatic, contemporary cultural phenomenon. From our ethnographic data from 121 hours of participant observation in mindfulness courses in Germany and six interviews with mindfulness teachers, as well as analysis of relevant literature, we reconstruct four paradoxes of mindfulness. With reference to this, we show to what extent mindfulness is a program of specious promises. For in the final analysis, the broad accessibility and popularity of the program are based on the fact that its application is just as paradoxical as the social problems to which it promises to be a solution.

The politicisation of secular mindfulness – Extinction Rebellion’s emotive protest practices

ABSTRACT The environmental movement Extinction Rebellion (XR) not only uses civil disobedience for its radical protests against climate change, but it also employs narratives and practices of mindfulness. Internal guidelines include numerous standardised and mindfulness-based emotional precepts and techniques that promote the well-being of individuals for the purpose of sustainable coexistence. While sociological critiques of mindfulness have primarily condemned its tendency to depoliticise, privatise, and heighten individual responsibility, XR’s novel politicised reception raises numerous questions. Using a qualitative analysis of public documents and the regulations of the movement, this article examines the extent to which mindfulness, which has been criticised for its individualist disposition, can be deployed in a political context. This analysis sheds light on the often conflicting consequences for XR and mindfulness itself. Building on this, the article then explores how institutionalised emotion programmes can work in a decentralised movement to establish order.

Memory, ghosts and the good life: Sati in Theravada cultural contexts

Mindfulness in its English rendering brings together a mix of historical influences, from Zen to Romanticism to yoga. Still, the most central concept from which it draws is sati, a Theravada Buddhist Pali term first translated as mindfulness over 100 years ago. This article reports on the findings of an ethnographic investigation of sati in the Theravada‐majority countries of Thailand, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, where the concept is widely used for a range of religious, therapeutic and colloquial ends. Based on interviews and questionnaires involving over 600 monks, psychiatrists and lay Buddhist practitioners, the article explores aspects of sati that are not often recognized (or recognized as much) in Western, secular mindfulness contexts. These qualities include attention to memory in present‐moment awareness, the potency of supernatural engagements and a social‐ethical orientation towards living well. Highlighting these qualities allows for a greater appreciation of cultural diversity within contemporary global mindfulness practices and suggests possibilities for further developing the global therapeutic potential of mindfulness.

A treatment in search of a disease? Challenges in mindfulness research and practice

‘Mindfulness’ has become a mainstream component of American culture and a successful business worth more than 1 billion dollars. Born out of Buddhist contemplative traditions that reached the West in the mid-1960s, secular mindfulness programs have spread both geographically (to the US and Europe) and socially (to healthcare, academia, politics, the military, and finance). The diffusion of mindfulness practice to domains that are culturally and socially so different from its original Buddhist context has had important consequences. This manuscript will examine some of these consequences as well as some challenges generated by the encounter between the American culture and Eastern millennial contemplative traditions. With the purpose of increasing awareness about these issues and to generate a debate within the mindfulness community, some suggestions on how to face such challenges are then offered to mindfulness researchers, instructors, and health care providers interested in alleviating the suffering of their patients using mindfulness meditation.

The Lived Experience of Learning Mindfulness as Perceived by People Living With Long-Term Conditions: A Community-Based, Longitudinal, Phenomenological Study.

While a considerable research base demonstrates the positive effects of 8-week secular mindfulness courses, it remains unclear to what degree their participants continue to engage with mindfulness practices; and there is a dearth of published reports on longer-term mindfulness interventions. Studies have also tended to focus on clinical “effectiveness,” with less attention given to participants’ own construal and expectations of mindfulness. To address these gaps, the study reported here implemented a year-long mindfulness program for a group of 20 individuals with long-standing health conditions who gradually transitioned to self-guiding. Their experiences, expectations, and understanding of mindfulness were investigated through the lens of descriptive phenomenology. The findings revealed that mindfulness practice did bring therapeutic improvement but that it was a multi-faceted process where an individual’s intentionality toward practice was key, with a clear division between those pursuing an “embodied integrated” mindfulness and those viewing it as a stress management tool.

Use of Poetry in Secular Mindfulness Guidance

Despite mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) being presented and practiced in a secular context, the traditions they have drawn from are spiritually based (e.g., Buddhist). Starting with a critical discussion of the secular/spiritual nature of mindfulness practices, the objective was to show how the divide between the two might be bridged with the skillful use of poetry as an active form of meaning-making (spirituality). The inspired poetry of meditation, contemplation, and introspection in Buddhist traditions was reviewed, indicating that spiritual aesthetics have an important place in encouraging mindful practices that might also be useful to secular MBPs. The type of poetry found in MBP handbooks/manuals, and the context in which they were used, was surveyed and then contrasted with these traditional forms. Poetry themes overlapped with contemplative poetry from Buddhist traditions, with nature and change (as paradox) being frequently employed. Where the poetry in secular mindfulness texts differed was (1) in a lack of differentiating stages or paths, (2) in being simple and direct rather than abstract, and (3) focusing on acceptance. Suggestions are made as to how poetry may be applied in mindfulness practices, with potential benefits of using them to address spiritual issues, including mitigating adverse effects and supporting religious backgrounds, as well as offering an active, reflexive, meaning-making activity for practitioners, instructors, and researchers that in itself could be used as a research tool.

Compassion-based mindfulness training in teacher education: The impact on student teachers at a South African university

This paper presents findings from a teacher education study, exploring the implications of mindfulness training on student teachers in the context of a transitional society, South Africa. Western secular mindfulness has been expanding to new continents, from its origins in the East, and now needs to be contextualised. Recent critiques of the contemporary mindfulness movement identify elements that are missing from much secular mindfulness training, such as ethics, compassion, and social engagement.As part of a mixed methods research study, in-depth interviews were carried out with fourteen student teachers in Gauteng, aiming to understand the level and causes of their stress, and evaluate whether a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) was beneficial. The study’s findings extended the current literature, highlighting the benefits of including compassion practices in MBIs, particularly in stressful contexts. Compassion-based mindfulness has the potential as a practice that not only improves the resilience of individuals, but also becomes a means of enhancing social engagement. For student teachers in developing world contexts, mindfulness combined with compassion could address some of the current critiques of MBIs.

Does Mindfulness Training Without Explicit Ethics-Based Instruction Promote Prosocial Behaviors? A Meta-Analysis

Scholarly discourse has raised concerns about the gravitas of secular mindfulness trainings in promoting prosocial outgrowths, as these trainings lack ethics-based concepts found in contemplative traditions. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to test whether mindfulness trainings absent explicit ethics-based instructions promote prosocial action. There was a range of small to medium standardized mean difference effect sizes of mindfulness training on overt acts of prosociality when compared with active and inactive controls, k = 29, N = 3,100, g = .426, 95% confidence interval (CI)(g) = [.304, .549]. Reliable effect size estimates were found for single-session interventions that measured prosocial behavior immediately after training. Mindfulness training also reliably promotes compassionate (but not instrumental or generous) helping and reliably reduces prejudice and retaliation. Publication bias analyses indicated that the reliability of these findings was not wholly dependent on selective reporting. Implications for the science of secular mindfulness training on prosocial action are discussed.

Workplace Mindfulness in Accounting Practice: Issues, Opportunities, and Challenges

SYNOPSIS Research suggests that individual, secular mindfulness can improve work outcomes, including reducing stress and increasing attention, wellness, and job performance. This paper discusses the construct and efficacy of mindfulness and explores opportunities for and challenges to integrating workplace mindfulness in professional accounting. Evidence from websites suggests that most large accounting firms promote workplace mindfulness to their clients and that some (e.g., EY and PWC) promote its practice among their accounting professionals. While a review of literature indicates support for some claimed benefits, workplace mindfulness is no panacea. Challenges to workplace mindfulness include the unwillingness of some accounting professionals to practice mindfulness and that some claimed benefits, e.g., improved leadership and teamwork, are not well-supported by research. The paper concludes by proposing a set of workplace mindfulness issues and practice opportunities and discussing impediments to and the limits of mindfulness in professional accounting. JEL Classifications: M40; M41; M42.