Högskolan i Skövde

Over the last three decades the practice of mindfulness has grown to become one of the most widespread health promoting applications in the West—so much that terms like yoga and meditation have now become standard household words. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the meaning of mindfulness within both its Buddhist and its Western context. In the former case, the aim will be to shed light on mindfulness as a concept and practice that is rooted in Buddhist understandings (i.e., the Buddhist perspective); and in the latter case, the meaning of mindfulness will be more broadly explored in terms of its relevance to society, social work and everyday life (i.e., the social (work) perspective).

Over the past 20 years or so, the uptake of mindfulness within psychology, neuroscience and medicine has been celebrated as a new exciting development. It is within the realm of an assessment and therapeutic framework that mindfulness training has proved itself effective in terms of bettering the lot of many individuals. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a brief review but also to undertake a more critical examination of the most common and popular forms of Western mindfulness intervention methods and the various scales that have been devised to measure their success in this regard.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Review of General Psychology on Jul 11 2016 (see record 2016-33699-001). In the original article, there was an error in the abstract. The second core element of the concept of mindfulness yielded by the analysis was incorrectly listed as “nonjudgmental attitude.” It should be “present-centeredness.” The online version of this article has been corrected.] Mindfulness is an emerging concept in many professions and spheres of social life. However, mindfulness (or sati in Buddhism) can connote many plausible meanings. Thus, the concept is not easily defined and the definitions provided in the literature easily confuse the reader. Some mindfulness researchers offer definitions whereas others do not and take the definition of mindfulness for granted. Beyond the problem of defining mindfulness, the fact that the phenomenon is of great interest to various disciplines, each of which has its own theoretical and methodological approaches, different authors use different terms in describing this phenomenon. In the present article 33 definitions of mindfulness were extracted from a pool of 308 peer-reviewed full-length theoretical or empirical articles written in English, published between 1993 and March 2016, after systematic searches in Google Scholar, PsycARTICLES, and SocINDEX. The definitions were analyzed with a particular focus on the defining attributes or core elements of the concept of mindfulness. The analysis yielded 4 core elements of awareness and attention, present-centeredness, external events, and cultivation. Furthermore, an additional core element emerged from this analysis as being absent in Western definitions of mindfulness. This formed the basis for formulation of a new definition of mindfulness with an emphasis on ethical-mindedness. We argue that this core element is instrumental in filling in the gap that exists in current Western definitions, and with highlighting this element we hope to bridge the Western and Buddhist notions of mindfulness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

This dissertation aims at analyzing mindfulness as a concept and a multidimensional phenomenon in its historic and primordial but also contemporary contexts. In the course of examining this more general question, this dissertation targets four specific objectives: 1) classifying existing definitions of mindfulness, 2) critically analyzing and interpreting the Buddhist and Western interpretations and practices of mindfulness, 3) elaborating on the social and existential dimensions of mindfulness, and 4) applying these dimensions in advancing the notion of mindful sustainable aging in the context of successful aging. Paper I examines and assesses the numerous definitions of mindfulness that have been presented over the years by a wide range of scholars from a variety of disciplines. Paper II traces the roots of modern mindfulness in Buddhism. It continues by exploring the utility and practices of mindfulness in the context of social work. The definitions provided in Paper I and the Buddhist underpinnings discussed in Paper II call attention to the fact that in addition to the more commonly considered physical and mental dimensions, mindfulness contains a social and an existential dimension as well – dimensions that remain under-researched and not well understood. To redress this imbalance, Paper III elaborates on these two latter dimensions, emphasizing their potential to enhance health, wellbeing and meaning in life. Paper III further argues that a more nuanced understanding of physical, mental, social and existential mindfulness can be obtained by examining the interconnectedness of all four fields. Paper IV continues the discussion of the social and the existential dimensions of mindfulness with specific emphasis on their utility for successful aging, and advances the notion of mindful sustainable aging. Paper IV highlights the potential of mindfulness for living a meaningful life and boosting the elderly’s capacity to find deeper meaning in their final stage of life.

The primary aim of this article is to present a new concept called mindful sustainable aging (MSA), which is informed by mindfulness practices that support the physical, the mental, and especially, the social and the existential dimensions of old life. The concept of MSA is discussed and compared with four influential psychosocial theories in the field of gerontology, i.e., activity theory, disengagement theory, successful aging theory and gerotranscendence theory. The article ends with reviewing research on how mindfulness practice can help to manage, diminish and/or improve a number of serious physical conditions that are common among older people. The potential of mindfulness when it comes to facilitating for older adults in their quest for spiritual and existential meaning is discussed extensively throughout the article.

Mindfulness (or sati in Buddhism) can connote many plausible meanings; thus the concept is not easily defined and the definitions provided in the literature easily confuse the reader. Some mindfulness researchers offer definitions while others do not and take the definition of mindfulness for granted. Beyond the problem of defining mindfulness, the fact that the phenomenon is of great interest to a variety of disciplines, each of which has its own theoretical and methodological approaches, different authors employ different terms in describing this phenomenon. In the present article 30 definitions of mindfulness are reviewed and categorized in terms of four key themes, i.e., mindfulness conceived in terms of an activity, internal mind state, external stimuli, and cultivation. It is argued that until a more thorough, precise and comprehensive definition of mindfulness is formulated, it will be difficult to create protocols, scales and instruments that properly and precisely measure its effectiveness.