Mindfulness in Buddhism

Mindfulness, as a behavior of the mind, is defined as the active maximizing of the breadth and clarity of awareness. It is the behavior of moving and sharpening the focus of awareness within the field of consciousness. This definition corresponds to how mindfulness is usually described in essential Buddhism. Other times in the Buddhist literature mindfulness is described more as a property of the mind, in which case the above definition corresponds more to the cultivation of mindfulness, rather than mindfulness itself.
Mindfulness involves simply observing the contents and processes of the mind; it is just being aware, bare attention, detached observation, choiceless awareness. It is not thinking, judging, or categorizing; it is being aware of these mental processes. The essence of mindfulness training is simply noticing whatever arises in consciousness while minimizing the occurrence of and getting lost in related thoughts, reactions, and elaborations. Traditionally, mindfulness is cultivated during sitting and walking meditation, as found in the Theravadin vipassana literature (Goldstein, 1993; Hart, 1987; Mahasi Sayadaw, 1978, 1980). "Vipassana" means clear seeing in new, varied, and extraordinary ways.
Vipassana meditation is often called "insight meditation" because in essential Buddhism it is held that cultivation of mindfulness leads to a form of insight called prajna (Pali: panna), an immediately experienced intuitive wisdom. Prajna-based knowing is different than sensory knowing or conceptual knowing (Wilber, 1996), although when it is later thought about, conceptual knowing is involved. Prajna involves mindful and penetrating seeing into the fundamental nature of things in a way that transforms one’s being, the ultimate purpose of meditation in essential Buddhism. For example, insightful seeing of impermanence leads to a reduction of clinging.
In a classic discourse (satipatthana), the Buddha suggested four "foundations" of mindfulness (Nyanaponika, 1962; Rahula, 1974; Silananda, 1990), four overlapping domains in which mindfulness can be cultivated: (1) body, (2) feelings, (3) mind, including behaviors of the mind and defilements such as hatred and greed, and (4) mental factors, which refer to variables and characteristics of the mind specifically related to the development of psychospiritual freedom or enlightenment.
In a therapeutic situation, mindfulness training would focus on clinically significant factors, such as thoughts and feelings related to anxiety. Mindfulness could be assessed in terms of its effects on the clinical problem (e.g., anxiety) and/or via a mindfulness questionnaire geared toward general mindfulness (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004; Brown & Ryan, 2003; Mikulas 1990) or mindfulness of a specialized domain (e.g., DeMaria & Mikulas, 1991). Mindfulness is critical to developing optimal behavioral self-control (Mikulas, 1986, 1990). When one is aware of a less preferred behavior and/or a sequence of events leading to a less preferred behavior, then one utilizes an intervention strategy to disrupt the sequence, decrease the undesired behavior, and/or increase a desired alternative behavior. Mindfulness training helps one become more aware of the critical environmental cues, body sensations, feelings, and thoughts. Particularly important is moving the mindfulness back earlier and earlier in the chain of events. For example, it is easier to avoid anger with a self-control skill when one is starting to get angry or is becoming predisposed to anger, then to try to stop anger when it is occurring. Similarly, when working with clinging (Mikulas, 2004b): In some cases, first one becomes mindful of the results of clinging (e.g., anxiety, frustration), then the clinging itself, and then mindfulness moves back to the earlier grasping and craving.
In Western research, Kristeller and Hallett (1999) suggested that increased mindfulness of satiety cues and eating-related social, emotional, and physical cues may help in binge eating; and a similar argument has been made for cues related to substance abuse (Breslin, Zack, & McMain, 2002; Groves & Farmer, 1994). Bennett-Goleman (2001) combined mindfulness and "schema therapy," and suggested that mindfulness helps in becoming more aware of causes and effects in emotions and the dynamics of related schemas, and helps catch these earlier in the chain of events.
In the last decade, mindfulness has become very popular in Western approaches to therapy, including psychotherapy (Boorstein, 1997; Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2005; Horowitz, 2002; Segall, 2005) and cognitive behavior therapy (Baer, 2003; Smith, 2004; Witkiewitz, Marlatt, & Walker, 2005). Mindfulness has been identified as a "core psychotherapy process" (Martin, 1997) and a theme "across schools of psychotherapy" (Horowitz, 2002). What is little known in Western psychology is how mindfulness can be developed as a generic skill, over and above its application in specific domains.
The Buddha and his disciples practiced and recommended mindfulness for pain control (de Silva, 1996). More recently Jon Kabat-Zinn developed a stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to treat stress and pain (cf. Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Over 16,000 medical patients have gone through this program, now called "mindfulness-based stress reduction" (MBSR). A typical program would have a group of up to 30 patients meeting for eight weekly two to two and a half hour classes, plus one all day long class. Treatment components include mindfulness meditation and homework assignments, mindful yoga practices, body scans (slowly sweeping attention through the body noticing sensations), awareness of breathing and stress, noticing sensations and thoughts non-catastrophically, developing concentration, communication training, and discussion of stress and coping.
Research within this clinic has shown the effectiveness of the program for pain Kabat-Zinn, 1982; Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, Burney, & Sellers, 1987) and anxiety (Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992; Miller, Fletcher, & Kabat-Zinn, 1995). Research by other groups on programs based on Kabat-Zinn's MBSR have provided supporting positive results (e.g., Astin, 1997; Reibel, Greeson, Brainard, & Rosenzweig, 2001; Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, 1998; Speca, Carlson, Goodey, & Angen, 2000). However, in all this research mindfulness has not been well-defined, measured, and factored-out (Baer, 2003; Bishop, 2002). Of all the components of the MBSR program, including mindfulness, it has not been determined their relative weights and contributions to the overall effectiveness of the program. This includes the program components listed in the previous paragraph plus group support, instructor modeling and reinforcement, and non-specific effects such as expectations and demands.
A public television show featuring Kabat-Zinn's MBSR program, supported by his book describing the program (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), was very influential and timely. Kabat-Zinn became a popular celebrity, giving him the opportunity to introduce mindfulness to many other groups of people, including parents, teachers, business leaders, athletes, judges, and prisoners (Kabat-Zinn, 2000). Worldwide there are now over 240 clinics with programs based on MBSR, and more than 6,000 health care professionals have taken a MBSR training program. At first, psychologists were interested in how MBSR reduces stress and pain. Now researchers are considering how MBSR-type programs can be applied to other domains, such as relationship enhancement (Carson, Carson, Gil, & Baucom, 2004) and "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy" (discussed later).
A relatively new and popular topic in human factors is the construct "situation awareness" (Durso & Gronlund, 1999; Endsley & Garfield, 2000; Gilson, 1995). Currently, there is little agreement on a definition of situation awareness, what it includes, or whether it is a process or a product. One definition is that it is "a skilled behavior that encompasses the processes by which task-relevant information is extracted, integrated, assessed, and acted upon" (Kass, Herschler, & Companion, 1991). It involves mindfulness of the situation that one is in, such as a fighter plane or a basketball game, and how to utilize information in this situation for optimal responding. It often involves mindfulness of technological information, as from a machine monitoring the activity of a vehicle or a human body. Interest in situation awareness began with military aviation psychology and then gradually spread into other areas including air traffic control, nuclear power plant monitoring, anesthesiology, intensive care, firefighting, auto and truck driving, and sports. Depending on one's definition, situation awareness might involve mindfulness, concentration, allocation of attention and multi-tasking, environmental scanning, pattern recognition, and chunking of information; and it might be influenced by system complexity, workload, stress, knowledge of critical cues, and schemata and mental models. Currently the emphasis is on how to alter the environment to improve situation awareness; the open question, relative to the above discussion, is how training of mindfulness and concentration would help. Is mindfulness the awareness of situation awareness?