Defining Mindfulness

Human beings have been imparting and practicing mindfulness skills as a means of easing psychological suffering for at least 2,500 years (Teasdale, 1999). While the practice is strongly tied to the teachings of the Buddha, others have pointed out that mindfulness practices date back thousands of years before the Buddha's time, with roots in ancient yogic practices (Miller, Fletcher, & Kabat-Zinn, 1995). Although mindfulness originated from Eastern spiritual teachings, the practice of relating to one's experience in the present moment with acceptance and full awareness is by no means limited to a particular religious tradition. By its very nature, mindfulness is a mode of awareness that is universally accessible in that anyone can learn it and practice it (Bishop et al., 2004).

Bishop et al. (2004) proposed that there are two essential components that constitute mindfulness as discussed in the literature: an open attention to one's present experience, accompanied by a nonjudgmental, accepting attitude toward whatever one encounters. These complementary elements can be easily identified in this concise definition: “nonjudgmental moment-to-moment awareness” (Miller et al., 1995). A person's experience refers not only to what is occurring around her or him (e.g., sights, sounds, events) but also what is most often unattended to: internal experience (e.g., physical sensations, emotions, thoughts). As Epstein (1995) succinctly put it, “[Mindfulness] is quite literally coming to one's senses”.

It is important to distinguish between mindfulness and concentrative practices. As Epstein (1995) explained, concentration consists of “rest[ing] the mind in a single object of awareness”, with the aim of achieving single-pointedness; thus, when attention strays, it is redirected to that object. In contrast, mindfulness involves a moment-to-moment bare attention to whatever arises within one's field of awareness. At times, the mindfulness literature fails to differentiate between these two distinct meditative approaches, and some interventions that use concentrative techniques are mislabeled as mindfulness. It is important that there is clarification among counselors about which approach is actually being implemented.

Relaxation has been identified as a measurable result of mindfulness practice and, therefore, as a potential mechanism of change, especially for stress-related disorders (Baer, 2003); however, mindfulness is not considered a relaxation technique (Bishop et al., 2004). Rather, it is a form of mental discipline that helps reduce a person's tendency to react to cognitions in ways that lead to stress responses. Thus, while stress is often reduced through mindfulness practice, the potential implications of mindfulness extend well beyond stress reduction.

Likewise, mindfulness might be misunderstood as somehow fostering the suppression of thoughts and feelings. Instead, regulating one's attention in a mindful way creates an inner attitude that neither suppresses nor indulges transient cognitions and emotions (Chodron, 1997; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). In fact, the thrust of mindfulness is neither to seek pleasant experiences nor to avoid unpleasant experiences, but rather to be non-judgmentally aware of whatever arises in one's present field of awareness. Once again we are presented with what may seem counter intuitive about mindfulness practice—what Baer (2003) called a “paradoxical attitude of non-striving”  and Kabat-Zinn (1990) called “non-doing”. It is believed that this non-striving attitude, accessible through a variety of mindfulness techniques, reduces reactivity to distressing emotions and thoughts, thus providing a more reflective, less disturbed, and more adaptive mode of consciousness.