Re-Contextualizing Mindfulness Meditation: Integrating Traditional Buddhist and Contemporary Approaches to Healing and Well-Being
Keywords:
Mindfulness, Meditation, Buddhist Mindfulness, Buddhist Psychology, Eight-Fold Path, Mental HealthAbstract
Mindfulness mediation has become increasingly popular inthe west as an intervention for a number of medical and emotional disorders. From its onset it has been presented as a secular form of Buddhist meditation in order to widen its accessibility. Within the Buddhist spiritual tradition, mindfulness is considered as one of several key practices that are deemed to be integral to the cessation of suffering and psychic pain, and the cultivation of unconditional emotional
health and well-being, sometimes termed nirvana or enlightenment. This article argues that modern mindfulness meditation may show more robust clinical outcomes and benefits if it is re-contextualized by integrating the key elements of the Buddhist path to well-being, each of which addresses different aspects of human functioning and which holistically can profoundly transform the personality.
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