Mindfulness within the full range of Buddhist and Asian meditative practices

Geoffrey Samuel

pp. 47-62

in: Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, Adam Burke (eds), Handbook of mindfulness, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

The initial stages of the Mindfulness movement involved a limited set of meditative practices which derived from modernist forms of Buddhism in Asia and the West and had been restated in terms distant from those of life and practice in Asian Buddhist societies. Early research focussed on the effects and therapeutic efficacy of this modernized and secularized set of practices, which could be assimilated with relative ease within contemporary scientific thought and biomedical practice. However, as the Mindfulness movement has grown, it has provided an invitation to consider the much wider range of meditative forms existing within Asian Buddhist traditions. The chapter discusses some of these meditative forms, along with parallel contemplative practices within Hindu and Daoist traditions. A better understanding of this multiplicity of contemplative forms and techniques and that of the cultural and philosophical context which they assume and imply can both stimulate an expansion and rethinking of Western modes of scientific thought, and aid us to develop a more varied and productive range of therapeutic applications.