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Over the past 20 years or so, the practice of mindfulness has been gaining popularity in the West. The concept of mindfulness originates with the teachings of the Buddha, and the term is an English translation of the Pali word sati, Pali being the original language of the Buddha. The word sati is closely related to the Pali word for “remembering.” As one Buddhist scholar explains, “it is due to the presence of sati that one is able to remember what is otherwise only too easily forgotten: the present moment” (Anālayo 2003). Therefore, “mindfulness” may be understood as “present moment awareness,” or the intentional act of directing one’s attention to what is happening in the here and now. This understanding of mindfulness forms the basis of its Western psychological conception, although other constructs are often added. While “mindfulness” is a broad term referring to present moment awareness, “meditation” refers to a formal exercise in which time is set aside for contemplative practice, be it the development of mindfulness or other practices, such as the development of compassion or concentration. Therefore, “mindfulness” is sometimes used as an umbrella term to include informal mindfulness practices (e.g., washing the dishes with a mindful attitude) and formal meditation practices that encourage the development of mindfulness (i.e., “mindfulness meditation”). In this paper, we use “mindfulness” to refer to the skill of directing one’s attention to the present moment and “mindfulness programs” as the programs that encourage the development of this skill, whether through informal or formal practices. The term “meditation” is used to refer to the formal practice only.
In recent years, mindfulness has become the foundation of many structured programs. Research looking at the effects of mindfulness has primarily focused on programs that implement formal meditation practices, including meditation retreats and group psychological interventions. Meditation retreats are often taught in the Insight, or Vipassana, meditation tradition, which is most commonly implemented through an intensive 10-day silent residential retreat, requiring multiple hours of meditation per day (Chiesa 2010). Some of the more thoroughly researched psychological interventions include mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR; Kabat-Zinn 1990) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT; Segal et al. 2012), which usually require weekly group sessions and 45 min of formal at-home meditation per day over the...