Some reflections on the origins of MBSR, skillful means, and the trouble with maps

By J. Kabat‐Zinn. 2011

727 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The author recounts some of the early history of what is now known as MBSR, and its relationship to mainstream medicine and the science of the mind/body connection and health. He stresses the importance that MBSR and other mindfulness-based interventions be grounded in a universal dharma understanding that is congruent with Buddhadharma but not constrained by its historical, cultural and religious manifestations associated with its counties of origin and their unique traditions. He locates these developments within an historic confluence of two very different epistemologies encountering each other for the first time, that of science and that of the meditative traditions. The author addresses the ethical ground of MBSR, as well as questions of lineage and of skillful ‘languaging’ and other means for maximizing the possibility that the value of cultivating mindfulness in the largest sense can be heard and embraced and cultivated in commonsensical and universal ways in secular settings. He directly addresses mindfulness-based instructors on the subject of embodying and drawing forth the essence of the dharma without depending on the vocabulary, texts, and teaching forms of traditional Buddhist environments, even though they are important to know to one degree or another as part of one’s own development. The author’s perspective is grounded in what the Zen tradition refers to as the one thousand year view. Although it is not stated explicitly in this text, he sees the current interest in mindfulness and its applications as signaling a multi-dimensional emergence of great transformative and liberative promise, one which, if cared for and tended, may give rise to a flourishing on this planet akin to a second, and this time global, Renaissance, for the benefit of all sentient beings and our world.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Complementary and alternative medicine, Psychiatry and Mental health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e1b30f7fe8980c021906eded477b63ea0c8374ad

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Citations in the corpus

Traditional and Contemporary Mindfulness: Finding the Middle Path in the Tangle of Concerns (2015, methodology): “Reflecting on the choice to keep the teachings of ethics implicit, Kabat-Zinn (2011) states that each person carries the responsibility both personally and professionally to attend to the quality of their inner and outer relationships; as well, the ethical foundation of MBSR rests on its…”
Assessment of mindfulness by self-report. (2018, methodology): “[43] Kabat-Zinn J: (2003).”
Buddhist Styles of Mindfulness: A Heuristic Approach (2015, background): “As we shall see, several aspects of these Nondual styles align more favorably with Contemporary Mindfulness in the context of formal practice, and as Jon Kabat-Zinn notes ( 2011 ), these styles have had a direct historical impact on the development of MBSR, more so than any Classical style.”
Investigating the Phenomenological Matrix of Mindfulness-related Practices from a Neurocognitive Perspective (2015, background): “Jon Kabat-Zinn has noted (Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2011) that mindfulness can be used as an “umbrella term” for a collection of practices and personal values that enable one to live mindfully.”
Mindfulness Revisited (2015, background): “Over the last 20 years, interest among scholars and clinicians in MBSR has grown exponentially (Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2011), and it is now the most widely taught secular form of mindfulness practice in academic medical centers and clinics throughout North America and Europe (Davidson & Begley,…”
Mind The Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation (2017, neutral): “It is also evident that mindfulness is part of some broader collection of goals and attitudes (Gethin, 2011; Kabat-Zinn, 2011).”
Ethics, Values, Virtues, and Character Strengths in Mindfulness-Based Interventions: a Psychological Science Perspective (2015, background): “According to Kabat-Zinn (2011), candid communication between teachers of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) assists colleagues in identifying and challenging their own and others’ behavior that might inadvertently cause harm.”
Clearing the Muddled Path of Traditional and Contemporary Mindfulness: a Response to Monteiro, Musten, and Compson (2015, background): “It can be used comfortably without any indication of being specifically Buddhist, and therefore was of use for Kabat-Zinn’s agenda. At the same time, he intended mindfulness to mean not only awareness and meditation but also a shorthand for the Buddhist tradition, so that Buddhism could be brought i”
Mindfulness at Work: A New Approach to Improving Individual and Organizational Performance (2015, background): “that makes the benefits of mindfulness practice accessible to a broader, nonBuddhist audience (Kabat-Zinn, 2011).”
The Impact of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course (MBSR) on Well-Being and Academic Attainment of Sixth-form Students (2015, methodology): “A number of mindfulness-based courses for education have been influenced by the well-established mindfulness-based stress reduction programme (MBSR: Kabat-Zinn 1990) which follows a standardised format, is feasible for a wide variety of adult populations (Kabat-Zinn 2011) and has a strong research e”