On the Buddhist roots of contemporary non-religious mindfulness practice: Moving beyond sectarian and essentialist approaches
Temenos December 11, 2019 Ville Husgafvel
Mindfulness-based programs like MBSR are entering Western institutions as secular approaches, yet their Buddhist roots are often discussed narrowly through Theravāda Buddhism or essentialist views of 'classical Buddhism.' Historical and textual analysis shows that Theravāda is neither the original context nor the exclusive Buddhist source of MBSR, and such one-sided presentations oversimplify Buddhist doctrine and distort comparisons with contemporary non-religious mindfulness. To move beyond sectarian and essentialist approaches tied to the 'world religions paradigm,' the discussion would benefit from a lineage-based approach that examines historical continuities and phenomenological similarities at the level of specific Buddhist teachers and their lineages.