Defining Mindfulness: A Review of Existing Definitions and Suggested Refinements

A narrative review of traditional Buddhist and contemporary psychological definitions of mindfulness finds that Buddhist definitions emphasize memory, present-centered awareness, and ethicality, while psychological definitions converge on present-centered awareness, bare attention, and attitudes of acceptance and non-judgment. The authors conclude that conceptual commonality across both traditions is lacking, making a single comprehensive definition difficult. For psychological science, they propose a refined definition: “present-centered awareness of and bare attention to body sensations, affective valence, cognitive and emotional phenomena, and the external environment with an allowing and equanimous attitude.” This definition incorporates four scopes of mindfulness and highlights allowing and equanimity as key qualities.

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Abstract

Mindfulness research is hampered by the multiplicity of definitions of mindfulness. This heterogeneity, as reflected in the variability of mindfulness scales, limits the ability to generalize findings and hinders attempts to synthesize available studies. This paper explores traditional and contemporary definitions of mindfulness, aiming to extract core components and provide a refined and clearly specified definition suitable for underpinning measurement in psychological science. This narrative review broadly analyzes and synthesizes the conceptual frameworks across various definitions of mindfulness to identify core components of mindfulness within Buddhist and psychological science literature. Traditional Buddhist definitions of mindfulness focus on (a) memory and remembrance, (b) present-centered awareness, and (c) ethicality, but lack conceptual commonality due to the diversity of Buddhist schools and to the intricate context in which mindfulness is embedded. Definitions in psychological science show greater conceptual agreement and emphasize (a) present-centered awareness and bare attention, and (b) attitudes of acceptance and non-judgment. Taken together, there is a lack of conceptual commonality and clarity on mindfulness definitions, to the extent that it may be challenging to propose a single definition that fully encapsulates both Buddhist and psychological science perspectives. For the purposes of psychological science, refinements are suggested by (a) including four scopes of mindfulness that clarify present-centeredness as awareness of and attention to body sensations, affective valence (i.e., pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), cognition and emotional states (including impulses and action tendencies), and the external environment (i.e., external sensory experience and interpersonal interactions); and (b) emphasizing the allowing and equanimous attitudes as the key qualities of mindfulness. Mindfulness is therefore defined as: “present-centered awareness of and bare attention to body sensations, affective valence, cognitive and emotional phenomena, and the external environment with an allowing and equanimous attitude.” The study is not preregistered.