Self-report measures were used to study mindfulness and well-being in experienced meditators in a quasi-experimental intervention study. Seventy-six experienced meditators were studied, 48 who were participating in an intensive meditation retreat in the Vipassana (insight meditation) tradition and 28 who did not. Retreat participants had scheduled meditation practice from early morning to late at night, and were encouraged to practice mindfulness throughout the whole day. The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) were used to measure mindfulness, and the General Population version of the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (GP-CORE) was used to measure well-being. Correlation analyses in the pre-intervention data showed that self-reported mindfulness was strongly related to well-being, with the exception for the observe subscale of FFMQ. Only the acceptance subscales were associated with meditation experience. Mindfulness increased after the retreat, but the increase was not significantly larger for retreat participants than for the control group. However, well-being increased more in the retreat group than the control group, and increase in mindfulness was associated with increase in well-being across both groups. Results are discussed in relation to previous research and methodological aspects.
The concept of mindfulness goes back more than 2000 years. Its roots can be traced to the oldest preserved Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon from the Theravada Buddhist tradition (Robinson & Johnson, 1997). Mindfulness in the form of bare attention to internal and external impressions without judgement or prejudice occupies a central place in Buddhist meditation. This is because clarity of attention is seen as essential for pursuing insight into and acceptance of the nature of reality, which is the goal of the Buddhist spiritual path.
Recently, the concept of mindfulness has enjoyed a surge of attention from psychologists, psychotherapists and researchers (for overviews see Baer, 2003 and Brown et al., 2007). Kabat-Zinn (1994) defined mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (p. 4). Kabat-Zinn’s programme of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction has become extremely popular and wide-spread and has inspired many other mindfulness-inspired therapy forms (mainly from the Cognitive Behavioural tradition) such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). The mindfulness concept has also inspired theoreticians and clinicians of non-CBT therapy forms including psychodynamic (e.g., Epstein, 1996, Falkenström, 2003 and Safran and Muran, 2000) and gestalt therapy (Perls, 1978). There is also a growing literature showing that mindfulness training increases psychological health and well-being (e.g., Baer, 2003).
In order to study mindfulness there is a need for reliable, valid and easy to administer tests. For this purpose, several self-report measures have been developed, for example the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS; Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004), Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003), Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI; Buchheld, Grossman, & Walach, 2001) and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006). Baer et al. (2006) noted that “The development of these measures is an important advance in the study of mindfulness because it provides new opportunities for empirical investigations of the nature of mindfulness and its relationships with other psychological constructs.” (p. 28).
Studies on the KIMS and FFMQ (Baer et al., 2004, Baer et al., 2006 and Baer et al., 2008) have shown that these questionnaires in general show expected correlations with other constructs (measured also with self-report questionnaires), such as alexithymia, dissociation, psychological symptoms, neuroticism, thought suppression, problematic emotion regulation and experiential avoidance (negative) and openness to experience, emotional intelligence and self-compassion (positive). There are also some studies showing that mindfulness can be developed through practice (for overview see Carmody and Baer (2008)).
Most research on these measures to date has studied non-meditators. Because of the origins of the mindfulness concept in Buddhist traditions there is a need for more research on Buddhist meditator samples. The present study investigates mindfulness in experienced Buddhist meditators on an intensive meditation retreat. Based on theory and previous research, we developed five hypotheses for the study:
(1)
Mindfulness is positively correlated with well-being.
(2)
Meditation experience is positively correlated with mindfulness.
(3)
Mindfulness increases after an intensive meditation retreat.
(4)
Well-being increases after an intensive meditation retreat.
(5)
Change in mindfulness is positively related to change in well-being.
