Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness Read Online Free PDF Page B

exponentially. As sug-
    gested above, this volume both in number of contributors and in its shear
    size represents a watershed in this process. It allows us to drink in the vast
    range of interest and potentially useful applications of mindfulness in the dis-
    ciplines of psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy and the breadth and
    depth in the quality of the work and the thought and effort behind it.
    The book itself will also very likely serve as a catalyst to amplify even
    further the phenomenon depicted in Figure 1, as it both legitimates aca-
    demic and scholarly interest and invites students and young investigators and
    clinicians to consider whether this emerging exploration of mindfulness res-
    onates in some deep way with their calling in both professional and personal
    xxviii
    Foreword
    terms. My hope is that it will also germinate a whole new generation of
    research investigations that bring together the emerging fields of what is now
    being called contemplative neuroscience or neuro-phenomenology on both
    the cognitive and affective sides, with practical high-quality mindfulness-
    based clinical applications that may be of benefit to large numbers of people
    who are experiencing pain and suffering in their lives, both from outright
    illness and disease, and also from what could be termed “dis-ease,” the stress
    and intrinsic unsatisfactoriness of a life that is always seeking some other
    state or condition in which to feel fulfilled, complete, and happy – what the
    Buddha was pointing to in his articulation of the first of the four noble truths:
    in the Pali language, the actuality of dukkha [5].
    Interestingly, the Four Noble Truths were articulated by the Buddha in a
    medical framework, beginning with a specific diagnosis, dukkha itself: then
    a clearly stated etiology, that the dis-ease or dukkha has a specific cause,
    namely craving: a salutary prognosis, namely the possibility of a cure of the
    dis-ease through what he called cessation: and fourth, a practical treatment
    plan for bringing about liberation from suffering, termed The Noble Eightfold
    Path . This is all recounted in Chapters 1 [Siegel, Germer, and Olendzky] and
    Chapter 2 [Olendzky], where it is made abundantly clear that right or wise
    mindfulness is one but only one of the eight path factors. However, as a
    number of authors here and elsewhere point out, the term mindfulness (in
    Pali, sati ) has a range of different meanings that are hotly debated to this day
    among Buddhist scholars, and even among scholars who share specializing
    in a particular Buddhist tradition.
    Perhaps it is important to state explicitly at this point that in my own
    work and that of my colleagues in the Center for Mindfulness, from the very
    beginning we have consciously used the term mindfulness in several com-
    plementary ways: one, as an operationally defined regulation of attention
    (see below); and two, as an umbrella term that subsumes all of the other
    elements of the Eightfold Noble Path, and indeed, of the dharma itself, at
    least in implicit form. We never limit our use of mindfulness to its most nar-
    row technical sense of whether the attention is or is not fully on the chosen
    object of one’s attention in any given moment. As noted, there is a consider-
    able range of definitions of mindfulness even among Buddhist scholars who
    specialize in the subject. I offered an operational definition for the sake of
    clarifying what we mean when we speak of cultivating mindfulness through
    both formal and informal meditative practices, namely, the awareness that
    arises through paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non-
    judgmentally. It was meant to be just that – an operational definition. This
    approach leaves the full dimensionality and impact of mindfulness or mind-
    ful awareness implicit and available for ongoing inquiry and investigation,
    and indeed, it has recently become the subject of much interest and inquiry,
    in the many