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Revision of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale for Measuring Awareness and Equanimity in Goenka’s Vipassana Meditation with Chinese Buddhists

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Abstract

Goenka’s 10-day Vipassana course is a widespread mindfulness course rooted in traditional Buddhism. Awareness and equanimity are two abilities cultivated in this course that are not featured in modern mindfulness-based psychotherapies and thereby not adequately measured by current mindfulness scales. The present article analyzed the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (PHLMS; Cardaciotto et al. in Assessment 15(2):204–223, 2008) and revised it into a short version to avoid confusion when measuring awareness and equanimity. Empirical data obtained using Chinese university students and Chinese Buddhists showed that the psychometric properties of the original version of the PHLMS had low factor loading on some items and that the short version had improved psychometric properties, especially for Buddhists. The short PHLMS also exhibited reasonable relationships with emotional outcomes and meditation practices among Buddhists. Implications for the future application of the PHLMS among Buddhists were also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank LeeAnn Cardaciotto, who is the developer of PHLMS, for the help with the translation of the scale and the suggestion on this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, XinJieKouWai St., HaiDian District, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China

    Xianglong Zeng, Mengdan Li, Bo Zhang & Xiangping Liu

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  1. Xianglong Zeng
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  2. Mengdan Li
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  3. Bo Zhang
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  4. Xiangping Liu
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Correspondence to Xiangping Liu.

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Zeng, X., Li, M., Zhang, B. et al. Revision of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale for Measuring Awareness and Equanimity in Goenka’s Vipassana Meditation with Chinese Buddhists. J Relig Health 54, 623–637 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-014-9870-y

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