Sati or Mindfulness? Bridging the Divide

Abstract

Clinically-based interventions using mindfulness in various forms appear to have integrated themselves in a significant manner into Western approaches to mental health care. Whether this is for people with recognized mental health problems, or for those who are simply using mindfulness for the enhancement of well-being, ‘mindfulness’ can no longer be considered esoteric and the preserve of a minority fringe engaged in a ‘religious’ activity. However, this integration has not come without a cost, and that cost has been the mutual suspicion that has arisen among practitioners on both side of the ‘divide.’ The divide mentioned is none other than that which is usually characterized as the clash between empirically-based scientific approaches and ‘religion’, here specifically the Buddhist ‘religion.’ Nonetheless, the suspicion can be seen as mutual. Not only do some engaged with the ‘scientific’ approach often view the Buddhist background as unnecessary, perhaps even irrelevant, those within the Buddhist fraternity have come to characterize mindfulness-based approaches as somehow ‘dharma’ light, something I will return to below.