Why Right Mindfulness Might Not Be Right for Mindfulness

Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2015) examined a number of critical issues in the ongoing debates concerning the nature of “mindfulness” and its applications within and beyond clinical psychology. Often appearing to take a neutral stance in relation to the debates between “traditional mindfulness” and “contemporary mindfulness,” their primary aim was to “assess the validity” of criticisms concerning the conceptual integrity of contemporary mindfulness (p. 1). In particular, they evaluated the relationship of contemporary mindfulness to the Buddhist doctrines of “right mindfulness,” the degree to which “suffering” is alleviated in traditional and contemporary mindfulness, and whether Buddhist ethics should play a more explicit and pronounced role in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). The authors were careful throughout the article to suggest what could be done rather than what should be done in the ongoing dialogue between traditional and contemporary mindfulness. This commentary suggests that this stance leaves a number of implicit assumptions unexamined or underexamined. In particular, two key issues will be explored: (1) the assumption that Buddhist conceptions of suffering and psychological conceptions of suffering are compatible and serve as an adequate point of departure for the translation of mindfulness from traditional contexts to contemporary applications in psychology and (2) the consequences of importing Buddhist ethical and normative frameworks associated with “right mindfulness” into contemporary mindfulness. …