Mindfulness Once Meant Memory: How Sati Became Kabat-Zinn's MBSR

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In 1881 British Pali scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids chose the English word mindfulness for the Pali term sati, which shares roots with the Sanskrit smriti, meaning remembering or bearing in mind. In early Buddhism sati was part of the noble eightfold path and meant keeping the Buddha's teachings in mind so a practitioner could judge whether a thought or feeling was wholesome or unwholesome. The hosts compare it to a nightclub bouncer checking IDs against a list, rather than one who simply watches people walk in. Western interest built through Henry David Thoreau and the Transcendentalists, the Theosophical Society, and Vipassana as reshaped for lay people by the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw.

After World War II, D.T. Suzuki presented Zen in the language of Western psychology, existential therapists such as Erich Fromm took it up, and Thich Nhat Hanh popularized the idea of interbeing. Herbert Benson's 1975 book The Relaxation Response measured meditation's effect on stress. In 1979 MIT-trained molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, adapting the body scan from the tradition of U Ba Khin taught by S.N. Goenka and removing its religious framing. Clinical psychology then defined mindfulness as intentional, present-moment, non-judgmental awareness, which critics such as Ronald Purser now attack as McMindfulness.

• Psychology splits mindfulness into a trait, a state and a skill so it can be measured in trials.
• Marsha Linehan built mindfulness into dialectical behavior therapy for borderline personality disorder.
• Steven C. Hayes used it in acceptance and commitment therapy to build psychological flexibility.
• Critics argue corporate mindfulness ignores the Buddhist ideal of right livelihood and puts stress on the individual.
• The episode notes the paradox of using a practice aimed at non-self as a self-help tool.