Bridging traditions: a template analysis of Buddhist and Western psychological approaches to mindfulness

Over recent decades, Western psychology has drawn extensively from Buddhism to create effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). To identify opportunities for deeper integration, this study compared the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, a foundational Buddhist text on mindfulness, with two established MBIs for mental health.

Template analysis was used to systematically compare the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta with Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavior Therapy (MiCBT) using Anālayo's breakdown of the Sutta into 15 subcategories as a framework. Similarity between MBIs and the traditional text was assessed using a seven-point Likert scale, with inter-rater reliability employed to examine validity and reliability.

Findings indicate that MBCT and MiCBT align more closely with the first two foundations of mindfulness - awareness of the body and feelings. However, as the Sutta progresses into feeling tones, cognition, and ethics, the alignment diminishes. MiCBT demonstrated slightly greater similarity with Buddhist principles than MBCT (3.4 versus 2.7) but both MBIs largely omit states of mind and the philosophical and liberative dimensions central to Buddhist mindfulness.

Feeling tone was identified as a key area for development: improving the differentiation between sensory experiences and interpretations by incorporating Buddhist cognition (e.g., mental states and factors) offers a nuanced two-stage framework for emotion regulation. The omission of mindfulness of mind and dhammas in both MBIs risks neglecting the ethical and wisdom-based elements central to Buddhist practice, potentially narrowing their transformative scope. Future research might explore how these adaptations could be applied in secular therapeutic contexts.