A Critical Analysis of the Concepts and Measurement of Awareness and Equanimity in Goenka’s Vipassana Meditation

Goenka’s Vipassana meditation (GVM), a widely applied mindfulness training system rooted in Buddhism, is currently widely used. Although the two abilities cultivated in GVM, awareness and equanimity, exhibit certain similarities with the mindfulness cultivated in mindfulness-based psychotherapies (M...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zeng, Xianglong (Author)
Contributors: Oei, Tian P. S. (Other) ; Ye, Yiqing (Other) ; Liu, Xiangping (Other)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. [2015]
In: Journal of religion and health
Year: 2015, Volume: 54, Issue: 2, Pages: 399-412
Further subjects:B Measurement
B Equanimity
B Awareness
B Mindfulness
B Goenka’s Vipassana
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Goenka’s Vipassana meditation (GVM), a widely applied mindfulness training system rooted in Buddhism, is currently widely used. Although the two abilities cultivated in GVM, awareness and equanimity, exhibit certain similarities with the mindfulness cultivated in mindfulness-based psychotherapies (MBTs), they are not major concerns in MBTs. While many mindfulness scales have been created to measure different aspects of mindfulness constructs and certain scales and items can indeed reflect the basic abilities of awareness and equanimity, none of them can adequately capture the way in which those abilities and related ideas are applied in GVM. This paper presents a critical examination of the problems associated with the concepts and measurement of awareness and equanimity and presents potential solutions for achieving better measurement of these concepts in the future.
ISSN:1573-6571
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and health
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10943-013-9796-9