Mindfulness
DOI 10.1007/s12671-014-0326-y
COMMENTARY
Assessing Mindfulness in Multiple Contexts: a Comment
on Christopher, Woodrich, and Tiernan (2014)
Ruth A. Baer
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract This paper comments on a recent study by
Christopher et al. (Mindfulness 5:145–160, 2014), in which
14 Zen Buddhist priests and laypersons residing in a monas-
tery in the Northwestern US were interviewed about the extent
to which the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the
Toronto Mindfulness Scale capture the nature of mindfulness
as they understand and practice it. Participants identified
strengths and weaknesses of both questionnaires; findings
were discussed in terms of the cultural validity of the mea-
sures. Because mindfulness is taught, practiced, and studied in
both Buddhist and Western contexts, including contemporary
medical, mental health, educational, and research environ-
ments, this commentary argues that at least three domains of
knowledge are important in developing measures of mindful-
ness with broad applicability: (1) knowledge of mindfulness
as described, taught, and practiced in Buddhist traditions; (2)
knowledge of mindfulness as described, taught, and practiced
in contemporary Western interventions and training programs;
and (3) knowledge of psychological assessment, especially
psychometrics and questionnaire construction. A balanced
perspective that explicitly acknowledges the value for health
and well-being of both Buddhist and Western psychological
conceptions of mindfulness is recommended.
Keywords Mindfulness . Buddhism . Mindfulness
questionnaires . Cultural validity
R. A. Baer (*)
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, 115 Kastle Hall,
Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA
e-mail: rbaer@email.uky.edu
Introduction
Christopher et al. (2014) describe an interesting study in
which 14 Zen Buddhist priests and laypersons (50 % male,
mean age = 49 years) residing in a monastery in the
Northwestern US were individually interviewed about the
Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al.
2006) and the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS; Lau et al.
2006). Participants had an average of 15.68 years of medita-
tion experience (range 3–43 years) and reported meditating for
a mean of 3.21 h per day (range 1–6 h). They were provided
with background information about each instrument’s purpose
(e.g., to assess the general tendency to be mindful in daily
life), the factors assessed by each instrument (curiosity,
decentering, observing, nonjudging, etc.), and the nature of
directly worded and reverse-scored items (i.e., items describ-
ing mindfulness or mindlessness). Then, they were asked to
read through each measure and to verbalize their thoughts
aloud while responding to the items. Finally, they were asked
whether the measures capture the nature of mindfulness as
they understand and practice it.
Participants identified strengths and concerns for each in-
strument. For the FFMQ, the observing and nonreactivity
facets were thought to capture the nature of mindfulness well.
Participants expressed concerns about the describing facet;
they noted that describing is not an essential element of
mindfulness, that mindful awareness can be wordless, and
that people without a ready vocabulary for labeling their
experiences may be very mindful. Participants suggested that
mindful awareness of one’s tendencies to be distractible and
judgmental could make the acting with awareness and
nonjudging items difficult to interpret. They also expressed
concern about apparently redundant items. For the TMS,
participants reported the curiosity facet to be a particular
strength. Although they admired the simplicity of the TMS
and found it potentially useful for beginners, they questioned

its utility for more advanced practitioners. They also noted
that items on the TMS resemble basic meditation instructions
and suspected that they might be susceptible to impression
management.
Participants suggested that both instruments lack important
content: the intention to redirect attention to the present mo-
ment when it wanders; awareness of suffering, aversion, dis-
satisfaction, and clinging; and compassion and interconnec-
tedness with others. They also noted that the process of
assessing one’s own levels of mindfulness is inconsistent with
the nonevaluative nature of mindfulness. In general, they
expressed the view that the assessment of mindfulness is
problematic because mindfulness is hard to define and that
capturing the experience is “like trying to nail Jell-O to the
wall” (p. 155).
In this commentary I note many points of agreement with
Christopher et al. (2014). Mindfulness is hard to define, and
Western questionnaires designed to assess mindfulness do
have some conceptual and psychometric flaws. However, I
also note that mindfulness questionnaires are used in multiple
contexts, for a variety of scientific and clinical purposes.
Because Buddhist and Western conceptions of mindfulness
differ in important ways, several areas of expertise are neces-
sary to construct mindfulness measures with broad applicabil-
ity. A more balanced view of the variety of cultures in which
mindfulness is assessed is suggested.
Perspectives on Defining Mindfulness
A critical issue in the evaluation of any self-report measure is
the comprehensiveness and accuracy with which the items
capture the intended construct (Clark and Watson 1995). In
the context of contemporary psychological assessment, mind-
fulness is an unusually difficult construct to define, largely
because of its roots in Buddhist traditions. The original de-
scriptions of mindfulness were written many centuries before
the advent of science and in languages that are unfamiliar in
the West. Moreover, contemporary Buddhist scholars note
that the ancient texts describe mindfulness in a variety of
ways. According to Dreyfus (2011), “Buddhism is a plural
tradition that has evolved over centuries to include a large
variety of views about mindfulness. Hence, there is no single
view that can ever hope to qualify as ‘the Buddhist view of
mindfulness’” (p. 42). Similarly, Gethin (2011) notes that
finding a “succinct definition of mindfulness in the texts of
early Buddhism is not so easy. Such definitions as there are are
rather different in character” (p. 269).
Westerners who introduced mindfulness to contemporary
medical and mental health settings recognized the need to
secularize and adapt it to increase its acceptability and poten-
tial usefulness for non-Buddhist populations. Kabat-Zinn
(2011) notes that mindfulness-based stress reduction
Mindfulness
(MBSR) is completely secular; similarly, Linehan (1993)
states that the mindfulness skills in dialectical behavior ther-
apy (DBT) are psychological and behavioral versions of
Eastern meditation practices that can be used “outside of any
religious or spiritual context” (p. 65). Both MBSR and DBT
intentionally describe mindfulness in ordinary language.
Kabat-Zinn’s (1994) well-known operational definition states
that “mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (p.
4). Linehan (1993) conceptualizes mindfulness as a set of
behavioral skills, including observing and nonjudging, among
others. Contemporary Western definitions in the psychologi-
cal literature have received mixed reviews from Buddhist
scholars (see Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013, for several
discussions).
Psychologists conducting research on mindfulness have
found it necessary to define it as a psychological variable that
can be measured using established methods of assessment,
including self-report questionnaires (Baer 2011). Though
challenging because of the definitional issues just summa-
rized, assessment of mindfulness is essential for several sci-
entific reasons (Baer 2011). It allows examination of whether
participants in mindfulness-based treatments are learning the
skills that the intervention is teaching and whether this new
learning is related to improvements in health and well-being.
Assessment also facilitates the study of mindfulness as a
dispositional characteristic that varies in the general popula-
tion and is related to other aspects of psychological
functioning.
The variety of historical and cultural contexts in which
mindfulness has been discussed and practiced suggests that
at least three domains of knowledge are important in devel-
oping and evaluating assessment instruments: (1) knowledge
of mindfulness as described, taught, and practiced in Buddhist
traditions; (2) knowledge of mindfulness as described, taught,
and practiced in contemporary Western intervention and train-
ing programs; and (3) knowledge of psychological assess-
ment, especially psychometrics and questionnaire
construction. Christopher et al. (2014) provide interesting
and important information about the FFMQ and TMS from
the first of these three perspectives. However, Buddhist prac-
titioners who do not provide mindfulness-based interventions
in secular Western settings or conduct psychological research
on mindfulness are unlikely to have knowledge of the second
and third domains.
Multiple Contexts for Cultural Validity
A more complete perspective on the cultural validity of the
FFMQ and TMS would be provided by replicating the study
by Christopher et al. (2014) with other groups. Experienced
providers of empirically supported mindfulness-based
Mindfulness
interventions, such as MBSR, DBT, mindfulness-based cog-
nitive therapy (MBCT; Segal et al. 2013), and acceptance and
commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes et al. 2012), could be
interviewed about how well the FFMQ and TMS capture the
mindfulness skills they teach and practice. Similarly,
completers of these treatment programs could be asked
whether the FFMQ and TMS capture the mindfulness skills
that they practiced, as they understand them. Such studies
might yield different findings about the strengths and
weaknesses of the FFMQ and TMS, for several related
reasons.
Different Levels of Experience with Buddhism
and Meditation
The participants in Christopher et al. (2014) identified them-
selves as Buddhists and appeared to have a strong commit-
ment to a Buddhist way of life. Their level of meditation
experience was described as “ranging from novice to expert”
(p. 148); however, even the novices had practiced meditation
for at least 3 years and reported meditating at least 1 h per day.
In contrast, within the psychological literature, novices typi-
cally are people who have meditated only rarely, if at all. Even
at posttreatment, participants in MBSR, MBCT, and similar
programs have meditated regularly for only 8 weeks, for a
maximum of 45–60 min per day, at best. Studies show that, on
the average, participants typically engage in less practice than
what is recommended (e.g., Carmody and Baer 2008).
Different Goals
Christopher et al. (2014) note that in Buddhist meditation
traditions, the purposes of practicing mindfulness include the
alleviation of general suffering, release from the cycles of
birth and death, and insight into concepts such as imperma-
nence and nonself (see also Shapiro and Carlson 2009).
Western participants in mindfulness-based interventions are often
seeking the alleviation of suffering but may be concerned about
more specific problems or disorders, such as depression, anxiety,
addiction, overeating, or various forms of stress. Important in-
sights may arise, but these are typically focused on personal
patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. The usual goals for
Westerners in mental health settings are emotional and behavioral
self-regulation and the reduction of symptoms, rather than un-
derstanding the ultimate nature of self and reality.
Different Practices
Some mindfulness-based interventions, such as MBSR and
MBCT, incorporate formal meditation practices with strong
roots in Buddhist traditions, such as sitting and walking med-
itation. However, these practices are taught in purely secular
terms, with no explicit study of Buddhist teachings. Moreover,
in some clinical settings, participants are suffering from severe
emotional distress and behavioral disturbances that make
lengthy meditation practices impractical or unhelpful
(Linehan 1994). Accordingly, some mindfulness-based treat-
ments, such as ACT and DBT, include behavioral exercises
that teach basic mindfulness skills without requiring formal
meditation.
For example, DBT teaches observing and describing
(labeling) of thoughts and feelings as a way of responding
when intense emotions arise. Learning to say to oneself, “Ah,
a feeling of anger has arisen within me,” with a nonjudgmental
tone, facilitates nonreactive acceptance of anger (i.e., a mind-
ful response to anger), rather than impulsive temper outbursts
and aggressive behavior. For this reason, describing in DBT is
conceptualized as a mindfulness skill (Linehan 1993). A sim-
ilar skill is taught in MBCT. If self-critical thoughts arise,
participants are encouraged to label them by saying, “self-
critical thoughts are here” or something similar. Such re-
sponses cultivate the nonjudgmental, decentered perspective
on thoughts that is central to mindfulness. ACT also includes
labeling of thoughts, sensations, emotions, urges, memories,
and judgments. Saying “there’s a judgment” or “that’s an
urge” helps participants learn to be mindfully aware of such
experiences without acting on them in maladaptive ways.
Advanced practitioners of mindfulness meditation may not
need such labels and may be unaware of the therapeutic power
of mindful labeling in clinical populations. However, labeling
is sometimes mentioned by Buddhist teachers. For example,
Goldstein (2002) suggests the use of soft, short, mental notes
to label experiences that arise during meditation, such as
“thinking,” “planning,” or “remembering” to describe
thoughts; “anger,” “boredom,” or “sadness” to describe emo-
tions; or “family tape” or “work tape” to describe persistently
recurrent thought patterns (p. 95). Similarly, Kornfield (1993)
states that “the naming of our experiences is the first step in
bringing them to a wakeful conscious awareness” (p. 84) and
suggests labels for experiences observed during meditation,
such as “in-breath,” “long breath,” “tight breath,” “tingling,”
“itching,” “fear,” “delight,” or “longing” (pp. 84–86).
Kornfield attributes this method to the Buddha:
Give each problem or experience a simple name, as
Buddha did when difficulties would appear before
him. … In his instructions on mindfulness, he directed
meditators to note, “This is a mind filled with joy” or
“This is a mind filled with anger,” acknowledging each
state as it would arise and pass away (Kornfield 1993, p.
84).
Whether the describing items of current mindfulness mea-
sures adequately capture the tendency of ordinary people to
label their thoughts and feelings in daily life is debatable;
empirical findings for the describing facet have been mixed.

However, for researchers and clinicians who wish to assess
whether participants in mindfulness training are using this
skill, altering or rewriting these items may be more helpful
than eliminating them.
Psychometric Considerations
As Christopher et al. (2014) noted, the most widely used
mindfulness instruments may not capture all of the relevant
content. Newer measures assessing additional elements of
mindfulness have preliminary support for their utility
(Erisman and Roemer 2012; Frewen et al. 2011). However,
some of the content areas mentioned by the participants in
Christopher et al. (2014) may be difficult to incorporate into
mindfulness measures. Awareness of aversion and suffering is
likely to overlap with measures of neuroticism and general
distress, a common problem in questionnaire construction.
Compassion and interconnectedness are often viewed by
Western researchers as separate constructs that may be out-
comes of practicing mindfulness rather than elements of
mindfulness.
Redundant content is another important concern.
Redundancy should be minimized, in part because question-
naires are less likely to be useful if respondents find them
burdensome or annoying. On the other hand, apparent redun-
dancy among items is sometimes necessary for adequate
internal consistency. Decisions about the inclusion of items
that appear redundant must balance participants’ impressions
with psychometric considerations.
Finally, it is important to recognize that many aspects of
human experience, such as moods, emotions, thoughts, and
perceptions, have ineffable qualities that may be lost when
these phenomena are defined as measurable psychological
variables. However, scientific study of these variables has
contributed greatly to the development of effective
interventions.
A Balanced Perspective on the Cultural Validity
of Mindfulness Measures
The need for a more balanced perspective on the differing
cultures in which mindfulness is assessed is illustrated by
Christopher et al.’s (2014) description of Buddhist and
Western forms of mindfulness as “near enemies” (p. 145;
see also Grossman 2011). According to Buddhist teachers,
near enemies are characteristics that superficially resemble
each other but are fundamentally quite different. For example,
Kornfield (1993) describes compassion and pity as near ene-
mies: compassion includes genuine sorrow and a desire to
help the afflicted, whereas pity implies separation or
Mindfulness
distancing from the afflicted and a lack of true empathy.
Similarly, equanimity may resemble indifference, but the for-
mer is defined by an openhearted emotional balance in the
face of joy and sorrow, whereas the latter involves withdrawal
and lack of caring or concern. Loving-kindness is freely
offered without expectation or demands; its near enemy is a
clinging, controlling, fear-based emotional attachment
masquerading as love. Near enemies, in short, are distorted,
unhelpful imitations of mindful, openhearted qualities
(Kornfield 1993).
The suggestion that Buddhist and Western forms of
mindfulness are near enemies seems consistent with the
following excerpt from Christopher et al. (2014):
Unfortunately, Western psychologist-defined versions
of mindfulness were developed so that they can be
understood by and generally have been validated with
people untrained in mindfulness practices. Similarly, in
undergoing exportation from a Buddhist context to the
world of scientific psychotherapy, mindfulness has been
adapted to ensure fit with Western ideals and to enhance
its palatability to Western patients (pp. 147–148).
This excerpt is correct in stating that mindfulness has been
adapted for secular Western applications but inaccurate in
neglecting to recognize that several mindfulness question-
naires have shown good psychometric properties in meditat-
ing samples (Baer et al. 2008; Brown and Ryan 2003;
Buchheld et al. 2001). The central question for this commen-
tary is whether, in the context of cultural validity, the adapta-
tion of mindfulness for Western settings is unfortunate. If
Western participants are not receiving the potential benefits
of a more Buddhist-consistent conception of mindfulness,
then continued study of Buddhist perspectives is crucial, so
that we may better understand what has been lost in translation
and consider how we might recover it, to the extent possible in
non-Buddhist settings.
On the other hand, it is important to recognize the substan-
tial therapeutic and scientific value of Western conceptions of
mindfulness. Because mindfulness has been secularized, op-
erationalized, and recontextualized as a psychological variable
that can be defined, measured, and studied using established
scientific methods, its potential benefits have become avail-
able to many more Westerners than would otherwise be pos-
sible (Carmody 2014). Many studies of people suffering from
serious problems (chronic pain, severe stress, emotional and
behavioral disorders) have shown significant improvements
after secular mindfulness-based interventions, even with all of
the deviations from Buddhist teachings (known or unrecog-
nized) that these programs contain. The availability of mea-
surement instruments, even with their acknowledged flaws,
has made it possible to determine that participants in mindful-
ness training appear to learn the skills that are being taught and
Mindfulness
that this new learning is important in accounting for the
observed benefits. These findings increase the likelihood that
the benefits of mindfulness training will become even more
widely available.
For mindfulness questionnaires, joint influences (Buddhist
and Western) are already more present than is generally rec-
ognized. Several of the available measures were developed in
consultation with experienced Buddhist teachers and
practitioners. For example, in developing the Mindful
Attention Awareness Scale, Brown and Ryan (2003) asked
nine experienced mindfulness practitioners to rate the initial
pool of items for how well they capture the central experience
of mindfulness. Similarly, the developers of the Freiburg
Mindfulness Inventory (Buchheld et al. 2001) asked eight
teachers of insight meditation to evaluate the items for “ap-
propriateness of formulation, accuracy of content, ease of
comprehension, and specificity for characterization of mind-
fulness” (p. 14). Items for the Southampton Mindfulness
Questionnaire (Chadwick et al. 2008) were rated by an expe-
rienced mindfulness meditation teacher as well as a senior
MBCT researcher. In contrast, items for the Kentucky
Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer et al. 2004) were rated
by clinicians for how well they capture the mindfulness skills
taught in DBT, which were translated from Linehan’s experi-
ence with Zen meditation practices (Linehan 1994). Despite
these differing perspectives, these questionnaires have shown
at least moderate correlations with each other. The factor
analyses that led to the FFMQ showed that items developed
by this wide range of experts form a reasonably coherent
account of the nature of mindfulness in Western settings,
especially among experienced meditators (Baer et al. 2006,
2008). Additional studies of the FFMQ have replicated this
pattern in a variety of clinical and community samples (e.g.,
Williams et al. 2014) and in several European and Asian
languages (e.g., Cebolla et al. 2012; Hou et al. 2014).
Conclusion
Mindfulness can be assessed in numerous settings with dis-
tinctly different cultures. The culture of a Zen Buddhist mon-
astery is probably quite different from the cultures of most
Western mental health, medical, educational, and research-
oriented environments that offer mindfulness training and
attempt to study its effects scientifically. The development of
mindfulness questionnaires has been driven largely by the
needs of these latter environments. Mindfulness question-
naires are imperfect, but making their content more consistent
with Buddhist teachings will not necessarily solve these prob-
lems. The utility of any questionnaire depends on its intended
purposes. For assessing mindfulness as it is understood by
advanced Buddhist practitioners, the observing, nonreactivity,
and curiosity scales (or other scales yet to be developed) may
be the most suitable. For assessing mindfulness as taught and
practiced in Western interventions, additional scales, such as
describing, acting with awareness, and nonjudging, may be
helpful. Instruments that provide reliable and valid scores in
both contexts are probably the most useful, so that findings
can be compared across all populations of interest. As
Christopher et al. (2014) suggest, mindfulness measures that
can be adapted for a variety of populations may be ideal.
However, this requires a balanced, multicultural perspec-
tive that explicitly acknowledges the value and legitimacy of
both Buddhist and Western psychological forms of mindful-
ness, with all of their similarities and differences. Rather than
viewing adaptations for Western settings as unfortunate and
Buddhist and Western conceptions as near enemies
(Christopher et al. 2014; Grossman 2011), a multicultural
perspective suggests that integrating Buddhist and Western
perspectives with the requirements of current methods of
psychological assessment is most likely to lead to improve-
ments that will advance the field.
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