Mindfulness Between Tradition and Innovation: From Buddhist Psychology to Evidence-Based Intervention

This article offers a critical exploration of the concept of Sati within Buddhist psychology and its translation into contemporary clinical practice through mindfulness-based interventions. Rooted in over 2,500 years of contemplative tradition, Sati denotes an embodied mode of awareness that integrates attention, memory, and discernment within the immediacy of lived experience. While historically embedded in a spiritual framework, its clinical adaptation in Western psychology has reframed mindfulness as a secular therapeutic construct centred on cultivating non-judgmental, present-moment awareness. The analysis first examines the phenomenological foundations of Sati, outlining its classical dimensions of embodied awareness, affective sensitivity, cognitive vigilance, and recognition of hindrances. It then considers the reconceptualisation of mindfulness within third-wave cognitive-behavioural therapies, where it functions not as an ancillary technique but as a central mechanism of therapeutic change. Programmes such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) exemplify this translation, applying mindfulness to diverse clinical populations ranging from stress-related disorders and recurrent depression to borderline personality disorder. Across these modalities, mindfulness disrupts habitual reactivity, reduces cognitive and affective rigidity, and fosters psychological flexibility, resilience, and values-consistent living. Taken together, the article argues that mindfulness-based therapies represent a paradigmatic innovation within contemporary psychotherapy. By shifting the focus from first-order symptom change to process-oriented transformation, they expand the horizons of clinical practice and reaffirm mindfulness as both an ancient phenomenological framework and a modern mechanism of psychological healing.