Embodiment in mindfulness

Abstract

“Body” is an important element in the practice of mindfulness. However, the role of the body in theory and mechanism of action in mindfulness has been actively discussed only in the last decade. In this paper, we reviewed the role of the body in mindfulness from clinical and theoretical perspectives, based on “embodiment”. First, in the clinical perspective, based on mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), we examined the implication of “body awareness” through findings of the interaction between emotion and cognition; subjective body experience, in particular; depression and alexithymia. We then excavated “noticing emotions through the body” as a premise of the interventions. Second, the theoretical backgrounds of each MBI were organized into the Kabat-Zinn’s concept of “wholeness,” Varela’s Enactivism, Gallagher’s theory of self-consciousness, the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems and Predictive Coding Theory, and then were related to Bergson’s cone diagram on the perspective timescales, proposing some future integration strategy about “wholeness” as continuum, as an attempt. Finally, based on these perspectives, we derived new implications for embodiment-based mindfulness practice and theoretical assumption: embodied awareness through “wholeness” can lead us decentering (far into “non-self”) only in the context of the ‘as-it-is’ attitude.