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Authors: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Fabrizio Didonna
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is very “simple”
and direct because it is based on experience: Negative or harmful states are
those that do not lead to calmness, tranquillity, balance, and meditation. This
is the basic rule in this psychological system: If a mental factor supports
and promotes balance, then it is to be considered positive and beneficial
(Goleman, 1991).
The basic negative mental factors are illusion or ignorance, attachment
or desire , and aversion or hostility. Illusion or ignorance is to be understood as a perceptive defect, a fogging up of the mind that inhibits individuals from
seeing things clearly and without making any sort of judgment. Attachment
or desire is expressed as a selfish longing for gratification, which tends to
overestimate the quality of what one is desiring (idealization) and distorts
reality in as much as it leads the person to remain anchored to an object
or thought, creating a sort of fixation that is difficult to break away from.
Aversion and hostility are to be understood as intense anger that leads to
a distortion of reality, but in the opposite direction of attachment, and that
makes a person see everything in a negative way (see also Chapters 1 and 2 of
this volume). Combinations of these factors lead to various types of distress.
For example, anger can lead to fury, revenge, contempt, and envy, while
attachment brings about phenomena such as avarice, futility, various forms
of dependency and addictions, excitement, and mental agitation. Accord-
ing to the Abidharma, excitement often influences people’s mind because it
sets the mind up for uncontrollable and useless fantasies. Basically we prefer
the flow of awareness: a normal and habitual condition of excitement and
agitation. It is this very agitated and destructive “mental state,” which dis-
rupts a person’s overall well-being, that meditation aims to relax and heal
(Goleman, 1991).
Each negative mental factor is countered by a health factor that is dia-
metrically opposed to it and that can replace it through a mechanism simi-
lar to “reciprocal inhibition,” which is used in systematic desensitization in
cognitive-behavioral techniques. For example, relaxation inhibits its physio-
logical opposite, which is tension (Goleman, 1988). In other words, for every
negative mental factor, there is a corresponding positive one that can dom-
inate it (e.g., penetration, mindfulness, non-attachment, impartiality), and
8
Fabrizio Didonna
when a positive health factor is present in a mental state, the harmful one
it is suppressing cannot reappear.
When one factor or a group of specific factors frequently inhabit the men-
tal state of an individual, it becomes one of that individual’s personality
traits: The sum total of a person’s mental factors determines his/her type of
personality.
The issue of motivation is closely related to mental factors. Mental states
are what push a person to look for one thing and avoid another. If a mind is
dominated by greed, this will become the predominant motivational factor
and the individual’s behavior will be influenced as a consequence, that is, by
seeking to conquer the object of his/her desire.
Mindfulness Meditation, Cognitive Processes,
and Mental Suffering
One of the main factors that causes and maintains mental suffering
(e.g., depression, anxiety) is the relationship that people have learned to acti-
vate in relation to their own private experience. An important aspect of this
relationship is people’s tendency to let themselves be overcome and dom-
inated by thoughts that start from far away, deep in our minds, and slowly
spread out to a point in which they can no longer be controlled and taken
over. During meditation the same thing happens and we become aware of it.
People become aware, maybe for the first time, of the fact that we are contin-
uously immersed in an uninterrupted flow of thoughts that come regardless
of our will to have them or
and direct because it is based on experience: Negative or harmful states are
those that do not lead to calmness, tranquillity, balance, and meditation. This
is the basic rule in this psychological system: If a mental factor supports
and promotes balance, then it is to be considered positive and beneficial
(Goleman, 1991).
The basic negative mental factors are illusion or ignorance, attachment
or desire , and aversion or hostility. Illusion or ignorance is to be understood as a perceptive defect, a fogging up of the mind that inhibits individuals from
seeing things clearly and without making any sort of judgment. Attachment
or desire is expressed as a selfish longing for gratification, which tends to
overestimate the quality of what one is desiring (idealization) and distorts
reality in as much as it leads the person to remain anchored to an object
or thought, creating a sort of fixation that is difficult to break away from.
Aversion and hostility are to be understood as intense anger that leads to
a distortion of reality, but in the opposite direction of attachment, and that
makes a person see everything in a negative way (see also Chapters 1 and 2 of
this volume). Combinations of these factors lead to various types of distress.
For example, anger can lead to fury, revenge, contempt, and envy, while
attachment brings about phenomena such as avarice, futility, various forms
of dependency and addictions, excitement, and mental agitation. Accord-
ing to the Abidharma, excitement often influences people’s mind because it
sets the mind up for uncontrollable and useless fantasies. Basically we prefer
the flow of awareness: a normal and habitual condition of excitement and
agitation. It is this very agitated and destructive “mental state,” which dis-
rupts a person’s overall well-being, that meditation aims to relax and heal
(Goleman, 1991).
Each negative mental factor is countered by a health factor that is dia-
metrically opposed to it and that can replace it through a mechanism simi-
lar to “reciprocal inhibition,” which is used in systematic desensitization in
cognitive-behavioral techniques. For example, relaxation inhibits its physio-
logical opposite, which is tension (Goleman, 1988). In other words, for every
negative mental factor, there is a corresponding positive one that can dom-
inate it (e.g., penetration, mindfulness, non-attachment, impartiality), and
8
Fabrizio Didonna
when a positive health factor is present in a mental state, the harmful one
it is suppressing cannot reappear.
When one factor or a group of specific factors frequently inhabit the men-
tal state of an individual, it becomes one of that individual’s personality
traits: The sum total of a person’s mental factors determines his/her type of
personality.
The issue of motivation is closely related to mental factors. Mental states
are what push a person to look for one thing and avoid another. If a mind is
dominated by greed, this will become the predominant motivational factor
and the individual’s behavior will be influenced as a consequence, that is, by
seeking to conquer the object of his/her desire.
Mindfulness Meditation, Cognitive Processes,
and Mental Suffering
One of the main factors that causes and maintains mental suffering
(e.g., depression, anxiety) is the relationship that people have learned to acti-
vate in relation to their own private experience. An important aspect of this
relationship is people’s tendency to let themselves be overcome and dom-
inated by thoughts that start from far away, deep in our minds, and slowly
spread out to a point in which they can no longer be controlled and taken
over. During meditation the same thing happens and we become aware of it.
People become aware, maybe for the first time, of the fact that we are contin-
uously immersed in an uninterrupted flow of thoughts that come regardless
of our will to have them or
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