| This study investigated the experience of mindfulness meditation, a method of training attention to observe the ongoing flow of experience for the purpose of developing optimal states of psychological well-being. Due to a paucity of scientific data concerning meditative experience, and the need for systematic and rigorous investigation of this experience, a phenomenological method was chosen for the present study. The aim of the present study was to articulate an understanding of the structure and meaning of mindfulness meditation based on meditators' lived experience of the phenomenon.;Results indicated that there are a common set of interrelated and interdependent experiences associated with being aware--which the present researcher termed "the core mindfulness experience"--which provide the basis for the entire meditative practice. The core mindfulness experience involves focusing awareness on the flow of experience without judgment, resistance, or interpretation, enabling the meditator to be fully present for experience without being identified with and caught up in it. Implicit in this core experience is a way of experiencing life deeply and richly while remaining in a state of equanimity.;Meditation practice is a training in mindfulness which enables the meditator to become mindful in daily life. As such, the way of experiencing practiced in meditation, i.e., the core mindfulness experience, manifests directly in the meditator's daily life, hence deepening and enriching it. In daily life, the meditator emphasizes applying mindfulness to painful experience and neglects applying mindfulness to positive experience, which he or she identifies with and becomes caught up in. These findings also indicate that meditation practice functions to strengthen a meditator's sense of self as well as to transcend it. In contrast to previous meditation literature which emphasizes self-transcendence, these findings suggest that both functions are important.;Eight long-term meditators were asked to describe, in open-ended interviews using a phenomenological approach, their experience of meditating. These descriptions were audiotaped and transcribed. Data were analyzed according to a phenomenological method which included the steps of researcher self-reflection, summarization and thematization of each participant's data, and development of an essential structure of mindfulness meditation. |
