Mindfulness Through Mantram and Inspired Passage Meditation

Mindfulness is sometimes misunderstood as solely a Buddhist or secular practice. This chapter offers a toolkit for enhanced sensitivity and flexibility toward patients and populations of diverse spiritual and religious orientations and backgrounds. It explains a set of eight interrelated practices known as Passage Meditation (PM), and a subset known as the Mantram Repetition Program (MRP), both derived from Indian-born spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999). These practices support mindfulness and can be pursued within any major religious tradition or outside all and facilitate drawing on spiritual resources within each tradition. Two empirical research programs based on these practices have generated more than 30 published research studies and seven randomized controlled trials. Each program has documented both enhanced mindfulness and a variety of improved mental health outcomes, often mediated by mindfulness gains. Guidance is provided for implementation, implications for diversity-related ethical obligations, and needed expansion of contemporary mindfulness toolkits.