How Does Buddhist Contemplative Space Facilitate the Practice of Mindfulness?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an original qualitative cross-sectional study using interviews and a questionnaire.

The topic is particularly relevant now when the covid-19 pandemic led many people to seek spiritual practices.

However, the manuscript needs a significant reformulation if it intends to be classified as original research:

A. The text would need to be better stratified as to what refers to MEDITATION in general (a heterogeneous group of techniques), MINDFULNESS (a practice used in several techniques), and BUDDHIST SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY specifically. The text moves between these different concepts without clear divisions. In this sense, if the focus of the study is the Buddhist practice, the previous concepts could be summarized in much shorter passages.

B. The distribution of information should better follow the academic format. INTRODUCTION is to draw the current scenario with the available literature, present the gaps in knowledge and the objectives of the work. METHODS describes the tools (questionnaire), the casuistry (subjects), the data collection period, etc. RESULTS presents the findings specifically obtained in this research. DISCUSSION resumes a brief summary of the findings and compares them with the existing literature; then comes the authors' perceptions, study limitations, and future suggestions. CONCLUSION must be strictly aligned with the study's objective and derive only from the present findings. Such a structure would also be useful in ABSTRACT.

C. In this regard, among the various actions required, some suggestions are below. Eliminate the "Literature Review" section, as a structured search (keywords in specific databases) was not performed. Since every article does a "review" to justify the problem, this content could be in the Introduction, in a much more summarized form, in a  "Conceptualization" area. Line 280 should open a new subsection titled "Casuistics" or something similar. The content of sections 4.1. and 4.2. should not be in Results, but in some previous section (it could even be in Methods).

D. Other observations: Evaluate which images are really relevant and should remain in the paper. Also, the sections "Author Contributions" and "Funding" are not filled.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your review. The suggestions are very helpful.

RESPONSES TO REVIEWER COMMENTS

Thank you for this feedback and suggestions for revision. Changes made and explanations are itemised below.

Green = changed as suggested in manuscript

Black = explanation and / or adjustment in manuscript, addressed by comments here

Reviewer 1

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript describes a study using mixed methods to explore how a Buddhist sacred space influences mindfulness practice.

Introduction

This section contains broad coverage of the relevant literature, however some areas lack clarity and some claims are made without sufficient evidence to support them. The introduction describes characteristics from Buddhists texts and art that are expected to support mindfulness practice, however this is an assumption and empirical evidence to support these claims is not provided.

It would be preferable to use definitions of terms from the relevant scholarly literature rather than from dictionaries and encyclopaedias. In addition, some Buddhist terms are introduced without a definition or sufficient explanation (e.g. the five desires, P.4 line 185).

P.1-2 lines 44-45: When discussing clinical guidelines I suggest being specific about what exactly is being recommended so as to avoid potentially misleading readers. E.g. consider changing “It has also been recommended as a treatment therapy by the…” to “It has also been incorporated into a treatment therapy (mindfulness-based cognitive therapy), recommended by the…”.

P.3 lines 124-126: This sentence compares the “effort” of MBSR with that of Buddhist practice and states MBSR offers “the calmness that people can seek”. However, no supporting references are provided and this is a false equivalence. Consider revising or providing supporting evidence.

P.3 lines 127-128: The sentence introducing this paragraph refers to “Buddhist mindfulness” yet the quote from Birtwell et al. 2018 provides a definition of formal mindfulness practice that is not specifically Buddhist. Further, in lines 132-133 the phrase “weaving mindfulness into existing routines” is a direct quote from the Birtwell et al. 2018 paper yet the phrase is not in quotation marks and the reference is not provided. In fact the full description of informal mindfulness practice provided is closer to the Birtwell explanation than Shonin 2015, yet only Shonin 2015 is cited. Either revise the text or include the appropriate citation and quotation marks.

P.3 lines 137-139: “In general understanding, mindfulness is … allowing people … to experience the benefits themselves (Mental Health Foundation 2021). As not everyone benefits from mindfulness practice and there are known adverse effects, consider rephrasing to “… to experience mindfulness practice themselves”.

P.3 lines 142-144: “growing media coverage” is not evidence of the effects of mindfulness practice. That is an inappropriate claim to make.

P.4 lines 172-176: to which Buddhist teachings are you referring?

Methods

The research questions are not clearly stated. The end of the introduction poses different questions compared to the topic of investigation as described at the start of the methods section.

The methods are poorly described. There is no reference to how data about the Buddhist Centre was collected. There is no mention of informed consent from the interview participant, how they were recruited, whether the interview was in-person, via telephone or video call, how long the interview lasted, whether the interview was recorded and transcribed, or who conducted the interview. For the questionnaire, it is not clear how participants were recruited, how the questionnaire was developed (e.g. was it based on any existing questionnaires?), or whether questions were open, closed, or a mix. Please add a list of the questions included in the questionnaire to the appendix.

Some information in methods section 3.3 “participant observation” would be better placed in the results section. It is not clear whether attendees at the meditation sessions were informed about the observations or whether consent was sought. As this section states the ‘observer’ engaged in brief conversations with attendees, their observer role should be clarified in relation to the research methods literature, e.g. were they “participant as observer”?

There is no section on reflexivity, how the background and position of the authors influenced the study design, data collection and analysis. Of most concern, there is no description of the methods of data analysis employed, or how the different types of data were brought together to draw conclusions.

The description of the methods would benefit from the use of a checklist, such as the COREQ (COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research).

Results

The results section begins with background information about the Centre but there is no explanation in the methods section about how or from where this background information was obtained, and the decision-making process for what sources of information to include or exclude.

The results section is far too brief and does not describe all of the results for the study. In 4.3 “questionnaire results” it should be made clear that “the top three qualities” (p.11, line 392) were from a predetermined list, and not spontaneously stated by participants. “Table 8: theme of interview” does not describe any themes generated from interview data, it simply states a list of questions. These interview questions should appear in the methods section.

Discussion

The first line of the discussion section (P.12, lines 406-408) claims “Both literature and results from interview and questionnaire point towards the answer that, yes, the location where one is practicing does have an influence on the practitioner.” This is not supported by the results section as there is a lack of data reported.

Data and figures are presented for the first time in the discussion section, yet they should be presented in the results section. This renders the discussion of the results very confusing. Claims are made in the discussion that are not backed up sufficiently by the data, but appear to be the opinion of the authors.

Spelling, language and grammar

Spelling and grammar could be improved throughout. For example:

P.1 line 36: consider changing “or deteriorating the” to “or the deterioration of”.

P.2 lines 86-87: The meaning of this sentence is unclear: “There are mindfulness rooted in other religions, for example, Hinduism, Judaism…” Should this be “There are examples of mindfulness…” or “There are practices equivalent to mindfulness…” or something else?

P.3 line 128: typo - “of definitions” is stated twice.

P.3 line 142: “chronical illnesses” should be “chronic illnesses”.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your review. The suggestions are very helpful.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Well done.  See my comments in the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your review. The suggestions are very helpful.

RESPONSES TO REVIEWER COMMENTS

Thank you for this feedback and suggestions for revision. Changes made and explanations are itemised below.

Green = changed as suggested in manuscript

Black = explanation and / or adjustment in manuscript, addressed by comments here

Reviewer 3

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authos were sensitive to my observations and the text is now in line with Religions standards.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments. They have been very useful.