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From DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition  by Marsha M. Linehan. Copyright 2015 by Marsha M. Linehan. Permission 
to photocopy this handout is granted to purchasers of this book for personal use only (see copyright page for details).Mindfulness Handout 7a  
Wise m ind from a Spiritual p erspective
Wise Mind as . . .
contemplative practice
Mindfulness
Meditation
Contemplative prayer
Contemplative action
Centering prayerThoughts, attitudes, and actions designed to 
help us express or experience connection to:
••The sacred, the divine within,  
the transcendent.
••God, the Great Spirit, the Absolute, 
Elohim, the nameless one, Brahma, Allah, 
Parvardigar.
••Ultimate reality, the totality, the source, our essential nature, our true self, the core of 
our being, the ground of being.
••No self, emptiness.
Wise m ind experience   
from a spiritual perspectiveExperience where a deeper layer of 
reality rises to consciousness. A reality 
that has always been there but has been 
misperceived. An experience of expansion of consciousness; the experience of unity and oneness within the sacred.
Wise m ind  
from the perspective of mysticism  
(seven characteristics  
of mystical experiences)  
 1. Direct experience:  Experience without 
words of ultimate reality.
2. experience of unity:  Awareness of 
oneness and of no distance between 
oneself, reality, and all other beings.
3. Without words: Experience of reality 
that cannot be grasped and can only be described with metaphors and stories.