Mindfulness Meditation takes it's name from the 7th Noble Truth of The Eight Fold Path of the Buddha's teaching. It has been formalized in the Buddhist Tradition of Vipassana, found primarily in Bhurma, but also in Northern India, and now, due to the teachings of Buddhist teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield who brought over several well known Buddhist teachers, it is not popular in the West.

Clearly, Mindfulness has a Buddhist origin and is part of that religious tradition. However, Buddhism is primarily a practice, and a religion in terms of a way of living. It does not postulate a diety, and therefore differs from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet Mindfulness clearly is a Buddhist based practice, and to divorce it from this religion robs the practitioner of much of the practice of mindfulness.