Where to start:

1. What is popular in the West? the version of mindfulness that Kabat Zinn popularized was drawn in large part from the Dozchen tradition, which is not even Buddhist, but rather, a shamanic tradition predating Buddhism in Tibet. It has been mixed with various practices from Tantric, Vedantic, Theravada, Zen, pure Land school and many other Indian/Chinese/Japanese and other Asian traditions, as well as a great deal of neuroscience.

2. Asian vs modern. Dan Siegel's version of mindfulness, which is entirely based on an integration of over a dozen scientific disciplines, is taught to tens of thousands of students throughout the world, and is avowedly non-Buddhist. My researchon mindfulness was, by requirement (being conducted in a government funded institution) not connected with Buddhism or any other religion.

3. If you are at all familiar with Jim Marion, Father Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Cynthia Bourgeault, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, you would know that millions of people (most Christian , Sufi, andJewish, but some non sectarian too) have been practicing, in the past 50 years, meditative disciplines in essence the same as those of Buddhist and other Indian/Asian traditions, some no doubt influenced but many developed independently.

Meanwhile, thanks to the author of this piece for the distinction between popular denatured mindfulness practice and genuine spirituatiy.