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Exploring The Relationship Between Meditation Flow Experience and Well-
Being
Tzuhui A. Tseng
Department of Environmental and Cultural Resources
National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan
thtseng@mail.nhcue.edu.tw
Ching-Cheng Shen
The Graduate School of Travel Management
National Kaohsiung Hospitality College, Taiwan
Abstract
Well-being is a kind of healthy or happy feeling one has, and is also one’s goal in life.
Through the process of work, leisure activities, exercise, or social interaction, an individual
could bring his potential into use and satisfy his needs, and further develop a sense of
accomplishment and worthiness, and the feeling of happiness. Because leisure experience
could satisfy people’s psychological needs such as recreation, relaxation, self-improvement,
and self reliance, it is an important source of well-being. When people are immersed in leisure
activities, they would go into a devoting state of mind, and enjoy satisfaction of selfrealization
and flow experience of abundant thoughts. Therefore, the effect of flow experience
from leisure activities on well-being is an important research topic.
People in this society are experiencing more and more stress from life and work. Meditation
can provide satisfaction in people’s physical and spiritual needs, and has gradually become an
important part of leisure activities. This study would explored the relationships between
leisure activity flow experience and well-being, use people who participated in meditation
activities as research subject, and collect data through survey interview.
The findings were as the following: 1. On the factor dimension aspect of meditation flow
experience, the Flow State Scale proposed by Jackson and Marsh (1996) was used as
reference, and clarifying goals, instant feedback, balancing skill and challenge, concentrating
on the activity, self-control, changes in sense of time, and self-forming experience were
chosen as measure foundations. 2. On the factor dimension aspect of well-being, the Oxford
Happiness Inventory (OHI) of World Health Organization (WHO) was used as reference, and
seven dimensions including physical, spiritual, environmental, social, self-growth, joyful and
optimistic, and life satisfaction were chosen as measure foundations. 3. As for the meditation
flow experience, “the meditation experience is great”, “having the ability to face meditation
challenges”, “enjoy the meditation experience”, “meditation feels good”, and “clear about
want I want to do” had higher outcomes. 4. On the well-being aspect, “actively to create in
life”, “cherish good fortune” “harvest from everything in life”, “good performance from
work”, and “having hope for the future” showed better results. 5. After analyzing the
relationship between meditation flow experience and well-being by using linear structural
equation, it was clear that meditation flow experience and well-being had significant positive
relations. 6. In leisure flow experience, “concentrating on the activity”, “clarifying goals”,
“instant feedback”, and “self-forming experience” were higher factor dimensions. 8. In wellbeing,
“joyful and optimistic”, “life satisfaction”, “self-growth”, and “environmental” were