The Mindful Diving Standard

Mindful Diving™ is the first international standard uniting recreational diving, mindfulness and the science of wellbeing. This document defines what the standard requires — of divers, of instructors, of centers — so that anyone can read it, teach against it, audit it or challenge it.

The standard is complementary. It sits on top of the diver's existing training agency and never replaces it. Every practice described here fits entirely within the diver's certification limits, the agency's safety standards and the dive plan agreed before entry.

• In scope: attention, breathing above and below water, pre-dive intention, surface-interval reflection, instructor wellbeing, ocean ethics, and the assessment of all of these.
• Out of scope: dive safety procedures, gas planning, decompression theory, equipment configuration and rescue protocol — these belong to the diver's agency.
• Explicitly out of scope: therapy, clinical mindfulness, psychological treatment, medical advice or any claim of cure.

Mindful Diving™ is complementary to, and independent of, SSI, PADI, CMAS, RAID and other agencies. All third-party marks belong to their owners.

學院

The Mindful Diving Institute — the governing body holding the standard, the curriculum, instructor training and research.

Standards Council

The body that approves every published version of this standard.

Safety & Dive Medicine Board

The body that reviews every practice and every piece of safety language before publication.

Research Council

The body that governs measurement, instruments and the publication of evidence.

Mindful diver

A certified diver holding a current Mindful Diving credential at MD-1 or above.

Mindful Diving Center™

A dive center certified by the Institute against the center requirements in §7.

Practice

A named, teachable attention or breathing exercise defined by the Institute and reviewed by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board.

Safety-critical item

An assessment item whose failure cannot be compensated by performance elsewhere (§6.3).

Shall / should / may

"Shall" is a requirement. "Should" is a recommendation. "May" is permitted.

The pillars are normative. Every course, every center audit and every credential is traceable to them. They are never reordered and never renamed.

• 1 · Safety & Excellence — the practice shall never reduce margin. Where presence and procedure appear to compete, procedure wins, and the practice returns afterwards.
• 2 · Mindful Experience — the dive shall be taught as an experience of attention, not only a set of skills. Briefings shall name what the diver is invited to notice.
• 3 · Instructor Wellbeing — instructors shall be treated as the load-bearing element they are: workload, rest, and the right to stop are part of the standard, not a courtesy.
• 4 · Ocean Connection — divers shall be taught no-contact ethics, buoyancy as care, and the ocean as teacher rather than backdrop.
• 5 · Human Connection — the buddy pair, the group and the surface interval shall be treated as the social core of the practice.
• 6 · Evidence & Impact — the standard measures rather than assumes; claims shall be traceable to instruments or withdrawn.
• 7 · Happiness Leadership — those who hold the standard shall carry it outward: into their centers, their communities and their coastlines.

Every Mindful Diving practice is placed in one of four phases. Placement is a safety decision as much as a pedagogical one.

之前

Intention and grounding. On the surface, in the briefing, in the kit-up. Practices here shall be complete before the diver enters the water.

水下

Presence in the water. Slow, continuous breathing; open awareness; buoyancy as attention. No practice shall be introduced during a task-critical phase.

Between

The surface interval. Reflection, integration, and the conversation the dive left behind — the most under-used hour in diving.

延伸至生活

Transfer to daily life. What the water taught, carried home; what home carries back to the water.

八個練習模型的標準表述列於此處。每張卡片、每堂課、每份講稿與中心教材，都須逐字使用這些文字。

抵達

A — ACKNOWLEDGE

你當下的狀態，不試著讓它變得更好。

R — RELEASE

不必要的緊繃：下顎、肩膀、雙手。

R — READ

環境：水況、風況、入水點、出水點、團隊。

I — INTENTION

你將在這次潛水中練習的一個行為。

V — VERIFY

with your buddy and the plan.

E — ENTER

with the plan and not ahead of it.

E — ENTER with the plan and not ahead of it.

準備狀態檢視

BODY

疾病、疼痛、疲勞、寒冷、水分補充狀況、壓力平衡紀錄。

MIND

注意力、壓力、恐懼、急迫感、分心、意願。

SKILL

距離上次潛水的時間、環境條件、任務負荷、裝備熟悉度，以及如實評估的信心。

CONTEXT

天氣、潛點、團隊、計畫、時間壓力。

GREEN proceed · AMBER say it aloud, adjust · RED a clean limit

潛伴約定

• A sign that I may need a pause is…
• 在水下，讓我全神注意的最好方式是……
• 我希望能及早說出的顧慮是……
• 當我們任何一人終止潛水時，我們同意……
• 我們將共同堅持的一項環境友善行為是……

注意力循環

NOTICE

此刻，身體、呼吸、任務、潛伴與環境，各有什麼狀況？

NAME

a light label, not a verdict.

CHOOSE

在你受訓範圍內，所能採取最安全且有用的應對方式。

RETURN

重新拓展覺察；不要持續緊盯剛解決的問題。

五通道覺察掃描

SELF

呼吸、舒適度、溫度、壓力平衡、任務負荷。

GAS & DEPTH

壓力、時間、深度、上升時必須遵守的要求、限制。

BUDDY

位置、手勢、狀態、共同計畫、彼此距離。

ROUTE & CONDITIONS

方向、水流、能見度、出水點。

ENVIRONMENT

生物、危險、脆弱之處，以及其他潛水員。

靜

S — STOP adding

停止非必要任務；穩定位置與浮力。

T — TOUCH the anchor

一個接觸點——齒間的調節器、手中的充氣閥，或吐氣流出的感受。

I — IDENTIFY out of the tunnel

氣量、深度、潛伴、出口——依此順序確認四項事實。

L — LINK

現在處於黃燈，就向潛伴或領隊示意，不要等到紅燈。

L — LISTEN

將注意力轉向呼吸所提供的資訊，以及恐懼真正傳達的訊息——是訊號、故事，還是背負的重擔？

開放協定

DEDICATE

下潛時，將這趟潛水獻給某個人或某件事。

THREE

達到中性浮力後，緩長、完整地吐氣。

ONE STILL MINUTE

在穩定的位置，且情況允許時。

GRATITUDE

在安全停留時 — 輕輕加上一句無聲的話。

FFLN

F — FACTS

發生了什麼，是攝影機或儀器能記錄下來的？

F — FELT

你們各自在身體、呼吸、情緒與注意力上，察覺了什麼？

L — LEARNED

什麼帶來幫助？什麼讓覺察變窄？什麼讓你意外？

N — NEXT

下一次潛水要做的一項調整。

Each level requires knowledge development, water sessions or practicum, and assessment. Knowledge development may be completed online; water sessions shall be completed in person with a qualified Mindful Diving Center™ or Instructor.

5.6 — Passing the final examination issues a credential with the status knowledge complete. Each supervised water session shall be logged by the diver and verified by a Mindful Diving Center™ before it counts. When every session a level requires is verified — and, for MD-4, the practical assessment is signed — the credential upgrades to certified and the public register shows it as such. A verifying center may return a session with a note; a returned session is not a failure and may be resubmitted.

6.1 — The pass mark for every final examination is 80%.

6.2 — Module knowledge checks are formative. They may be repeated without limit and do not contribute to the final score.

6.3 — Safety-critical non-compensability: a candidate who answers any safety-critical item incorrectly shall not pass, regardless of overall percentage. There is no averaging across safety. Safety-critical items are marked as such in the item bank and reviewed by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board.

6.4 — A candidate who does not pass receives named review topics and may re-sit after review. Re-sits are unlimited and unpenalised; the standard measures readiness, not speed.

6.5 — Passing the examination completes knowledge development only. The credential records knowledge completion; water sessions are recorded separately by the certifying center.

6.6 — Every credential carries a public identifier verifiable at /verify. Credentials may be suspended or revoked by the Standards Council for breach of the code of conduct.

Centers are certified against the seven-pillar rubric. There is one Seal — Certified Mindful Diving Center™ — with one fee, one renewal and one audit: a center meets the gate, or it does not yet.

7.1a — Inside that one Seal live three earned growth levels, recognising the depth of a center's work over time: Seed (the practice planted), Branch (alive across the team) and Reef (an ecosystem others shelter in). Levels are read from evidence already on file — certifications issued, guest sessions run, team seniority, community and research contribution — and are never purchased, upgraded for a fee, or required to remain certified. Any Certified Mindful Diving Center™ — Seed, Branch or Reef — carries the same Seal, the same standing and the same Standard.

7.4 — The Current is the annual renewal: a short self-audit against the seven pillars, the wellbeing policy and the measurement return, reviewed by the Institute. A center that does not complete The Current lapses to unlisted until it does.

7.5 — A center shall never present Mindful Diving as a replacement for its agency affiliation, and shall display the Seal honestly and only while certified.

• Agency standards first. Where this standard and an agency standard appear to conflict, the agency standard governs and the Institute shall be notified.
• Stop authority. Any diver, at any level, may end any dive or any practice at any time, for any reason or none, without explanation or consequence.
• Breathing. Slow, continuous breathing only. Breath-holding, skip-breathing and hypoventilation shall never be taught or implied on scuba.
• Task-critical phases. No mindfulness exercise shall be introduced during descent, ascent, gas management, navigation under load or any emergency. Safety is the first mindfulness practice.
• No-contact ocean ethics. Divers shall not touch, chase, feed, ride or collect. Buoyancy is the ethic made physical.
• Non-clinical scope. Mindful Diving is not therapy or medical treatment. Instructors shall not diagnose, treat or advise clinically, and shall refer when appropriate.
• Psychological safety. Reflection is invited, never extracted. No diver shall be pressed to share, and what is shared in the surface interval stays there.
• Honesty of marks. Credentials, the Seal and affiliations shall be represented exactly as issued.

9.1 — This standard is versioned. A published version does not change; changes appear as a new version with a new date.

9.2 — Anyone may propose a change. Proposals are recorded as proposed and are clearly distinguished from published text; nothing is normative until the Standards Council approves it.

9.3 — Any change touching safety language requires review by the Safety & Dive Medicine Board before Council approval. Any change touching measurement requires review by the Research Council.

9.4 — Minor versions (v1.3) clarify without changing requirements. Major versions (v2.0) change requirements and carry a transition period of at least twelve months for existing centers and credential holders.

The diver-facing pillars above define the practice. The rubric below defines how a center is certified to hold it. Each rubric pillar operationalises the practice pillars at the level of an organisation.