may have been the year of the "mindful revolution," but 2015 proved that mindfulness is here to stay. The more we learn about mindfulness -- the cultivation of a focused awareness on the present moment, most commonly through meditation -- the more health and well-being benefits we discover. This year, researchers delved further into the science of meditation and uncovered even more surprising evidence of the practice's powerful effects on the mind and body. Here are the five most incredible scientific findings on mindfulness of 2015. We figured out how mindfulness improves health. We know that mindfulness is linked to a number of physical and mental health ben... posted on Jan 25 2016 (22,720 reads)

article is the third in a series exploring the effects that unconscious racial biases have on the criminal justice system in the United States. Officer Tina Latendresse of the Hillsboro Police Department in Oregon meditates during a mindfulness training program for police. Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian When I was promoted to tenured full professor, the dean of my law school kindly had flowers sent to me at my home in Pacific Heights, an overpriced San Francisco neighborhood almost devoid of black residents. I opened the door to find a tall, young, African-American deliveryman who announced, “Delivery for Professor Magee.” I, a petite black woman, dres... posted on Jan 5 2017 (11,728 reads)

following is an excerpt from Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu's book, "From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: Transforming Self and Soceity with Compassion"(Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018) Why Heartfulness? Heartfulness describes a way of being in mindfulness, in compassion, and in responsibility. The word mindfulness, by itself, seems insufficient to explain how mindful consciousness extends into compassion and is expressed in active caring. Heartfulness portrays this expansive sense of living with openness and clarity, being true to ourselves, acting in sympathy with all beings, resonating with and being part of the world around us. The word com-passion literally means &ld... posted on Mar 8 2018 (13,798 reads)

May 30, 2017 Your browser does not support the audio element, but you can play it here. Diane Musho Hamilton is a spiritual teacher, mediator, and group facilitator who has been studying mindfulness for more than 30 years. She is a featured presenter for A Year of Mindfulness, Sounds True's yearlong online meditation program. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Diane discuss how her experience with mindfulness has helped her to become an effective group mediator. Diane speaks on how mindfulness skills transfer to interpersonal communication and skillful relationship—especially when it comes to being able to take on someone else's perspecti... posted on Oct 29 2017 (14,899 reads)

notion is a candidate for further testing and exploration. That’s part of what makes our work at Greater Good so exciting: We’re constantly uncovering research that looks at humanity in new ways, helping us all learn to be happier, more compassionate, and more resilient. This year’s top insights are a tribute to that spirit. They debunk things we thought we knew, like how many human emotions there are. They inject some questions into the popular discussion of mindfulness, which can at times be overenthusiastic. And they open up new horizons for us to consider, like the possibility of finding purpose later in life and even changing our personality. Besid... posted on Jun 21 2018 (18,656 reads)

past few years have been marked by two major trends in the science of a meaningful life. One is that researchers continued to add sophistication and depth to our understanding of positive feelings and behaviors. Happiness is good for you, but not all the time; empathy ties us together, and can overwhelm you; humans are born with an innate sense of fairness and morality, that changes in response to context. This has been especially true of the study of mindfulness and attention, which is producing more and more potentially life-changing discoveries. The other factor involves intellectual diversity. The turn from the study of human dysfunction to human s... posted on Jan 23 2014 (128,041 reads)

and digital distractions, it's not society's defining trait. And we're all to blame. Because we’ve all been there. Driving to work while making a phone call. Eating dinner while writing tomorrow's to-do-list. Watching a movie while texting and eating popcorn. The list goes on. In a hyper connected world, bombarded by multiple forms of stimulation, how do we remain aware of the quiet gifts that the present moment has to offer? Cultivating a mindfulness practice can be a powerful way to train our minds and tune into the beauty of here and now. There are many ways to approach it. Whether we take a few minutes to notice ou... posted on Aug 18 2015 (26,509 reads)

of the world. Since I would be asking them to be mindful, I wanted to do what I could right from the start to induce that state. I wanted to assure them that I would be mindful and that I hoped that they too would be as fully present in the moment as they could, as a way of reminding themselves to be mindful in their work as a health professional, attentive, truly listening, trying to see the uniqueness in each patient.   This brief performance has become a useful way of inducing mindfulness, drawing students into the moment and experiencing rather than being told. By bringing myself in a performative, playful way students are invited to bring themselves into the classroom, wi... posted on Aug 24 2017 (13,836 reads)

new studies point toward three benefits to cultivating moment-to-moment awareness in the workplace. Research says mindfulness works for individuals. But does it work in the bottom-line-driven workplace, or is it just a frivolous feel-good program? This is the question tackled in a growing number of studies. Here are three ways, based on four recent studies, that cultivating moment-to-moment awareness might improve workplaces. Meditation might build self-confidence in leaders Our Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research. A.D. Amar and colleagues at the University of Westminster measured the self-perception of leadershi... posted on Jan 16 2015 (28,240 reads)

Rhonda Magee is a faculty member at the University of San Francisco law school, an expert in contemplative pedagogy, the President of the Board of the Center for Contemplative Minds in Society, and a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions for lawyers and law students. She has spent her career exploring the interrelationship between law, philosophy, and notions of justice and humanity. Having grown up in a segregated North Carolina, Magee developed an early interest in racial and social justice, as well as a deep sense of spirituality and inner work - both aspects of her personal life that profoundly inform her daily work. In this Awakin call conversation, with ... posted on Jun 1 2017 (13,589 reads)

movement for “mindfulness meditation” is growing, but can it break the modern political gridlock? An interview with Tim Ryan, the US Congressman who wants a “quiet revolution” in America. With bills on immigration, gun control and balancing the budget currently stalled in Congress, many Americans would try anything to unfreeze the US political logjam, from magic mushrooms to Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby,“the world's most famous prognosticating rodent”. Congressman Tim Ryan’s solution is more conventional: he wants everyone to develop greater “mindfulness”, through simple forms of meditation and other practices that focus ... posted on Sep 6 2013 (28,183 reads)

Freedom in the Face of Difficulty. On this episode of “Insights at the Edge,” Tara and I spoke about why it’s hard to be compassionate toward ourselves, and what Tara calls the Trance of Unworthiness. We also spoke about how to find a true refuge no matter what difficulties we might be experiencing. Tara and I also discussed her new online course on Meditation and Psychotherapy, and the importance of therapists being trained in the practice of awareness and mindfulness. Here’s my conversation with Tara Brach. Tara, I think of you as the self-acceptance lady, the self-acceptance expert, someone who has really studied this and put a lot of time an... posted on Jan 5 2021 (5,914 reads)

HAPPENS IN MINDFULNESS JOHN TEASDALE. GUILFORD PRESS (WWW.GUILFORD.COM), 2022. PP. 268.  Reviewed by Cynthia Bourgeault Like mom and apple pie, mindfulness has an unassailable reputation for virtue and wholesomeness. But what actually goes on in the brain and the psyche to deliver the goods? What are we actually signing up for when we embrace a path of mindfulness? In this important new book John Teasdale deftly weaves a course between the Scylla of cognitive science and the Charybdis of classic spiritual teaching to create a clear and compelling understanding of how mindfulness actually works to support the deep, unitive transformation of mind and heart traditionally know... posted on Mar 13 2023 (3,366 reads)

Vanderkam is the bestselling author of multiple books on productivity and time management, including I Know How She Does It, 168 Hours, and What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. She recently joined Leah Weiss, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, writer, and consultant who specializes in the application of mindfulness to workplace environments, for a Heleo Conversation on incorporating mindfulness into our day-to-day lives. This conversation has been edited and condensed.  Laura: Could you talk a little bit about what you mean by mindfulness and purpose? Leah: Mindfulness is a term that is be... posted on Apr 1 2017 (14,358 reads)

of neurosurgery at Stanford University. He founded and directs the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), where the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. As a philanthropist, he has given millions of dollars to support health care and educational charities around the world. He attributes his success partly to a kind woman named Ruth, who took 12-year-old Doty under her wing. Over the course of a memorable summer, she taught him techniques of mindfulness, visualization, and compassion that would transform his life. Now, with his book and with CCARE, he is sharing those practices (and the new science behind them) with others&mdash... posted on Jul 5 2016 (56,595 reads)

following is an excerpt from Golden: The Power of Silence in a World of Noise, May 2022, Harper Wave Publishers Navigating Noise Over the past fifty years, mindfulness meditation has taken a remarkable journey from remote monasteries of Burma and Thailand to the pinnacles of mainstream power—places like Apple, Google, GE, and the Pentagon. While some of this rise is attributable to increasing openness to new mindsets and worldviews since the revolutions of the 1960's, we believe the biggest reason for its newfound popularity is straightforward: There is a deep yearning for silence in a world of more and more noise. Whether we consciously realize it or not, we sense that p... posted on Oct 4 2022 (3,145 reads)

attention to your attention." Amishi P. Jha came to her pathbreaking work studying the neuroscience of mindfulness and attention when, as a young professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, she lost feeling in her teeth. She had been grinding them as a profound stress response to burnout from her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and tenure-track professor. Knowing from her academic work that the brain can change, she told herself at the start of summer, “before I quit my own career, let’s see if I can get my own brain to change.” She had just heard a talk about the power of meditation to change brain images from anothe... posted on Mar 9 2023 (4,712 reads)

lawyers? It's no joke. Charles Halpern has been leading a movement to promote empathy and mindfulness in the practice of law. When I tell people that I teach a class in law and meditation at UC Berkeley’s law school, I often hear snorts of disbelief. “It’s easier to imagine a kindergarten class sitting in silence for half an hour,” a friend said to me, “than two lawyers sitting together in silence for five minutes.” Charles Halpern (left, foreground) leads a Qigong exercise at a retreat for 75 lawyers at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California.  But the class is no joke. In fact, it’s part of a ground-breakin... posted on Mar 31 2011 (12,765 reads)

of mobile search. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. The conspirators could well be called the compassionati.  Meng believes that world peace can be achieved -- but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace within themselves. Inner peace, in turn, comes from nurturing emotional intelligence through the practice of mindfulness and meditation. Working with Zen masters, meditation teachers, psychologists and even a CEO, Meng created a seven-week personal growth program named -- what else -- Search Inside Yourself ... posted on Jul 11 2012 (21,341 reads)

does it mean to be mindful?  Essentially, mindfulness means to be present, and in the moment.  It is important that we remind ourselves of this simple fact.  All too often we can lose the true essence of mindfulness by over-complicating things or putting all our emphasis on the act of meditation alone.  Mindfulness is not something we leave at the chair, but something we can carry through our everyday lives.  If we can apply mindfulness on the chair, then why not while brushing our teeth, catching up with an old friend, or even waiting for our morning train?  All these moments present an opportunity for us to apply mindfulness,... posted on Aug 2 2013 (225,747 reads)