Beyond “The Mindful Revolution” Meme

There has been a spate of mainstream media coverage of mindfulness over the past year, including a recent Time magazine cover story entitled “The Mindful Revolution.” It featured colleagues and collaborators of ours like Janice Marturano, a leader of the mindfulness-at-work trend, who teaches many retreats at the Garrison Institute and presented at our Mindfulness at Work forum last month; Richard Davidson, who is on the board of the Mind and Life Institute and attends its annual meeting here; Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program informs our contemplative education work, and Congressman Tim Ryan, whose Mindful Nation Foundation we recently hosted.

Prominent media coverage of the mindfulness trend is a great development, and a sign of the times. It focuses mostly on the idea that meditation offers practical, secular benefits for the health and well-being of individuals, and helps reduce stress and enhance performance at work. It’s well established in research and practice (MBSR dates back to the late 1970s, and by now has over 1000 instructors in 30 countries).