Do we invite people who don't have a mindfulness practice?

One of the things I love about the Mindfulness for Change community is that we are open and inclusive and value diversity. This vibe or culture makes it easier for me to show up with my whole self and to experiment with others. I see this culture as one of our strengths in having a role in bringing about the societal change we need. In my experience some contemplative traditions (and many other groups) can be quite rigid - which can exclude people and discourage openness, honesty and new ideas. I suggest we take an open, inclusive and diverse view of how we view mindfulness. While I acknowledge mindfulness as a word has limitations it is a useful term for explaining our kaupapa to other people. For me being mindful is now more about being aware and acting from a place of connectedness and compassion. To grow this capacity I need to meditate - however people grow this capacity in different ways. I suggest we have an open invitation to people along the lines suggested by @paulmcgregor and that how we operate and our principles reflects the MfC culture we want to create. I agree @patriciamorgan that it would be helpful to get clearer on how mindfulness (in the broadest sense) can bring about change - this could be a very useful contribution from MfC - sounds like another slack channel - I'll start one. The videos on the MfC website created by @sam22os start to try to answer this question.

@petejakey I think we are about mindfulness, but not in a way that is coercive, so the reason we don't mandate practice is because of the culture of openness we encourage. This is based on the underlying assumption that people naturally want the best for themselves and don't need to be controlled to be good. So we invite, support and encourage people to (learn ways to) practice in ways that feel good and useful to them.

Andrew has previously suggested that there should be a "Mindfulness 101" session at available every hui for people who are new to formal practice - I like this idea, as a session that's suggested (but not mandatory) for newcomers. This will be easier to do once we've progressed a bit further with our "what is mindfulness" discussion.

Another point that I think is relevant comes from Theory U, which asserts that "the success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener(s)". So it's up to us as hosts and participants to practice our version of mindfulness at our gatherings. I think we've seen this happen well so far, especially at Hui #1, where people commented that it was a different way of learning mindfulness - not in a structured one-to-many way, but an informal peer-to-peer way where we learned from each other's example and how each other showed up to the activities of the weekend. I think we've all got a responsibility as participants to show up in a mindful way - but not use coercion to do so.

Hi Nick @nicklaurence I like your comment here though not quite sure how you got 'coercion' from Pete's comment ? I love the way we are an inclusive group and that this is core to what we do - though I think it is relevant to have some kind of container and I think what Geoff @geoffmercer has said near the beginning of this thread is a great start, though again some shared agreement on what we mean by 'mindfulness' is required. I also like the idea of some kind of introductory experiential part of the hui's for newcomers but I think we have to get clear on what we mean by mindfulness, which you have rightly pointed out. Lastly, I really like what you have said about the responsibility of MfC hosts, but there may need to be some more discussion and awareness around this. I think it also comes back to earlier comments, in Slack maybe I can't remember now where it was, around having more contemplative practice at the huis and in all that we do. All the best Patricia

Hi Everyone, I recently received this information about meditation practice - discussing 'open monitoring' and 'focused attention', with the latter often understood as mindfulness. I thought I'd post it here as it offers a brief glimpse into the massive discussion around meditation including people taking a neuroscientific approach to these two kinds of meditation methods. Also here is a brief overview that you may find interesting: http://davidvago.bwh.harvard.edu/mindfulness-resources/starting-a-meditation-practice-retreat-centers-for-you/