MINDFULNESS
Building a mindful society
When we become mindful we learn to recognise the impact of our words and actions on everything around us, and can create powerful change in our communities and the world.
by Margie Ulbrick and Dr Richard Chambers
A
s more and more people become aware of the benefits of mindfulness, it has spread
beyond medicine and healthcare into business, sport, and education. Some people are beginning to wonder what it would look like to create a mindful society, and we don’t need to look very far to see that our world certainly needs it! A collective unconsciousness has led to the degradation of the environment, and fight/flight reactivity on a large scale regularly leads to conflict and war. Mindfulness offers a powerful way to start addressing some of these issues. Each of us is responsible for creating
this change. Only when we learn to bring mindfulness and loving presence to ourselves are we able to extend that out towards others. These ripples then travel further and further, meeting other ripples on the way, and mindfulness eventually crosses the whole pond. We create a mindful society by creating a mindful self.
BEING THE CHANGE Mindfulness starts with being. Only when we learn to quieten down and become intimate with ourselves and the world around us can we start responding appropriately. Prior to that, we are merely reacting. But once we learn how to be, we can discover how to bring that being into the world – into our work and play, into our relationships, families, and communities. Doing this effectively requires that we look deeply and see clearly. When we do this, we get to know our core values and deepest desires, and to notice the ‘still inner voice’ of intuition. And we become able to truly listen and recognise the impact
34 SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2017
of our words and actions on everything around us. It is easy to get disheartened by
feeling like we alone have to carry the burden of responsibility for changing the world. We can become overwhelmed by global poverty, high rates of suicide in the young, and all the other inequality and injustice in the world. But mindfulness is not necessarily about going out and single- handedly trying to change everything. We may end up doing just this when we hear a calling from deep inside to make a contribution, but it is vital that we don’t lose touch with our own heart and become separated from those around us. So much activism today creates further divisions rather than healing by increasing the sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’. To be truly effective agents of change, we need to learn to rest in a space of loving presence and find ways of bringing that into being in the world, which is easier said than done. In fact, nobody can tell you how to do this. We need to discover it for ourselves. Gandhi motivated all of India to
engage in a nonviolent struggle that ultimately achieved Indian independence by embodying the idea of being the change that he wanted to see. On a smaller scale, we can embody mindfulness by the way we are in the workplace and in our relationships and homes. When we get in touch with our true nature through mindfulness, we discover that, far from its being some apathetic state where we sit around contemplating our navels, it is very much alive. When we rest as awareness, we find that it is inherently joyful,
compassionate, and fearless. Think of times you have felt completely contented, even just for a moment, and you will recognise these qualities. The first step is to look deeply and to see who we really are. The way we are in the world then becomes an expression of this ‘beingness’. Mindfulness is transforming our being in a way that is enduring so that the traits we express in our everyday life become the ripple effect of the state of mindfulness: loving kindness and non-judgemental friendliness to our inner experience, which builds a moment-by-moment awareness of presence and what is real. The very words ‘creating a mindful society’ imply effort and doing which is
IMAGE: CRISTIAN NEWMAN
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