From Suffering to Peace

When Siddhartha Gautama first taught about mindfulness 2,600 years ago in northern India, he probably had no idea how these teachings and perspectives would spread around the world in the twenty-first century. The Buddha originally taught these practices as a vehicle for ending suffering and finding peace, genuine happiness, and a living freedom amidst any and all circumstances in life. Today, how these meditations are taught and developed in therapy offices, hospitals, school classrooms, and boardrooms may perhaps differ from the scope of his original intent, yet they continue to have a profound impact on tens of millions of people in every walk of life all over the world.

Indeed, mindfulness seems to be everywhere, and it is not difficult to see why. It can help develop focus and self-awareness. It can improve your well-being and ability to work with a wide array of challenges, from addiction and anxiety to ADHD. Extensive research now affirms that mindfulness practice results in better emotional regulation, improved attention, and an enhanced ability to work with pain. People everywhere are now discovering what meditation adepts across Southeast Asia have known for millennia, that mindfulness practice can help cultivate awareness and grow the heart of compassion, for both ourselves and others.

As a result, almost every week I hear of some new application for mindfulness. It’s being taught in schools, from kindergarten to university, and integrated into an array of organizations, from NBA teams to corporate offices. It’s practiced by the military, athletes, surgeons, therapists, programmers, and first responders. It has been featured in countless publications, as well as in numerous podcasts, books, and TV and radio programs. Mindfulness programs are helping people across their entire life spans, from supporting pregnant mothers with childbirth to assisting hospice patients with the challenges of dying.

This movement of mindfulness from cloistered monasteries into research labs, hospitals, schools, prisons, and organizations is helping unprecedented numbers of people worldwide. Yet this rapid, modern proliferation of interest also raises questions and concerns. Given the vast amount of information about and hype surrounding mindfulness today, how do we know we are getting an accurate guide to this subtle subject? Even researchers can overstate what mindfulness can do, and the media, in their zeal to identify the next “big thing,” can tout mindfulness as the panacea for all personal and social ills. Given the meteoric growth of mindfulness and its reach into every layer of society, it is vital that the depth, limitations, and potential of the practice are clearly and accurately conveyed.

Mindfulness is a vast and complex body of teachings and practices that has been studied and cultivated for millennia, primarily within Buddhist traditions across Asia. Simply put, this matrix of teachings guides us in how to live a wise, ethical, and compassionate life. In this context, the core intention of mindfulness is to use the clarity of awareness to help ourselves and others find genuine freedom from suffering and to live with a kind responsiveness to life.

My hope with this book is to provide a comprehensive, clear understanding of the depth and scope of these ancient teachings as well as to shed light on their contemporary applications. That requires leaving no stone unturned as we explore our mind, body, heart, and world and discover what causes our pain and stress and what truly supports a life of well-being and peace. Throughout the book, as a support for this inquiry, I provide key meditations, reflections, and practices to help develop a real understanding of this quality and practice.

I began my own study of mindfulness in 1984 in England, before anyone I knew talked about meditation, let alone practiced it. In fact, when I told people I meditated, they thought I was either weird or antisocial. They looked upon what I was doing as navel-gazing, a cop-out from society, or at best a complete waste of time! But despite the dismay and judgments from friends and family, I persevered, even though this was neither easy nor socially acceptable.

Luckily, given the scant information about meditation available back then, I had few preconceptions to wade through. Also, I had the good fortune to train with an array of highly skilled meditation teachers in Asia, Europe, and the United States. I became passionate about my studies and underwent years of intensive, silent, mindfulness meditation retreats as a way to explore the practice deeply and intimately. As hard as that may sound, that immersion in deep contemplative solitude was one of the happiest periods of my life. It was that in-depth exploration that provided a solid foundation for learning to share these teachings.

And there is nothing like teaching to really get to know and understand a subject. For the past twenty years I have had the good fortune to teach mindfulness practices in Buddhist meditation retreat centers around the world. However, I soon realized there were many people who would never step foot inside, nor seek out, a traditional meditation venue. The need for a bridge between the ancient discipline of mindfulness and contemporary culture was clear. So in 2004, I founded the Mindfulness Institute as a way to reach those people and offer programs in an array of settings, weaving neuroscience and emotional intelligence into mindfulness-based courses.

With that intention, I have had the pleasure to lead a wide variety of mindfulness programs, and to see their effectiveness, in places as diverse as the UN in Africa, at tech companies like Google in Silicon Valley, in traditional businesses like Ford Motors, and with nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy. It has been equally illuminating to teach mindfulness in hospitals, universities, and prisons to psychologists, educators, doctors, and inmates and see just how impactful this practice can be for everyone, regardless of their circumstances. In response to our increasing tech-focused culture, I have also explored how meditation can be taught online, and so I created practices for apps that allow access to meditation digitally, including for the New York Times and many others. This is now quickly becoming the primary way for people to access meditation tools.

Teaching in this way has given me a distinct vantage point to see the significant impacts of mindfulness in society. I have had the good fortune to have a front-row seat in this grand social experiment, to see how people from all walks of life, from engineers in Silicon Valley to aid workers in Senegal, have found genuine personal transformation through learning meditation and engaging in mindfulness practice.

This book is a continuation of this exploration. In it, I return to the foundational principles of mindfulness while aiming to help you understand this transformative practice within our contemporary context. By outlining the full scope of mindfulness, I place it within its traditional framework, a complete path that leads from suffering to freedom, from reactivity to peace. While I draw on the wealth of mindfulness teachings and practices from the ancient Buddhist tradition, my goal is to present this rich body of work — much of it developed by monastics living in a feudal, agrarian culture as far back as 500 BC — in ways that are relevant and accessible to twenty-first-century life. I seek to both honor this rich and vast tradition and adapt these practices to the needs and demands of our own era.

Throughout this book, I trust you will discover how mindfulness is so much more than simply “focus” or attention, which is how it is often mistakenly described. Mindfulness refers to the depth of awareness we bring to our whole life, and in so doing we transform ourselves and the way we live in the world. Mindfulness supports us to live an intentional, meaningful life with presence, insight, and compassion. It is an extraordinary voyage, and I welcome you to take this journey with me as we explore the beautiful path of mindfulness together.