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you to people who are fierce contemplatives. They practice mindfulness deeply, but they also are working to transform institutions in society to bring them more in line with values of attention to detail, savoring, listening, cooperation, and caring. Chade-Meng Tan, who started the Search Inside Yourself program at Google, believes world peace begins with peace in the workplace and the home. Linda Lantieri and Patricia Jennings are longtime teachers who believe our schools could become places where children learn not only the information they need to live but also become emotionally resilient and confident of their valuable place in the world. Elizabeth Stanley, a retired Army captain who represents the ninth generation of her family to serve in the United States military, believes troops need more awareness to serve their country in a way that draws on their full human potential. Congressman Tim Ryan, Democrat from the Youngstown-Akron area of Ohio, is a meditator and yoga practitioner who wants to see mindfulness helping ordinary citizens to lead better lives and leaders to become better listeners and more effective advocates for the public good. In a message to a recent gathering of contemplative practitioners, he said, “Washington is starting to understand the power of mindfulness, compassion, and the contemplative. We need you to knock on our doors and tell us how it benefits the world and what we can do to help.”

The mindfulness revolution begins with the simple act of paying attention to our breath, body, and thoughts, but clearly it can go very far. It helps us in our home life, with our family, our friends, and our colleagues. It helps us in our businesses, our volunteer groups, our churches, our communities, and in our society at large. It’s a small thing. We all can do it. And it can change the world.

Barry Boyce

Senior Editor, The Shambhala Sun

Editor, www.mindful.org

What Is Mindfulness?

JAN CHOZEN BAYS

Mindfulness is a capability we all possess and can cultivate. Yet, so often, we are on autopilot, going through the motions but not really present in our lives. Longtime meditation teacher and physician Jan Chozen Bays tells us how not being present leads to dissatisfaction and unhappiness, while being in the present moment is restful and enjoyable, bringing a sense of discovery to even the most mundane of everyday activities.

MINDFULNESS MEANS deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside yourself—in your body, heart, and mind—and outside yourself in your environment. Mindfulness is awareness without judgment or criticism. The last element is key. When we are mindful, we are not comparing or judging. We are simply witnessing the many sensations, thoughts, and emotions that come up as we engage in the ordinary activities of daily life. This is done in a straightforward, no-nonsense way, but it is warmed with kindness and spiced with curiosity.

Sometimes we are mindful, and sometimes we are not. A good example is paying attention to your hands on the steering wheel of a car. Remember when you were first learning to drive, and how the car wobbled and wove its way along the road as your hands clumsily jerked the wheel back and forth, correcting and overcorrecting? You were wide awake, completely focused on the mechanics of driving. After a while, your hands learned to steer well, making subtle and automatic adjustments. You could keep the car moving smoothly ahead without paying any conscious attention to your hands. You could drive, talk, eat, and listen to the radio, all at the same time.

Thus arises the experience we have all had of driving on automatic pilot. We open the car door, search for our keys, back carefully out of the driveway, and . . . pull into the parking garage at work. Wait a minute! What happened to the twenty miles and forty minutes between house and job? Were the lights red or green? Our mind took a vacation in some pleasant or distressing realm as our body deftly maneuvered the car through flowing traffic and stoplights, suddenly awakening