It’s Time to Change, and to Inspire Change

Mindful commits to do more to counteract bias, racism, inequality, and exclusion—in its practices and in its products and programming.

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We are at an historic moment in the fight against racism, inequality, and exclusion. The brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people; the resulting uprising in cities across the world, the stark statistics about how much worse COVID-19 has affected communities of color—all these have highlighted how systemic racism and hate continue to permeate our societies. In the midst of so much pain, it is also inspiring to see so many stepping up.

At Mindful and the Foundation for a Mindful Society, we’ve presented mindfulness as a practice that goes far beyond de-stressing and self-care. As a foundational tool, it can enable us to be more aware of how we hate, of our biases, of what we ignore. Being mindful also means being accountable for our actions and inactions. And taking steps to counteract bias and to change—to reduce suffering in every way possible. 

Flourishing Together

Mindful made a commitment four years ago to more frequently feature the important work of mindfulness teachers and community leaders of color. Our readers, our partners, our staff, and the communities we engage with through our foundation work, all benefit from the wise counsel of these thought leaders. The Mindful community has grown in powerful ways because of these relationships, and we plan to continue expanding this work and looking for more ways to uplift teachers and leaders of color, and to widely encourage anti-bias learning in our programs and products.

Taking Action

We need to do more, however, and we will do more to address racism and unconscious bias and its damaging effects—within our organization and within the mindfulness community at large. We will take additional concrete steps, now, and in the coming months and years. 

We are committed to increasing the diversity of our staff, our leadership, and our board. We also commit to a more robust Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program to bake into our organization a practice of ongoing self-examination, which can uncover ways we contribute to structural racism and inequality. We will update statements of our principles and our mission to explicitly include counteracting bias and racism. We will also listen and learn from emerging voices in the anti-racism and anti-bias communities.

We look forward to working together with all of you—our audience, our many contributing teachers and writers, and our institutional supporters—to make real change within and inspire real change in the world at large.

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