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

Gina from lifehack might like to come, she's a wonderful wonderful person! My friend Abe, who's a heartfelt, whole human with tikanga maori wisdom and wonderful projects might be great too. Neither of them have a 'meditation' practice. Rupert Snook, who facilitated the shared holders retreat was wonderful, and fit really well with our community - he plays music, doesn't meditate or associate with mindfulness...

Great context setting-Pete, love the questions. And for me, yes I absolutely think we should invite people who don't have a formal practice. This is one of the reasons I think we need more meditation practice at the hui itself. I'd want to back the environment we create to be one where people at all levels of familiarity with "formal" mindfulness/meditation can come without fear of judgment. And also a place where people can see the value of meditation and might decide that they want to begin a more formal practice after their experience. (Or not if its not for them - there's more ways of being mindful than formal meditation practice, as valuable as the meditation is for many people.)

The main risk I see is that it could dilute the level of formal mindfulness practice in the community - which I think is up as hosts and participants to hold strong on and value by putting into practice. Think we can do better in this area than we have at the first two hui so far.

Yes yes and yes

Firstly We are planting seeds for change SEcondly someone may not have a formal practice but their life is an inspiration of small and large acts of mindfulness love and connection

Metta

Lana

I think its great to be inclusive - and I think this questions leads on to the one about - what we understand 'mindfulness' to be - I started a channel about this in Slack if you'd like to take a look?

I've been reflecting on this question - as Pete @petejakey you mentioned 'risks' - and while I think it is great to be inclusive - the question around this (which relates to our understanding of 'mindfulness') is what makes us different than other groups - as there are many that want to make change in the world. I do think we can still be about mindfulness for change and have people who practice and people who don't but - not really sure what the but is but I feel there is one, sorry finding it hard to articulate.

I say yes! If they feel called to join this community then they are the right person. This increasingly makes me wonder if "mindfulness" is the right word as a label for this community. It seems to automatically put some people off who would agree with the principles, purpose, and experience of MfC. Even people in the shared holders group weren't attracted to the word mindfulness and had to push through their reservations because they saw so much beyond "mindfulness".

It's an interesting one eh. It has worked as an invitation so far, and the words "Mindfulness for Change" resonated strongly with people at Hui #2 in the discussions around purpose. And there's also some sort of reservation I feel that I find hard to articulate. Will be an interesting one to keep paying attention to as the community evolves.

I've always had reservations about the word 'mindfulness' - because of the issues I just spoke about in the 'what is mindfulness' channel in Slack - in that it is now equated (for some) to the commercialization of mindfulness - the ripping of the practices out of their Buddhist origins, their secularization and medicalization.

If we were to say that having a meditation practice was essential we would need to start defining what a meditation practice is. Sounds like a slippery road to ritualism to me!

Sometimes I cringe when saying "Mindfulness", but currently it's a word many people recognise. Let's keep the conversation going and see what emerges.