Latest Posts on Engaged Mindfulness & Teaching Mindfulness

There is a grief that lives beneath the surface of ordinary days. You feel it when you read the wildfire report and put your phone down a little too quickly. When you notice the absence of bees in a garden that used to hum. When a child asks you what the future will look like and something in you goes very still. This grief has many names. Climate anxiety. Eco-distress. Ecological overwhelm. But underneath all the names is something simpler, something the body already knows:

Can enlightenment really be packaged into a $69.99 annual subscription? A look at why meditation apps are great for opening the door, but why true transformation still requires the messy, beautiful reality of human connection.

Are we teaching mindfulness, or are we just life-hacking? As the practice goes mainstream, there is a growing fear that we are losing the depth of ancient traditions in favor of stress-management techniques. But according to Fleet Maull, the secret to deep practice isn't in the technique you choose—it's in the person teaching it.

I.V. came to the Engaged Mindfulness Institute teacher training not as a beginner, but as someone already doing the work — teaching mindfulness in Charlotte's school system and serving as both a teacher and operations manager at the Charlotte Center for Mindfulness. But even with that experience, she knew something was missing.

Doubt is the quietest hindrance, often masquerading as wisdom or responsibility. Learn how to identify hindering doubt and return to the direct practice of mindfulness.

Struggling with low energy in your mindfulness classes? Explore how naming "sloth and torpor" can transform a flat room into a space of honest connection and renewed presence.

Aversion shows up like this all the time in mindfulness teaching. A student who talks too long. A group that feels disengaged. A tone in the room that’s heavy, angry, or flat. Sometimes the aversion is obvious in students. Sometimes it’s quietly living in us. Either way, when it’s unacknowledged, it starts running the show.

Learn the difference between formal mindfulness practice (meditation) and informal mindfulness, and how to integrate both into your daily life for less stress and more peace.

The Engaged Mindfulness Institute programming isn’t about quick fixes or abstract ideas—it’s a community where real people learn, practice, and support one another to bring mindfulness into their daily lives and work.

At Engaged Mindfulness Institute, gratitude isn’t an afterthought. It’s woven into the heart of every practice, every circle, every shared breath.

Equanimity sees the deeper patterns of existence—the constant flow of arising and passing away, the interconnectedness of all phenomena, and the futility of trying to control outcomes.

Emmanuel pressed his finger into a bullet wound on his head, recounting the massacre at Murambi Technical School,

“I hope that through meditation and mindfulness I am removing the thorn of anger from my heart,” wrote one woman incarcerated in Tennessee after completing the Navigating Conflict workbook. “The more I learn to let go, the more calm and peaceful I am.”

In November 2005, Ovidio—a psychiatrist, Zen practitioner, and long-time social activist—joined the Zen Peacemakers' retreat at Auschwitz.

Early one morning, I was co-teaching a meditation class at the local county jail. The class was located in a tiny room with a giant...

Engaged mindfulness is about offering the practices and values of mindfulness, including nonjudgmental awareness, self-acceptance, empathy, and compassion, to all members and sectors of our society, especially those who are more underserved or marginalized. The more we practice mindfulness, the less we can turn away from suffering — our own and others.