Introduction to Mindfulness and Trauma & Social Justice

While there is a tendency today to view mindfulness as somehow sealed off from the rest of society, like a kind of ‘clean space’ or refuge in which we might sit to shelter from the social, political, economic, and cultural turmoil around us, mindfulness is actually just as entangled in these forces as anything else.

Over the last few years, an increasing body of research has started to explore some of the ways in which these social forces and personal histories impact on the experience of mindfulness practice. Such research shows that the field of mindfulness cannot assume that everyone sits onto the same cushion in the same room. And some people just might not have a cushion at all.

Hence, this module explores the intersections between mindfulness and trauma, as well as mindfulness, privilege, prejudice, and oppression. Here we see that mindfulness is not free of concerns about racism, sexism, ableism or other forms of systemic discrimination. Nonetheless, perhaps mindfulness contains some seeds to help us confront these social ills?