Thought for the Week: Beyond mindfulness

Peggy Heeks reflects on mindfulness and beyond

by Peggy Heeks 24th April 2015

Living in the present has long been a Quaker practice, but now the concept is intensified by mindfulness, which has become almost a cult movement. Like Christianity, the original emphasis has shifted. The Oxford Mindfulness Centre, for example, is part of the university’s Department of Psychiatry, where it is associated with relieving depression. It aims to prevent depression and enhance human potential by combining modern science with ancient wisdom. It has become ‘a treatment of choice for prevention of recurrent depression’.