Definition
Mindfulness describes a person’s capacity to observe inner and outer experiences with non-judgmental attention in the present moment. Although often associated with Buddhist origins, properties of mindfulness can be found in many of the world’s spiritual, contemplative, and psychological traditions. Frequently discussed alongside meditation, mindfulness can be understood as a universal and trainable human capacity, while meditation is a method to cultivate mindful states of awareness and enduring personality traits.
The development of mindfulness often instructs placing one’s attention on a point of focus, such as the breath or an everyday task, and repeatedly guiding the mind back as it inevitably strays. Such practices may also include techniques of mind/body connection or those meant to generate attitudes of compassion for self and others.
The word mindfulness itself is translated from sati in the ancient Pali language, and in Buddhist teaching, it is a pillar of the Eightfold Path, a framework designed to bring freedom from life’s hedonic treadmill and the suffering it sews. As the practice and investigation of mindfulness has grown around the world, so have questions about the influence that such inner development may have on environmental values, greener lifestyles, and movements toward sustainability. This interest is magnified by mounting concerns over a technology-powered attention economy that manufactures consumer demand, with grave implications for ecological degradation, large-scale mental health issues, and ideological polarization (see Consumerism).
History
While Buddhism itself is over 2,500 years old (and other Eastern meditation systems predate it), mindfulness has effectively become globalized in less than a century. The United States and Europe saw their first wave of Asian meditation teachers in the 1960s. In 1979, the first course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was introduced into scientific and medical settings. Mindfulness is now found in such fields as healthcare, psychotherapy, education, government, business, sports, prisons, and the military (see Education for Sustainable Consumption, The Role of Business, Values and Consumption). Apps and digital media offering instruction have proliferated, with companies like Calm and Headspace attracting millions of subscribers and hefty valuations. This mainstreaming has been met with enthusiasm as well as caution, with some critical that the commercialization of mindfulness detaches it from its mystical roots and moral values.
The popularization of mindfulness and meditation has increasingly intersected with growing environmental alarm, propelling wider philosophical and scientific exploration of the mind’s role in our treatment of the planet. Religious leaders, meditation experts, activists, and researchers offer a variety of perspectives suggesting it should be taken seriously (see Spiritual Consumption).
The 14th Dalai Lama has authored books on the climate crisis and engaged in public dialogues with activists. Influential Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, especially in his later years, focused extensively on the connection between inner mindfulness and outer sustainability. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the medical professor who developed the original Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction protocol, frequently suggests that addressing existential matters of war and peace, rights and justice, and ecological stability require inner capacities for compassion, equanimity, and collectivism, all of which can be enhanced through, as he calls it, a mindful “love affair” with present moment reality.
Different Perspectives
Mindfulness itself has already been the focus of an outpouring of scientific study, with positive effects validated for stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, eating disorders, pain management, hypertension, sleep, and other issues. It is often theorized that more mindful people will also lean toward being more Earth-friendly, and now a substantial body of science tests these effects and seeks to find their mediating pathways.
Many results support the hypothesis that mindfulness correlates with pro-environmental actions (though further research would be required to establish causality). A self-reported study of meditators showed that participants tend to have lower levels of conspicuous/positional consumption (see Voluntary Simplicity) and less susceptibility to normative influences (including advertising) due to a healthier self-concept and less conformity to peer expectations. Another found meditation associated with greater belief in climate change. A study of more long-term meditators found them to have higher levels of happiness, connectedness with nature, and more environmental concern, as well as lower levels of land and water use and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, approaches such as systems thinking are drawing connections between inner consciousness and global societal phenomena, viewing human damage to the environment as an extension of deeply embedded problematic mindsets that can be better understood, and healed, through an inward view.
The founder of Lund University’s Center for Contemplative Sustainable Futures, Christine Wamsler, positions the climate crisis as the manifestation of a collective mind that is suffering from disconnection with itself, others, and nature. Thus, the climate crisis is a relationship crisis, and mindfulness is an important tool for rebuilding connections.
Systems thinker and MIT economist Otto Scharmer founded the Presencing Institute to teach a mindfulness-informed “change management framework” emphasizing “deep listening, co-creation, and an open mind, heart, and will” meant to shift viewpoints from “ego-centric to eco-centric”. In 2024, Wamsler, Scharmer, and others presented a report to the Club of Rome pronouncing the critical importance of “the system within” for envisioning and realizing sustainable futures. The paper discusses “the overlooked inner dimension of system change” and offers “the language to advocate for psychological, social, and spiritual factors crucial to sustainable solutions” (Bristow et al., 2024).
Applications
Examples of mindfulness applied to environmental issues are increasingly plentiful. Some courses teach mindfulness-informed insights and lifestyle changes, such as those from the Inner Green Deal organization and the Mind and Life Institute. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health designed a Mindful Climate Action course, instructing behaviors intended to decrease carbon footprints and increase health and happiness (with positive results published in a number of peer-reviewed papers) (see Behavior Change, Attitude-Behavior Gap).
Many prominent universities now have mindfulness research centers where topics of human flourishing and environmental health are frequently entwined. A notable addition is the Thich Nhat Hanh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health at Harvard, born in 2023 from an anonymous $25 million gift.
Mindfulness techniques are increasingly being taught in elementary and secondary schools, intersecting with models of social-emotional learning that encourage inner awareness and outer kindness to people and the planet.
Mindful introspection may also benefit political discourse. In the British parliament, since 2013 the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness has offered mindfulness courses to lawmakers in both houses of Parliament. Of the hundreds of politicians and staff who have participated, many report enhanced collaboration, including in the face of contradictory opinions, suggesting the potential of these practices to ease gridlock on divisive topics.
And while the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are now a widely applied framework, an independent consortium from Sweden has released its own open-source Inner Development Goals meant to help advance the UN’s objectives from within, warning that despite humanity’s extensive technical knowledge, “we seem to lack the inner capacity to deal with our increasingly complex environment and challenges”.
While mindfulness development itself is an ancient technology, new questions are being asked about how it might play a consequential role in surmounting our era’s great environmental and social dilemmas. The answers are not yet clear. Some will see mindfulness at best as a sedative for our consumer anxiety and environmental panic, others as a way to temper over-consumption within existing or slowly reforming systems, and yet others as a way to envision and transform into entirely different kinds of societies.
Further Reading
Bristow, J., Bell, R., & Wamsler, C. (2022). Reconnection: Meeting the climate crisis inside out. Research and Policy Report. The Mindfulness Initiative and LUCSUS. Available at: www.themindfulnessinitiative.org/reconnection (accessed: 8 January 2025).
Bristow, J., Bell, R., Wamsler, C., Björkman, T., Tickell, P., Kim, J., & Scharmer, O. (2024). The system within: Addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems change. The Club of Rome. Available at: https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/earth4all-bristow-bell/ (accessed: 8 January 2025).
Inner Development Goals (2021) Inner Development Goals: Background, method and the IDG framework. Available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13fcf9xmYrX9wrsh3PC3aeRDs0rWsWCpA/edithttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1I0ThTPl75h3M6iLzZ7KgYOsiLcrZw3Bw/edit. (accessed: 138 January June 2025).
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2018). Meditation is not what you think: Mindfulness and why it is so important. New York: Hachette Books.
Scharmer, C.O. (2018). The essentials of theory U: Core principles and applications. Oakland: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.