Sadly, letter writer Diana Mitchell ("Mindfulness isn't the answer," May 24) demonstrated a great lack of understanding of what mindfulness is and the gifts it has to offer. Those of us who take mindfulness seriously are learning that it is through mindfulness practices that all participants in a situation might more clearly see the presence and roots of oppression and injustice, as well as effective ways of counteracting and healing those injuries. Rather than saving mindfulness for a time when we've figured everything out, mindfulness helps us to figure things out in the first place.
The writer speaks as if proponents of mindfulness expect the practices to fix everything and that silence is the ultimate goal. Completely to the contrary, mindfulness practices help us to engage our problem-solving skills with greater clarity and focus as we act more effectively out of the silence we have experienced. The benefits have been shown to extend across race, gender and economic conditions, to name a few.
In the current complex of challenges we face, I hope we will bring every tool available to the task of improving our world for all of its inhabitants.
Rev. Jan Trammell-Savin, Baltimore