The last 24 hours saw me on a lightning-quick trip down to London where – among other things – I met up with two of the most interesting people in the UK today in the modern meditation scene – Ed Halliwell and Andy Puddicombe.
 @ed__halliwell |
 @andy_headspace |
Ed is a writer and journalist who as well as writing for Comment is Free at the Guardian and helping set up the Mental Health Foundation’s bemindful.co.uk is, together with Dr Jonty Heaversedge, the author of The Mindfulness Manifesto, which is published this autumn.
Andy is the front-man of Headspace, the new meditation project which provides introductory daylong events with online supporting materials which present mindfulness-based meditation in a fresh, accessible and well-designed way.
I was excited to meet them in person for the first time and it was fascinating to talk through the details, learning and ambitions of our respective projects. All three of us work in this funny little area which I call the missing middle of modern meditation, and it’s so encouraging to see how different approaches, styles can work together to give a whole range of people different ways into the value that meditation can bring to life. And to see it in the UK too.
A big theme of my conversations with both Ed and Andy was the enormous potential of this space and we agreed that while there remain some challenges in updating the language and presentation of meditation, there is so much potential and I look forward to watching Ed, Andy continue to do their good work. And help out myself where I can.
And we’ll probably wont get it right straight away. As Andy and I discussed, it will be through making mistakes that we develop and grow. And that applies just as much to one’s own meditation practice as it does the presentation of meditation for a 21st century audience.
But if we do make mistakes, it’s for us to make sure that they are better mistakes each time.
