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Mindfulness in Sustainability

Creating Capacity for Social Renewal from Within

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Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education

Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly (Huffington Post 2016).

Synonyms

Carefulness; Compassionate thinking; Conscientiousness; Deep ecology; Deep innovation; Leading from the emerging future; Relational awareness

Definition

Rooted in Buddhist meditation discourses, as a spiritual or salutogenetic practice, mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment in a gentle, nurturing lens. This accepting and nonjudgemental way of taking care of our thoughts and feelings supports a compassionate view on the self, the other, and the world. Practicing mindfulness supports sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future. Rooted in ancient spiritual wisdoms, cosmologies and epistemologies of the so-called eastern and southern worlds, mindfulness already deeply contains a complex notion of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Group Innovation – Organization – Networks, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

    Susanne Maria Weber & Marc-André Heidelmann

Authors
  1. Susanne Maria Weber
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  2. Marc-André Heidelmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susanne Maria Weber .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

Section Editor information

  1. NTU's Green Academy, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Petra Molthan-Hill

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Weber, S.M., Heidelmann, MA. (2019). Mindfulness in Sustainability. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11352-0_378

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