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From Breathing to Parliament: Four Foundations of Mindfulness for Cultivating Peace
There are four foundations of mindfulness—four objects of practice—to train our awareness in turn:
- The body
- Feelings
- Mental formations (the fifty-one categories of wholesome, unwholesome and neutral states such as anger, compassion, jealousy, tolerance…)
- Objects of mind or “dharmas” (all that appears as the object of perception: lotus, table, mountain, sky…)
Mindful breathing is offered as the vehicle to return to and reconcile with our body, to help it relax, heal and release past-future worries. From this ground of “being peace,” we can then bring non-fear, non-violence and clear insight into every sphere of life—police and peacekeeping, schools and teaching colleges, families, political assemblies and peace negotiations.
Practical proposals include:
• Integrating deep listening and loving speech into classrooms, parent associations, parliaments and peace talks
• Opening sessions with one- or two-minute bell-invited breathing (“Breathing in, I calm my body… Breathing out, I smile…”)
• Practicing mindful walking, eating and speech—investing 100 % presence into each step or word—to cultivate Right Speech and true peace before any dialogue or decision-making
