Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness
Mindfulness Isn’t Broken...but something has gone wrong.
Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness exposes the hidden challenges threatening a field that's lost its revolutionary potential. What began as a transformative practice for cultivating awareness has become entangled in its Buddhist origins, rigid in one-dimensional thinking, and dominated by elitist power structures.
Founder of the world’s largest MBSR provider and a trailblazer in workplace mindfulness, Mo Edjlali offers a powerful call to reclaim what mindfulness was meant to be. In Open MBSR, he introduces a bold, secular, community-driven framework that preserves what works and confronts what doesn’t. This is mindfulness returned to its true purpose: accessible, inclusive, and genuinely transformative for all.
A MUST read for Mindfulness Professionals
Whether you're teaching, integrating mindfulness into your work, or practicing deeply, this book is for you:
If you’ve questioned the blending of spiritual frameworks with secular mindfulness
If you believe mindfulness should build resilience, not bypass real-world complexity
If you care about accessibility, integrity, and transparency in mindfulness training and governance
If you think the next chapter of mindfulness should be shaped by community, not hierarchy
If you're ready to help build a flexible, inclusive framework that meets diverse needs
Praise for Open MBSR
“Open MBSR is the kind of book the mindfulness field has long needed... This book doesn’t just refine MBSR—it unbinds it.”
Marc Brackett, Ph.D.
Director, Yale Center for EI;
Author of Permission to Feel
“A must for any professional who teaches mindfulness or incorporates it into their work... Open MBSR provides a radical vision of how mindfulness training can grow and evolve.”
Kristin Neff, Ph.D.
Co-founder Center for Mindful Self-Compassion;
Author of Self-Compassion
"Open MBSR is sure to engage our critical thinking, helping us to examine MBSR in entirely new ways, and to further the development of the mindfulness field towards more transparency and collective wisdom."
Diana Winston
Director, UCLA Mindful;
Author of The Little Book of Being
What Open MBSR Reveals and Reimagines
What mindfulness really is, how MBSR began, and why it resonated globally
Go beyond the buzzwords with a clear, science-backed definition of mindfulness and meditation
Uncover the real story of MBSR and how Buddhist traditions quietly shaped its development
Explore why these practices resonated with millions and how they still can
How Buddhist entanglement, dogma, and elitism distorted the original promise
Reveal how Buddhist entanglement compromises secular integrity and ethical clarity
See how one-dimensional thinking and dogma have dulled mindfulness’s transformative edge
Expose the oligarchic structures and elitist dynamics that have undermined mindfulness
A transparent, community-powered framework shaping the future
Explore a vision of mindfulness that’s open, transparent, and free from spiritual entanglement and hidden agendas
Learn to use dialectical thinking to hold complexity, nuance, and to cultivate resilience
Access open frameworks that foster collaboration, transparency, and community-driven growth
About the Author
Mo Edjlali is a mindfulness innovator, tech entrepreneur, and the founder of Mindful Leader, the world’s leading provider of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training. Over the past decade, he has led the expansion of MBSR into the workplace, community, and government sectors, building programs that have reached tens of thousands of professionals around the world.
Drawing on his experience as a pioneer in workplace mindfulness, a leader in MBSR, and a prominent advocate for reform, Mo created Open MBSR, a secular, community-powered evolution that challenges dogma, embraces transparency, and reimagines how mindfulness is taught and shared.
This book is the culmination of his journey to confront spiritual bypassing, guru culture, and commercialization, and to restore mindfulness as a practice of liberation: free from dogma, open to all, and alive in community.
Ready to Reimagine the future of Mindfulness?
Join a growing community of teachers, professionals, and practitioners reimagining the future of mindfulness — with transparency, integrity, and shared ownership at the center.