Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness
Mindfulness Isn’t Broken...but something has gone a bit sideways.
Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness is a necessary disruption, an honest look at how the most trusted mindfulness program in the world, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), has drifted from its original promise. And if MBSR, long held as the gold standard, can lose its way, what does that say about the future of mindfulness itself?
Drawing on over a decade at the center of the mindfulness movement and as the founder of the world’s leading provider of MBSR training, Mo Edjlali exposes how spiritual entanglement, rigid protocols, and top-down structures have narrowed the reach and relevance of mindfulness today.
This book offers more than critique. It’s a call to action. Open MBSR introduces a secular, community-driven framework designed to restore the accessibility, depth, and transformative potential of mindfulness for anyone, regardless of background, belief, or profession.
What You’ll Find in Open MBSR
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 spiritual entanglement, dogma, and elitism distorted the original promise
Reveal how spiritual entanglement compromises secular integrity and ethical clarity
See how oversimplification 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
Step into a vision of mindfulness free from spiritual entanglement and hidden agendas and control
Learn to use dialectical thinking to hold complexity, nuance, and to cultivate resilience
Access open frameworks that foster collaboration, transparency, and community-driven growth
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 Buddhist entanglement in supposedly secular programs
If you seek practices that foster resilience over one-dimensional thinking
If you're concerned about elitism and concentrated power, and value transparency
If you believe mindfulness should evolve through community wisdom, not institutional control
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
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 from his experience as a pioneer in workplace mindfulness, a leader in MBSR, and a deep critic of the mindfulness industry, 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.
