Mindfulness at WLBC

Mindfulness has been at the heart of Buddhist meditation practice for over two thousand years as a way to cultivate calm, tranquillity and to develop awareness and insight. It has recently been rediscovered by Western science and medicine as an effective means of reducing stress, managing chronic pain, helping with addictive patterns or just improving general wellbeing.

Mindfulness is a way of staying in the moment so that we can become more aware of our present experience and more engaged with life. It’s not about trying to force change but instead trying to see and accept the way things are, for better or for worse, and then changing our responses. Mindfulness helps us to respond to life’s difficulties with increased resilience, equanimity and joy. Our life may still contain a lot of difficulty if we live with pain or illness, for example, but our quality of life can be profoundly transformed.

All of our Breathworks mindfulness classes and courses are entirely secular in nature and delivered by experienced accredited Breathworks teachers. So if you want to experience the benefits of mindfulness meditation without the Buddhism, then these are the ideal classes for you.

We offer:

• 8-week Breathworks: Mindfulness for Health courses
• 8-week Breathworks: Mindfulness for Stress courses
• Mindfulness ‘taster’ sessions – for newcomers or those interested in a Breathworks course (see Events)
• Mindfulness for Well-being – practice afternoons for those who’ve completed a course or with some experience of mindfulness (see Events)

Breathworks Centre of Excellence

The West London Buddhist Centre and Breathworks CIC have been working in partnership to offer secular mindfulness courses for people with long-term health conditions, chronic pain, and stress in London since 2016. In 2019, the Centre was recognised as the first Breathworks ‘Centre of Excellence’. The Centre was recently listed in the Evening Standard as offering one of the ‘best mindfulness courses in London’ to boost happiness.

The Breathworks approach includes body awareness and breathing meditations with an emphasis on kindness, compassion and connection. It also incorporates experiential exercises, theory based on recent clinical evidence, mindful movement, mindfulness in daily life, and led practices followed by enquiry. The course is designed to support participants to better understand their experience and feel empowered to make choices that can improve their day to day lives.

The Breathworks Foundation

The Breathworks Foundation was established to ensure the benefits of mindfulness and compassion training are available to everyone, regardless of their circumstances, as it is very often the people who are most in need of mindfulness training or courses are the least able to pay for and access it. The Breathworks Foundation supports the WLBC to offer bursaries to people wanting to do a Mindfulness for Health course at the Centre. For more information on The Breathworks Foundation, please visit: www.breathworks-foundation.org.uk