Hey everyone, it's Dora here. I just want to let you know that we've launched a brand new

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some amazing new friends are answering your questions about relationships, work, life,

mindfulness, and just about everything else. It's so different from anything we've ever

created and we're so excited for you to hear it. Dear Headspace comes out every Tuesday

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Hi, it's Andy here and welcome to Radio Headspace. So in the middle of the week and a couple

of days back I was on a panel. Someone was facilitating a discussion and interview and they

were asking me how I saw mindfulness in the West, how it was different to where I was taught

out in the East. I think that generally even separating out West and East is a bit of a

red herring because that's not really the experience. I think there was the life in

the monastery and then there was the life that people were living in the rest of the country

at the time and the same kind of goes for the West as well. But I do see some very real

differences in the way that mindfulness is maybe understood in the West and I think in

more recent years it's been applied to areas of attention, focus, and productivity. And

it's not that it's not helpful for those things, it's brilliant for all of those things

but it kind of ignores a really important component which I think isn't taught about

as much and that's compassion. Traditionally if you look at mindfulness there's kind of

two components to it. The awareness part of it which is more about the curiosity, the

open mind paying attention being present and then there's the sort of the compassion part

of it. We're more receptive, we're less judgemental, less critical, perhaps a little

kinder in our mind. And for me those two things they can't really live without one another.

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