If social change is going to occur, the people who are leading our institutions, corporations, and governments must embrace mindfulness. Janice Maturano, a VP at General Mills, put it this way: “Leaders today are faced with global economies, time measured in Internet seconds, and a future that is increasingly interdependent — challenges that require leaders to use all of their capabilities, including the innate abilities of mindfulness.” Imagine if they actually trained these innate abilities with meditation? Companies like General Mills and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) have picked up this mantle and offer mindfulness meditation programs to their employees, and in the case of GMCR, to the wider community.

According to an October 2008 article on Bloomberg.com: “An increasing number of those hitting the cushion are players in corporate America, looking to more unconventional practices to calm frayed nerves at a time when the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its biggest drop since the Great Depression and financial institutions are declaring bankruptcy after the collapse of the U.S. subprime-mortgage market.” Shinzen Young teaches the program at GMCR. He states, “If you don't have a meditation practice, you're going to suffer unnecessarily subjectively, and objectively you will make bad decisions; that sums up the story.”