I'm writing this from several miles in the air, on my way to Chicago to keynote a conference—my first public engagement since July. After two and a half months on sabbatical, I’m slowly re-emerging, feeling both grateful and incredibly tender.

August was quiet. I took a complete digital fast—stepping away from screens, breaking up with my phone, and limiting all online engagement to what was absolutely essential for our move and my service work supporting the establishment of the Thích Nhất Hạnh School of Interbeing. I even figured out how to put an away message on all my phone texts—something I didn’t know was possible—which gave me the freedom to be fully offline for the first time in years. I was completely off social media for two months, and the break was wonderful.

I don’t yet know what full re-entry looks like—step by step, breath by breath. I’ll officially return from sabbatical to Transformative Educational Leadership (TEL) in early November—with more clarity and, I hope, more grace.

Like many of you, I’m navigating a full and complex life. We’re living the full catastrophe—the beautiful, exhausting fullness of being human: parenting a young child, caring for aging parents, tending to professional and creative commitments, and helping to birth a new school community.

In this swirl of responsibility, I’ve found that holding paradox is the only way through. To live awake is to fully hold opposites with grace—to let joy and exhaustion, hope and heartbreak, devotion and disillusionment all belong. This move has been a living teacher in paradox—learning to honor the sacred while navigating the mundane, to stay rooted in spiritual practice while immersed in the messiness of family and emerging community life.

The ability to stay open to the both/and may be one of the most vital skills of our time. When we resist contradiction, we fracture. When we lean in, we begin to glimpse life’s deeper intelligence. And I’ll be honest—this is a practice I’m still learning every day. It requires deep mindfulness.

Too often, mindfulness is flattened into something shallow—a stress hack, a productivity tool, a way to self-regulate and move on. And truthfully, that’s often where we have to begin, but when mindfulness is uprooted from its foundations, it becomes a coping mechanism rather than a path to liberation.

For me, this is the essence of engaged mindfulness—connecting personal practice with compassionate, skillful action in the world. It helps us meet suffering, our own and others’, with care and courage. It’s about inner transformation in service of outer transformation—the very north star of TEL.

Shallow mindfulness treats the practice as a tool—marketed as a stress fix, a productivity booster, a way to self-regulate and move on, stripped from its roots.

Deep mindfulness, by contrast, is a path—rooted in interdependence and community, born from collective suffering and resilience, expanding our capacity to hold complexity, and guiding our inner transformation in service of justice and Beloved Community.

The difference isn’t in the technique—it’s in the intention.

You may still sit, breathe, or pause. But if the goal remains only personal regulation, the practice risks staying shallow. It’s a tender starting point, but to build a future we can love, we must reach beyond the personal toward the collective. When the intention shifts toward nurturing equity, belonging, and collective care, that same breath becomes deep.

And deep mindfulness doesn’t just calm the nervous system—it strengthens it. It builds our capacity to stay grounded amid fear, disconnection, and injustice. It helps us remain openhearted when the world feels closed.

That’s what the world is asking of us now—not more tools, but more tenderness. Not more mastery, but more humanity.

This month, I have the privilege of sharing about Shallow vs. Deep Mindfulness in several gatherings focused on education and leadership. At the end of October, I’ve also been invited to join Jimmy Kimmel for a conversation at the Rare Impact Fund Gala in Hollywood—a gathering created by Selena Gomez to advance youth mental health. I feel deeply grateful for the opportunity to lift up the work of TEL alongside so many others committed to healing and belonging.

Next month, I’ll be in conversation with Sharon Salzberg on her Metta Hour Podcast, exploring tenderness and mindfulness in parenting and education—more on that soon.

As we move toward the close of the year, I invite you to pause with me in the midst of the full catastrophe of being human.

Where in your life are you practicing shallow mindfulness—just getting through?
Where might you practice deep mindfulness—being with, breathing with, belonging with?

Maybe it’s slowing down before responding to a child’s frustration.
Maybe it’s taking a breath before speaking truth to power.
Maybe it’s simply remembering that the way you show up is the practice.

May we each return, again and again, not just to our breath, but to our shared humanity.

With tenderness,