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Learner Reviews & Feedback for De-Mystifying Mindfulness by Universiteit Leiden

4.8
stars
1,563 ratings

About the Course

Interest in meditation, mindfulness, and contemplation has grown exponentially in recent years. Rather than being seen as mystical practices from ancient Buddhism or esoteric philosophy, they are increasingly seen as technologies rooted in evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Mindfulness has become the basis for numerous therapeutic interventions, both as a treatment in healthcare and as a means of enhancing well-being and happiness. For millions around the world, mindfulness has become a life-style choice, enhancing and enriching everyday experience. Mindfulness is big business. But, what actually is mindfulness? Is it really good for you? Can anyone learn it? How can you recognize charlatans? Would you want to live in a mindful society, and would it smell like sandalwood? What does it feel like to be mindful? Are you mindful already, and how would you know? Evolving from the popular Honours Academy course at Leiden University, this innovative course combines conventional scholarly inquiry from multiple disciplines (ranging from psychology, through philosophy, to politics) with experiential learning (including specially designed ‘meditation labs,’ in which you’ll get chance to practice and analyze mindfulness on yourself). In the end, the course aims to provide a responsible, comprehensive, and inclusive education about (and in) mindfulness as a contemporary phenomenon. During the production of this course, we have been supported by Willem Kuyken, Director of the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and Stephen Batchelor, co-founder of Bodhi College. And we gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by Mark Williams, co-developer of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Rebecca Crane, Director of the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at the University of Bangor. We have recently added expert advice from Dawn Scott (Spirit Rock & Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies), Sydney Spears (University of Kansa), Elisabeth Stanley (Georgetown University), Susan Woods (Centre for Mindfulness Studies), Patricia Rockman (University of Toronto) and Jeff Corntassel (University of Victoria). "A deep and profound dive into the ethical, social, psychological, and philosophical implications of modern-day mindfulness practice. The course is not for the faint of heart, perhaps, but it is also full of practical, guided exercises for the uninitiated! Thank you for redefining my relationship to Mindfulness in a completely new and thought-provoking way" 28 april 2021 "The course enabled me to explore the mindfulness construct at its deeper lever from philosophical, psychological and political lenses. The mindfulness labs were very useful in practicing the skills of being mindful." 23 nov 2018 "i took this course after a period of time when I was trying to practice mindfulness and meditation, but with doubtful success. The course answered many questions to me, and I needed that to keep me motivated. It really helped me understand the origins and, more importantly, benefits of mindfulness practice and made me persist in my attempts. I'm really glad I took the course, I find it interesting, well taught and very useful for all those seeking deeper explanation in why trying mindfulness." 9 Oct 2018 "I have taken other courses in other online platforms. However, this has been one of the best courses I have found online." 3 Oct 2018 "I really like the invitation to us, the learners, to rethink our preconceptions and beliefs, and then make our own judgement about mindfulness. The overall tone was very friendly and open, resources very useful." 12 Dec 2017...

Top reviews

DC

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The combination of theory and practice in this course has made it thoroughly enjoyable and I feel I have a deeper understanding, both conceptually and practically, of mindfulness.

JR

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Great course, a superb teacher, and useful materials. You learn to meditate as well as learning some of the science. It was better when Leiden ran it all before Coursera took over the moderating.

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576 - 599 of 599 Reviews for De-Mystifying Mindfulness

By Willem

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Aug 1, 2017

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By Christine R

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Oct 2, 2022

It's a great start though this course definitively requires improvement. It needs to be better balanced - it centres too much on one person who is taking far too much space.

The course would benefit from being shortened; speakers need to be more concise, more pertinent. Making their presentation less of a chat over coffee and more of an attempt to convey their message simply by using less words. It’s almost as if they suffer from verbal diarrhoea. It would be helpful to reduce the length of the audios by 20-30%. The 20-30% gained could then be used to widen the reach of the course – dealing with issues that were not raised.

The number of bugs - or perhaps small errors is a better way of referring to them - needs to be very much reduced - more proofreading - more cleaning up - less repetition! Removal of misleading "helpful" suggestions relating to downloading audio – there is so much feedback saying this isn’t possible. It simply doesn’t work! It's time for the release of the next version :-)

By Edvard T

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Sep 12, 2018

I understand the course title reads ‘dy-mystifying’, but I expected that there would be more on the ‘positive side’, i.e. what mindfulness ‘is’ based on facts and scientific findings rather than spending so much portion of content talking about what mindfulness ‘isn’t’ which I don’t think really necessary.

Also, there are opinions presented as knowledge, that needs to be mindful of.

By Krisztián M

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Mar 3, 2017

Long and unbalanced course. The first weeks are long with too much materials, that I think, should be separated to more weeks, than last weeks has no any new materials just short discussion prompts. Maybe it is my fault, but I waited for something else, this was my first philosophy and mindfulness course.

By BACHIR K L

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Apr 29, 2021

A little too in depth and heavy sometimes. I missed more practical language and practices. Good in general, but sometimes I lost track and was difficult to follow the videos with full attention.

Really light assessments but interesting peer revisions.

By Sreya D

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Jul 19, 2020

The ideas shared in the course are very informative. However it is quite lengthy and becomes disengaging after a while

By Erkin K

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Jan 14, 2018

Concept and subjects very good, his stable voice and his sometimes hard English makes you sleepy

By Annie C

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Jul 9, 2020

Lots of information and clinical lectures on mindfulness as well as practices.

By Basset B

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Apr 25, 2020

good but complicated

By Ghazi A

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Dec 2, 2016

This course could've been better by the inclusion of more examples, the lecturer is very monotonous and sadly, i see no discussion forum for this course, in addition to that, whenever i tried replying to the comments the reply button turned grey and nothing happened. I had reported to resolve the issue but nothing happened the issue persists. It could have been done much better specially the lectures. Thank you :)

By Brian P

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Jun 27, 2017

Perhaps I was expecting that focused more on practice than history, but this involved too much Sanskrit vocabulary and eastern religion for me. I'm dropping out.

By Manish K N

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Aug 2, 2021

it course is good but its management is not good i am tow more time completed but i haven't received my certificate

By Tanya C

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Oct 24, 2016

The course was hard to follow and understand.

By GK

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Jul 18, 2017

seems incomplete

By barry f

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Apr 16, 2022

Rather meaningless content (waffle) delivered in a monotonous voice. De-mystifies nothing because it is full of non-statements of the "might be, but might not be" type - or "both is and isn't at the same time" type.

Very disappointing.

By Gilian R H

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Mar 16, 2017

I did not enjoy how this course was taught. It was confusing and hard to understand the professor did not go at a pace i found helpful.

By Rik S

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Jun 23, 2023

I tried many times, but my pre-course score 4,6) does not come through. So I have to quit the course. Very disappointing.

By Karen

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Sep 22, 2021

This course is vety hard to follow. The deadlines prevent you from reading ahead. Then you end up starting over.

By Komal A

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Dec 30, 2017

Course content can be improved. Didn't find it interesting or got knowledge on the topic

By Rodrigo W

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Oct 5, 2018

I cancelled the course in week 2. Ratio of content and words was too low for me.

By Hajira F

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Aug 7, 2020

very bad, i tried to un-enroll, it wont let me

By Juan P S G

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May 30, 2023

tarda mucho en calificar las asignaciones

By Samyak B

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Feb 29, 2024

did not receive my certificates

By Kanishka S

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Jun 28, 2021

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