A practice for meeting life as it is
The Mindfulness
Matrix
10 core attitudes to navigate life
Between what happens and how we respond, there is a space. The Mindfulness Matrix helps us inhabit it.
Explore the ten attitudesA goal stands ahead of us and can create distance and tension. An intention lives within. There is nowhere to reach: it is an inner orientation we embody. We are not separate from it. We are the intention.
Without attention, life slips into automatic response. Where attention rests, energy gathers, and the world becomes available to us. Attention is how we enter into living contact with this moment.
When intention and attention meet, a quieter knowing may emerge. Intuition can reveal the fitting response or the next step. We listen, discern, and allow ourselves to follow what feels deeply true.
The space where choice begins
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”
A well-known passage associated with Viktor Frankl. Its exact authorship is uncertain.
The space between
Awareness changes
what becomes possible.
Awareness interrupts the automatic. The attitudes give the pause a direction, so a considered response can emerge.
Pause here
Let one breath
make a little room.
Before moving on, take thirty seconds. Follow the circle without forcing the breath. Let the body find its own quiet rhythm.
No preparation. No perfect posture. Just this breath.
An optional side path
Stay with the pause a little longer.
Oasis offers short practices for breath, body, senses, or heart. Choose 30 seconds, one minute, or two, in English or French.
Ten ways of meeting the moment
The attitudes
These attitudes are not steps to complete or rules to master. Choose one that speaks to this moment. Explore it, try the practice, and return when you need it.
01Beginner’s mind+
Attitude 1 of 10
Seeing what is here without letting what we know obscure it.
You walk a familiar path or meet someone you know well. Before anything happens, the mind says: “I know this already.”
Beginner’s mind loosens the grip of familiarity. The path has changed. The person has changed. You have changed. Curiosity allows the present encounter to be new.
Choose something familiar and notice three details you have not seen before. Begin with the quiet question: “What is here now?”
02Non-judging+
Attitude 2 of 10
Meeting experience before deciding whether it is good, bad, right, or wrong.
Someone criticises something you have done. Almost immediately, you feel the need to defend yourself. The mind decides: “They are unfair. They do not understand.”
Non-judging does not mean agreeing. It means noticing the judgement before it becomes the whole story. “Defensiveness is here.” That recognition creates enough space to listen, clarify, or respond without attacking.
When a strong judgement appears, name it gently: “Judging is here.” Notice what else is present in the body, and stay for one breath before responding.
03Letting go+
Attitude 3 of 10
Recognising attachment and gently releasing our grip on what no longer needs to be held.
A conversation ended hours ago, but you continue replaying it. You rewrite what you said and imagine different endings.
Letting go does not erase the experience or deny its importance. It notices the effort of holding on and allows the moment to loosen its claim on the present.
Bring to mind something you are carrying. Open your clenched hands as you breathe out and say: “For this breath, I do not need to hold this.” Repeat gently, without forcing release.
04Non-striving+
Attitude 4 of 10
Practising without turning the present moment into another project.
You sit to meditate because you want to become calm. Five minutes later, the mind is busy, and you feel that the practice is not working.
Non-striving releases meditation from the demand to produce a particular state. The practice becomes meeting restlessness as it is, rather than using mindfulness to escape it.
For two minutes, sit without trying to change anything. When the urge to improve the moment appears, notice it and quietly say: “Nothing to achieve.”
05Acceptance+
Attitude 5 of 10
Acknowledging what is here, so our response can begin from truth.
A plan changes, the body hurts, or a difficult feeling returns. Part of you insists: “This should not be happening.”
Acceptance is not approval, resignation, or passivity. It is the willingness to begin with reality. Once we stop arguing with what is already here, we can see what care or action is needed.
Name one fact of this moment without adding a story: “This has changed.” “Pain is here.” “I feel disappointed.” Then ask: “Given this, what is possible now?”
06Patience+
Attitude 6 of 10
Allowing this moment to unfold in its own time.
You are waiting for an answer that matters. You check your phone again, imagine what the silence means, and feel the urge to push for certainty.
Patience does not ask you to enjoy waiting. It helps you recognise that uncertainty is already here, and that forcing the next moment will not make this one disappear.
Choose one ordinary delay today. While waiting, feel your feet and take three unhurried breaths. Let waiting become part of life, rather than an interruption to it.
07Trust+
Attitude 7 of 10
Learning to listen to direct experience and our own quiet knowing.
Several people offer advice, and each voice pulls you in a different direction. The more you listen, the further you feel from yourself.
Trust does not mean rejecting guidance or assuming you are always right. It means including your own experience in the conversation and sensing what remains true beneath the noise.
Before seeking one more opinion, sit quietly and ask: “What do I already know?” Write the first honest sentence that arises, without turning it into a decision.
08Kindness+
Attitude 8 of 10
Bringing warmth to the way we meet ourselves and others.
You make a mistake, and the inner voice is immediate: “You should have known better.” You would never speak this way to someone you care for.
Kindness does not excuse the mistake. It creates the conditions in which we can face it honestly, repair what needs repairing, and learn without humiliation.
Place a hand where you feel the tension. Speak one sentence you would offer a good friend: “This is difficult, and I can meet it with care.”
09Gratitude+
Attitude 9 of 10
Recognising what is already here and quietly sustaining us.
The day feels ordinary and attention gathers around what is unfinished, uncomfortable, or missing.
Gratitude widens the frame. It does not deny difficulty. It lets the warmth of a cup, a patch of light, or another person’s care belong to the same day.
At the end of the day, recall one small thing that supported you. Stay with the felt experience for one breath before naming the next thing.
10Generosity+
Attitude 10 of 10
Letting attention become an offering through presence and action.
Someone speaks to you while part of your attention remains with a screen, a task, or the answer you are preparing.
Generosity can begin before giving anything material. Offering undivided attention tells another person: “For this moment, you matter.”
Choose one conversation today. Put aside the screen, soften the urge to interrupt, and listen until the other person has fully arrived at the end of their thought.
The roots of the attitudes
A living foundation.
Jon Kabat-Zinn brought the attitudinal foundations of mindfulness into Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, alongside formal meditation and mindfulness in everyday life.
In this 26-minute teaching, he explores nine attitudes that support mindfulness practice. Over time, Kabat-Zinn has continued to emphasise gratitude and generosity, and to speak of mindfulness as heartfulness. The Mindfulness Matrix carries this living emphasis forward through ten attitudes, with kindness made explicit.
The video is hosted on YouTube and loads only when you press play.
Watch directly on YouTubeWe do not always choose what arrives.
But we can learn how to meet it.
Meet Pierre Geslin
A life shaped
by practice.
Pierre Geslin is a mindfulness teacher, MBSR instructor, writer, and adult trainer from Brittany, now living in Scott Creek in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia.
His path into mindfulness began in Australia in 1981, while seeking a way to live with severe tinnitus after a life-altering road accident. What began as a search for healing became a lifelong practice, and later a way of accompanying others through change, uncertainty, and the ordinary complexity of being human.
Pierre’s approach brings together personal experience and decades of work in journalism, communication, and adult education across Europe and Australia. Trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, meditation teaching, and Reiki, he also explores attention through haiku, haiga, and contemplative writing.
“Changing the world from within.”Return to the beginning ↑