Dear Sir /Madam, Recently, I have complete the course De-Mystifying Mindfulness, and I received a Congratulations email and an invitation for getting a certificate , but when I wanted to register photo Id, there was the law about restricted area! And I couldn’t believe it. Then I decided to send Congratulations Email to you for cooperation with totalizer regime of Iran, about Deprivation innocent people from their right of education. I have to say as a human I didn't choose this country for born and living and as a woman, I have been faced with cruel rules, critical problems and humiliations, because of the female gender. I had enjoyed through the course, I had enjoyed from the concepts about making peace and communication with other people, but at the end, after study ridicules restricted rules, I realized there is a long path to reach and feel peace and free our heart from anger and have negative emotions together. Maybe you will tell me this is a law and we are innocent then I will tell you Martin Luther King once said: "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

REGARDS,

Quite an intensive course with lots of theory and practice. Make sure you have enough time before comitting to this course. But over all good experience, challenging and interesting. Meditation labs were great as well.

I went into this course with an open mind to be enlightened about mindfulness. I finished this course feeling enlightened and more knowledgeable about mindfulness and everything to do with it. It's an ideal course for those who have started to show interest in mindfulness and wish to learn more but equally for anyone into wellbeing. It starts off with an introduction to mindfulness and thereon you are taken on a journey of self-exploration, reflection and useful exercises. There are quite a few meditation practices to do and most of these are guided. The course content is insightful and debatable which allows you to question your thoughts and opinions. It aims to demystify mindfulness and it does in a lot of ways but for me the intrigue and curiosity never ends. I completed with a certificate of which I am proud.

The course was excellent in every way. It combined very interesting content from different sources and points of views with practical exercises that really made the experience complete. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested in what mindfulness is and how it relates to the world around us. I would characterize it as an eye-opening experience. The only thing I would change would be the workload, which should be distributed in some way, as some of the course's weeks were almost impossible to pull off correctly in 7 days.

An excellent MOOC course with in-depth exploration of the mindfulness concept, with interviews of experts in the field and critical appraisal of the subject matter. I loved the course !

The course does a great job of balancing theoretical teachings with practical learning.

It is a great introduction to meditation and mindfulness from a secular perspective, and has something even for the most skeptic among us, so I would definitely recommend that you give it a try, if you are new to meditation and mindfulness in general.

Maybe this course is a bit less interesting for those more experienced with philosophy, Buddhism or mindfulness tho.

My only qualm is that on the meditation labs, there is a very sudden and steep curve around week 3, the meditations go from being 10-15 minutes, to 50, which makes it a bit harder to fit around your schedule, its all right, but be warned that the time you are making for meditation might not be enough when you get to that point.

Overall, I enjoyed it, I learned and that's all I really came here for.

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.

Wonderful course. I didn't invest as much time in it as I would've liked to, thus I have downloaded all the audio exercises and will be coming back to this course as long as I can when I will have more time/courage in the future. Chris is an inspiring teacher as he seems very compassionate and encouraging, and his obvious serenity gives legitimacy to the course from the very beginning. It is very important to be offered to choose courses that focus on spirituality/philosophy/wellbeing, and to put them on the same level as Finance or Marketing courses, and I am happy to see that universities have finally understood this.

I like a lot the structure of the material, the videos, and the exercises/labs. I find the instructor (Chris) and his voice very soothing making the "pursuit of mindfulness" a little more easier. Thanks!

Excellent course. I really enjoyed the combination of videos, assignments, forum discussions and peer reviews. Well recommended. And Chris has the perfect voice for this. :)

AMAZING! Informed, organized, high- quality instructors,

professional. One of the best experiences I have had so far on Coursera.

Learned so much in what initially seemed daunting but what turned out to be a relatively short amount of time!

Incredible, enlightening, mysterious.

I really enjoyed the course. It gives a thorough overview of mindfulness, meditation and it's ever evolving place in western culture. The instructor was very knowledgeable and encouraging towards the students. The mentors did an incredible job answering questions in an inviting and friendly way and so quickly! I'd like to make particular mention of JC Desai, who was the one that responded to most of my inquiries. I was impressed the quick response time. And being new to online classes, I was a little nervous about a few things I didn't understand, so it was nice to know the mentors were there providing extra back up for us when needed.

If I had to make any constructive criticisms they would be:

1) That there may be a bit too much material for a beginning course.

2) And the other would be that I didn't like that our passing or not passing the course depended on whether or not there were students available to grade our peer graded assignment on the deadline date. I was a little too close to the deadline, and was not sure if there would be anyone left to grade my peer graded assignment. As I understand it, that would have meant me having to do that part over again. As it turned out that did not happen, but if it had, I felt it was unfair to have that as one of the last assignments. All else was fabulous. I feel that my practice has deepened and that I learned a great deal about the different intellectual issues surrounding mindfulness and its place in the western world. Thank you all!

I enjoyed studying this course. The video lectures of Dr Gotto-Johns very interesting but at times he was too soft spoken; needing extraordinary attention to grasp its content. Also, found the course a bit dry and somewhat difficult. While some notes were provided, there is a need to do a proper study of the subject. A book was promised by the Profesdor which I look forward to receiving. Actually, for all courses, I feel it will be a great help to all students, particularly those who can not afford costly books, COURSERA offers free or substantially discounted books on the subject taught.

I completed Memory related course UNDERSTANDING MEMORY: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies 🎥. The professor who presented this course offered his book Memory and Movies at 30% discount and even provided link with Discount code. As I liked the course, I tried to purchase this book but I got a reply from MIT Press that either to discount scheme is over or has not started so they CAN NOT offer it.!!

I was very disappointed 😔 that despite COURSERA being such a big and professional body, such gaffes takes place. You may please address this and then let me know if I can buy at a low price.

A subject that is, to me, still extremely complicated. It is spoken of and explored and looked at and studied from numerous points of view, narrated and cared for by a man who truly appears to believe what he is saying and who truly care that the student enjoys the learning and gets something secure out of the course. I have really felt that this topic is over my head, yet my teacher, who guides me through the course, asures me, the student, that I am doing exactly as I should be doing and that I am where I should be.

I am grateful to have this course as a task for me to complete.

It is important to be sure and to do the exercises that are present in the course and to keep a journal of your experiences. The couse really wants the student to experience his or her own mindfulness, whatever it may be for him or for her.

I have a difficult time with some of the more academic Learning and the mindfulness exercises can be challenging, only because my level of mindfulness is not where I would like it to be. I do hope to complete this couse on time and to turn the rest of my assignments in on time and to complete the rest of the course in as fully and in as much a way as possible.

The course is an excellent opportunity for everyone who has any inclination to mindfulness for any reason. The course has potential to equip and develop learners to professional level. If I wish to write, I would certainly mention that in comparison to other available online course(s), it has more depth and diversity. The best part is Subjective Peer Review and peer grading, this gives us opportunity to feel good when graded 70% and above and valuable comments /advise for future/continuation, and find get advised to further development if fail the assignment(s). Honours' Project gives serious learners , an extra ordinary opportunity to do research in the area/new area/ ... and correlate usefulness/role of Mindfulness in different areas of our liking. I extend my sincere thanks to Professor & Team, Guest experts and course preparation green room/outdoor team members. Kind Regards, Satish

This course is outstanding. It not only de-mystefied mindfulness, but increased my own mindfulness, even though I have benefited immensely from a Vipassana course several months ago. Dr. Goto-Jones has navigated the controversial subject of mindfulness brilliantly by his own articulate manner of objectivity, while tackling topics such as religion, philosophy, and commercialization head on, without superimposing his own views, leaving the ultimate choice of what concepts and beliefs one wants to retain, modify, or discard entirely to the student. To that end, his highly qualified, I even say, wise guests contributed significantly through their own views and/or exercise guidance. I hope many more will benefit from this course in future. My best wishes to Dr. Goto-Jones and a heartfelt thank you to hi and all his guests!

The course was well organized. I like the structure of the course: watching the theory videos, practicing various meditations and reflecting on the experience, and summarizing or deepening the knowledge. I was not interested in the written assignments at first because I complete the first one haphazardly just to complete the assignment. However, I spent more time reflecting on the rest of the assignments, and it was important to give oneself time to actually reflect and write a meaningful written task. The workload was manageable. I fell behind on an assignment, but I submitted it late. I was happy to have had the chance to submit and receive peer feedback. I really liked receiving the peer feedback. Thank you for the course. I really enjoyed it, and it has deepened my practice and my knowledge of mindfulness.

This has been my first attempt at guided meditation and I am very thankful for the creators of this class to have shared this with us. Thank you. Your work is truly incredible and highly appreciated. You really are helping expand the mindful movement and change our lives one exercise at a time.

I had no idea what this course would be like when I signed up for it. I signed up because I like the illustration on the icon above. This was an incredible experience where I was able to learn a little about social stereotypes, have some exposure to practices and religions around the world, and connect with people taking this class from thousands of miles away. It was nice to read through some of their posts and know what some of them share the same thoughts as I do.

Excellent course on mindfulness that explains all the concepts behind the various practices. Given that there is no universal definition of mindfulness, it goes into detail what makes up mindfulness by tracing its history and where it might go in the future. The assignments force you to think and reflect on what you learn at each step in the course. It is also a great mix of the theoretical and practical. There are course materials that you can download to continue your reading and research into this fascinating field. It helps to have some kind of daily practice when you enroll in the course, but it is not essential. I really enjoyed the course. Maybe there will be follow-up for deepening the practice. Thanks!

Stunning start to finish: Examination of principals and practices. Methods and discussions. Downloadable guides. Personal reflections.

Extraordinarily well presented; lectures given are interesting, well written, speaker is easy to listen to; pleasant voice rhythm and cadence; graphics enhance understanding in a unique and fun way. Occasional guest interviews give a deeper understanding.

What I learned from this course I will use throughout my whole life. More than a class, an amazing experience.

The whole package is perfect; the right amount of everything. So much dedication was in place to produce this, the quality is top notch. I enjoyed it so much I may take this class again!

What a fantastic course for anyone trying understand mindfulness in its various interpretations. It was both intellectually stimulating as well as practically enriching. Not only have I grown by leaps and bounds in my own current meditation practice, but it has left me hungry for more. Has it managed to demystify mindfulness for me? No!! but that is the fantastic thing about this subject..it never seems to end...and hence I wish this course could have gone on and on!

I will miss Chris Goto-Jones and his wise lectures and I therefore finish this course, with a twinge of sadness as well as joy for having been part of this magnificent experience.

Lots of great material. A good place to start for those new to mindfulness and an opportunity to broaden and deepen one's practice for more long-term practitioners. A variety of religious and secular perspective are covered, both current and historical, with a view toward ethics and practical application. The perspective presented is unbiased and encourages independent thinking, self-analysis and reflection. It was well worth the time I invested and I intend to continue referring back to the notes I have made as well as the resources that have been provided throughout the course. I look forward to more from Prof. Goto-Jones in this area!

Thank you very much for the opportunity. The course has a lot of learning material and it was just awesome to learn some of the things that I would have not ever known otherwise. I would have to say "Excellent" I appreciate Chris Goto-Jones for the amount of work that was given in putting De-Mystifying Mindfulness. I'm presently using my new learning to pave my way for teaching it. I will also contribute to the mission of Leiden University to continue these efforts to keeping this course alive for all who are willing to take advantage of becoming aware of their every day activities (Being Mindful)