Commodification of Mindfulness

[OneEggIsAnOeuf]

I read this piece by Suzanne Moore this morning, about how mindfulness is the current cure-all and encourages us to help ourselves at the expense of actually doing anything to help anyone else.

It got my goat! I agree that there is a tendency in the west to take a piece of wisdom from another culture and turn it into something else. I dislike how yoga has been transformed from a complete philosophy into a gym class. Mindfulness obviously has it's roots in Buddhism, and while you don't need to be a Buddhist to practice it, you do need to embrace the ethical components of kindness and compassion (to yourself as well as others) for it to have any real chance of being effective.

Moore seems to think that if you sit there and meditate for a few minutes each day you will become an ego-feeding zombie incapable of engaging with the world and disinterested in trying to do anything about it's problems. The opposite is true. It helps you connect more deeply with the world and what really matters. It is not doing nothing, it is actively being.

Rant over. Any thoughts?

I think anything can become twisted from it's original form to something that is shallow. Ticking boxes, meditation is good for you, let's have some of that done so we can work better etc.

I don't practice Buddhist meditation, I get my mindfulness from Christian worship, meditating on the Bible and prayer.

However I can see this happen with a lot of things, reminiscent of going into battle 'for the spoils' - not because it is a fight worth fighting (rather war like analogy, I know but it fits I think). Machiavelli had it nailed?

Mindfulness, so far as it has been described to me, does appear to be a form of 'Extreme Navel Gazing'.

I think it is very un-navel gazingy! It is very much about fully engaging with what you are doing, no matter how important or mundane, rather than being distracted by the constant random thought factory in our heads.

OneEgg I think the non Yogic Yoga and non-mediative meditation is an example of how actions can be divorced from purpose. Just going through the motions on an action does not achieve the purpose. It could be aligned to someone just playing at something or pretending. The ethos behind the action, is bigger than the action itself.

While i think yoga as purely physical exercise is like reading the lyrics rather than listening to the song, the practice will still bring benefits - maybe some unintended as well as the intended enhanced fitness. Same with meditation - downloading a 10 minute app is not going to give you the same benefits as practising mindfulness as a way of life, but it will still give you a small space of peace in your day.

My main issues with the article were 1) that mindfulness meditation is doing nothing, 2) that it means you only care about yourself and 3) the suggestion that there is something iffy about it because it is now being used by big organisations to help their staff.

I agree about the box ticking btw. There seems to have been a tendency to wheel out the same therapies regardless of whether or not they they actually work for the individual. A few years ago it was CBT which was the cure-all, and now there is a danger that mindfulness could be used in the same way. It is good that it is being offered by the NHS and increasingly by employers, as long as it is in conjunction with other support as needed by that individual, rather than as a way of avoiding having to provide more expensive therapies.

Hmm I think society can be far too judgemental concerning what activities are meaningful.

I have felt guilty when doing housework because I was not giving attention to DC and visa versa. Ditto with reading or focussing on anything more spiritual, which IMO, is absurd. Yet if the reading could be labelled studying, I would feel less guilty somehow because then there is a qualification. Although the resulting outcome, more knowledge is the same.

I think it is all to easy to want to see a physical tangible payment, qualification or measurable physical improvement as reward for activity. Commodification is apt. Just being happier / more well balanced is often made out to be self indulgent. I think being happier and more well balanced is more valid though. You prioritise better, enjoy life more and have more head space to concentrate on making other people happy IYSWIM.

Mindfulness is being used more and more because it works - I wonder how much she 'Suzanne Moore' actually knows about mindfulness - she needs to read John Kabat Zinn - it is groundbreaking stuff - it is NOT navel gazing at all - it is a practice that helps us stay in the present - that is all!!!! We are ourselves, we can't be anybody else but practising bring present does not make us ego centric/ driven

I don't see why you are upset. What's the problem if we use these techniques to help our lives?

I speak as someone who practices both yoga and mindfulness, I am neither a Buddhist not a Hindu, but doesn't stop these practices being useful.

"you do need to embrace the ethical components of kindness and compassion (to yourself as well as others) for it to have any real chance of being effective. "

I disagree about that too. While kindness and compassion are desirable in all of us, they don't stop these techniques from working. The NHS teaches mindfulness as part of a CBT strategy to cope with anxiety and depression. THey don't suggest that you need to be a nice person to use them- they work for everyone.

I am more interested in why you feel this way. Are you Buddhist?

Combust22 who is your post and question aimed at?

"Rant over. Any thoughts?"

The OP- is that so unclear?

Yes to me it was - becoz the OP was in favour of mindfulness, whereas Suzanne Moore wasn't, but you seemed to be asking her why SHE wasn't in agreement with it????

OP here (nice shiny new name)!

I was frustrated with the misrepresentation of mindfulness in the article, not with it being used to help our lives. I thought it was quite clear that i am very much in favour of mindfulness (i've been practising for over 10 years).

I'm not sure that mindfulness can work very successfully if you don't have compassion for self, which is not to say it would not have any benefit at all (see my previous discussion with Capsium). One example is being kind with yourself when your mind wanders rather than getting angry with yourself for doing it wrong. There is a good article here about this.

I'm not a Buddhist, though there is a lot of wisdom there. I (try to) live by the eight limbs of yoga.