McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here.I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardroom seems silly to me. Attention and acceptance training (the two fundamental aspects of mindfulness in my research supported but not definitive view) don’t belong to Buddhism or any other system or set of teachings. The underlying science of mind training can be applied wherever we see fit. There’s no “what mindfulness is about and what it’s not” in a corporate versus holistic sense. There’s only the strength of the programs and how much value people derive from them, and if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.The idea that mindfulness creates better killers or justified immoral behavior also seems spurious to me. What we’re teaching is an awareness of what’s happening inside of experience. Mindfulness is not a magical stress and conscience lowering switch. It’s simply greater awareness of the nuances of our internal state. That internal state is where moral judgment and discernment live, so it’s hard for me to see how that would systematically produce harmful or immoral actions.And to the extent that we have a large number of poorly trained teachers selling a poorly designed product AS mindfulness, THAT in my mind is the larger issue, rather than the context or clientele. I saw a teacher once tell a student that her overwhelming obsession with her physical pain WAS her being mindful. This and the reverse problem whereby mindfulness is equated with dullness, sleepiness, or numbness are the real dangers in my view.