A Critique of the Mindfulness Movement
December 5, 2016 8:40 AM Subscribe
"Actually, Let's not Be in the Moment" "Mindfulness is . . . a special circle of self-improvement hell, striving not just for a Pinterest-worthy home, but a Pinterest-worthy mind." Ruth Whippman, The New York Times, 11/26/16.
Am I allowed to like this article? Because I really, really do.
posted by Melismata at 8:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 8:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
Perhaps the single philosophical consensus of our time is that the key to contentment lies in living fully mentally in the present.
Also, like, centuries-old religious practices. But whatever.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:47 AM on December 5, 2016 [65 favorites]
Also, like, centuries-old religious practices. But whatever.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:47 AM on December 5, 2016 [65 favorites]
No attitude is a panacea for life's problems. But I think the basic idea is that if you're morbidly ruminating on the past, or anxiously worrying about the future- you may want to stop doing that.
posted by leibniz at 8:48 AM on December 5, 2016 [72 favorites]
posted by leibniz at 8:48 AM on December 5, 2016 [72 favorites]
I have learned never to underestimate the ability of the busybodies of the world to pounce upon things that are just "maybe this is an idea some people will find helpful" and turn it into a damn Crusade For How Everyone Must Improve Their Life.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [63 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [63 favorites]
*nods, starts mindlessness movement*
*jumps out window trying to fly*
posted by jonmc at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
*jumps out window trying to fly*
posted by jonmc at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Such a strange sensation to see a writer embody the selfsame privilege they're attempting to decry. And who the hell says "deep fat fryer" anyway?
posted by Gilbert at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Gilbert at 8:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
Oh, is it a style section troll post? Indeed it is.
posted by selfnoise at 8:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [28 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 8:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [28 favorites]
Leave it to America/Western Culture to take a perfectly good idea and blow it up to such an extreme that the entire concept becomes damaged. Mindfulness is not a fucking competition people.
*taps the Breathe app on his Apple Watch*
posted by SansPoint at 8:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
*taps the Breathe app on his Apple Watch*
posted by SansPoint at 8:53 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
I see people walking down the street engrossed in their phones. I see people who can't enjoy an experience until it has been posted on social media, then still can't enjoy it because they are tracking their likes. I see family members who get together and talk about facebook posts.
I also think it isn't the biggest problem in the world to gather wool while doing rote tasks. I can't count the number of times I've realized the solution to a problem while showering or washing dishes or taking out the trash.
I think there is a healthy middle ground between being constantly immersed in distraction and fully present in every task 24/7. I've always understood mindfulness to be a process more than a goal. It's a way of calming the mind as opposed to never ever thinking of anything else.
I'm wondering if the author has missed the point, or if popular culture has missed the point. I suspect the latter.
posted by Cranialtorque at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
I also think it isn't the biggest problem in the world to gather wool while doing rote tasks. I can't count the number of times I've realized the solution to a problem while showering or washing dishes or taking out the trash.
I think there is a healthy middle ground between being constantly immersed in distraction and fully present in every task 24/7. I've always understood mindfulness to be a process more than a goal. It's a way of calming the mind as opposed to never ever thinking of anything else.
I'm wondering if the author has missed the point, or if popular culture has missed the point. I suspect the latter.
posted by Cranialtorque at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
Oh, is it a style section troll post? Indeed it is.
No, it's from the Sunday Review, which is a different section.
posted by neroli at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
No, it's from the Sunday Review, which is a different section.
posted by neroli at 8:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
The problem isn't mindfulness. "When you sit, you know that you are sitting." Nothing more, nothing less.
The problem is that mindfulness is being monetized, extruded, packaged, and sold as another tool to feel shame and keep consuming. (I firmly believe that advertising is black magic.) Just as washing your dishes is not a means to an end but an end in itself, mindfulness is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
As for the idea that it's being used as a slipshod little Bandaid to make us complacent and distract us from society's problems... well, I think you can have both. I think that the more peaceful and aware I am, the more engaged I am capable of being and the more useful I become to society.
Now, granted, practicing mindfulness can feel unpleasant, especially when I treat it the way I habitually treat most of my activities: as an exercise in perfectionism and self-flagellation. But I don;t think awareness is ever a bad thing.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 8:57 AM on December 5, 2016 [64 favorites]
The problem is that mindfulness is being monetized, extruded, packaged, and sold as another tool to feel shame and keep consuming. (I firmly believe that advertising is black magic.) Just as washing your dishes is not a means to an end but an end in itself, mindfulness is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
As for the idea that it's being used as a slipshod little Bandaid to make us complacent and distract us from society's problems... well, I think you can have both. I think that the more peaceful and aware I am, the more engaged I am capable of being and the more useful I become to society.
Now, granted, practicing mindfulness can feel unpleasant, especially when I treat it the way I habitually treat most of my activities: as an exercise in perfectionism and self-flagellation. But I don;t think awareness is ever a bad thing.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 8:57 AM on December 5, 2016 [64 favorites]
Perhaps the single philosophical consensus of our time is... we should be constantly policing our thoughts away from the past, the future, the imagination or the abstract and back to whatever is happening right now
I think the "constantly" might be the problem. Moderation is probably allowed by most if not all of the proponents. If you're tired, rest. If you want to practice a new way of thinking, give yourself a fighting chance.
posted by amtho at 8:57 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the "constantly" might be the problem. Moderation is probably allowed by most if not all of the proponents. If you're tired, rest. If you want to practice a new way of thinking, give yourself a fighting chance.
posted by amtho at 8:57 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
And who the hell says "deep fat fryer" anyway?
British people.
posted by pipeski at 8:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
British people.
posted by pipeski at 8:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Also, people who think something is helpful are not always judging you. I get that if you're used to being judged in a certain context by certain people, it becomes natural to assume that everyone who speaks to you has a focused-on-your-flaws subtext, but it's not necessarily the case.
posted by amtho at 8:59 AM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by amtho at 8:59 AM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]
This is reminding me forcefully of our hygge discussion just a few weeks ago...
posted by widdershins at 9:00 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by widdershins at 9:00 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam: The problem is that mindfulness is being monetized, extruded, packaged, and sold as another tool to feel shame and keep consuming. (I firmly believe that advertising is black magic.) Just as washing your dishes is not a means to an end but an end in itself, mindfulness is not a means to an end but an end in itself.
*ding ding ding* We have a winner! Show him what he's won, Johnny!
It's the same thing with any sort of personal wellness concept these days: a combination of advertising-induced guilt, and a subculture that embraces it as The One True Way to Happiness. If you're not into it, or if you're not into it enough, you are Bad and you are Wrong, and you need to be More Into It in the specific way that is being sold to you. Whether it's Crossfit, or Kale, or Mindfulness.
None of these things are bad, per se. Despite my snark in my previous comment, I actually like having the Breathe app on my Apple Watch, since I have ADD-induced anxiety. Taking a minute to have a breathing session makes me feel good. The danger comes when you take all of them to the extreme.
posted by SansPoint at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
*ding ding ding* We have a winner! Show him what he's won, Johnny!
It's the same thing with any sort of personal wellness concept these days: a combination of advertising-induced guilt, and a subculture that embraces it as The One True Way to Happiness. If you're not into it, or if you're not into it enough, you are Bad and you are Wrong, and you need to be More Into It in the specific way that is being sold to you. Whether it's Crossfit, or Kale, or Mindfulness.
None of these things are bad, per se. Despite my snark in my previous comment, I actually like having the Breathe app on my Apple Watch, since I have ADD-induced anxiety. Taking a minute to have a breathing session makes me feel good. The danger comes when you take all of them to the extreme.
posted by SansPoint at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
The modern mindfulness movement is misdirection, just as deliberate as that of a stage magician. They know that if you have your full attention focused here, you'll never notice what they're doing over there. If you stay focused on the present, you won't see the patterns of the past that show you how to predict the future.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Mindfulness is not a fucking competition people.
posted by gauche at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
posted by gauche at 9:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Has anybody combined mindfulness with hygge yet? Because that could be a huge money-spinner...
posted by acb at 9:06 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by acb at 9:06 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
My rule of thumb is that as soon as someone's profit margin gets involved, spirituality goes out the window. Maybe not always true, but a pretty sure thing in 2016 America.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'll agree with the stuff about washing the dishes. Thich Nhat Hanh hits people with that on page 3 of The Miracle of Mindfulness, and that's been a noteworthy point of contention for several people to whom I've loaned the book. It's a pretty divisive example, given how many people get stuck with washing dishes thanks to an unfair division of household labor.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
I mean, how about just ignore the vaguely leftist critique in the article (on grounds that to most non-leftists, the arguments tend to be indigestible) and consider this point offered:
In reality, despite many grand claims, the scientific evidence in favor of the Moment’s being the key to contentment is surprisingly weak. When the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality conducted an enormous meta-analysis of over 18,000 separate studies on meditation and mindfulness techniques, the results were underwhelming at best.
If you are accepting of science, e.g. if you "believe" in global warming, then it makes sense to consider what science has to say about this too. Even if that goes against your intuitions or personal experience about this brand of therapy.
posted by polymodus at 9:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
In reality, despite many grand claims, the scientific evidence in favor of the Moment’s being the key to contentment is surprisingly weak. When the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality conducted an enormous meta-analysis of over 18,000 separate studies on meditation and mindfulness techniques, the results were underwhelming at best.
If you are accepting of science, e.g. if you "believe" in global warming, then it makes sense to consider what science has to say about this too. Even if that goes against your intuitions or personal experience about this brand of therapy.
posted by polymodus at 9:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
Mindfulness is not about being happy, or about being divorced from the reality of your own life. It's an approach, a way of thinking about thought itself. It's meta-cognitive. The idea is to pull back, mentally, from unproductive and anxiety-producing thought patterns, from mind-behaviors that just make you feel worse. Often we, as thinking creatures, get caught either obsessing about the past or worrying about the future; mindfulness is meant to help ground yourself in the present in order to stop the mind from leaping around, chattering with noise, etc., what's been referred to famously as the "monkey mind." Ruminating on the past or fretting about the future aren't the only things that the mind can fixate upon like this, but they're good examples.
It's not intended to solve structural, socio-economic problems or to advance social justice. It's just a way to be more at peace internally, I think.
posted by clockzero at 9:09 AM on December 5, 2016 [51 favorites]
It's not intended to solve structural, socio-economic problems or to advance social justice. It's just a way to be more at peace internally, I think.
posted by clockzero at 9:09 AM on December 5, 2016 [51 favorites]
I too find this article great. There's nothing more insidious than telling people whose material, external circumstances are a total disaster out of their control that the key is just to meditate on the moment and stop the monkey brain from reminding them that they're in a hopeless situation. Mindfulness, like stoicism and Sartrean existentialism, is, as Marcuse put it, a philosophy that asks the tortured to take responsibility for how they respond to their torture. It's a philosophy that tyrants love when they want peaceful, quiet, mindful subjects.
posted by dis_integration at 9:10 AM on December 5, 2016 [43 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 9:10 AM on December 5, 2016 [43 favorites]
I'm wondering if the author has missed the point, or if popular culture has missed the point. I suspect the latter.
Good topic, not so good article. Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam hits at least some of my criticism. Meditation is used at my workplace--safely abstracted away from religion, philosophy, or ethos--as an anti-stress bandaid. My admittedly biased prejudice is that mindfulness without a religious or philosophical base is likely pretty hollow. But I sort of gave up on mindfulness meditation as likely too difficult for my crazy and use a crutch.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:11 AM on December 5, 2016
Good topic, not so good article. Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam hits at least some of my criticism. Meditation is used at my workplace--safely abstracted away from religion, philosophy, or ethos--as an anti-stress bandaid. My admittedly biased prejudice is that mindfulness without a religious or philosophical base is likely pretty hollow. But I sort of gave up on mindfulness meditation as likely too difficult for my crazy and use a crutch.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:11 AM on December 5, 2016
There's nothing more insidious than telling people whose material, external circumstances are a total disaster out of their control that the key is just to meditate on the moment and stop the monkey brain from reminding them that they're in a hopeless situation.
Oh sure there is. What's more insidious is when those telling people this are professional, practicing therapists, including those working at university counseling centers.
posted by polymodus at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
Oh sure there is. What's more insidious is when those telling people this are professional, practicing therapists, including those working at university counseling centers.
posted by polymodus at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'll have to look up that meta-analysis but I'm fairly willing to bet that there's a large amount of noise in there given there are about a million ways of teaching and practicing the ideas that get described as "mindfulness and meditation."
Also, dear white people, please consider bringing Beginner's Mind to all future discussions of race and privilege. It'd really clear a lot of things up right off the bat.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
Also, dear white people, please consider bringing Beginner's Mind to all future discussions of race and privilege. It'd really clear a lot of things up right off the bat.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
I've always had a love-hate relationship with mindfulness, and getting diagnosed with an anxiety disorder clarified some things about it. In the long run, mindfulness is apparently pretty good for anxiety. But in the short run… it turns out that a lot of us anxious motherfuckers use nonstop distraction as a coping mechanism, me included. And taking that coping mechanism away before I had a better alternative made me freak right the fuck out.
Pretty sure it's not just me, either. There's this whole genre of fish stories people tell in meditation communities that are basically "Here are all the dumb / weird / humiliating / maladaptive things I did on my first meditation retreat because I was so fucking wigged out and stressed." There's a reason people do this stuff in private, in supportive groups, under expert supervision, away from their day-to-day lives.
So, I don't know. I continue to think mindfulness is valuable. But the idea that you can just tack it onto your life without making other changes and immediately start reaping the rewards is nonsense, and for some people it's nonsense that's actively harmful.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [30 favorites]
Pretty sure it's not just me, either. There's this whole genre of fish stories people tell in meditation communities that are basically "Here are all the dumb / weird / humiliating / maladaptive things I did on my first meditation retreat because I was so fucking wigged out and stressed." There's a reason people do this stuff in private, in supportive groups, under expert supervision, away from their day-to-day lives.
So, I don't know. I continue to think mindfulness is valuable. But the idea that you can just tack it onto your life without making other changes and immediately start reaping the rewards is nonsense, and for some people it's nonsense that's actively harmful.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [30 favorites]
I'll agree with the stuff about washing the dishes. Thich Nhat Hanh hits people with that on page 3 of The Miracle of Mindfulness, and that's been a noteworthy point of contention for several people to whom I've loaned the book. It's a pretty divisive example, given how many people get stuck with washing dishes thanks to an unfair division of household labor.
Practicing mindfulness and even finding some measure of happiness (!) in washing dishes does not mean that I have to become a doormat.
It's an interesting question to consider, though: if you allow yourself to be engaged even when doing unpleasant tasks that are maybe not fair, does that make you more free or less free?
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:14 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
Practicing mindfulness and even finding some measure of happiness (!) in washing dishes does not mean that I have to become a doormat.
It's an interesting question to consider, though: if you allow yourself to be engaged even when doing unpleasant tasks that are maybe not fair, does that make you more free or less free?
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:14 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
It's just a way to be more at peace internally,
It's not even that. The goal is... ha ha there is no goal.
I have a lot of Thoughts on this. I practiced Zen Buddhism on the regular for well over a decade, as a religious practice in a religious community with a monastic leader. I'm both annoyed at the commodification and divorcing of these traditions from their spiritual underpinnings, and also annoyed at the poo-pooing.
I should probably sit with that :D
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:15 AM on December 5, 2016 [39 favorites]
It's not even that. The goal is... ha ha there is no goal.
I have a lot of Thoughts on this. I practiced Zen Buddhism on the regular for well over a decade, as a religious practice in a religious community with a monastic leader. I'm both annoyed at the commodification and divorcing of these traditions from their spiritual underpinnings, and also annoyed at the poo-pooing.
I should probably sit with that :D
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:15 AM on December 5, 2016 [39 favorites]
While mindfulness helps some people, for others it's counterproductive or actually dangerous.
Plus, I'm pretty sure that our endless quest to be okay with all of the horror that goes on around us on a daily basis is probably a big reason that things have gotten as bad as they are. If the problems of the world don't bother you, you don't have a lot of motivation to fix them.
Mindfulness has always struck me as a sophisticated way of shoving your fingers in your ears and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to the world.
posted by MrVisible at 9:15 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Plus, I'm pretty sure that our endless quest to be okay with all of the horror that goes on around us on a daily basis is probably a big reason that things have gotten as bad as they are. If the problems of the world don't bother you, you don't have a lot of motivation to fix them.
Mindfulness has always struck me as a sophisticated way of shoving your fingers in your ears and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to the world.
posted by MrVisible at 9:15 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
nebulawindphone: So, I don't know. I continue to think mindfulness is valuable. But the idea that you can just tack it onto your life without making other changes and immediately start reaping the rewards is nonsense, and for some people it's nonsense that's actively harmful.
As I mentioned upthread, I've got ADD-induced anxiety. The little one-minute breathing exercises I do when my smartwatch prods me help, but you know what else helps? Therapy and medication. It's a lot easier to avoid an anxiety death spiral when I'm on my medication. Mindfulness is no fucking cure-all. You see the same thing with depression and exercise. Yes, exercise _helps_ depression, but it's not a cure on its own.
posted by SansPoint at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
As I mentioned upthread, I've got ADD-induced anxiety. The little one-minute breathing exercises I do when my smartwatch prods me help, but you know what else helps? Therapy and medication. It's a lot easier to avoid an anxiety death spiral when I'm on my medication. Mindfulness is no fucking cure-all. You see the same thing with depression and exercise. Yes, exercise _helps_ depression, but it's not a cure on its own.
posted by SansPoint at 9:16 AM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
Although it doesn't come out in in all of his writings, Hanh is known for coining the phrase "Engaged Buddhism," and suggested that the lessons of Buddhism need to be carried out into political, economic, and social spheres of activity. His talks on mindfulness get marketed more heavily in translation than his engagement.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:24 AM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:24 AM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
Mindfulness has always struck me as a sophisticated way of shoving your fingers in your ears and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to the world.
For me it's much more about actually seeing the world and consciously engaging with it rather than just reacting to it mindlessly.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [45 favorites]
For me it's much more about actually seeing the world and consciously engaging with it rather than just reacting to it mindlessly.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [45 favorites]
Mindfulness, like stoicism and Sartrean existentialism, is, as Marcuse put it, a philosophy that asks the tortured to take responsibility for how they respond to their torture. It's a philosophy that tyrants love when they want peaceful, quiet, mindful subjects.
I would seriously love to see any single piece of evidence showing a repressive government encouraging mindfulness among its subjects. It's a pretty strong claim. Buddhist-style mindfulness is the opposite of oppressable complancency.
posted by zokni at 9:29 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
I would seriously love to see any single piece of evidence showing a repressive government encouraging mindfulness among its subjects. It's a pretty strong claim. Buddhist-style mindfulness is the opposite of oppressable complancency.
posted by zokni at 9:29 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
Mindfulness has always struck me as a sophisticated way of shoving your fingers in your ears and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" to the world.
This was something that I thought for a long time, and I would have agreed with you after reading "Tao of Pooh" and "Te of Piglet". I found the latter particularly frustrating in that regard.
However, the way that "Mindfulness for Beginners" by Jon Kabat Zinn explained it was more attractive to me. When he talks about "accepting" something, he isn't talking about being passive and inactive. He's talking about accepting the reality of a situation, which is something you need to do if you are going to effectively act on it.
My understanding of Mindfulness -- and what I'm trying to do when I meditate -- is to clear out my own anxieties, fears, and biases, to try to see the objective facts of the situation more clearly.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 9:29 AM on December 5, 2016 [47 favorites]
This was something that I thought for a long time, and I would have agreed with you after reading "Tao of Pooh" and "Te of Piglet". I found the latter particularly frustrating in that regard.
However, the way that "Mindfulness for Beginners" by Jon Kabat Zinn explained it was more attractive to me. When he talks about "accepting" something, he isn't talking about being passive and inactive. He's talking about accepting the reality of a situation, which is something you need to do if you are going to effectively act on it.
My understanding of Mindfulness -- and what I'm trying to do when I meditate -- is to clear out my own anxieties, fears, and biases, to try to see the objective facts of the situation more clearly.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 9:29 AM on December 5, 2016 [47 favorites]
There is a reason that these practices are done with a teacher in a supportive community. There is a reason that many these practices come out of a tradition with a philosophical underpinning that supports the practices. Mindfulness is not simply 'being in the moment.' It is being aware of your own mental states in response to the conditions around you. It is being aware of the conditions around you. It is realizing that other people are having that same experience too (even if the details vary widely). This is information that can help to act more intentionally, with less friction. Things will come up in practice that a skilled teacher can help with understanding and working with. Things will come up in practice that other members of the community can help with (just knowing that we're all practicing and going through similar experiences is helpful).
It's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water here, but there's nothing bad about tuning in. From my experience it beats the alternative I often lived by of acting mindlessly and without care or concern (which is not to say you must practice something like this to care or have concern, only that, in my life, that's what it took to get me to wake up).
posted by kokaku at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [29 favorites]
It's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water here, but there's nothing bad about tuning in. From my experience it beats the alternative I often lived by of acting mindlessly and without care or concern (which is not to say you must practice something like this to care or have concern, only that, in my life, that's what it took to get me to wake up).
posted by kokaku at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [29 favorites]
When I was sitting Zen, there was a subset of people at the Zendo who were engaging in the practice to help with chronic pain and impending death. It's useful to keep this in mind as a reference point in these conversations: Mindfulness is (at least in part) about learning how to exist in this moment, regardless of its perceived positive or negative features.
That doesn't mean that one should ignore necessary work on re-apportioning dish duty more equitably. But mindfulness does speak directly to the uselessness of beating ourselves up over the overall world situation wrt social justice. I personally think of it as a key tool for preventing burnout: Yeah, we have important work to do, but we also have to know how to deal with living in the world as it exists right now.
(Also, meditation is not for everyone, not at all. I've personally known people who flip out like crazy after sitting still for ten minutes. If meditation doesn't work for you, no one is forcing you to do it...)
posted by kaibutsu at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
That doesn't mean that one should ignore necessary work on re-apportioning dish duty more equitably. But mindfulness does speak directly to the uselessness of beating ourselves up over the overall world situation wrt social justice. I personally think of it as a key tool for preventing burnout: Yeah, we have important work to do, but we also have to know how to deal with living in the world as it exists right now.
(Also, meditation is not for everyone, not at all. I've personally known people who flip out like crazy after sitting still for ten minutes. If meditation doesn't work for you, no one is forcing you to do it...)
posted by kaibutsu at 9:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
Mindfulness isn't supposed to make you happy. That might be a byproduct, it might not. It's supposed to (in as much as it's supposed to do anything, which is a dubious prospect just at the outset) is to make explicit the illusory nature of the Self.
The most important time for me to use everything I learned during my Zen training is when directly engaging with the world, with people, with suffering and with injustice. Rather than running away from these things, mindfulness urges me to experience them fully, actively and with compassion.
(And yes, this is a powerful method for creating new pathways in the brain. Not to be undertaken on a whim, without first consulting knowledgeable elders and/or mental health care professionals.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:32 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
The most important time for me to use everything I learned during my Zen training is when directly engaging with the world, with people, with suffering and with injustice. Rather than running away from these things, mindfulness urges me to experience them fully, actively and with compassion.
(And yes, this is a powerful method for creating new pathways in the brain. Not to be undertaken on a whim, without first consulting knowledgeable elders and/or mental health care professionals.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:32 AM on December 5, 2016 [27 favorites]
Mindfullness is good. So is escapism. They both work.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:39 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:39 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Mindfulness practice for me was about learning how to process emotion, set it aside until I was able to look at it without being overwhelmed. It is not about swallowing anger or hurt or anxiety, tamping it down and pretending that it didn't happen, but dealing with the feeling or issue, deliberately. It is not about blocking out the world, it is about living in it, but at your own pace.
posted by bonehead at 9:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 9:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
Mindfulness™
The Dharma™ of Thusness™ Is Intimately Transmitted by Buddhas™ and Ancestors™
lol posting during rohatsu im so bad at this
posted by beefetish at 9:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
The Dharma™ of Thusness™ Is Intimately Transmitted by Buddhas™ and Ancestors™
lol posting during rohatsu im so bad at this
posted by beefetish at 9:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
Step 1: Create a straw man representation of what "mindfulness" is
Step 2: Adopt Andy Rooney's cynical outlook and writing style
Step 3: ???
Step 4: I don't know, I got distracted remembering that disastrous date I went on 10 years ago and I totally should have handled that one differently and oh my god Trump is gonna be president...
posted by rocket88 at 9:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [41 favorites]
Step 2: Adopt Andy Rooney's cynical outlook and writing style
Step 3: ???
Step 4: I don't know, I got distracted remembering that disastrous date I went on 10 years ago and I totally should have handled that one differently and oh my god Trump is gonna be president...
posted by rocket88 at 9:50 AM on December 5, 2016 [41 favorites]
Leave it to America/Western Culture to take a perfectly good idea and blow it up to such an extreme that the entire concept becomes damaged. Mindfulness is not a fucking competition people.
Because we all can't be The Sickest Buddhist ...
posted by philip-random at 9:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Because we all can't be The Sickest Buddhist ...
posted by philip-random at 9:54 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
This article reminds me of the one about how people who practice mindfulness are assholes because they aren't dramatic enough.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 9:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 9:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Faulker: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
mort sahl: "The future lies ahead"
somewhere inbetween is Now
posted by Postroad at 9:59 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
mort sahl: "The future lies ahead"
somewhere inbetween is Now
posted by Postroad at 9:59 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would seriously love to see any single piece of evidence showing a repressive government encouraging mindfulness among its subjects. It's a pretty strong claim. Buddhist-style mindfulness is the opposite of oppressable complancency.
Not all repression flows from governments. Instead, we have a repressive economic system (neoliberal capitalism), whose elites are encouraging mindfulness. That's the whole point of the article.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:00 AM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
Not all repression flows from governments. Instead, we have a repressive economic system (neoliberal capitalism), whose elites are encouraging mindfulness. That's the whole point of the article.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:00 AM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
Nothing like thousands of years of intellectual exploration to be co-opted by cynical progress-gospel Americans, then dismissed on Metafilter because it's Not Cool Anymore.
Anyhow, in the spirit of being productive, here's a link to a very thoughtful book by a Buddhist monk on engaging with mindfulness beyond the surface level.(warning, pdf)
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Anyhow, in the spirit of being productive, here's a link to a very thoughtful book by a Buddhist monk on engaging with mindfulness beyond the surface level.(warning, pdf)
posted by selfnoise at 10:03 AM on December 5, 2016 [16 favorites]
Wow holy heck do I not recognize what the author is talking about as relating to my practice and experience.
It's very personal. What bonehead said above: "Mindfulness practice for me was about learning how to process emotion." And meditation is just practice. I don't think I get direct benefit from it, but if I sit my ass on a cushion for a while every day and try and fail not to have thoughts and mind my breath I find my consciousness bringing a beautiful A-game to my day that makes me feel like I live on a different planet (where things are much better.)
posted by n9 at 10:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
It's very personal. What bonehead said above: "Mindfulness practice for me was about learning how to process emotion." And meditation is just practice. I don't think I get direct benefit from it, but if I sit my ass on a cushion for a while every day and try and fail not to have thoughts and mind my breath I find my consciousness bringing a beautiful A-game to my day that makes me feel like I live on a different planet (where things are much better.)
posted by n9 at 10:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
Whether it's Crossfit, or Kale, or Mindfulness.
Hey hey hey, let's not get nasty. Those are three of my favorite things. As well as node.js and selvedge denim.
posted by peter.j.torelli at 10:10 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
Hey hey hey, let's not get nasty. Those are three of my favorite things. As well as node.js and selvedge denim.
posted by peter.j.torelli at 10:10 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
if I sit my ass on a cushion for a while every day and try and fail not to have thoughts and mind my breath I find my consciousness bringing a beautiful A-game to my day that makes me feel like I live on a different planet
That sounds like a direct benefit to me! I find that 1.5 glasses of wine has the same impact.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
That sounds like a direct benefit to me! I find that 1.5 glasses of wine has the same impact.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:12 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, this piece was funny and had some truth to it but is about as theologically sophisticated as asking why god lets babies die.
posted by GuyZero at 10:16 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 10:16 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
Faulker: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
mort sahl: "The future lies ahead"
somewhere inbetween is Now
Actually, Norman Lear said this in an especially pithy way when he was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me:
mort sahl: "The future lies ahead"
somewhere inbetween is Now
Actually, Norman Lear said this in an especially pithy way when he was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me:
SAGAL: So do you have any tips for those of us who would like to arrive at 93 as spry and as successful and happy as you are?posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:17 AM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
LEAR: What occurred to me first is two simple words...Maybe as simple as any two words in the English language - over and next. When something is over, it is over....And we are on to next. And if there were - there was to be a hammock in the middle...Between over and next, that would be what is meant by living in the moment.
Nothing like thousands of years of intellectual exploration to be co-opted by cynical progress-gospel Americans, then dismissed on Metafilter because it's Not Cool Anymore.
Well, a large chunk of the "cool" that some of us are dismissing involves commercializing that exploration and sandboxing it into 45 minute workplace wellness sessions. That the meditation practice might happen in the context of a larger philosophical or religious system that requires a bit more than sitting with your co-workers once a week isn't really discussed.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:21 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
Well, a large chunk of the "cool" that some of us are dismissing involves commercializing that exploration and sandboxing it into 45 minute workplace wellness sessions. That the meditation practice might happen in the context of a larger philosophical or religious system that requires a bit more than sitting with your co-workers once a week isn't really discussed.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:21 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
Not all repression flows from governments. Instead, we have a repressive economic system (neoliberal capitalism), whose elites are encouraging mindfulness. That's the whole point of the article.
I would say elites are promoting (their conception of) mindfulness within their own class as a genuine attempt at professional peers' self-improvement, rather than using it as a form of repression of the underclass. If that were the case, where are the mindfulness programs for hourly workers at McDonald's and Wal-Mart? I don't think this theory holds up to very much scrutiny.
posted by zokni at 10:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
I would say elites are promoting (their conception of) mindfulness within their own class as a genuine attempt at professional peers' self-improvement, rather than using it as a form of repression of the underclass. If that were the case, where are the mindfulness programs for hourly workers at McDonald's and Wal-Mart? I don't think this theory holds up to very much scrutiny.
posted by zokni at 10:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
Instead, we have a repressive economic system (neoliberal capitalism), whose elites are encouraging mindfulness. That's the whole point of the article.
I guess you might criticize them of appropriation, but I hardly see Jon Kabat-Zinn and his ilk as tools of neoliberal capitalist oppression. He seems like someone legitimately concerned with well-being. I'm not sure I blame him that capitalism seems to commodify and generate revenue from everything under the sun.
posted by GuyZero at 10:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
I guess you might criticize them of appropriation, but I hardly see Jon Kabat-Zinn and his ilk as tools of neoliberal capitalist oppression. He seems like someone legitimately concerned with well-being. I'm not sure I blame him that capitalism seems to commodify and generate revenue from everything under the sun.
posted by GuyZero at 10:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
In fact, I would posit the opposite if we're theorizing about neoliberalism and mindfulness: the injustice is that our economic system creates a society where elites have the privilege to invest time/energy in personal growth and philosophy, whereas the rest have less capacity and access, being constantly tossed around by precarity and insecurity. Not a new idea, but IMO the situation is basically the inverse of what you're posing.
posted by zokni at 10:31 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by zokni at 10:31 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
Too many people put the emphasis in the wrong place: it's supposed to be less about being in the moment than about being in the moment. Americans think the point is to think like a fruit fly, no awareness of a future, no connection to the past. It's not. It's about being fully engaged and invested with all three right now, not only later when things have already gone wrong. At least, that's truer to the original Buddhist idea of mindfulness.
posted by saulgoodman at 10:33 AM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:33 AM on December 5, 2016 [18 favorites]
So we don't have to have crusted-on three-day-old-ketchup getting into today's salad
...or, you know, tons of bacteria.
posted by amtho at 10:36 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
...or, you know, tons of bacteria.
posted by amtho at 10:36 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
But people who think like fruit flies make more impulsive choices and are more likely to impulse buy and those tendencies might not be good for the soul but at least they're good for business...
posted by saulgoodman at 10:37 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by saulgoodman at 10:37 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I would say elites are promoting (their conception of) mindfulness within their own class as a genuine attempt at professional peers' self-improvement, rather than using it as a form of repression of the underclass. If that were the case, where are the mindfulness programs for hourly workers at McDonald's and Wal-Mart? I don't think this theory holds up to very much scrutiny.
Well, my view of this is that for the hourly-wage class, there is minimal need to push mindfulness because the inherent precarity of this type of work is "motivation" enough. There's probably less additional value available to extract out of the people at the bottom of the pecking order. You either work or you starve.
These fads are directed at the white-collar middle class. This group is not "elite," because they're not actually vested in the profit of their employer. They don't benefit directly from the company's performance. However, they are expected to behave as if they did—think about job postings that say "We're looking for people who are passionate about ______".
These are the folks who get pushed toward burnout because they don't have the institutional clout to push back against the encroachment into off-work hours. This class of people is certainly better off than the working poor, obviously, but there are other types of cultural pressure and status-based stressors that come from that tier of society.
And these cultural markers trickle down. Yesterday's indie SF coffeehouse is today's Starbucks is tomorrow's Dunkin' Donuts. Look what happened to yoga and the trappings of yoga. Go to a TJMaxx and you'll see the democratization of all the aspirational Pinterest shit. Count how many cheap pieces of crap you can buy that are themed around the concept of pseudo-orientalist "serenity." That didn't come up from a grassroots American cultural movement. It descended downward from the rich to the poor.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:45 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
Well, my view of this is that for the hourly-wage class, there is minimal need to push mindfulness because the inherent precarity of this type of work is "motivation" enough. There's probably less additional value available to extract out of the people at the bottom of the pecking order. You either work or you starve.
These fads are directed at the white-collar middle class. This group is not "elite," because they're not actually vested in the profit of their employer. They don't benefit directly from the company's performance. However, they are expected to behave as if they did—think about job postings that say "We're looking for people who are passionate about ______".
These are the folks who get pushed toward burnout because they don't have the institutional clout to push back against the encroachment into off-work hours. This class of people is certainly better off than the working poor, obviously, but there are other types of cultural pressure and status-based stressors that come from that tier of society.
And these cultural markers trickle down. Yesterday's indie SF coffeehouse is today's Starbucks is tomorrow's Dunkin' Donuts. Look what happened to yoga and the trappings of yoga. Go to a TJMaxx and you'll see the democratization of all the aspirational Pinterest shit. Count how many cheap pieces of crap you can buy that are themed around the concept of pseudo-orientalist "serenity." That didn't come up from a grassroots American cultural movement. It descended downward from the rich to the poor.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:45 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
The problem with "mindfulness" as described in the article is not the Buddhist practice of mindfulness meditation, but the capitalistic practice of promising short cuts to happiness and fulfillment without self-reflection, examination, or hard work.
Zen meditation is called "practice" because it is it provides a grounded reference point for living when we are not sitting. Any version of mindfulness meditation that makes a special promise for fulfillment or happiness is a canard.
posted by Tevin at 10:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
Zen meditation is called "practice" because it is it provides a grounded reference point for living when we are not sitting. Any version of mindfulness meditation that makes a special promise for fulfillment or happiness is a canard.
posted by Tevin at 10:46 AM on December 5, 2016 [11 favorites]
GuyZero: Yeah, this piece was funny and had some truth to it but is about as theologically sophisticated as asking why god lets babies die.
That's not a bad theological question. Sometimes sophistication arises in order to obscure the truth. Sometimes simple questions are clarifying.
The Buddha had what we now call "First World Problems". His dad didn't want him to see any poor people, but then he saw some. He had sex with beautiful women, but then he saw them sleeping and they were kind of gross and depressing. Buddhism and its commercialized offshoots appeal to well-off Westerners because the Buddha was solving First World Problems just like well-off Westerners are.
Buddhism failed to catch on in India, except among some of the merchant classes. It remained a faith dominated by merchants when it traveled to China. It's not weird or out-of-place for it to show up in your upper-middle-class workplace.
posted by clawsoon at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
That's not a bad theological question. Sometimes sophistication arises in order to obscure the truth. Sometimes simple questions are clarifying.
The Buddha had what we now call "First World Problems". His dad didn't want him to see any poor people, but then he saw some. He had sex with beautiful women, but then he saw them sleeping and they were kind of gross and depressing. Buddhism and its commercialized offshoots appeal to well-off Westerners because the Buddha was solving First World Problems just like well-off Westerners are.
Buddhism failed to catch on in India, except among some of the merchant classes. It remained a faith dominated by merchants when it traveled to China. It's not weird or out-of-place for it to show up in your upper-middle-class workplace.
posted by clawsoon at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
Also (and I know, I bring this up every time), but accepting payment for the Dhamma is expressly forbidden in most forms of Buddhism, which is a very handy yardstick.
posted by selfnoise at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by selfnoise at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
Mindfulness is not a fucking competition people.
"And the winner of the Mindful-a-thon is...Bob!"
(cheers from crowd)
Bob: *...hmm? -Sorry, what?
(unmindful angry jeers from crowd)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
"And the winner of the Mindful-a-thon is...Bob!"
(cheers from crowd)
Bob: *...hmm? -Sorry, what?
(unmindful angry jeers from crowd)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:49 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: The Buddha had what we now call "First World Problems"
posted by theodolite at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
That didn't come up from a grassroots American cultural movement. It descended downward from the rich to the poor.
I think there most definitely was a bottom-up diffusion of interest in Asian religions and philosophies, probably beginning with colonialist contact (like Hindu ideas being appropriated into the 19th century Spiritualist movement), and picking up in America after World War II. Is it coincidence that American interest in Zen begins to pick up in the 50's, after many American soldiers were exposed to Japanese culture while serving as an occupation force?
posted by thelonius at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think there most definitely was a bottom-up diffusion of interest in Asian religions and philosophies, probably beginning with colonialist contact (like Hindu ideas being appropriated into the 19th century Spiritualist movement), and picking up in America after World War II. Is it coincidence that American interest in Zen begins to pick up in the 50's, after many American soldiers were exposed to Japanese culture while serving as an occupation force?
posted by thelonius at 10:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you're meditating be totally mindful, if you're using power equipment be mindful that you don't cut your finger off. Now I have a certain personal mantra that I use when doing silent meditation with a group, you don't have to try it yourself but I've found it effective, quietly say to myself: "do not make funny face at guy on the others side, do not make goofy face, do not make wacky face".
posted by sammyo at 11:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 11:07 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Buddha had what we now call "First World Problems"
Suffering is a universal problem. This recent application of mindfulness may be watered-down, but the idea that we suffer and that we can free ourselves from suffering and that mindfulness is a part of that practice is not something that only applies now. It developed in a different culture, in a different time and has found appreciation in many different cultures and many different times (and that is just speaking of Buddhism - other religions and social movements have expressed similar ideas too).
posted by kokaku at 11:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
Suffering is a universal problem. This recent application of mindfulness may be watered-down, but the idea that we suffer and that we can free ourselves from suffering and that mindfulness is a part of that practice is not something that only applies now. It developed in a different culture, in a different time and has found appreciation in many different cultures and many different times (and that is just speaking of Buddhism - other religions and social movements have expressed similar ideas too).
posted by kokaku at 11:08 AM on December 5, 2016 [12 favorites]
Yeah, pretty much keeps me up at night worrying about, take a beat, Ivanka's suffering.
posted by sammyo at 11:10 AM on December 5, 2016
posted by sammyo at 11:10 AM on December 5, 2016
Mindfulness is about three things:
Mindful thought
Mindful speech
Mindful action
It's easy to forget one or the other.
posted by Dmenet at 11:21 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Mindful thought
Mindful speech
Mindful action
It's easy to forget one or the other.
posted by Dmenet at 11:21 AM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Mindfulness, like stoicism and Sartrean existentialism, is, as Marcuse put it, a philosophy that asks the tortured to take responsibility for how they respond to their torture. It's a philosophy that tyrants love when they want peaceful, quiet, mindful subjects.
What would the alternative be, exactly?
posted by bentpyramid at 11:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
What would the alternative be, exactly?
posted by bentpyramid at 11:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
Modern "mindfulness" is in many ways a bowdlerization of the original Buddhist teachings, which say the right path consists of morality, concentration, and insight. Some scholars are critical of modern "mindfulness" especially because it omits the morality element of the Buddha's teachings.
posted by twsf at 11:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by twsf at 11:23 AM on December 5, 2016 [9 favorites]
to be clear, the TFA is discussing, not 'mindfulness', but 'McMindfulness'.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:24 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 11:24 AM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
"This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing."
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:25 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
'McMindfulness'
"Y'know, I just noticed that when I really think about it, this food doesn't actually taste very good. Why do I keep coming here?"
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:28 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Y'know, I just noticed that when I really think about it, this food doesn't actually taste very good. Why do I keep coming here?"
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:28 AM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Love the band, hate the fans....
posted by vitabellosi at 11:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by vitabellosi at 11:30 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Buddhism as a major religion has been used as a tool of the state as much as Christianity has in the US. It's still created and run by imperfect humans no matter how much time they've spent sitting, and is still going to carry their biases and reactions.
"Mindfulness" has given me intense experiences where I've been able to see beyond my own emotions and narrative of actions and "reality" to see that I'm just as awful and hurtful as anyone else. It's pretty humbling and kind of the core of compassion, as far as I've experienced it, even if that's an understanding that's come from an ultimately ego-focused place.
It's not been an experience of ignoring "bad" things, but realizing that I'm labeling things as "good" or "bad" according to emotions and experience, and maybe nothing is inherently good or bad, and just IS. Which, yeah, can ultimately lead to a sense of happiness because you're just as accepting of the "bad" as the "good."
But who knows, I've heard things from people I've sat with for years that completely baffle me, and that makes it clear that we're not all on the same path even if we're sitting in the same room. It's made vast changes in my life, and I guess that's all I could really say with any authority.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:36 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
"Mindfulness" has given me intense experiences where I've been able to see beyond my own emotions and narrative of actions and "reality" to see that I'm just as awful and hurtful as anyone else. It's pretty humbling and kind of the core of compassion, as far as I've experienced it, even if that's an understanding that's come from an ultimately ego-focused place.
It's not been an experience of ignoring "bad" things, but realizing that I'm labeling things as "good" or "bad" according to emotions and experience, and maybe nothing is inherently good or bad, and just IS. Which, yeah, can ultimately lead to a sense of happiness because you're just as accepting of the "bad" as the "good."
But who knows, I've heard things from people I've sat with for years that completely baffle me, and that makes it clear that we're not all on the same path even if we're sitting in the same room. It's made vast changes in my life, and I guess that's all I could really say with any authority.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:36 AM on December 5, 2016 [7 favorites]
My problem with being in the moment is that a demonic version of it is what psychopaths do, what rapists do, and what child molesters do -- and what we as a society are doing as we burn every bit of fossil fuel we can get hold of, cut down all the trees, foul the waters, and strip the oceans.
posted by jamjam at 11:37 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 11:37 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
My problem with being in the moment is that a demonic version of it is what psychopaths do, what rapists do, and what child molesters do -- and what we as a society are doing as we burn every bit of fossil fuel we can get hold of, cut down all the trees, foul the waters, and strip the oceans.
This is a wild misinterpretation of mindfulness.
posted by GuyZero at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [38 favorites]
This is a wild misinterpretation of mindfulness.
posted by GuyZero at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [38 favorites]
I blame the word "mindfulness" as it implies that anyone who doesn't "practice mindfulness" (as far as I can tell a fairly fluid exhortation,) is mindless. This seems problematic to me as it resonates so well with other dark concepts of marketing such as "we strip you of your self esteem and sell it back to you" that it is hard not to get vexed when I encounter the word. This is despite feeling that there is great value in philosophies/practices/whatevers that are included under the best selling umbrella. While you can argue that this is taking the world out of context it doesn't really help.
posted by Pembquist at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Pembquist at 11:51 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
What would the alternative be, exactly?
Passion, righteous anger and bloody revolution, presumably.
Less snarkily, some see mindfulness as self-suppression, and prefer passion over (perceived) passivity. If insignificance from repression is the problem, passion can provide an answer.
posted by bonehead at 11:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Passion, righteous anger and bloody revolution, presumably.
Less snarkily, some see mindfulness as self-suppression, and prefer passion over (perceived) passivity. If insignificance from repression is the problem, passion can provide an answer.
posted by bonehead at 11:58 AM on December 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Passion, righteous anger and bloody revolution, presumably.
This is actually not mutually exclusive with mindfulness.
posted by GuyZero at 12:12 PM on December 5, 2016 [15 favorites]
This is actually not mutually exclusive with mindfulness.
posted by GuyZero at 12:12 PM on December 5, 2016 [15 favorites]
i love the dharma and i give my life to it, and overeducated_alligator's comment about mindfulness etc being repurposed by power structures to suppressive ends is also right on
that said i s2g whenever a buddhism thing comes up here people start talking out their ass and i wish people would reflect before opining
posted by beefetish at 12:16 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
that said i s2g whenever a buddhism thing comes up here people start talking out their ass and i wish people would reflect before opining
posted by beefetish at 12:16 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
My problem with being in the moment is that a demonic version of it is what psychopaths do,
My problem with building a campfire is that a demonic version of it is what arsonists do.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:25 PM on December 5, 2016 [17 favorites]
My problem with building a campfire is that a demonic version of it is what arsonists do.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:25 PM on December 5, 2016 [17 favorites]
Most of what I might say on this has already been said, but I just want to call attention to the fact that, whenever someone needs to use a social media site as derogatory shorthand for something they don't like, it's always one of the female-coded ones, like Tumblr or, just as a totally random example for no reason, Pinterest.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:33 PM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 12:33 PM on December 5, 2016 [13 favorites]
Buddhism failed to catch on in India, except among some of the merchant classes. It remained a faith dominated by merchants when it traveled to China. It's not weird or out-of-place for it to show up in your upper-middle-class workplace.
Sorry, what? Are you suggesting that Buddhism, the first religion in India to explicitly disavow the idea of caste, has no appeal to oppressed peoples? That seems quite simplistic to me. Given the destruction of Buddhist records in India after the 12th century invasions, I'm not sure how anyone can say with confidence who was or wasn't a Buddhist in ancient India, but the religion certainly has some appeal to modern Indians who are not upper-crust merchants.
On the broader point, I'm sure corporatized mindfulness is as irritating to some Buddhists as the prosperity gospel stuff is to some Christians. I don't think it follows that the practice itself should be dismissed or attacked because of these misuses of it.
The grating thing about prosperity gospel Christianity, to me, is that it treats what orthodox Christianity considers to be the primary end of life - a certain relation to God - as a mere means for achieving some worldly end, like career success or pots of money. I don't think this means that Christianity itself is contaminated by this stuff and that Christian theology and prayer and sacraments are therefore meaningless. Similarly, corporate uses of mindfulness take a practice embedded in a particular philosophy about the ends of life - detachment, dissolution of the illusions of self, enlightenment, compassion - and treat it as a means to ends that don't really square with that philosophy. If your boss tells you to undertake a mindfulness course so that you can be a productive worker and cope with stress just enough to do that, a bit of healthy skepticism is probably called for. (What else could be done to reduce the stress, and shouldn't the boss do that instead?) But it doesn't follow that we must completely disregard Buddhist teachings about the mind, and Buddhist meditation practices, when they aren't being pushed on us by people with dubious motives.
If your personal goal is to achieve the states of mind that Buddhism proposes as an end, Buddhist meditation practice is worth trying. Complaints about the corporate uses of the idea are valid but they don't tell us the answer to the important question, which is whether those states of mind do in fact improve well-being - as an end in itself - and, if so, whether the practices work to produce them. I think Buddhists have a good point about the value of compassion, detachment, and a certain distance from your own ego, and Buddhist practices do help to produce those states of mind. The evidence that mindfulness helps with depression and anxiety is at least strong enough to persuade the NHS here in the UK that it is worth promoting and paying for, and that suggests to me that there is some degree of scientific backing for the conclusion.
posted by Aravis76 at 12:34 PM on December 5, 2016 [25 favorites]
Sorry, what? Are you suggesting that Buddhism, the first religion in India to explicitly disavow the idea of caste, has no appeal to oppressed peoples? That seems quite simplistic to me. Given the destruction of Buddhist records in India after the 12th century invasions, I'm not sure how anyone can say with confidence who was or wasn't a Buddhist in ancient India, but the religion certainly has some appeal to modern Indians who are not upper-crust merchants.
On the broader point, I'm sure corporatized mindfulness is as irritating to some Buddhists as the prosperity gospel stuff is to some Christians. I don't think it follows that the practice itself should be dismissed or attacked because of these misuses of it.
The grating thing about prosperity gospel Christianity, to me, is that it treats what orthodox Christianity considers to be the primary end of life - a certain relation to God - as a mere means for achieving some worldly end, like career success or pots of money. I don't think this means that Christianity itself is contaminated by this stuff and that Christian theology and prayer and sacraments are therefore meaningless. Similarly, corporate uses of mindfulness take a practice embedded in a particular philosophy about the ends of life - detachment, dissolution of the illusions of self, enlightenment, compassion - and treat it as a means to ends that don't really square with that philosophy. If your boss tells you to undertake a mindfulness course so that you can be a productive worker and cope with stress just enough to do that, a bit of healthy skepticism is probably called for. (What else could be done to reduce the stress, and shouldn't the boss do that instead?) But it doesn't follow that we must completely disregard Buddhist teachings about the mind, and Buddhist meditation practices, when they aren't being pushed on us by people with dubious motives.
If your personal goal is to achieve the states of mind that Buddhism proposes as an end, Buddhist meditation practice is worth trying. Complaints about the corporate uses of the idea are valid but they don't tell us the answer to the important question, which is whether those states of mind do in fact improve well-being - as an end in itself - and, if so, whether the practices work to produce them. I think Buddhists have a good point about the value of compassion, detachment, and a certain distance from your own ego, and Buddhist practices do help to produce those states of mind. The evidence that mindfulness helps with depression and anxiety is at least strong enough to persuade the NHS here in the UK that it is worth promoting and paying for, and that suggests to me that there is some degree of scientific backing for the conclusion.
posted by Aravis76 at 12:34 PM on December 5, 2016 [25 favorites]
I've had the pleasure of attending classes at the San Francisco Zen center, and they have helped me.
I've also had the more dubious distinction of going to corporate-mandated 'mindfulness training' for stress reduction.
All I can really say is that they don't have much in common, based on my very limited experience.
I do think there's been a flurry of interest around it in the conventional medical world because gosh the margins on 'putting 30 people in a room with just chairs + 2 mindfulness trainers' is just excellent vs. 'providing conventional therapy with pharmaceuticals and an MD.'
posted by mrdaneri at 12:41 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
I've also had the more dubious distinction of going to corporate-mandated 'mindfulness training' for stress reduction.
All I can really say is that they don't have much in common, based on my very limited experience.
I do think there's been a flurry of interest around it in the conventional medical world because gosh the margins on 'putting 30 people in a room with just chairs + 2 mindfulness trainers' is just excellent vs. 'providing conventional therapy with pharmaceuticals and an MD.'
posted by mrdaneri at 12:41 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
But doing the dishes IS my zen. All the mindless tasks allow me to be inside my life without having to stress over it. I get that she is frustrated in thinking "being present" means being in some higher state. As I have experienced it, it's letting your mind wander while you are doing whatever without consequence. Doing this while driving or washing knives is not a good idea. Being grateful for the dishes as you do them is a side effect, not the goal.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 12:46 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 12:46 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: Whenever a thing comes up here people start talking out of their ass
My personal experience with Vipassana retreats and daily practice in the past couple years have been anything but underwhelming, and does work to totally change you and your views for the better.
Ymmv, but it is experiential and unless you honestly engage with mindfulness in a serious manner than you probably don't have a grasp of what it is.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:50 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
My personal experience with Vipassana retreats and daily practice in the past couple years have been anything but underwhelming, and does work to totally change you and your views for the better.
Ymmv, but it is experiential and unless you honestly engage with mindfulness in a serious manner than you probably don't have a grasp of what it is.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:50 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
Three things that I think get lost in translation. The first is "for the liberation of all living beings," or in Ginsburg's words, "ahh, Carl, while you are not safe, I am not safe, and now you're stuck in the animal soup of time."
Second, the meditation practice developed and exists alongside ethnic theistic religions of beings that help with the above. I think American practices overemphasize a by your own bootstraps approach. Which is ok if it works, I don't think it does for everyone.
Third, I get the sense that the idealized contemplative path is for those ready to be called to it. I'm not, so I make the most out of a slipshod devotional practice. I hit a brick wall when I do what's called clinically "mindfulness" meditation so I do mantra meditation instead.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:56 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Second, the meditation practice developed and exists alongside ethnic theistic religions of beings that help with the above. I think American practices overemphasize a by your own bootstraps approach. Which is ok if it works, I don't think it does for everyone.
Third, I get the sense that the idealized contemplative path is for those ready to be called to it. I'm not, so I make the most out of a slipshod devotional practice. I hit a brick wall when I do what's called clinically "mindfulness" meditation so I do mantra meditation instead.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:56 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also, Buddhism isn't the only Dharmic religion, just the one that gets the highest saturation on the Buns and Noodle bookshelves.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:09 PM on December 5, 2016
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:09 PM on December 5, 2016
So been there then.
posted by Chitownfats at 1:11 PM on December 5, 2016
posted by Chitownfats at 1:11 PM on December 5, 2016
Aravis76: Sorry, what? Are you suggesting that Buddhism, the first religion in India to explicitly disavow the idea of caste, has no appeal to oppressed peoples? That seems quite simplistic to me. Given the destruction of Buddhist records in India after the 12th century invasions, I'm not sure how anyone can say with confidence who was or wasn't a Buddhist in ancient India, but the religion certainly has some appeal to modern Indians who are not upper-crust merchants.
I stand corrected, thanks.
posted by clawsoon at 1:27 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
I stand corrected, thanks.
posted by clawsoon at 1:27 PM on December 5, 2016 [6 favorites]
I try to always stay completely focused on a point positioned along a line running starting at my left earlobe, running through my right eyebrow and extending another 17.5 cm out, 15 seconds in the future.
I call it Mindfuckfulness.
posted by signal at 1:40 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I call it Mindfuckfulness.
posted by signal at 1:40 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well, a large chunk of the "cool" that some of us are dismissing involves commercializing that exploration and sandboxing it into 45 minute workplace wellness sessions.
*shudder* I was once in a brainstorming meeting about how to improve the new-employee onboarding experience, and someone came in with a proposed schedule that involved a two day orientation, and the second day would begin with a "mindfullness workshop".
I am a little ashamed of the delight I took in pointing out that "for someone who just started working here and all they want to know is stuff like 'where's the copy machine' and 'how do I make coffee', a 'mindfullness workshop' is going to feel incredibly stupid."
The proposed schedule was quickly withdrawn.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
*shudder* I was once in a brainstorming meeting about how to improve the new-employee onboarding experience, and someone came in with a proposed schedule that involved a two day orientation, and the second day would begin with a "mindfullness workshop".
I am a little ashamed of the delight I took in pointing out that "for someone who just started working here and all they want to know is stuff like 'where's the copy machine' and 'how do I make coffee', a 'mindfullness workshop' is going to feel incredibly stupid."
The proposed schedule was quickly withdrawn.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:41 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
"This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing."
But those seagulls poke at my at my head/Not fun/I said, "Seagulls...MMGH...Stop it now"
posted by lazycomputerkids at 2:31 PM on December 5, 2016
But those seagulls poke at my at my head/Not fun/I said, "Seagulls...MMGH...Stop it now"
posted by lazycomputerkids at 2:31 PM on December 5, 2016
My 9 yr old niece has made a new friend this year: a girl named Serenity. Her new friend has some anger issues. Every time I ask my niece about her day at school, I get a long, rambling story which ends with "Serenity got mad and started punching everyone."
This phrase basically sums up mindfulness for me and my angry nihilism this year.
posted by honestcoyote at 4:56 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
This phrase basically sums up mindfulness for me and my angry nihilism this year.
posted by honestcoyote at 4:56 PM on December 5, 2016 [8 favorites]
the mindfulness movement does make for some nice, docile citizenry. always gotta wonder who is really pushing these big movements as a means of crowd control.
posted by resplendentsaturation at 7:24 PM on December 5, 2016
posted by resplendentsaturation at 7:24 PM on December 5, 2016
The modern mindfulness movement is misdirection, just as deliberate as that of a stage magician. They know that if you have your full attention focused here, you'll never notice what they're doing over there. If you stay focused on the present, you won't see the patterns of the past that show you how to predict the future.
By focusing too much on the past, you can mistake brand-new things for events that happened to you before.
"My wife just said something that sounds vaguely like a thing that my horribly abusive father used to say — I should totally forget to breathe, retreat out of my body and into my head, and then explode with fear-induced anger because this conversation matches a pattern."
The offered alternative: try to remember to breathe so you can let that fear response go, stay in your body and not just in your head, and take a minute to process what's actually going on right now.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:36 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
By focusing too much on the past, you can mistake brand-new things for events that happened to you before.
"My wife just said something that sounds vaguely like a thing that my horribly abusive father used to say — I should totally forget to breathe, retreat out of my body and into my head, and then explode with fear-induced anger because this conversation matches a pattern."
The offered alternative: try to remember to breathe so you can let that fear response go, stay in your body and not just in your head, and take a minute to process what's actually going on right now.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:36 PM on December 5, 2016 [14 favorites]
My problem with being in the moment is that a demonic version of it is what psychopaths do, what rapists do, and what child molesters do -- and what we as a society are doing as we burn every bit of fossil fuel we can get hold of, cut down all the trees, foul the waters, and strip the oceans.
Yeah, that's capitalism. Easy mistake, but the demons are wearing top hats and monocles.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:40 PM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Yeah, that's capitalism. Easy mistake, but the demons are wearing top hats and monocles.
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:40 PM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
I am a therapist who teaches mindfulness (along with other things) to clients who are particularly marginalized. I do so because I generally suspect that if they stop distracting themselves from their real pain with tv, shopping, cleaning, and other mindless activities, and actually connect to the painful emotions they are feeling, they will be much more empowered to change those aspects of their lives they can change, to process those emotions that need processing, and to fight against an unjust society that keeps its boot on their necks. I realize that for many of my clients, their seeming complacency is a coping mechanism to deal with powerlessness and past trauma, and I get that can be a valid choice, but I'm teaching mindfulness skills to help them have more options than watching tv when they're upset and blaming themselves when it doesn't help.
posted by lazuli at 9:23 PM on December 5, 2016 [21 favorites]
posted by lazuli at 9:23 PM on December 5, 2016 [21 favorites]
I would also echo the criticism that many people (especially white Americans) use ideas of Buddhism or mindfulness to pretend that they are too superior to have to deal with things like injustice or emotions. But I think that's because white people ruin things, not because mindfulness or Buddhism are wrong.
posted by lazuli at 9:26 PM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by lazuli at 9:26 PM on December 5, 2016 [10 favorites]
*ding ding ding* We have a winner! Show him what he's won, Johnny!
Huh? Wha–? I was thinking of something else, sorry.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:39 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Huh? Wha–? I was thinking of something else, sorry.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:39 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Lazuli's comment is prompting me to state -
I don't think anyone is disputing the notion that mindfulness itself is helpful, in certain circumstances. I think the mockery is more about it having been turned into a Gwyneth Paltrow kind of lifestyle trend. In other words - the fact that it's useful for those stuck in thinking patterns and anxiety does not necessarily mean that it therefore should be worked into every single community gathering or corporate seminar or anything like that.
I admit I sort of exaggerated my story above; I was a bit more charitable during the actual meeting, pointing out that there were employees who would indeed find it useful but there were just as many who wouldn't and would think it ridiculous if they were forced to do that, and so perhaps making it optional would be better.
In a weird way I feel like this is like what happened with antibacterial soap - there are people who honestly need it, because their immune systems are compromised. But everyone else jumped on board that didn't need it and there's a bit of a public health issue as a result. Or the trend for "boosting your immune system" - while there are those who do need the extra support, most of us are doing fine.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:48 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't think anyone is disputing the notion that mindfulness itself is helpful, in certain circumstances. I think the mockery is more about it having been turned into a Gwyneth Paltrow kind of lifestyle trend. In other words - the fact that it's useful for those stuck in thinking patterns and anxiety does not necessarily mean that it therefore should be worked into every single community gathering or corporate seminar or anything like that.
I admit I sort of exaggerated my story above; I was a bit more charitable during the actual meeting, pointing out that there were employees who would indeed find it useful but there were just as many who wouldn't and would think it ridiculous if they were forced to do that, and so perhaps making it optional would be better.
In a weird way I feel like this is like what happened with antibacterial soap - there are people who honestly need it, because their immune systems are compromised. But everyone else jumped on board that didn't need it and there's a bit of a public health issue as a result. Or the trend for "boosting your immune system" - while there are those who do need the extra support, most of us are doing fine.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:48 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I worry that the mindfulness-vs.-real world issue is a false binary. I've been thinking a lot about it over the past day or so, obviously, but I worry that we think anxiety is useful or that inner pain is necessary for fixing real-world problems. I would prefer to think it is possible to work for equity, recognize that the world is unjust, handle stress effectively, and still not mess up my brain unnecessarily.
That said, my temperament means that I cannot sit still and my meditation is always done in action, so perhaps my mileage varies.
posted by Peach at 6:10 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
That said, my temperament means that I cannot sit still and my meditation is always done in action, so perhaps my mileage varies.
posted by Peach at 6:10 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
I understand the mockery and as a middle-aged white woman I kind of hate that yoga helped me start to make peace with my body, martial arts helped me connect with the use of that body to feel empowered, and meditation helps me find what is important to me. Because it's a cliche and stupid...and yet there it is, changed my life (among other things like therapy) and for my next guest appearance in the book of Oprah I am training for my first half marathon.
And yet, there it is. When I am engaged in my practices, I am less prone to drama, losing sight of my kids, and mindless consumption. For me it's the base of my activism, to be present and engaged in a world that encourages us to ignore suffering, especially of those unlike us.
Fortunately I work in a workplace where the idea of a mindfulness workshop would have you volunteered for a whack of stuff to do since clearly you have too much time to think. :) I don't appreciate workplaces trying to choose what's helpful to staff, I like workplaces that give staff time to figure it out whatever it is.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:33 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
And yet, there it is. When I am engaged in my practices, I am less prone to drama, losing sight of my kids, and mindless consumption. For me it's the base of my activism, to be present and engaged in a world that encourages us to ignore suffering, especially of those unlike us.
Fortunately I work in a workplace where the idea of a mindfulness workshop would have you volunteered for a whack of stuff to do since clearly you have too much time to think. :) I don't appreciate workplaces trying to choose what's helpful to staff, I like workplaces that give staff time to figure it out whatever it is.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:33 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
I am perhaps bitter about mindfulness because I have repeatedly tried to access therapy and other mental health support for helping me cope with concrete and overwhelming life situations and been told that really I just needed to learn to be mindful, or better yet find some more time in my day and go meditate for an hour in the university "mindfulness room." I needed validation that yes, it's overwhelming to be dealing with your house burning down and your car being totalled and your family throwing fits because of having to accept your queer after literal years of aggressive refusal to think about it. I needed, more than anything, someone to help me forgive myself for being overwhelmed and sad and angry and tired.
Aaand I got... One size fits all mindfulness and meditation. I walked out of those therapy sessions feeling worse about my situation and my ability to cope than I did when I went in, because it felt like all my fault that I wasn't handling things well. After all, the solution was so simple, right? And there wasn't any room in the litany of mindfulness for anything to be hard about my life that wasn't purely because there was something I was doing wrong.
As a bonus, I actively find meditation qua meditation stressful because I wind up playing whack a mole with my fucking thoughts. I tried explaining this on several occasions in those sessions and got absolutely fucking nowhere. No questions about what I could do that worked for me, like rhythmically knitting or taking long hikes with my chronically bored dog; just exhortations for me to find more time in my overscheduled life to abandon my tottering responsibilities in order to sit in a room on campus while presumably the dog sat in her crate and pissed herself.
If this shit works for you, if it's part of your religious practices or even just a tool in your self care arsenal, awesome! But for myself, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forgive mindfulness for being the only tool that two fucking separate therapists could think of to give me when I desperately needed help and to be treated like a fucking person. I am always going to associate it with shame and failure, and it bothers me to see those experiences erased in favor of a defensive "well, that's not doing it right!" I don't care if that's not doing it right. I care that it was the only thing available to me at a time when I badly needed something else.
posted by sciatrix at 6:55 AM on December 6, 2016 [31 favorites]
Aaand I got... One size fits all mindfulness and meditation. I walked out of those therapy sessions feeling worse about my situation and my ability to cope than I did when I went in, because it felt like all my fault that I wasn't handling things well. After all, the solution was so simple, right? And there wasn't any room in the litany of mindfulness for anything to be hard about my life that wasn't purely because there was something I was doing wrong.
As a bonus, I actively find meditation qua meditation stressful because I wind up playing whack a mole with my fucking thoughts. I tried explaining this on several occasions in those sessions and got absolutely fucking nowhere. No questions about what I could do that worked for me, like rhythmically knitting or taking long hikes with my chronically bored dog; just exhortations for me to find more time in my overscheduled life to abandon my tottering responsibilities in order to sit in a room on campus while presumably the dog sat in her crate and pissed herself.
If this shit works for you, if it's part of your religious practices or even just a tool in your self care arsenal, awesome! But for myself, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forgive mindfulness for being the only tool that two fucking separate therapists could think of to give me when I desperately needed help and to be treated like a fucking person. I am always going to associate it with shame and failure, and it bothers me to see those experiences erased in favor of a defensive "well, that's not doing it right!" I don't care if that's not doing it right. I care that it was the only thing available to me at a time when I badly needed something else.
posted by sciatrix at 6:55 AM on December 6, 2016 [31 favorites]
sciatrix, I'm sorry to hear you had that experience with therapists. I hope you're able to find space for the things (like hiking with your dog and knitting) that do help you from feeling overhwelmed and do help you to handle the things you are going through.
posted by kokaku at 7:26 AM on December 6, 2016
posted by kokaku at 7:26 AM on December 6, 2016
You're not the only one who's had this type of experience, sciatrix. Preach it, sister! I am constantly reminding people in my life that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. There was a comment here recently where someone complained about a therapist who said something like "what was it about your sister biting you that made you angry?" (Ah, here it is.) Things suck. Yes, mindfulness works for some people to help with the suckiness and that's great. But we also need to remember to work on actually getting rid of the suckiness. (And, not tell people that they're doing it wrong.)
posted by Melismata at 7:41 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 7:41 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
LOL this article. I don't think Whippman really understands the concept of mindfulness at all.
posted by New England Cultist at 9:43 AM on December 6, 2016
posted by New England Cultist at 9:43 AM on December 6, 2016
sciatrix, I was just talking to a friend about this thread and observing that almost everyone I've talked to has remarked that their thoughts just won't stop, and that meditation is disappointing because of it. Nowadays I honestly think that we all experience this - I've been doing Zen meditation for many years, and my mind is still pretty much a barrel of monkeys. Except... not always, and I'm mostly aware of which monkeys and what they're up to. I take some comfort from people like Brad Warner, American Zen teacher (not everybody's cup of tea) who says things like, "I'm the world's worst meditator." Part of this is about recognizing that there's value in simply practicing, without worrying about the result.
posted by sneebler at 11:46 AM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sneebler at 11:46 AM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't think the monkeys stop- that's called being dead.
posted by MtDewd at 11:59 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by MtDewd at 11:59 AM on December 6, 2016 [4 favorites]
As much as I enjoy talking technique, I think we ought to recognize that Sciatrix is probably not looking for that.
Part of the problem with atomizing this kind of meditation and offering it as a medicine is that it's meant to be taught by those who truly understand it, and part of understand it is recognizing that it's not medicine.
posted by selfnoise at 12:08 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
Part of the problem with atomizing this kind of meditation and offering it as a medicine is that it's meant to be taught by those who truly understand it, and part of understand it is recognizing that it's not medicine.
posted by selfnoise at 12:08 PM on December 6, 2016 [7 favorites]
I didn't like Buddhism and, probably unlike a lot of people, I had the misfortune of being completely surrounded by Buddhists (and yes this was self chosen since I went to a Buddhist school). I will say having gone to Buddhist school, self proclaimed Buddhists can be just as condescending and evangelical about their spiritual superiority as people from any other religion.
Being around that makes you desperate for some kindred souls who you're allowed to speak to about the fact that you don't think Buddhists have all the answers or they would have already solved human suffering. The Buddha did not do this, nor have Buddhists. And maybe the goal isn't to solve human suffering or to create a space for existence to both exist and be happy. Which is fine and if so also why Buddhism is not for me.
I completely respect us all having our own path and finding things that work, but I do get tired of people deciding their way is enlightened and superior and everyone hasn't "developed" enough to see their way. If you disagree at all, there are some who are all to happy to tell you, you're "just not ready yet" to understand as well as they.
Hinduism is older than Buddhism, so is warfare and inequality. Just because humans believe or do a thing for a long time is not proof of it being good.
I don't want to be at peace with the suffering in my life or others. I want to enact change. The suffering tells me something is wrong and the suffering is not in my head, it is not me thinking about it wrong, it is a set of things happening to human beings that are causing them damage and thus induces states of unpleasantness that tell me things should be changed. I am happy to hear that input even if it means I will be sad.
Mindfulness means many different things to different people, meditation can have infinite different goals and I am in agreement that being mindful itself does not have to carry all the bullshit various people and religions may have attached to it. I do think pushing mindfulness of vulnerable people is a real and seriously harmful phenomena, and I too have experienced it while seeking support with trauma and pain.
I can remember this one "Buddhist" guy telling me after I lost my daughter he could solve all my problems if I come sit under a tree with him and he's like, "Just... let it go".... "let it go"
Yeah no shit, like the movie which wasn't out yet. And I was like fuck you, go punch yourself.
And I really like myself a whole lot more than those people to be honest. At the time I thought I was in the wrong and should change to be like them. Now I'm glad everything in my being said, when counsellors tried to push Byron Katie's "love everything as it is! It's perfect" and all this other bullshit, I said, fuck you.
Thank goodness for my anger, it protected me from their harmful abuse.
posted by xarnop at 12:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
Being around that makes you desperate for some kindred souls who you're allowed to speak to about the fact that you don't think Buddhists have all the answers or they would have already solved human suffering. The Buddha did not do this, nor have Buddhists. And maybe the goal isn't to solve human suffering or to create a space for existence to both exist and be happy. Which is fine and if so also why Buddhism is not for me.
I completely respect us all having our own path and finding things that work, but I do get tired of people deciding their way is enlightened and superior and everyone hasn't "developed" enough to see their way. If you disagree at all, there are some who are all to happy to tell you, you're "just not ready yet" to understand as well as they.
Hinduism is older than Buddhism, so is warfare and inequality. Just because humans believe or do a thing for a long time is not proof of it being good.
I don't want to be at peace with the suffering in my life or others. I want to enact change. The suffering tells me something is wrong and the suffering is not in my head, it is not me thinking about it wrong, it is a set of things happening to human beings that are causing them damage and thus induces states of unpleasantness that tell me things should be changed. I am happy to hear that input even if it means I will be sad.
Mindfulness means many different things to different people, meditation can have infinite different goals and I am in agreement that being mindful itself does not have to carry all the bullshit various people and religions may have attached to it. I do think pushing mindfulness of vulnerable people is a real and seriously harmful phenomena, and I too have experienced it while seeking support with trauma and pain.
I can remember this one "Buddhist" guy telling me after I lost my daughter he could solve all my problems if I come sit under a tree with him and he's like, "Just... let it go".... "let it go"
Yeah no shit, like the movie which wasn't out yet. And I was like fuck you, go punch yourself.
And I really like myself a whole lot more than those people to be honest. At the time I thought I was in the wrong and should change to be like them. Now I'm glad everything in my being said, when counsellors tried to push Byron Katie's "love everything as it is! It's perfect" and all this other bullshit, I said, fuck you.
Thank goodness for my anger, it protected me from their harmful abuse.
posted by xarnop at 12:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [10 favorites]
I firmly believe that advertising is black magic.
It most certainly is. I describe it as psyops to my more militarily minded friends.
There is a definite relationship between how advertising works and how meditation works. It's kinda a dark side vs light side of the force type deal. Meditative practice can be harmful, of that I have no doubt. Choice of guru or teacher or no teacher at all ends up being a very important choice for the early practitioner. Skepticism is invaluable here, and will in no way hinder a meditative practice.
I second this bit by Aravis. Mindfulness is to Buddhism as the prosperity gospel is to Christianity. Something in the American character will strip out all the difficult parts and sell the rest as the same thing that was molested.
I believe meditative practice to be a form of prayer. It's not asking some big daddy for shit you probably don't need, aka the consumerist version of Christmas, it's a ritualized celebration of life, a kind of communion.
Which brings me to a final point. I'm starting to think Luther's throwing out the monastic class was a huge mistake. The monastic types are the spring well from which religions remain vital, and prevent ossification. Meditative practice is key to any worthwhile monastic tradition, and since meditation requires discipline and dedication, it is not for everyone. It cannot be democratized, nor should it be. And like any specialized skill set, religions need professionals who can both lead, and provide guidance for the laity.
There have been many times where I wanted to swear off family and wealth to go open a small meditation center in the city somewhere.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:57 PM on December 6, 2016
It most certainly is. I describe it as psyops to my more militarily minded friends.
There is a definite relationship between how advertising works and how meditation works. It's kinda a dark side vs light side of the force type deal. Meditative practice can be harmful, of that I have no doubt. Choice of guru or teacher or no teacher at all ends up being a very important choice for the early practitioner. Skepticism is invaluable here, and will in no way hinder a meditative practice.
I second this bit by Aravis. Mindfulness is to Buddhism as the prosperity gospel is to Christianity. Something in the American character will strip out all the difficult parts and sell the rest as the same thing that was molested.
I believe meditative practice to be a form of prayer. It's not asking some big daddy for shit you probably don't need, aka the consumerist version of Christmas, it's a ritualized celebration of life, a kind of communion.
Which brings me to a final point. I'm starting to think Luther's throwing out the monastic class was a huge mistake. The monastic types are the spring well from which religions remain vital, and prevent ossification. Meditative practice is key to any worthwhile monastic tradition, and since meditation requires discipline and dedication, it is not for everyone. It cannot be democratized, nor should it be. And like any specialized skill set, religions need professionals who can both lead, and provide guidance for the laity.
There have been many times where I wanted to swear off family and wealth to go open a small meditation center in the city somewhere.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 12:57 PM on December 6, 2016
the patterns of the past that show you how to predict the future
The thing is history is not perfect truth. Don't get me wrong, I love history, but it's full of holes, lacks motives, and focuses on the wrong things sometimes. We can't actually know the past the same way we can the present. The past is an approximation of a different order than the approximation we can get of the present through our senses (the sixth of which is our mind).
Really, you are not your mind.
The above critique is also a great panacea for evidence at large. Evidence is a much more slippery thing than our Science Is Everything paradigm admits to. Or better to not blame Science, but the science fans.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:10 PM on December 6, 2016
The thing is history is not perfect truth. Don't get me wrong, I love history, but it's full of holes, lacks motives, and focuses on the wrong things sometimes. We can't actually know the past the same way we can the present. The past is an approximation of a different order than the approximation we can get of the present through our senses (the sixth of which is our mind).
Really, you are not your mind.
The above critique is also a great panacea for evidence at large. Evidence is a much more slippery thing than our Science Is Everything paradigm admits to. Or better to not blame Science, but the science fans.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:10 PM on December 6, 2016
Mindfulness is to Buddhism as the prosperity gospel is to Christianity.
There are many banal pop interpretations of Buddhism in the west but this is a bit much. Have you read Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living (which is probably 90% of where the current mindfulness trend came from)? It's not the end of philosophy or any such thing, but it's most definitely not comparable to Prosperity Gospel.
posted by GuyZero at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
There are many banal pop interpretations of Buddhism in the west but this is a bit much. Have you read Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living (which is probably 90% of where the current mindfulness trend came from)? It's not the end of philosophy or any such thing, but it's most definitely not comparable to Prosperity Gospel.
posted by GuyZero at 1:12 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I haven't, but I'll look. Buddhist writings are many.
Beginner's Mind was mentioned earlier, and I believe it's the one by Suzuki, and if so, I've read that one. It's quite good though I remember having some minor quibbles with it. I was also quite impressed with Trungpa. He's brilliant, but he also has some personal issues well recorded in his wiki entry that will discredit him in the eyes of the purity minded.
I've grown adverse to much of the meditation as medicine movement because they are missing the point. Meditation can be medicinal, extremely powerful medicine in fact, but it's a side effect. I'm also a guy who thinks guided meditation is an oxymoron. You can meditate with someone, alongside someone, but you're always guiding yourself.
Take of this what you will.
The flip side to these corporate types who spread mindfulness is those dissatisfied with it may explore the greater body of Buddhism. Those who do may well move into other lines of work as a result of their practice. The trend will be self-correcting.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:48 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Beginner's Mind was mentioned earlier, and I believe it's the one by Suzuki, and if so, I've read that one. It's quite good though I remember having some minor quibbles with it. I was also quite impressed with Trungpa. He's brilliant, but he also has some personal issues well recorded in his wiki entry that will discredit him in the eyes of the purity minded.
I've grown adverse to much of the meditation as medicine movement because they are missing the point. Meditation can be medicinal, extremely powerful medicine in fact, but it's a side effect. I'm also a guy who thinks guided meditation is an oxymoron. You can meditate with someone, alongside someone, but you're always guiding yourself.
Take of this what you will.
The flip side to these corporate types who spread mindfulness is those dissatisfied with it may explore the greater body of Buddhism. Those who do may well move into other lines of work as a result of their practice. The trend will be self-correcting.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 1:48 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Just to clarify, I wasn't myself suggesting that all Western mindfulness practice is like the prosperity gospel. I was only thinking about specific quasi-mindfulness practices that have been adopted by companies, in a shallow form, as 'stress reduction for busy executives'. Outside that context, I'm sure mindfulness can be a spiritually valuable practice and I've personally found it be so.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:49 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Aravis76 at 1:49 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
in a shallow form, as 'stress reduction for busy executives'.
Kabat-Zinn's book is actually not that far off from this with the exception that he ran actual studies that showed improvement of the subjects studied.
I've grown adverse to much of the meditation as medicine movement because they are missing the point. Meditation can be medicinal, extremely powerful medicine in fact, but it's a side effect. I'm also a guy who thinks guided meditation is an oxymoron. You can meditate with someone, alongside someone, but you're always guiding yourself.
The is all pretty legit criticism.
posted by GuyZero at 2:03 PM on December 6, 2016
Kabat-Zinn's book is actually not that far off from this with the exception that he ran actual studies that showed improvement of the subjects studied.
I've grown adverse to much of the meditation as medicine movement because they are missing the point. Meditation can be medicinal, extremely powerful medicine in fact, but it's a side effect. I'm also a guy who thinks guided meditation is an oxymoron. You can meditate with someone, alongside someone, but you're always guiding yourself.
The is all pretty legit criticism.
posted by GuyZero at 2:03 PM on December 6, 2016
Science has got a long way to go, if ever, for proof of this stuff. It was one of the major hurdles I had to cross my first year. You go in deep enough in this particular hole, and you learn to embrace paradox as a fundamental. Science in the 'kill the creature to learn about it' sense is not equipped to explain. Think Aristotle, not Plato.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:17 PM on December 6, 2016
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:17 PM on December 6, 2016
Here's an example I don't think is too dangerous to share. Heightened senses after meditation is a thing. It's not supernatural in the comic book sense of the term though. What it is is you'll unwittingly strip away expectations, and what remains is the raw experience.
A small lesson here: expectation will blind you to things as they are.
Stories of monks practicing in the snow does not seem unreal to me at all. After some time, meditation practitioners will find they need more external stimuli to balance the internal experience of the thing. I'be found practicing at bus stops to be quite helpful these days.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:27 PM on December 6, 2016
A small lesson here: expectation will blind you to things as they are.
Stories of monks practicing in the snow does not seem unreal to me at all. After some time, meditation practitioners will find they need more external stimuli to balance the internal experience of the thing. I'be found practicing at bus stops to be quite helpful these days.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:27 PM on December 6, 2016
The Buddha was using techniques already being taught during his time to meditate to whatever degree he modified them. Nirvana was not a term in use in the older texts (to my knowledge) but instead the enlightenment and freedom of the soul was referred to with imagery of fire and light. Therefore when the Buddha (or more specifically texts claimed to be the teachings of Buddha) began using the word Nirvana, to blow out, for the ultimate goal, it was quite a literally dark twist on the original concept.
It's interesting that 'Buddha' denied the existence of a soul but acknowledged the illusion of the soul; and also seemed to believe in many fantastical concepts such as reincarnation. The atheist feels at home with Buddhism because there is no god, and no self- yet many of the teachings are indeed into the realm of the unproven and include the existence of other realms and entities beyond this one. Yet, the goal, is to put out the self, to put out the light. That is liberation? Many explain "Oh it's just a twist of words, he means something else."
He's not really going to build a wall, is he? Or did Mara, that weaver of death, put his will more deeply into the teachings of Buddha than our dear one and only enlightened one may have realized? No one need even desire exist at all. Be at peace in the eternity of nothingness, without a soul, without an urge. Mara, you can invite those who so desire into your realm, but to give up all soul and all yearning and all eternal life to accomplish a flatness that defeats suffering only because it achieves nonexistence is not to win.
I don't say this because perhaps the nothingness can't be a goal for some, but simply for anyone who felt uncomfortable with but unsure how to make of this assertion this is the highest truth. There are many truths, and if the fantastical were possible and the realms many, there is room for many to have their dreams, be it of nothingness if it is your hearts fulfillment, or eternal delight in realms where the suffering be replaced with a somethingness, with life, with health, with connection.
I had to fight the Buddha and his minions to get to my Goddess, within, without, and now I know in my eternity there will be dancing, and selves, and love, and hands to hold. Or I will be with the worms, but I likely won't know it, so I'll keep my dreams alive.
posted by xarnop at 2:44 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
It's interesting that 'Buddha' denied the existence of a soul but acknowledged the illusion of the soul; and also seemed to believe in many fantastical concepts such as reincarnation. The atheist feels at home with Buddhism because there is no god, and no self- yet many of the teachings are indeed into the realm of the unproven and include the existence of other realms and entities beyond this one. Yet, the goal, is to put out the self, to put out the light. That is liberation? Many explain "Oh it's just a twist of words, he means something else."
He's not really going to build a wall, is he? Or did Mara, that weaver of death, put his will more deeply into the teachings of Buddha than our dear one and only enlightened one may have realized? No one need even desire exist at all. Be at peace in the eternity of nothingness, without a soul, without an urge. Mara, you can invite those who so desire into your realm, but to give up all soul and all yearning and all eternal life to accomplish a flatness that defeats suffering only because it achieves nonexistence is not to win.
I don't say this because perhaps the nothingness can't be a goal for some, but simply for anyone who felt uncomfortable with but unsure how to make of this assertion this is the highest truth. There are many truths, and if the fantastical were possible and the realms many, there is room for many to have their dreams, be it of nothingness if it is your hearts fulfillment, or eternal delight in realms where the suffering be replaced with a somethingness, with life, with health, with connection.
I had to fight the Buddha and his minions to get to my Goddess, within, without, and now I know in my eternity there will be dancing, and selves, and love, and hands to hold. Or I will be with the worms, but I likely won't know it, so I'll keep my dreams alive.
posted by xarnop at 2:44 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
xarnop: Yet, the goal, is to put out the self, to put out the light. That is liberation? ... No one need even desire exist at all. Be at peace in the eternity of nothingness, without a soul, without an urge.
You're making me think of the Alcoholic's Prayer. My understanding of Buddhism is crude, but "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" seems like a good fit for being at peace, without desire. And replacing suffering
with a somethingness, with life, with health, with connection
...seems like a good fit for "the courage to change the things I can".
Is there "courage to change the things I can" in Buddhism?
posted by clawsoon at 3:08 PM on December 6, 2016
You're making me think of the Alcoholic's Prayer. My understanding of Buddhism is crude, but "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" seems like a good fit for being at peace, without desire. And replacing suffering
with a somethingness, with life, with health, with connection
...seems like a good fit for "the courage to change the things I can".
Is there "courage to change the things I can" in Buddhism?
posted by clawsoon at 3:08 PM on December 6, 2016
wow, meditation is stressful? hmm
One thing that hasn't really been touched upon here is that meditation can be really hard. Sitting and just being quiet, or doing guided meditation, a lot of people can do. Sitting and just observing your breathe without being distracted by any thought or other sensation - that is really tough. My personal experience is that it can be really stressful and as weird as it sounds I've found that to be an important part of the process.
I come from a tradition of martial arts where you take one thing and you do that thing for hours over and over and keep coming back to it over and over again. So it was nothing new when I got into mindfulness meditation by taking a 10 day course and doing one thing and experiencing that one thing change as I do it and allowing that thing to change me. If you started your practice by doing a couple of hours a week and grew or maintained it from there than you're better at this than I am. Doing around 70 to 100 hours in 10 days is what showed me that it works. Even after doing that several times, I still find it tough to work it into a daily practice. I have pretty good reasons for that right now, but then again I don't really. My caveat to anyone who I talk to about doing it is that it is the best thing I've ever done, and it is the hardest thing I've ever done. I definitely don't try to push it on anyone, and I'm glad I was introduced through the pre-sectarian form of Buddhism where Siddhartha was pretty adamant about not creating another religion. Honestly, I don't really care about Buddha's travels into his past lives and maybe if I ever get an extra three years to sit around and do nothing then maybe I'll see where that takes me.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:40 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
One thing that hasn't really been touched upon here is that meditation can be really hard. Sitting and just being quiet, or doing guided meditation, a lot of people can do. Sitting and just observing your breathe without being distracted by any thought or other sensation - that is really tough. My personal experience is that it can be really stressful and as weird as it sounds I've found that to be an important part of the process.
I come from a tradition of martial arts where you take one thing and you do that thing for hours over and over and keep coming back to it over and over again. So it was nothing new when I got into mindfulness meditation by taking a 10 day course and doing one thing and experiencing that one thing change as I do it and allowing that thing to change me. If you started your practice by doing a couple of hours a week and grew or maintained it from there than you're better at this than I am. Doing around 70 to 100 hours in 10 days is what showed me that it works. Even after doing that several times, I still find it tough to work it into a daily practice. I have pretty good reasons for that right now, but then again I don't really. My caveat to anyone who I talk to about doing it is that it is the best thing I've ever done, and it is the hardest thing I've ever done. I definitely don't try to push it on anyone, and I'm glad I was introduced through the pre-sectarian form of Buddhism where Siddhartha was pretty adamant about not creating another religion. Honestly, I don't really care about Buddha's travels into his past lives and maybe if I ever get an extra three years to sit around and do nothing then maybe I'll see where that takes me.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:40 PM on December 6, 2016 [2 favorites]
Xarnop, if you are going to bring in the context of Vedic philosophy that surrounded the Buddha during his lifetime, you also have to understand the Vedic concept of fire when speaking of Nibbana: when fire is extinguished it is not annihilated but enters a state of potentiality.
Also, the Buddha did not endorse annihilationism, nor did he address the souls existence. He was specifically opposed to philosophical doctrine of this nature.
This feels like it is rapidly departing relevance for this thread, however. Beyond philosophy, it sucks that you had a bad experience with Buddhists. I have as well, but also with many other peoples of diverse beliefs.
posted by selfnoise at 3:45 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
Also, the Buddha did not endorse annihilationism, nor did he address the souls existence. He was specifically opposed to philosophical doctrine of this nature.
This feels like it is rapidly departing relevance for this thread, however. Beyond philosophy, it sucks that you had a bad experience with Buddhists. I have as well, but also with many other peoples of diverse beliefs.
posted by selfnoise at 3:45 PM on December 6, 2016 [3 favorites]
I think it is relevant here because bits, pieces, butcheries and even perhaps accuracies of Buddhist ideas around mindfulness are often painted as the core of mindfulness practice which is marketed and at times pushed on vulnerable people coping with trauma, mental health issues, or problems in their lives manifesting as health or emotional issues.
Yes, as I mentioned all religions can be harmful, if we were discussing Christianity I would have discussed that.
If people are not interested in being told the goal of all existence is to become nothingness and they need to become experts in Vedic thought if they even dare to dispute this truth in order to heal from mental illness or trauma it's pretty messed.
And yes this kind of stuff happens, believe it or not.
posted by xarnop at 3:59 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yes, as I mentioned all religions can be harmful, if we were discussing Christianity I would have discussed that.
If people are not interested in being told the goal of all existence is to become nothingness and they need to become experts in Vedic thought if they even dare to dispute this truth in order to heal from mental illness or trauma it's pretty messed.
And yes this kind of stuff happens, believe it or not.
posted by xarnop at 3:59 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Xarnop, I have never encountered a Buddhist teacher who taught that Nibbana is becoming nothingness. This sort of thinking is contradicted countless times in the Pali canon. If you were taught that, you had bad teachers, and I'm sorry.
posted by selfnoise at 4:06 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by selfnoise at 4:06 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
to give up all soul and all yearning and all eternal life to accomplish a flatness that defeats suffering only because it achieves nonexistence is not to win.
This is known as quietism. I've heard multiple teachers say that it's a significant misunderstanding of the dharma. The goal (non-goal, yay paradox) is not to become an emotionless automaton without feelings or emotion; it's to learn not to believe the conditioned stories about one's feelings and emotions.
The more articles like this I read, the more I come to see the wisdom in the idea that one shouldn't try to embark on this path without guidance from a teacher of some sort. It's far too easy to wind up focused intently on one's fingernail, instead of focusing on the moon the finger is pointing at.
posted by Lexica at 4:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is known as quietism. I've heard multiple teachers say that it's a significant misunderstanding of the dharma. The goal (non-goal, yay paradox) is not to become an emotionless automaton without feelings or emotion; it's to learn not to believe the conditioned stories about one's feelings and emotions.
The more articles like this I read, the more I come to see the wisdom in the idea that one shouldn't try to embark on this path without guidance from a teacher of some sort. It's far too easy to wind up focused intently on one's fingernail, instead of focusing on the moon the finger is pointing at.
posted by Lexica at 4:23 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
I personally did have Buddhist teachers. I think a big issue is that there are a lot of debates within Buddhism about all of the above concepts. Some believe the doctrine of non-self is important, some believe the teachings on the cessation of consciousness. These teachings have been debated from the beginning with Hindu teachers teaching that there IS a self. The idea that the Buddha had the one right or enlightened way strikes me as false, personally. It doesn't bother me if people find peace or healing in his supposed teachings, it does bother me when any questioning of these teachings is met with "you just don't understand if you doubt". From the Pali Cannon
"From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/ sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging-&-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering & stress."
I could pretend that nothingness is really deep and great or I could just celebrate Moksha and continue to pray for connection with my ancestors and divine beings of compassion who have been within and without humanity for all of time and I don't have to sit here and debate the meaning of non-self or non-existence. Really when people try to talk about how profound non-existence is, what they wind up describing winds up sounding a lot like something is there within that, something exists and I wonder if the words themselves aren't really right- or if the words are designed to make the user of them feel profound since "only they can see the depth".
It reminds me of the Church of Satan acting all holier than that (Hey COSists I hope you can laugh at the terminology) over the fact that people think they worship Satan. DUH that's just OUR NAME, why would you think we worship Satan?
I have this conversation time and time again with Buddhists who claim I am simply poorly read or incompetent if I take issue with the concept. Isn't possible at least, the concept could be worthy of taking issue with? And given that a lot of this really was pushed on me at vulnerable times in my life, I think it's fair that I and others should be allowed to examine or challenge some of these ideas.
posted by xarnop at 4:39 PM on December 6, 2016
"From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/ sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging-&-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering & stress."
I could pretend that nothingness is really deep and great or I could just celebrate Moksha and continue to pray for connection with my ancestors and divine beings of compassion who have been within and without humanity for all of time and I don't have to sit here and debate the meaning of non-self or non-existence. Really when people try to talk about how profound non-existence is, what they wind up describing winds up sounding a lot like something is there within that, something exists and I wonder if the words themselves aren't really right- or if the words are designed to make the user of them feel profound since "only they can see the depth".
It reminds me of the Church of Satan acting all holier than that (Hey COSists I hope you can laugh at the terminology) over the fact that people think they worship Satan. DUH that's just OUR NAME, why would you think we worship Satan?
I have this conversation time and time again with Buddhists who claim I am simply poorly read or incompetent if I take issue with the concept. Isn't possible at least, the concept could be worthy of taking issue with? And given that a lot of this really was pushed on me at vulnerable times in my life, I think it's fair that I and others should be allowed to examine or challenge some of these ideas.
posted by xarnop at 4:39 PM on December 6, 2016
I am saddened to see so many comments on this thread equating 'successful' meditation with stopping one's thoughts. To crassly self-link, here's a playful attempt at debunking that definition of being a 'good' meditator. More seriously, vipassana or insight meditation, based on the original Theravadan teachings, is about paying careful attention to one's bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, and mental constructs, not trying to make them stop.
posted by twsf at 7:41 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by twsf at 7:41 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
Vipassna any day, yes. If there's a decent center somewhere, group meditation is invaluable.
I really need to dig into the Hindu foundations one of these days. My Sanskrit is shallow still.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:51 PM on December 6, 2016
I really need to dig into the Hindu foundations one of these days. My Sanskrit is shallow still.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 7:51 PM on December 6, 2016
P.o.B. One thing that hasn't really been touched upon here is that meditation can be really hard. Sitting and just being quiet, or doing guided meditation, a lot of people can do. Sitting and just observing your breathe without being distracted by any thought or other sensation - that is really tough. My personal experience is that it can be really stressful and as weird as it sounds I've found that to be an important part of the process.
There's a few more meditative practices out there than just breath observation. But chanting, visualization, and refuge probably sound a bit too much like religion to be marketable, at least to workplace sessions and in yoga centers. Don't want to give the impression that Ganesh or Tara might be more than psychological metaphors after all.
I'm just spinning off in my own direction for the rest of this post.
"Self" is one of those concepts like "suffering" that I'm not certain is good in translation. Pretty much the only way I can keep things straight is to say that atman is atman, and keep Western modernist ideas of the "self" from Freud through Maslow in their own tidy box. If I were to hazard a translation of atman, it would be closer to ipsum esse, but then you're shadowing Roman Catholic vocabulary which would be wrong in a different direction.
I'm a bit biased in that a few years ago, by-my-bootstraps humanistic mindfullness stopped working. To be blunt, I think American Buddhism is making some big mistakes in its vaguely agnostic solipsism, which start with stripping its own tradition of meaning. I stopped reading Dharmic works as alternative psychology and started taking them seriously as philosophy and theology. At that point, they made a bit more sense as systems, even if there are points where I disagree and points where I'm not convinced.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:55 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
There's a few more meditative practices out there than just breath observation. But chanting, visualization, and refuge probably sound a bit too much like religion to be marketable, at least to workplace sessions and in yoga centers. Don't want to give the impression that Ganesh or Tara might be more than psychological metaphors after all.
I'm just spinning off in my own direction for the rest of this post.
"Self" is one of those concepts like "suffering" that I'm not certain is good in translation. Pretty much the only way I can keep things straight is to say that atman is atman, and keep Western modernist ideas of the "self" from Freud through Maslow in their own tidy box. If I were to hazard a translation of atman, it would be closer to ipsum esse, but then you're shadowing Roman Catholic vocabulary which would be wrong in a different direction.
I'm a bit biased in that a few years ago, by-my-bootstraps humanistic mindfullness stopped working. To be blunt, I think American Buddhism is making some big mistakes in its vaguely agnostic solipsism, which start with stripping its own tradition of meaning. I stopped reading Dharmic works as alternative psychology and started taking them seriously as philosophy and theology. At that point, they made a bit more sense as systems, even if there are points where I disagree and points where I'm not convinced.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:55 PM on December 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm aware there are other forms of meditation and Buddhism, I was only describing what works for me. We all have our own paths. Good luck on yours.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:08 PM on December 6, 2016
posted by P.o.B. at 11:08 PM on December 6, 2016
These teachings have been debated from the beginning with Hindu teachers teaching that there IS a self.
Just as a footnote to the discussion about anatta in Buddhism, I think it's important to say that many Hindus and Buddhists would agree that the identity most of us call our selves - the conditioned being, born on X date to parents A and B and with a history of particular passions and grievances beginning on X date - is an illusion. The question whether there is another - unconditioned, eternal - self underneath is a different one, on which there is disagreement. But the idea that the first job is to recover from a particular illusion of self seems to be shared by most Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. They then disagree about what happens next. But this is a major point of shared difference from the Abrahamic traditions, so I think it's important not to elide it.
posted by Aravis76 at 12:38 AM on December 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
Just as a footnote to the discussion about anatta in Buddhism, I think it's important to say that many Hindus and Buddhists would agree that the identity most of us call our selves - the conditioned being, born on X date to parents A and B and with a history of particular passions and grievances beginning on X date - is an illusion. The question whether there is another - unconditioned, eternal - self underneath is a different one, on which there is disagreement. But the idea that the first job is to recover from a particular illusion of self seems to be shared by most Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. They then disagree about what happens next. But this is a major point of shared difference from the Abrahamic traditions, so I think it's important not to elide it.
posted by Aravis76 at 12:38 AM on December 7, 2016 [4 favorites]
the identity most of us call our selves - the conditioned being, born on X date to parents A and B and with a history of particular passions and grievances beginning on X date - is an illusion.
There is more than one way to understand something as an illusion. One is that it is like a mirage or hallucination: it's a perception with no object corresponding to it. Another is that the thing has a nature different from how it appears to us. You might say that a motion picture is this kind of illusion: it's not continuous, it's a series of discrete still images, presented in succession, quickly enough that we perceive it as smoothly moving.
I'm not sure which in which sense the self as quoted above is considered to be illusory by Buddhist thinking (or indeed if there's more than one school of thought on that). I suppose, the second?
posted by thelonius at 5:36 AM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
There is more than one way to understand something as an illusion. One is that it is like a mirage or hallucination: it's a perception with no object corresponding to it. Another is that the thing has a nature different from how it appears to us. You might say that a motion picture is this kind of illusion: it's not continuous, it's a series of discrete still images, presented in succession, quickly enough that we perceive it as smoothly moving.
I'm not sure which in which sense the self as quoted above is considered to be illusory by Buddhist thinking (or indeed if there's more than one school of thought on that). I suppose, the second?
posted by thelonius at 5:36 AM on December 7, 2016 [2 favorites]
One of the interesting ideas when you get into Shaktism or Shaivism is that maya has a double meaning of "the great illusion" and "the great power." So there's a distinction and a tension between subjective reality and objective, foundational reality. Discussion about atman is parallel in some respects to Plato's idealism or Descartes cognito ergo sum: what are the minimal assumptions necessary for philosophical inquiry?
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:51 AM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:51 AM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I can't speak with confidence about all the schools of Buddhism and Hinduism, and these are not beliefs I myself share, so I can't say much about the hallucination v mistake question. My tentative feeling is that non-dualist/Advaita Hindus might reject the question as turning on a confusion of different levels of reality? From the perspective of ultimate reality, belief in a self is more like a mirage - or a game - than anything else. Ultimate reality is God and the play of God and that's all. But at the empirical level of reality, belief in a self is more like a mistake about what is going on: you do have a particular self, with particular duties, thanks to your past choices/karma, but it's foolish to identify too seriously with this self. You take the thing seriously enough to play the game according to the rules, but not so seriously that you forget that it's a game and eventually you will finish and go home. I think Buddhists agree that it is the identification with the contingent self which is the error, not the acknowledgment of that self as a series of empirical events in the world, and then the Ultimate Reality stuff is where it all gets tricky and the cleavage between Buddhism and the various schools of Hinduism is sharpest.
posted by Aravis76 at 9:24 AM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Aravis76 at 9:24 AM on December 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
It is possible, but unlikely, particularly if it's a conversation you're having time and time again; it is almost certainly your own personal misunderstanding.
It is entirely possible to be reasonably well informed about a religion's fundamental assumptions, and disagree with those assumptions. We're not talking about something akin to the pythagorean theorem here. Contrary to many Buddhist claims, the Four Noble Truths are not a self-evident conclusion starting from "life sucks."
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:15 AM on December 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
It is entirely possible to be reasonably well informed about a religion's fundamental assumptions, and disagree with those assumptions. We're not talking about something akin to the pythagorean theorem here. Contrary to many Buddhist claims, the Four Noble Truths are not a self-evident conclusion starting from "life sucks."
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:15 AM on December 7, 2016 [5 favorites]
Nah, I've had plenty of conversations disagreeing with Christians that the suffering on earth is the will of a compassionate god- that doesn't innately make my perspective null and void. Just because a lot of people believe in a thing does not make it right.
posted by xarnop at 10:50 AM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by xarnop at 10:50 AM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
I mean thinking even deeper on this, I've had coversations with a lot of libertarians that have gone the same, with a lot of sexists and MRA's that have gone the same way. I mean, I really hope you will genuinely consider if you've had a habit of pulling this logic on people, that it's possible you're just completely plowing over people who actually have a more accurate or more moral position than the majority they're up against.
A person with a minority perspective or idea being more accurate is something that in fact happens quite often and people use the idea that their numbers increases their accuracy which is a cognitive distortion worth examining.
posted by xarnop at 12:35 PM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
A person with a minority perspective or idea being more accurate is something that in fact happens quite often and people use the idea that their numbers increases their accuracy which is a cognitive distortion worth examining.
posted by xarnop at 12:35 PM on December 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
from article: “So does the moment really deserve its many accolades? It is a philosophy likely to be more rewarding for those whose lives contain more privileged moments than grinding, humiliating or exhausting ones. Those for whom a given moment is more likely to be ‘sun-dappled yoga pose’ than ‘hour 11 manning the deep-fat fryer.’”
'You mindfulness people sure are privileged,' said the New York Times writer who apparently thinks it's possible to daydream while operating a fryer without losing a limb.
posted by koeselitz at 7:47 AM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
'You mindfulness people sure are privileged,' said the New York Times writer who apparently thinks it's possible to daydream while operating a fryer without losing a limb.
posted by koeselitz at 7:47 AM on December 8, 2016 [3 favorites]
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This misses the point by such a huge margin that right now I am feeling a pleasant bubbling sensation of laughter rising up from my belly.
posted by billiebee at 8:45 AM on December 5, 2016 [65 favorites]