<story><title>McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality</title><url>https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/mcmindfulness-and-the-case-for-small-talk-1.5369984/mcmindfulness-how-capitalism-hijacked-the-buddhist-teaching-of-mindfulness-1.5369991</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>anbende</author><text>Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here.&lt;p&gt;I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardroom seems silly to me. Attention and acceptance training (the two fundamental aspects of mindfulness in my research supported but not definitive view) don’t belong to Buddhism or any other system or set of teachings. The underlying science of mind training can be applied wherever we see fit. There’s no “what mindfulness is about and what it’s not” in a corporate versus holistic sense. There’s only the strength of the programs and how much value people derive from them, and if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.&lt;p&gt;The idea that mindfulness creates better killers or justified immoral behavior also seems spurious to me. What we’re teaching is an awareness of what’s happening inside of experience. Mindfulness is not a magical stress and conscience lowering switch. It’s simply greater awareness of the nuances of our internal state. That internal state is where moral judgment and discernment live, so it’s hard for me to see how that would systematically produce harmful or immoral actions.&lt;p&gt;And to the extent that we have a large number of poorly trained teachers selling a poorly designed product AS mindfulness, THAT in my mind is the larger issue, rather than the context or clientele. I saw a teacher once tell a student that her overwhelming obsession with her physical pain WAS her being mindful. This and the reverse problem whereby mindfulness is equated with dullness, sleepiness, or numbness are the real dangers in my view.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gerbilly</author><text>&amp;gt; I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings.&lt;p&gt;Buddhism teaches that you should tackle the coarser causes of suffering first.  If there is a thorn in your foot, no one is suggesting you should go do a good sit to deal with the pain.  First you remove the thorn, then you sit.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion mindfulness at work (or anywhere) can be beneficial, but if we only use it to paper over the structural problems that make work life stressful for so many, we are losing the opportunity to eliminate the coarser causes of suffering.&lt;p&gt;Think of it as an 80&amp;#x2F;20 rule.  Probably eighty percent of the suffering at work comes from twenty percent of the causes.  We should be tackling those, and that requires political engagement.  It may even require oppositional methods in some really bad cases.</text></comment>
<story><title>McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality</title><url>https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/mcmindfulness-and-the-case-for-small-talk-1.5369984/mcmindfulness-how-capitalism-hijacked-the-buddhist-teaching-of-mindfulness-1.5369991</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>anbende</author><text>Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here.&lt;p&gt;I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardroom seems silly to me. Attention and acceptance training (the two fundamental aspects of mindfulness in my research supported but not definitive view) don’t belong to Buddhism or any other system or set of teachings. The underlying science of mind training can be applied wherever we see fit. There’s no “what mindfulness is about and what it’s not” in a corporate versus holistic sense. There’s only the strength of the programs and how much value people derive from them, and if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.&lt;p&gt;The idea that mindfulness creates better killers or justified immoral behavior also seems spurious to me. What we’re teaching is an awareness of what’s happening inside of experience. Mindfulness is not a magical stress and conscience lowering switch. It’s simply greater awareness of the nuances of our internal state. That internal state is where moral judgment and discernment live, so it’s hard for me to see how that would systematically produce harmful or immoral actions.&lt;p&gt;And to the extent that we have a large number of poorly trained teachers selling a poorly designed product AS mindfulness, THAT in my mind is the larger issue, rather than the context or clientele. I saw a teacher once tell a student that her overwhelming obsession with her physical pain WAS her being mindful. This and the reverse problem whereby mindfulness is equated with dullness, sleepiness, or numbness are the real dangers in my view.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>StuffedParrot</author><text>&amp;gt; There’s only the strength of the programs and how much value people derive from them, and if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.&lt;p&gt;Mindfulness cannot fix the underlying problems that lead to mindfulness being useful to capital in the first place. Personally I’d rather my CEO make work less miserable and sleep that way (say, hire people for fewer hours and raise wages) than sleep well because they paid for someone to soothe them through the arduous travails of being a high paid executive.&lt;p&gt;That said, anyone who didn’t see capital swallowing this is dense. Anything that can be commodified will be. Arguing over it is pointless.</text></comment>