Beyond Mindfulness: Excerpts From The Blog at The Huff Post 10/12/2014..With my comments
“Suddenly mindfulness meditation has become mainstream, making its way into schools, corporations, prisons, and government agencies including the U.S. military. Millions of people are receiving tangible benefits from their mindfulness practice: less stress, better concentration, perhaps a little more empathy. Needless to say, this is an important development to be welcomed — but it has a shadow.
Bhikkhu Bodhi, an outspoken western Buddhist monk, has warned: “absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism.” Unfortunately, a more ethical and socially responsible view of mindfulness is now seen by many practitioners as a tangential concern, or as an unnecessary politicizing of one’s personal journey of self-transformation.
One hopes that the mindfulness movement will not follow the usual trajectory of most corporate fads — unbridled enthusiasm, uncritical acceptance of the status quo, and eventual disillusionment. To become a genuine force for positive personal and social transformation, it must reclaim an ethical framework and aspire to more lofty purposes that take into account the well-being of all living beings.”
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I agree wholeheartedly with the above thoughts. I have noticed the explosion of mindfulness in practically every walk of life and as a long time practitioner and teacher of mindfulness I know how easy it is to develop a mindfulness practice and then let it go for lack of the necessary motivation. I’ve spoken to many people over the years who have voiced this specific concern and want to know how to deal with it. There is consensus that life was better with mindfulness but there is also consensus with many people that they simply couldn’t sustain the practice. Therein lies the big question posed in the above blog. For now, living a mindful life runs against the current of our culture and it is difficult to find the necessary support system to resist the current.
I find that the ethical, social and spiritual seed must be present with the practice of mindfulness otherwise it will wither on the vine. If these things can be included in the training then I think mindfulness stands a chance of sustaining it’s growth and enthusiasm. So how do we instill these things into people who are coming to it for different reasons. I’ve always thought that it didn’t matter what brings a person to mindfulness….that was before “commercial” mindfulness. Now I wonder……My experience has been that it is critical that you bring the social, ethical and spiritual focus to the practice of mindfulness otherwise it won’t last. Even if you do bring these things it can be a road filled with resistance. After all, life can be a road filled with challenges and mindfulness teaches us how to navigate that road. So in the end, I think it will be interesting to see if all these people can plug into those necessary motivations to sustain their practice of mindfulness. It’s impossible to predict what will happen but I am rooting for the best and doing what I can to facilitate long term mindfulness.