A lengthy post about "Mindfulness"
NPR has a very solid program called On Being with host Krista Tippett. In broad terms, the format is a conversation between Tippett and a guest or guests discussing some aspect of spirituality and its impact upon one's worldview. The program is not preachy, and it doesn't favor one agenda over another, nor is it particularly religious in tone.
Tippett is a very good host IMO, and she makes for an engaging presentation even though spirituality itself is of no value to me, and even though I often take issue with a guest's views.
The program that I caught yesterday featured a guest who is a recognized expert on "mindfulness," having studied it for decades. I'm sorry to say that I can't recall her name, nor can I link to the On Being website from my current computer. Maybe I'll edit later.
But here's where the skeptic part comes in, and this is why I'm posting here rather than in the Religion forum.
By the end of every single discussion of "mindfulness" I have ever heard, I have the clear impression that it's a marketing scheme. In fairness, I have the same impression of all religions, but hear me out.
The guest contrasted "mindful living" (that is, the mode of thinking that she endorses) with "mindless living." She asserts that most people live "mindlessly," focusing on future worries rather than on present reality, and that this is the prime source of most/all stress. Sounds like just about every other self-help pamphlet I've ever seen. Also follows the same playbook as Postmodernism, adopting cool-sounding descriptors while assigning lame-ass descriptors to opposing views.
Note: the push to re-brand atheists as "Brights" a few years ago is exactly the same crap, because it necessarily means that non-atheists are "dim." It's a marketing tactic, rather than a rational argument.
The guest gave three examples to show the difference between "mindless" and "mindful" thinking:
1.
Target: 2.
Marketer: Are you sure?
Target: Yes.
Marketer: If you have one wad of chewing gum and you add it to another wad of chewing gum, what do you have? You have one wad.
Target: Wow!
2.
Target: What, like anyone?
Marketer: How far can a person run?
Target: I don't know. Marathons are like 25 miles, right?
Marketer: Are you sure?
Target: Sure, I guess.
Marketer Did you know that many people run ultra-marathons of 100 miles or more?
Target: Wow!
3.
Dr. Target: About a week.
Marketer: Would you believe that the proper psychological techniques can heal that finger in six days?
Dr. Target: Ok, maybe.
Marketer: Four days?
Dr. Target: Well... Possibly, I suppose.
Marketer: How about three days?
Dr. Target: No, that's too short.
Marketer: How about three days and 23 hours? Three days and 22 hours? Where do you draw the line?
Dr. Target: Wow!
I'm paraphrasing the dialog, of course, but these are the actual three examples that she gave during the segments I heard, all intended to show us how our "mindless" thinking is limiting us. Wow!
The first is a straight up fallacy of equivocation, the second is sleight-of-hand based on the target's assumptions, and the third is a simple false dichotomy. This wasn't some schlub college freshman trying to impress his friends with what he read on the back of a book about Buddhism; this is the recognized expert on "mindfulness!"
Again, I'm posting here because I don't care to be scolded for my closed-mindedness and my western-centrism, or to be told that I don't "get it."
I get it. I've heard the shtick many times over, and it has always boiled down to the same thing: fallacies and word games wrapped up in a clever marketing package.
GeorgeGist
(25,433 posts)Girard442
(6,413 posts)N_E_1 for Tennis
(10,813 posts)First I think I found the link and posted it for you.
https://onbeing.org/
Mindfulness has been stolen by the "spirituality" gang it does seem that the practice has been corrupted into a grand marketing scheme.
I'm an atheist but one that meditates mostly for my physical and mental health. I mainly practice a walking form of meditation. I take hikes of at least two miles everyday. During those walks my mind clears of the mundane crap of daily living to experience the world around me.
I should note that I walk in the state park that is literally in my backyard. That helps.
Having that "time out" helps coping with the daily crap. Noticing and appreciating the wonders surround us. The little things, the different calls of the birds, the mosses growing and helping decompose trees that died and have fallen. The intricacies of nature or should I say the science of nature.
I've been doing this for a very long time. I dislike the way that "Mindfulness" has been co-opted by commercialism.
Thank you for posting your take is enlighting and shared by more than you may realize.
Orrex
(64,161 posts)I'm very confident that "mindfulness" in its traditional application is, as you note, rather different from the version that's been repackaged and rebranded for a western market.
I also have nothing against meditation, in large part because it has clear and demonstrable benefits for people who practice it.
Thanks for posting the link and for your supportive comments!
progressoid
(50,757 posts)I can see the usefulness of meditation. But "mindfulness" seems to be the New Coke of the spiritualism crowd.
But it's not like we haven't seen this before.
From 1977:
Orrex
(64,161 posts)Also "Touch my heart. With your foot."
progressoid
(50,757 posts)mitch96
(14,692 posts)I listen to it on my local NPR station on Sunday mornings whilst I make coffee. That's about the extent of my religiosity for the week. She is good and sometimes you can tell she is just full of her self and leads her guests with loaded questions..
As for mindfulness to me it's just a gussied up form of meditation practiced for thousands of years. Got to have a new spin to sell it to the newbies. Like TM and work out routines touted in the gym and the tv machine. Just a variation on on an old theme.. Ommm y'all
That being said I try to meditate 2x a day.. Helps keep my head screwed on straight.
m
DetlefK
(16,471 posts)- "If you chew a wad of gum and you bite it in half and swallow half of it, how come you still have a full wad of gum in your mouth?"
- "Wow!"
Orrex
(64,161 posts)BigmanPigman
(52,312 posts)as a practice to calm down and go to sleep easier. It is like meditation in that you focus your mind on something and keep it there as you breath slowly and deliberately. I do it with my dog. As I look at her I use all of my senses...how she smells, her soft fur, her warm body, etc. instead of petting her and thinking about doing my laundry. I have never heard it used in religion. Therapists like to use it with their patients who have anxiety/depression.
Orrex
(64,161 posts)And, as noted, I have no objection to it as a meditative practice or as a component of one's religion.
But the formulation put forth on the program, which I summarized here, is little more than trite slogans and feel-goodism. And, again, the speaker is an acknowledged expert on the subject.
BigmanPigman
(52,312 posts)I thought that it sounded odd since I have read many articles in magazines like Time and Newsweek about it in the past when it was first suggested to my by my therapist years and years ago since I have anxiety and difficulty sleeping. I never read anything even close to what you described.