This doesn't matter. Someone who actually practices mindfulness will reap benefits. Capitalism has no power over the method.
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McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
11–20 of 135 posts
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#12Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here. I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardr…
”if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
I think what’s wrong is that they don’t realize that the environment that’s causing stress is very damaging and they should change that environment instead of putting a bandaid in the form of mindfulness on it. Even worse is that they keep pushing that stress down the hierarchy causing harm to their employees.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#13[deleted]
Just participating in a culture or practice does not mean one is appropriating it.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#14This doesn't matter. Someone who actually practices mindfulness will reap benefits. Capitalism has no power over the method.
Capitalism will quite happily reap the benefits by squeezing their mindful employees just a little bit harder.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#15This notion has long exited and is something which Buddhists are all to aware of. Attachment, Value, What is there to hijack anyway when all is illusion?
It is just unfortunate that what humans have created within this inherent existence is a reliance on money and laws protecting ownership.
If you read the Heart Sutra it will help you understand a little bit of the struggle of absoloute reality and inherent reality.
Om Mani Padme Hum
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#16Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here. I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardr…
> 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.
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.
That said, anyone who didn’t see capital swallowing this is dense. Anything that can be commodified will be. Arguing over it is pointless.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#17This doesn't matter. Someone who actually practices mindfulness will reap benefits. Capitalism has no power over the method.
Capitalism will quite happily reap the benefits by squeezing their mindful employees just a little bit harder.
And mindfull employees will notice that and leave.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#18I've always found the Japanese adoption of Zen to be very interesting historically. As a "technology" or body of techniques, the advantages one can gain from meditation, enhanced awareness, and asceticism are well-documented.
Where I would caution practitioners is to be very wary of religious invitations to ego death and loss of control over chakras (Never "open" your chakras - which are a physiological metaphor for very important aspects of your Self. These aspects should be disciplined and controlled, never "opened.")
Everything below your heart represents your base passions and failure to discipline these most of all turns you into an easily manipulated slave.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#19Clinical psychologist who teaches and practices mindfulness here. I often hear the argument that the current applications of mindfulness in corporate or otherwise commercial settings are a perversion of the original teachings. While to some extent it’s true that teachings have been adapted and the adaptations are sometimes (maybe often) problematic, the assertion that mindfulness training doesn’t belong in the boardr…
”if 20 executives are able to sleep and handle their stress a little better, there’s nothing wrong with that.” I think what’s wrong is that they don’t realize that the environment that’s causing stress is very damaging and they should change that environment instead of putting a bandaid in the form of mindfulness on it. Even worse is that they keep pushing that stress down the hierarchy causing harm to their employee…
It may also happen that as they wake up they discover other aspects of Buddhism that lead them to continue to evolve their practice so they are not harming others.
Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality
#20I once got an offer to teach a yoga and meditation class at a company. The stated goal was to give employees tools to handle stress better. I pointed out that the result of mindfulness would most likely be that people would see how harmful a stressful environment Is and either try to change it or to avoid it. Never heard back :) The same happened with yoga. We picked a very small part of the tradition as in asana and…
Hehe. This is what I basically wondered when someone told me that mindfullness was helping her cope with pressure of work life. The new decolonization movement in India has been thinking quite deeply about this and other developments where Indian traditional knowledge is taken to the US and then copyrighted, patented and trademarked, and then sold around the world, incl. India. Amusingly, with American marketing bein…
I hope that Krsna has special karma for people who keep thinking they are independent and rulers of nature. I cant wait for that day so I can laugh while I do real yoga for this age of Kali. America will also have its day of reckoning. And to bust your bubble, they will never be able to silence or rewrite history. UK has tried and continues to fail. The people who know the real truth just have too much bliss enjoying reality than trying to convince the dull masses otherwise. Everyone today believes they are so great and smart because of the tiny advancements in manipulating nature that no matter what presentation is done in whatever language, no one is listening because of pride and fear of losing their cherished life paradigms. Posts like this remind me how all I've just said is a waste of time and people are doomed so I just chill in bliss while everyone else is insane worried about death. Hare Krsna!