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McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

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Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#41

Post by peterwwillis »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

I 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…

The asanas are a good gateway drug, if the teacher constantly reinforces the student to listen to what their body is saying and understand it better. It leads to realizations of a deeper sense of self, and that awakening can lead to interest in the other aspects of yoga.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#42

Post by gmfawcett »

gerbilly wrote: post #34
anbende wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that in a larger sense, there are often greater problems at work than the internal regulation of attention and stress. From working with clients however, you might be surprised just how often people come in not realizing that they have what is essentially a giant thorn sticking out of their foot! Usually this looks more like chronic lack of sleep, a bad relationship with their spouse or even a toxic work envi…

What we're all really looking for in most workplaces is love and attention [edit: acceptance], but we express that by working harder and harder in order to 'earn' it. In my opinion this is the most beneficial buddhist 'practise' for western society: "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anyw…

I am definitely not an expert on Buddhism, but "nobody in the universe deserves your love more than yourself" doesn't sound like Buddhism to me. Is that an actual classical teaching?

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#43

Post by mindfulthrow1 »

thrwe4234safd wrote: post #40
mindfulthrow1 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“SOAS for instance has one guy who was anointed a Mahant, and he writes books with another guy who says Yoga is a cynical rebranding of Swedish exercises.” I’m assuming you mean James Mallinson. I met him briefly in Jaipur and had been wondering who the white guy with dreadlocks was that I kept seeing around (here in the US it’s considered racist by people of color to wear dreads if you’re not black). To make a long…

> However, we should be equally skeptical of Hindutva making claims about what Yoga is while ignoring the long, syncretic history and how it grew and exchanged practices with Buddhists, Sufis, Jains, and all sorts of other sects and groups through thousands of years. Non sequitur - this has never been a point of contention in India. I know this is typical of the press in the English-speaking world (and thus the peopl…

I’m not totally sure I follow, are you saying most in (non-English, elite) India know that yoga isn’t really a Vedic practice and accept a syncretic history? Admittedly it’s hard to get a feel for that as a westerner when you see someone like Baba Ramdev hanging out with Modi and making anti-Muslim statements.

Mainly I was originally saying I agree with you, that we need to be careful of who writes and rewrites history, because it typically is done by those in power and is often done without acknowledging the actual nuances of things. Yoga is certainly not Swedish gymnastics, but it’s also not some old Vedic thing with sole claim as Hindu.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#44

Post by sn41 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #30
Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

I 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…

One of my favorite stories/theories is that Yoga isn't ancient and Indian at all. It's an originally Scandinavian thing that got exported to India in the 1800s. https://mereorthodoxy.com/call-danish-gymnastics-yoga-body/

This is a bizarre theory. The Bhagavad Gita, which is quite ancient, describes Yoga in great detail, especially Chapter 6, for example [1]. Not to mention Yoga Sutras of Patanjali [2].

Of course, modern Hatha Yoga might have some new poses. But the practice of Yoga itself is quite old, and has been prevalent in India for a long time. (I am not commenting on place of origin, since I am not an expert.)

[1] https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/bg06.htm

[2] https://sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#45

Post by gerbilly »

gmfawcett wrote: post #42
gerbilly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we're all really looking for in most workplaces is love and attention [edit: acceptance], but we express that by working harder and harder in order to 'earn' it. In my opinion this is the most beneficial buddhist 'practise' for western society: "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anyw…

I am definitely not an expert on Buddhism, but "nobody in the universe deserves your love more than yourself" doesn't sound like Buddhism to me. Is that an actual classical teaching?

It is a direct quote from the buddha.

The point of it that some people don't start practise because they don't believe they deserve to be happy.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#46

Post by vidarh »

gmfawcett wrote: post #42
gerbilly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we're all really looking for in most workplaces is love and attention [edit: acceptance], but we express that by working harder and harder in order to 'earn' it. In my opinion this is the most beneficial buddhist 'practise' for western society: "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anyw…

I am definitely not an expert on Buddhism, but "nobody in the universe deserves your love more than yourself" doesn't sound like Buddhism to me. Is that an actual classical teaching?

It appears it's not:

https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/you-yourself-as-much-as-anybody...

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#47

Post by mindfulthrow1 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #30
Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

I 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…

One of my favorite stories/theories is that Yoga isn't ancient and Indian at all. It's an originally Scandinavian thing that got exported to India in the 1800s. https://mereorthodoxy.com/call-danish-gymnastics-yoga-body/

Mark Singleton wrote that everyone misunderstood his argument. It’s not that Yoga is Scandinavian, it’s that a bunch of modern asana isn’t all that old. Because westerners really only have encountered the Krishnamacharya (through Iyenger and Jois) and Ghosh (through Bikram) practices, they think of yoga as a whole to be only asana, and always including the standing postures. Some of those standing postures look like western gymnastic practices.

Asana is only one specific part of the entire practice. It’s a good beginning point. But it’s also very clear from texts like Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Vasistha Samhita, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Vajrayana Buddhist yoga texts, and others that yoga definitely isn’t a Scandinavian invention.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#48

Post by vidarh »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #23
anbende wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and I saw that the author made this point as well. But again, mindfulness isn’t a stress lowering switch, it’s literally training in awareness of what is happening in one’s field of experience which includes a toxic environment if present. Awareness training should NOT render one insulated against your surrounding environment. It should highlight it as you become more aware and attentive. Now, a LOT of mindfulne…

”I just wish they wouldn’t call it mindfulness.” Yes, sell it as relaxation exercise or breathing practice. But don’t make people believe this has anything to do with Buddhism. We already watered down and distorted what people think yoga is. Let’s not do this to Buddhism.

I don't think most people care that much about whether or not it has anything to do with Buddhism, and if anything a lot of the people "selling" mindfulness try to avoid the link, because it scares off a lot of people that don't want a religious practice (or don't want one associated with a religion other than "theirs").

I practice mindfulness, but I would never consider myself a buddhist - it took a "secularised" text to get me to pick it up (Mindfulness in Plain English; it's written by a buddhist monk, but makes clear from the beginning that it's a practical guide rather than a guide to the Buddhist spiritual background for mindfulness).

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#49

Post by Barrin92 »

It just seems like the newest iteration of capitalism repurposing some ideology in an Orwellian way. As Weber observed a long time ago despite Protestantism shunning pleasures and material possessions, Protestants make extremely good capitalists.

The same thing seems to be happening with Buddhism. I'm not Buddhist but a pretty central teaching seems to be to let go of the self and to end desire, whereas among the new caste of CEOs it seems to have been repurposed into a tool to pursue ones mundane goals more effectively, and as a sort of social signal among rich people who have so much wealth that buying a sports car doesn't even convey any meaning any more. So now in addition to being rich which is a precondition, you also need to reject all your wealth and meditate in some bizarre ritual of one-upmanship.

In many ways I wish we could just go back to the olden days when those people would do coke and throw lavish parties because at least that's honest rather than Jack Dorsey meditating in a private retreat while minorities are being chased down on the street by a mob organised on twitter.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#50

Post by praptak »

gerbilly wrote: post #45
gmfawcett wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely not an expert on Buddhism, but "nobody in the universe deserves your love more than yourself" doesn't sound like Buddhism to me. Is that an actual classical teaching?

It is a direct quote from the buddha. The point of it that some people don't start practise because they don't believe they deserve to be happy.

I believe it is at best misquoted from the actual canon: https://tricycle.org/magazine/you-deserve-your-love-and-affe...

The quote from the canon: Searching in all directions With your awareness, you find no one dearer than yourself. In the same way, others are thickly dear to themselves. So you shouldn’t hurt others if you love yourself.

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