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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

#51

Post by UnpossibleJim »

soul4krsna wrote: post #20
thrwe4234safd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see you've learned a lot from your studies =) Good luck and may the force be with you.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#52

Post by mbrock »

cjg wrote: post #37
mbrock wrote: post #6

"The problem is that the way they brought these into institutions was very non-confrontational, very non-oppositional, in order to to get a foot in the door. And so they're working with these other elites in these institutions and over time they became co-opted in my opinion. So by not offering a challenge to these corporate interests, the radical revolutionary potential of these practices have been neutered." Someho…

No - Buddhism sees its central ideas to be radical and counter-cultural - particularly that one's actions should come from ethical principles rather than just conforming to a group.

Does it teach working laymen to embrace radical and countercultural ideas? That’s not my impression of Buddhism in Thailand, Burma, Japan, etc.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#53

Post by UnFleshedOne »

cjg wrote: post #38
jwenig wrote: post #35

Research suggests Mindfulness increases empathy and reduces anger and fear. Wouldn’t reframing soldiers or CEOs worldview to be more compassionate galvanize more positive change than trying to convince Sundar Pichai or soldiers that they are bad people?

One would hope that soldiers who had some experience in mindfulness would begin to notice their discomfort at killing other human beings.

That's hippie talk. :) As another commenter pointed out, mindfullness and meditation was long used for martial arts training.

There is nothing in the core practice itself that leads to pacifism (or belligerence). It might even make easier to ignore that discomfort, like any other, if you have mental tools.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#54

Post by wutbrodo »

I apologize for the tangent, but:

> Google engineers [are] working 60-70 hours a week - very stressful.

Is this true? I worked a hard 35 hours a week when I was at Google. Granted, I was a junior engineer, but the fact that I could get away with that and have it not affect my career unduly always makes me surprised to hear descriptions of Google as a sweatshop.

Can any Googlers say whether this has changed in the few years since I left? I know they're a massive company so generalizing can be hard, but this is so far from my experience that if be surprised if it was true of enough of the company to make anything approaching a blanket statement. I've always thought that it would be nice to go back to Google to retire in a few years.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#57

Post by kungito »

anbende wrote: post #8

Clinical 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…

No, that is not ok. You cannot take a name from a thousand year philosophy and change it's meaning to suot your needs but keep the name for marketing purposes. Just call it a different name then and don't mention the other thing

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#58

Post by Ididntdothis »

peterwwillis wrote: post #41
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.

“that awakening can lead to interest in the other aspects of yoga.”

The problem is that the number of teachers who have knowledge of these aspects is very small. Close to zero from my observations.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#59

Post by vidarh »

sn41 wrote: post #44
BurningFrog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Note that the article is not arguing that yoga isn't ancient at all, but that yoga in the form "exported" to the west refers to a practice that is a distinct form of physical exercise that really is separate from traditional yoga, and that the new form borrows a lot from Scandinavian gymnastics.

It's not saying there aren't physical aspects to traditional yoga either, just that the physical practices of traditional yoga didn't fit the needs of the people who pushed the "new" poses.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#60

Post by gerbilly »

praptak wrote: post #50
gerbilly wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now that is interesting.

I heard that quote from a respected Zen master!

This is why I love HN. Thanks for the correction.

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