Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 135 posts

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#81

Post by riskneutral »

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…

I strongly agree. Anyone who tries to create a monopoly on meditation and mindfulness is misguided. The author is a self-described Buddhist, and some Buddhists can be a bit dogmatic to be perfectly honest.

The military issue is a great example. The author is trying to impose his own opinions about morality on the rest of humanity. This is misguided, there are other credible views that differ from his.

For example, in ancient Japan, there was no conflict between the martial arts and Buddhism. Instead there was a synthesis. For example, there a 17th century Buddhist monk wrote a book about applying mindfulness to sword fighting (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unfettered_Mind).

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#82

Post by pessimizer »

It's not new; since the last half of the 20th century, there's been an often unstated business religion that says that if you concentrate hard enough you'll develop a psychic dominance that will make you successful (in sales and management.) IMO the only reason it gets connected to Buddhism is since the people who propagate it now are unaware of its origins (in Silva Mind Control/Leadership Dynamics/Holiday Magic), and to give it a classier, older pedigree.

The reason it seems like a bastardization of Buddhism is because it's not really Buddhism at all, just a spurious justification of why the people who are making the most money are making the most money, namely their more perfectly ordered minds (rather than their connections and luck.)

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#83

Post by ydb »

Absolutely appalling. This is something that I've intuited happening for many years now, but couldn't quite find the words to describe. This phenomena is pervasive and, dare I say, integral to the functioning of capital in the 21st century.

People are more alienated now than ever before in the course of history, so it follows that the machinations of capital come to a pseudo-religion in order to pacify dissent. It's staggering, and should give everybody on Hacker News pause.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#84

Post by crispinb »

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…

> The idea that mindfulness creates better killers or justified immoral behavior also seems spurious to me

Read Brian Daizen Victoria's Zen At War. OK, Zen, but the principle's the same. Effective mind training techniques sans ethical critique can create cooler killers & greed mongers. Mindfulness' popularity amongst the ethical hellscape of contemporary SV culture is surely also at least a tad suggestive?

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#85

Post by pergadad »

mindfulthrow1 wrote: post #31
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…

“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…

Why would doing yoga in a way that you consider 'wrong' as racist. That's an incredibly ignorant statement. There are hundreds if not more branches of hatha yoga, not to mention all the other kids of yoga. There is no racism in doing it this or that or a completely different way. You might criticise that they call it yoga, still it's not in any way racist.

Please open your mind.

Thank you, A fellow hatha yoga practitioner.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#87

Post by hownottowrite »

depr wrote: post #80
hownottowrite wrote: post #7

Ironic that Ron Purser hijacked the term McMindfulness from Miles Neale who first wrote about it back in 2011. In fact, the opening of Neale's essay "McMindfulness and Frozen Yoga" sounds an awful lot like this post (not to mention Purser's own 2013 article "Beyond McMindfulness"). Ref: "McMindfulness and Frozen Yoga: Rediscovering the Essential Teachings of Ethics and Wisdom" (2011) https://static1.squarespace.com/s…

Purser acknowledges that Neale came up with the term in his book, and e.g. here: https://insighttimer.com/blog/ronald-purser-mcmindfulness-we... so I'm not sure that counts as hijacking. Especially as hijacking implies not retaining the original meaning of the word.

Purser mentions Neale once in the book then takes the word and the entire concept for his own use. I don’t want to be rude, but that’s the literal definition of hijacking.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#88

Post by salty_biscuits »

riskneutral wrote: post #81
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…

I strongly agree. Anyone who tries to create a monopoly on meditation and mindfulness is misguided. The author is a self-described Buddhist, and some Buddhists can be a bit dogmatic to be perfectly honest. The military issue is a great example. The author is trying to impose his own opinions about morality on the rest of humanity. This is misguided, there are other credible views that differ from his. For example, in…

Not just ancient Japan apparently

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#89

Post by ry_ry »

observr9 wrote: post #86

Mindfulness is being commercialized for the purpose of selling books and apps, argues a person in a book that he is trying to sell.

And if the system works sans-ethics, is that a problem beyond moralistic gatekeeping?

Since the main objection in the article was the military coopting the practice - The basic tenants of mindfulness, as I understand them, are not anybody's property - no matter how compelling the publisher's advances are.

And let's be honest with ourselves - the stationary and toilet paper the military buy have the implicit eventual aim of making them better at making things dead. I'm not convinced mindfulness training for troops is the problem here.

Sure, there are rogue teachers, but that has applied to everything from spurious gurus through to homebrew religions. At trial of sounding callous, caveat emptor surely?

Nothing Mindfulness (as a brand) teaches is a super-secret arcane mystery fercryinoutloud! If nothing else, the government spending time and money on it can only do wonders to validate it and cement it in the public conscious.

Re: McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality

#90

Post by mindfulthrow1 »

pergadad wrote: post #85
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…

Why would doing yoga in a way that you consider 'wrong' as racist. That's an incredibly ignorant statement. There are hundreds if not more branches of hatha yoga, not to mention all the other kids of yoga. There is no racism in doing it this or that or a completely different way. You might criticise that they call it yoga, still it's not in any way racist. Please open your mind. Thank you, A fellow hatha yoga practit…

It’s not about the asana being “right” or “wrong”, and in many cases I’d say it doesn’t even matter what the asanas are in your practice, as long as they’re moving the practitioner towards dhyana. But would you not admit that there is a lot of cultural appropriation around yoga in the west? Girls on Instagram with “Namaslay” shirts and dream catchers and sanskrit tattoos? Taking, packaging, marketing, and selling things in this way is racist.

Of course the modern practice of asana in the west isn’t inherently racist, and you don’t need to only be doing postures that were written down in old books. But wearing an Aum shirt and never understanding the deeper cultural contexts of what it is you’re wearing and practicing is racist. I’ve had conversations with people that have practiced yoga for years and literally have asked me “what’s asana?” and had never heard of pranayama. Were they racist? No, probably not, but it does speak volumes to how yoga is sold in the USA.

Post reply on HN