The mindfulness conspiracy
theguardian.com
The mindfulness conspiracy
1–10 of 101 posts
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#2The article literally starts with this: "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism..."
For a more meaningful discussion of mindfulness, I recommend the "Mind The Mindfulness Hype" episode of The Psychology Podcast [1] . They dig into what the scientific method has to say to mindfulness, what studies have been made and what is missing, and what benefits can be realistically expected. And what's over the top hype.
[1] https://www.scottbarrykaufman.com/podcast/mind-the-mindfulne...
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#3One goal of mindfulness and meditation is to reduce the amount of noise in our heads so that we can see things clearer. This allows us to take more _effective_ actions.
The author seems to have a clear bias that radical == good, and this puts me off. Radical action can be good, and it can be bad. Mindfulness can help us see which case is which.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#4The article literally starts with this: "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism..." For a more meaningful discussion of mindfulness, I recommend the "Mind The Mindfulness Hype" episode of The Psychology Podcast [1] . They dig into what the scientific method has to say to mindfulness, what studies have been made and what is missing, and what benefits can be realistically expected. A…
Sam Harris regularly claims that it reduces the half life of emotions such as rage.
I personally find that a 'deterministic' view of life achieves that for me.
For whatever reason when I meditate I can only leverage it as a relaxation tool, as opposed to witnessing my thoughts occur, which I think is somewhat 'mindfulness'.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#5Be mindful of the source of this - the quality of content coming out of The Guardian has slipped since its recent change of editorial - it is much more content with click-bait and sensationalism than with anything more substantial.
From the opening line this seems to be coming across as little more than a virtue signalling piece for anti-Capitalists, and progresses into tired old tropes about Western consumerism.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#6The article literally starts with this: "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism..." For a more meaningful discussion of mindfulness, I recommend the "Mind The Mindfulness Hype" episode of The Psychology Podcast [1] . They dig into what the scientific method has to say to mindfulness, what studies have been made and what is missing, and what benefits can be realistically expected. A…
Sam Harris regularly claims that it reduces the half life of emotions such as rage. I personally find that a 'deterministic' view of life achieves that for me. For whatever reason when I meditate I can only leverage it as a relaxation tool, as opposed to witnessing my thoughts occur, which I think is somewhat 'mindfulness'.
I've struggled to get very much out of mindfulness (primarily via Sam Harris) but this 'half-life of an emotion' thing is one of the bits that has worked.
The best example I've experienced was being in an argument with my wife about something or other that had gotten heated to the point I was getting angry. But then I got a phone call from someone at one of my clients - I immediately had to be a different person for that call. Once it had finished I came back to my wife and felt like I entirely had the _choice_ as to whether I would be angry again. I was, in fact, almost certainly treading an automatic path down which I _would have_ made myself angry to continue from where we were. Instead, the obviousness of this was so apparent that I didn't - because it suddenly felt artificial.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#7One goal of mindfulness and meditation is to reduce the amount of noise in our heads so that we can see things clearer. This allows us to take more _effective_ actions. The author seems to have a clear bias that radical == good, and this puts me off. Radical action can be good, and it can be bad. Mindfulness can help us see which case is which.
That is also the goal of religion. Tell your worries to god in silence and peace, then wait and be patient for God to fix it.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sam Harris regularly claims that it reduces the half life of emotions such as rage. I personally find that a 'deterministic' view of life achieves that for me. For whatever reason when I meditate I can only leverage it as a relaxation tool, as opposed to witnessing my thoughts occur, which I think is somewhat 'mindfulness'.
I've struggled to get very much out of mindfulness (primarily via Sam Harris) but this 'half-life of an emotion' thing is one of the bits that has worked. The best example I've experienced was being in an argument with my wife about something or other that had gotten heated to the point I was getting angry. But then I got a phone call from someone at one of my clients - I immediately had to be a different person for…
What Sam Harris teaches in his meditation app is not 'mindfulness' as commonly understood, i.e. in the vein of Vipassana or even MBSR. It's more like his own lite version of Dzogchen practices.
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#9The bias clearly show through in the writing.
"Societal problems", "unjust society", " systemic change that might remove it".
Mindfulness is somewhat oversold these days, but his understanding of it seems very simplistic "Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training."
Surprise surprise, he has a book to sell about it. https://guardianbookshop.com/mcmindfulness-9781912248315.htm...
Re: The mindfulness conspiracy
#10This makes the assumption that our priority is to change/fix things. I'm usually of this mindset too, but there's something to the argument of accepting what is and being calm and present to the moment.
We can't really know which approach is best, because we can't A/B test human life. Who knows... perhaps if everyone were calm and peaceful, much would change without activism.