It comes like the welcome splash of cold water on a weary face, an article that dares to be different. Suzanne Moore writes scathingly about the popularity of mindfulness in the Guardian this morning. Her writing refreshes me and gives me the jolt I need to write about my own discomfort with the media attention on mindfulness.
Let me lay my cards on the table: I’m a teacher of mindfulness meditation. I’ve trained to deliver the classic eight-week course. I have developed new courses for particular audiences. In the last three years, I’ve taught around 170 people to practice mindfulness. As I have more demand than I can possibly meet, I also train others to teach. I practice mindfulness, using it all sorts of everyday situations. And I do it voluntarily because when something works for you, you want to share it.
There is a lot of media attention to mindfulness - magazine articles, blog posts, news items, new research and very little of it is critical. Much of it is accompanied by images of beautiful young people sitting cross legged and looking ethereal. You could be forgiven for thinking that mindfulness is the answer to everything. It isn’t. You could also be forgiven for thinking that you need to be beautiful, bendy and a bit weird. You don’t. You might imagine that you couldn’t do mindfulness because it’s against your religion; you are too easily distracted or you don’t have the time. But you’d be wrong.
Like most of you, I brush my teeth every morning and evening. Heck, I sometimes brush them a couple of times during the day as well, because I prefer to go out into the world with sweet smelling breath and I’d quite like to reach old age with a full set of healthy teeth. I floss. I rinse. I don’t give it a lot of thought. Sometimes (don’t tell my dentist) I don’t even give it a full two minutes. But I do it. I’d feel really crummy if I didn’t.
For me, mindfulness is similar to tooth brushing; it’s a routine part of my mental hygiene, as important as healthy eating, fresh air, exercise and connection with others. I don’t expect it to fill a spiritual void, make me rich or hasten world peace. I just feel slightly less crummy when I am practicing regularly.
Suzanne Moore sees the current commodification of mindfulness as a tool of capitalism – a latter day opiate of the masses. Me too. I worry about the intention of teaching it to the Marines, presumably so they achieve distance from killing people. I worry about the intention of teaching it to Olympic rowing teams, presumably so they can cope with the intensity of punishing training schedules. I worry about it being used as a corporate tool to ease employees gently into redundancy. It’s the intention that concerns me, however, not the practice of mindfulness.
For my understanding of mindfulness is rather different from Moore’s. It is not Buddhism, nor Buddhism Lite[1]. It is a natural human capacity that can be enhanced through deliberate practice. It is not about thinking less, but about waking up to our thinking habits, so we can think more clearly. It is not a self-centred self-improvement programme, but a tool that can help us connect more effectively with others and respond with more compassion. It is not some special, elite activity that makes us remarkable; it is simple, ordinary and routine. Centuries ago, few people brushed their teeth because few people understood the need. Today, it has become an essential but unremarkable activity. I look forward to the day when the same can be said for mindfulness.
Meanwhile, I am off to polish up the pearly whites.
[1] I hope to expand on this in a later blog.
Let me lay my cards on the table: I’m a teacher of mindfulness meditation. I’ve trained to deliver the classic eight-week course. I have developed new courses for particular audiences. In the last three years, I’ve taught around 170 people to practice mindfulness. As I have more demand than I can possibly meet, I also train others to teach. I practice mindfulness, using it all sorts of everyday situations. And I do it voluntarily because when something works for you, you want to share it.
There is a lot of media attention to mindfulness - magazine articles, blog posts, news items, new research and very little of it is critical. Much of it is accompanied by images of beautiful young people sitting cross legged and looking ethereal. You could be forgiven for thinking that mindfulness is the answer to everything. It isn’t. You could also be forgiven for thinking that you need to be beautiful, bendy and a bit weird. You don’t. You might imagine that you couldn’t do mindfulness because it’s against your religion; you are too easily distracted or you don’t have the time. But you’d be wrong.
Like most of you, I brush my teeth every morning and evening. Heck, I sometimes brush them a couple of times during the day as well, because I prefer to go out into the world with sweet smelling breath and I’d quite like to reach old age with a full set of healthy teeth. I floss. I rinse. I don’t give it a lot of thought. Sometimes (don’t tell my dentist) I don’t even give it a full two minutes. But I do it. I’d feel really crummy if I didn’t.
For me, mindfulness is similar to tooth brushing; it’s a routine part of my mental hygiene, as important as healthy eating, fresh air, exercise and connection with others. I don’t expect it to fill a spiritual void, make me rich or hasten world peace. I just feel slightly less crummy when I am practicing regularly.
Suzanne Moore sees the current commodification of mindfulness as a tool of capitalism – a latter day opiate of the masses. Me too. I worry about the intention of teaching it to the Marines, presumably so they achieve distance from killing people. I worry about the intention of teaching it to Olympic rowing teams, presumably so they can cope with the intensity of punishing training schedules. I worry about it being used as a corporate tool to ease employees gently into redundancy. It’s the intention that concerns me, however, not the practice of mindfulness.
For my understanding of mindfulness is rather different from Moore’s. It is not Buddhism, nor Buddhism Lite[1]. It is a natural human capacity that can be enhanced through deliberate practice. It is not about thinking less, but about waking up to our thinking habits, so we can think more clearly. It is not a self-centred self-improvement programme, but a tool that can help us connect more effectively with others and respond with more compassion. It is not some special, elite activity that makes us remarkable; it is simple, ordinary and routine. Centuries ago, few people brushed their teeth because few people understood the need. Today, it has become an essential but unremarkable activity. I look forward to the day when the same can be said for mindfulness.
Meanwhile, I am off to polish up the pearly whites.
[1] I hope to expand on this in a later blog.