How mindfulness could make you selfish
bbc.com
bbc.com
(The article mentions mettā practice towards the end, but doesn't explicitly acknowledge that the need for this balance has been widely recognized).
As TFA says, this is much more of a problem of McMindfulness than of more traditional contemplative practices
TIL a new word, love it
But this study is something Paula Poundstone would have a field day with. Here’s my interpretation: students who were given the breath-focus-training felt like they got something done for the day and students who weren’t given anything to do didn’t want the day to go to waste so they figured why not, I’ll stuff some ads in envelopes.
Are these studies even meant to be published and taken seriously by the press? Sometimes I think these weak studies are just student projects going through the motions of how you might design an experiment.
[0] https://wikischool.org/_media/be_here_now.pdf
Edit: page 196 of the pdf, page 97 of the book is the dazzling art of the realized being dashing past the pews of a church shouting “listen to those words you’re singing! It’s all true!” - messianic complex
My impression is that Buddhism, like all faiths, has that surface level of justifying why there is evil and how to get free of it - so there’s that inner peace [0] - but there’s also this call to action, to reduce suffering, to work on peace outside yourself - that’s compassion, and Jesus and Buddha were all about it, even if their followers sometimes lose the plot. (I’m too ignorant to speak of Muhammad).
As far as the corruption of religion into preserving social hierarchies goes, I like to think that the capacity to be co-opted by a state is a feature, not a bug: a viral transmission vector. These holy texts might not have survived without a corrupt state maintaining it.
[0] Nellie McKay has a song by this name on her album “get away from me”, it’s a fantastic critique of this focus on “inner peace”
Dhamma is generally understood as teaching or nature. Kamma, (often mixed up with karma, a Hindu notion that is close in some aspects, but really not the same) is, in simple terms, cause and effect with respect to an individual. All injustices are a result of cause and effect (at least, I hope you think so) but where I will agree is that it shouldn't be the basis for doing nothing - unless doing nothing is the best choice, and knowing that is the trick, isn't it, Buddhist insight or not.
> Buddhism just abstracts reality into something slightly more palatable that doesn't require as much action on your part.
I can't say that's a good summation of what Buddhism is or does, it might be best to get the basics right (the terms above are a good indication) and then move on to telling others what you think a system is for, or its impact on society… I don't remember Buddha promising a societal utopia but perhaps my memory is deceiving me.
To be even more detailed, karma is the action rather than the effect, which is called karma vipaka. The English word karma means something more fluid - depending on context.
As to the cause and effect part, again, I wasn't about to start on a "there are no causes and no effects, only conditions…" path as it would only muddy the water for the person I'm responding to, but I don't mind the nitpicking, it's a good point and glad to see reasonable challenges in the comments.
Edit, I didn't mean to put this all on the English!
I've noticed when I know the reason for something my anger subsides.
I'm not necessarily arguing that judgements aren't valid, just that they depend on particular frames of reference.
Another prophet that I think is talented at articulating truth is Duncan Trussel - the boy has been to hell and heaven and back again and just loves talking about it. His show on Netflix is called “midnight gospel”, I think any ram dass fan would enjoy it and the psychedelic/religious art style
This seems designed exactly to counteract the self-focus tendency the article mentions.
I believe the underlying demands of people that meditate are clear and people react selfish in response.
If "mindfulness" triggers a panic attack, it is probably due to underlying issues.
> you learn to open up your own vulnerability
Towards whom? Being vulnerable isn't desirable. To have no illusion about it is certainly healthy, but this sounds like a cult to be honest.
Maybe what we can learn from this is that there isn't a be all end all singular mindset, and we can adapt our thinking to fit our cultural norms, whilst avoiding the pitfall of self indulgence.
True, it cannot always be reduced to that, especially within families.
It might often seem detached and of course elders always want to be visited more, but many also prefer that they can live in a special care.
The realities of modern work and family structures in western nations doesn't leave much room for care in many cases and it gives elders as their children more freedom.
It is true about the signaling properties of charity, although that is much more common in high society groups where it is indeed an expectation or a reason to come together. There are exceptions though.
>>> you learn to open up your own vulnerability
>>Towards whom?
Towards whoever is trying to control you. Only cults use your vulnerabilities as a tactic. And only very stupid cults skip even naming what those vulnerabilities are, and jump straight to "you're so vulnerable". This response against it is simply a measure of the antibodies that people have against being manipulated by brainwashed morons.
This is vulnerability in the societal sense: if we try to see things as they are we can all live our lifes as we do because of other people. Yet many believe they are strong independent bastions that could survive in complete autarky.
This is a comforting lie. And there are many such comforting lies. Knowing them to be lies doesn't make you weaker, it makes you stronger.
Knowing your vulnerabilities doesn't make them go away, but not knowing your vulnerabilities is a safe way to get them exploited (or find out about them in a crisis).
The thing is: figuring out your vulnerabilities always means you first have to aknowledge you have them to begin with. This can be hard. But it is something that can be done alone, if one is afraid of being exploited (which depending on your environment can be a totally realistic fear).
Where do you get your food from? Who maintains the water pipes? Who the electricity powerlines? Who the internet infrastructure you are currently using? Who made the computer you are typing this on? Who the house/car you are sitting in? Who the tools with which all those things where created? Who the food/water/cars/houses for them?
Not being dependent on others is what neoliberal rich kids trick themselves into believing in their wet dreams. Even if you build, maintain and everything that you use yourself, unless you have been abandoned in a jungle at birth you will always build on what is there: knowledge, tools, other people, infrastructure, etc.
What is this if not interdependence? What is this if not vulnerability?
Of course we are vulnerable because of that dependence on others. There are people who realize this and become preppers in an (usually futile) attempt to become truly independent, and there are people who realize that we are society and try to give back to their surroundings, and improve said society.
Because you don't live in isolation. Like not at all. The fact that you even considered this to be true should make you pause and reflect.
Mindfulness is this: remembering to watch the movement of mind's attention. In other words, remembering to know which of the six kinds of knowing you are doing at any given moment.
Anyone who practices for a while can verify that it's true -- attention really does flicker rapidly between six kinds of knowing. We're only ever knowing one thing at a time, but it gets stitched together into an illusion that knowing is continuous and panoramic.
What you're describing is a fetish for a master who taught you a way of categorizing your thoughts. It's nice that it works for you, but it isn't a real thing, and imposing it on the rest of the world as if it were the definition of being "MINDFUL" is a savage crime against humanity.
[edit] Just to explain why it's a crime: It's a crime because we also know what is real. And when you claim that you alone know what is real because you have six secret spices and ingredients in your chicken, and our chicken is not real chicken, I say NO, I don't think YOU actually are serving chicken.
Because Buddhists love lists! Why is the path "eightfold"? Why are there four "noble truths"? Why are there 6 paramitas?
These lists are study aids - they help you to memorise the teaching, and repeat it accurately. They are not meant to be taken as metaphysical statements about reality.
> we also know what is real
Oh, do we? I think you might have trouble finding many physicists that agree with you. Truth and reality are slippery concepts. Someone who is not given to thinking about these things might take the view that it's pretty obvious what is real and what is true.
I think that outlook is rather arrogant.
There aren't really six, it's just that that's the best way to describe it for those who wish to understand it better. You can chop it up however you wish, and hopefully with the intention of making it clear for someone since this is, after all, a teaching.
Certainly, if you actually read Buddhist texts you'll notice that they do a lot of re-chopping into different numbers as required. The map is not the terrain, models aren't reality, things can be described in many ways etcetera etcetera.
> It's nice that it works for you, but it isn't a real thing
You know that Buddhists are nominalists, right?
One form of the practice would be to consider those to whom you feel most warmly, and reflect that in previous lives they might have murdered you. And to consider those you hate, and reflect that in a future life, they might be your mother. This is supposed to reduce attachment and aversion.
(That formulation depends on the idea of rebirth, but I'm sure formulations exist that don't depend on metaphysical speculations)
There is a whole bunch of practices that are supposed to work together with mindfulness. Getting the balance wrong can lead to depression, panic attacks and other disturbances.
> Personal mindfulness is not and never has been the basis for anything other than self-aggrandizement.
Well, that's an opinion, rather strongly expressed, but without evidence. I happen to disagree; like you, I decline to present evidence.
To me, the saddest thing about "mindfulness" is that it is to existentialism what the Taliban is to statues of Buddha. A very blunt tool for people without enough time or patience to examine reality or actually ask, "why is this thing here? Might it mean something?" This is pop-cultural garbage taken to cult level to overwhelm fragile peoples' minds, without giving them a chance to understand the historical context of their place and time or what reason they might actually have to be going through the things they're going through.
So mindfulness leading to egoism is a foregone conclusion, because it's a degenerated version of existential or Buddhist thought, intentionally turned into trifling horseshit for people who were born, live, and will die without any notion or care of anything that happened before them. And they were already egoists; and having a problem you can't frame in broader terms than your own ability to pay attention to it for a few minutes is having a pretty pathetic problem indeed.
Buddhism was already distilled “Hinduism for Export”, it is foolish to distill it further. IMO the whole fad is a result of Americans mistaking Buddhism for religion, and not pre-western psychology, so in a bid to get the benefits without the baggage, and to be allowed to teach yoga in schools, mindfulness practitioners dropped the spiritual framework and just said “focus on your breath, it’s good for you”
Eh, I think this is reading too much into it. Mindfulness is merely a training in relaxing and finessing of our rigid egoic framing and thus be able to generate more insights. It is egocentric in the sense of being a training on the ego function but the telos is actually breaking out of default egocentricity.
It is the culture of narcissism that turns this into a tool of spiritual bypass and optimizing one’s own detached wellbeing. It uses mindfulness as an emotional regulation tool, not a frame expanding education in preparation to other practices.
Don’t get me wrong, everything you point out as missing is accurate, it is just it was never mindfulness’s burden to bear alone as it’s nothing but a single practice to be done in the context of Buddha, dharma and sangha.
- some guy asks on Radio Erevan (Yerevan, Armenia) => that is obviously a joke
- the UK scientists discovered that => rumors and unsubstantiated claims