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Comment by Aerroon | Hacker News Reader

A lot of these posts here on HN regarding meditation and mindfulness sound like what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'. Just a different faith. It's dressed up in the mystery of 'teachings' and 'feelings' and other vague notions.

It feels like someone has set up an industry that's raking in a lot of money and all the converts perpetuate it. Perhaps they buy into it or maybe they try to justify it to not feel like they were cheated, but the way it's talked about puts me immediately on guard. I suppose that even if it doesn't work there might be a placebo effect at play.

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To be fair, there's a multi-layered thing going on here.

Yes, there is a mindfulness "industry" nowadays, and it's terribly fashionable right now, and with fashion comes The Horde, and with that comes The Charlatans (not the band) - and in the modern world this is all now followed by The Influencers and adverts and apps and a whole plastic money-fuelled nothingness that accompanies the modern world.

But. Under the hood is a centuries-old tradition of self-investigation and awareness. It's often laid at the door of Buddhism, and as a discipline, no other faith (or non-faith, whatever you choose to call it) has taken this set of "Rules for Life" and made them their own quite as much - but the contemplative method is there in pretty much every tradition.

There can be a religious element to all of this, so yes, there is a "faith" angle to it, and the associated perpetuation / zealotry, but there is also a path to be trod which is secular, and holds a lot of worth and meaning.

The article itself isn't terribly interesting, IMO. Yes, there are moments like Flow when doing something familiar (piano playing, coding) which are apparently "mindless" but in fact are themselves deeply mindful, in that they feel like they connect action almost directly to the subconscious. Or this at least is how it feels when I play piano - I have literally no idea how my fingers do what they do, and if I think about it too hard, things fall apart.

And then - as I posted quickly elsewhere on this thread - there is the notion of mindlessness actually being set in a mindful context. It could all go a bit Rumsfeldian but I find there is some value in thinking about "mindful mindlessness" vs "mindless mindlessness". Sitting down and saying "I'm now going to look at some s*t on the web" but being aware of how that mindless rabbithole is making you feel has a different flavour to it than just doing it without focusing on the position of the self when doing the same.

ps. I quite like "vague notions" like "feelings", myself :-)

> Yes, there is a mindfulness "industry"

> But.

> I quite like "vague notions" like "feelings", myself :-)

it's funny how what you write is exactly "what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'", to quote OP. thanks for proving OP's point.

i think the reason mindfulness falls flat is because it ignores the material reality of the working class in our profit-seeking economic system. it makes like miserable for a large group of people.

the problem is that you can't meditate your way out of poverty of precarity by using "a centuries-old tradition of self-investigation and awareness".

mindfulness is 'for' the propertied classes who usually collect all types of rent [1] and who aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

try telling an exhausted Amazon warehouse worker to 'try' mindfulness. often it's just a bunch of gaslighting hoo-ha

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...

This is silly. I discovered mindfulness early in life and it definitely does help one contend with the (mental) pains of poverty. Please at least minimally research the topic before descending to call it “gaslighting hoo-ha”.

my problem is that we are living in one of the most globally unequal times [1]. i just don’t know how relevant a hijacked practice is that misrepresents it’s origins.

the way ‘mindfulness research’ filters down today is a type of gaslighting. ‘McMindfulness’ (as Ron Purser calls it - he wrote a book with that same term) is often a vanity project by CEOs/executives/school boards in the west who have too much time on their hands. they impose it on their organizations and want to be patted on the back for their 'enlightened' solution. but it does nothing to improve the alienating material conditions most of the working class face, which is the root cause of their suffering.

“Mindfulness is said to be a $4bn industry. More than 60,000 books for sale on Amazon have a variant of “mindfulness” in their title, touting the benefits of Mindful Parenting, Mindful Eating, Mindful Teaching, Mindful Therapy, Mindful Leadership, Mindful Finance, a Mindful Nation, and Mindful Dog Owners, to name just a few. There is also The Mindfulness Colouring Book, part of a bestselling subgenre in itself. Besides books, there are workshops, online courses, glossy magazines, documentary films, smartphone apps, bells, cushions, bracelets, beauty products and other paraphernalia, as well as a lucrative and burgeoning conference circuit. Mindfulness programmes have made their way into schools, Wall Street and Silicon Valley corporations, law firms, and government agencies, including the US military.” [2]

and:

“What is the problem with people making money out of mindfulness?

I guess if you’re a devout capitalist there probably isn’t a problem. But the issue is that it’s a capitalist spirituality. It’s under the big umbrella of the ‘wellness industry’. What is troubling is how easily it has become accommodated within the mainstream marketplace – I think that should give us pause. Mindfulness is so market-friendly because it appeals to this highly individualistic, entrepreneurial ethos. It’s all about ‘me’ and self-improvement. It’s thriving in a culture of narcissism. The focus is firmly on delivering a more happy self. This is a real kind of social myopia: it squarely places the responsibility of being ‘happy’ within the individual themselves, rather than taking into account all the systemic, structural aspects of society that are causing the cultural malaise that has so many people flocking to the wellness industry for answers.”

Purser does offer a potential alternative:

“Is it possible to reclaim mindfulness from the marketplace?

Mindfulness has been hijacked by the neoliberal narrative, but I think it could be reclaimed by expanding its scope. From the very start, the Buddhist community, or sangha, was always going against the grain of the Hindu caste system in India. Buddhism was always countercultural. Mindfulness is now all about critique being turned inward, toward ourselves. We need to flip that critique back out, toward the systems and practices that are causing the problems in the first place. A collective form of mindfulness would not throw the baby out with the bathwater; it wouldn’t throw out self-care, would not disregard the therapeutic benefits of meditation — but it would expand the scope of its environment. We could sever its ties to the marketplace, to create a more collective practice that focuses on the alleviation of collective social suffering, rather than just that of the individual.” [3]

lastly though, i think it’s ironic that this article mentions a “classic study [that] had skilled golfers attempt to sink putts under different experimental conditions”. so you’re saying that in a stressed out society where people in the working class get no time for themselves to reflect, academic researchers in the west are going to do research on the golf playing propertied class to look for alternatives/solutions (no matter if those solutions are either 'mindfulness' or 'mindlessness' or whatever else)?

[1] https://mronline.org/2019/09/29/iphone-workers-today-are-25-...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/14/the-min...

[3] https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/books-art-and-cultur...

Your qualms with meditation seem to be a reaction to the fact that within a capitalistic system, many things are coopted by capitalists because if they're compelling, they can compel people to pay money to be told about them. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong or really engage on that point but perhaps you'd appreciate listening to someone distinctly non-capitalist describing how meditation was an effective tool to understand the world around them, motivate their activism, and work towards a better world. Check out Michael Brooks on RevLeft [1]. Michael Brooks wrote a book on meditation and revolution that ties into some similar ideas, too.

[1]https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/michael-brooks

yes your analysis is spot on. i wrote clumsily above. i've been on a Vipassana retreat and had a beautiful experience and definitely benefited lots. thank you for your thoughtful comment and for the link to Brooks, i hadn't seen this

I think I was hoping to make the point that there is indeed a "McMindfulness" thing going on - the industry that we've both linked to / talked about - but I was also trying to say that there is a deeper practice, too, something less about the glitz and glamour of the next meditation app or course that suggests it can "fix you" or instantly remove your stress, or whatever.

I don't personally have a problem with people making money from Mindfulness - I'm myself studying to be an MBSR teacher and ultimately I may well find myself being paid for this. I pay for Sam Harris' Waking Up app. I pay for retreats (I'm going on a 5 day one tomorrow as it happens!) - none of this strikes me as problematic.

What is problematic for me is the misunderstanding that this new industry (actually, as someone else says below, it's not new, it's just "New Age", only...newer) IS the practice that underlies it. It isn't. And further to this, nothing is going to save anything without work and practice and fluidity and understanding, least of all meditative practice. I have sympathy with the view that this modern approach has found itself in the company of rich Westerners looking or boardrooms or consultants all looking either to find meaning or to make loads of cash. But the misunderstanding about the practice itself is just plain wrong.

In the world of mindfulness and meditative practice that I inhabit, it is compassion and understanding and - totally - that outward looking view which is at the core. It is SO far from being a narcissistic, inward-looking thing. A fundamental principle which runs throughout this practice circles around Metta[1] - and what's been interesting to me as a practitioner is how uncomfortable this can be! We're so used to being insular and inward looking and all the things you cite in your reply that to be faced with an outward-looking, compassion based set of principles can feel really quite exposing and strange.

Does this solve inequality? No, of course not. Do I come at this from a privileged and relatively wealthy white male point of view? Yes. But we'd accept, wouldn't we, that (say) fitness, maintaining a good weight, working less, eating well, having more time with family, etc. are all "good things" without being shot down for being elitist?

The question for me is: Does a more inclusive, compassionate, considered world view help people to help others in some small way? I hope so. In large part that's exactly why I do this practice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitr%C4%AB

> The question for me is: Does a more inclusive, compassionate, considered world view help people to help others in some small way?

The more important question is: what happens to people that they lose their compassionate worldview in the first place? Or are you telling me that you've never heard the contagious laughter of a baby who is lovingly cradled, or played with, by a caregiver/parent?

"The radical therapist David Smail argues that Margaret Thatcher's view that there's no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, finds "an unacknowledged echo in almost all approaches to therapy". Therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy combine a focus on early life with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. The idea is "with the expert help of your therapist or counsellor, you can change the world you are in the last analysis responsible for, so that it no longer causes you distress" – Smail calls this view "magical voluntarism".

Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities. As psychologist Oliver James put it in his book The Selfish Capitalist, "in the entrepreneurial fantasy society," we are taught "that only the affluent are winners and that access to the top is open to anyone willing to work hard enough, regardless of their familial, ethnic or social background – if you do not succeed, there is only one person to blame." It's high time that the blame was placed elsewhere. We need to reverse the privatisation of stress and recognise that mental health is a political issue."

— Mark Fisher, Why mental health is a political issue

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental...

Falls flat? You can MRI and observe neuroplasticity type changes based on level of meditation experience. Also, I believe it was Berkley affiliated, a monthly review of papers published on mindfulness and it's impacts often had 80+ meaningful entries on an average month: some of the use cases around therapy, around endangered populations (ptsd), disorders (agoraphobia, etc).

Your general point about society might not be wrong, but the main claim that meditation does nothing is woefully incorrect.

The argument in this thread seems to "late night TV sold me a shake weight, it's a bullshit, those scam artists, who needs strenght training anyways?". There's other ways.

You have neuroplastic changes if you practice guitar or golf.

Can you really see neuroplasticity in an MRI?

One measures oxygen levels by MRI while doing a task before and after the intervention to determine changes to what regions get enlisted for the task.

Speaking as a meditation practitioner, I don't think you deserve downvotes but I don't think it's zero sum either. Mindfulness should not be used to salve problems whose root cause is exploitation. I'm a proponent of being socially engaged and this actually comes from my own Buddhist inclinations. It would be somewhat inimical to the point of Buddhist practice to save oneself and ignore other's suffering, and understanding that suffering may involve looking at systems, not just the individual's response to things. Held in this sprit of interrelationship, things like meditation can help us become better activists. You will also be less likely to burn out as you strive for things and try and affect change from a healthier standpoint.

"But. Under the hood is a centuries-old tradition of self-investigation and awareness. It's often laid at the door of Buddhism,". Could you be more precise? Which Buddhism? And which buddhist (meditation) practice? I am getting more and more the feeling that this is as true as 'ikigai' being something rooted in japanese culture (which it is not). People know little in depth about Japan, and/or Buddhism (but perception is positive), so somebody might just have come up with some amalgation of something and sell it with 'but we know from thousends of year of buddhist practice...' and so on.

So which one is closest to mindfullnes: Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, or some other smaller branch and which meditation practise exactly?

I realize I sound very confrontational, I dont mean to attack you (I think it is important to have this precise question though)

Probably Chan or Zen Buddhism, the word Chan 禅 means meditation. Zen is the Japanese pronunciation for Chan. Although they all belong to Mahayana Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism has meditation practices, the more modern formats that the Western world has exposure from is likely Zen Buddhism.

I was thinking so (know too little about mindfulness). If you look at the state of Zen in Japan it is in a sharp decline and probably the vast majority does not practice meditation (couldn't find numbers though). While I sympathize with meditation it somehow has been taken over by modern life

I have a feeling they just took the hood.

> The article itself isn't terribly interesting, IMO. Yes, there are moments like Flow when doing something familiar (piano playing, coding) which are apparently "mindless" but in fact are themselves deeply mindful, in that they feel like they connect action almost directly to the subconscious. Or this at least is how it feels when I play piano - I have literally no idea how my fingers do what they do, and if I think about it too hard, things fall apart.

If you're willing to define both reflective thinking and task-driven nonthinking as mindfulness, then what exactly isn't?

Anything that didn't involve someone getting paid to teach a course.

I use the "culture test" for this kind of things: if something is talked about a lot in one part of the world but not the other, it means there's an underlying industry that has their money in the media and the so called influencers. As for mindfulness, for example, you can almost unmistakably tell an American from a European online, by how someone talks about meditation or ignores the topic. Interestingly also, podcasts seem to be a lot more popular among the Americans compared to Europeans. In this age when we seem to live in the same shared information space, I can only explain these discrepancies by some serious marketing money but local to some country or region.

Why does it being cultural imply that there is someone pushing it in order to make money?

Specifically regarding podcasts, Americans have on average much higher commute times, and I've found podcasts are brilliant for when I do long drives here in the UK, so that would explain the difference in popularity

You think Americans like podcasts more than Europeans because of American marketing? Sometimes it can just be simply cultural preferences I think. I can think of lots of American made products which succeeded much better in parts of Europe not due to a specialized marketing campaign, but just because the product was more in line with European preferences.

I don’t think that the internet has homogenized us quite to the extent that regional preferences no longer exist :)

Take the classical big American cars vs. small European cars, I think it's pretty much a fact that the love of big cars was manufactured by the auto industry in the 1950-60s and is likely supported to this day by, again, some marketing money.

There's an interesting documentary about these things by Adam Curtis called "The Century of the Self", and esp. part I "Happiness Machines".

I thought the giant cars/trucks were a cobra effect style thing resulting from a loophole in emissions standards for commercial vs. passenger vehicles.

Well then who lobbied those standards? But undoubtedly advertisement and more subtle product placements made their job even easier.

> I suppose that even if it doesn't work there might be a placebo effect at play.

I mean, it's not hard to believe (hah!) that faith, various belief systems and meditation-like exercises are beneficial for mental health. The alternative is generally "the universe is uncaring and nothing you do matters in the grand scheme of things", which is slightly less uplifting.

Completely agree that any related rhetoric should put one on guard, but "the explanations they provide are wrong" isn't incompatible with "they help you live a better life". Probably not worth becoming a zealot and throwing all your money down a certain drain though.

New Age never died, it just transformed. That's how I see it. And you don't have to be this cynic about it, people need spirituality and will create it and sustain it even without business interests. But of course, where there's demand somebody will come up with supply to sell.

I suspect myself ulterior motives in de facto influencers who promote mindfulness. But again not necessarily in a cynical way, I think most really believe and are in it for their mental comfort and social aspects just as much if not more as for the money.

Interesting thought. Jonathan Haidt has a chapter about spirituality in his book "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom".

I had a thought some days ago: "Maybe the rise of QAnon, and other similar outlandish ideas, stems from a spirituality vacuum. Given Nietzsches' proclamation and the continuing destruction of their own credibility by the catholic church and other religious organizations, it seems to me those people seem to try to fill their spiritual void with something. Maybe a need for shared consensus or values, which postmodern society does not supply."

Personally when I see multiple belief systems arrive at the same general (if vague) conclusions I take it as a sign that they’re probably all on to something.

Human sacrifice has been practiced by cultures in every single continent!

Sure that sucks, but presumably the practice bought those societies something worth more to the group than the individual lives sacrificed. Maybe a false feeling of influence over the natural world was required for those societies to function instead of everyone living in fear of the next unpredictable typhoon/earthquake/flood/whatever and losing cohesiveness as individuals tried to protect their own?

Anyway I’ll finish typing this comment in a couple hours ‘cause My 600-lb Life season premier is on and I never miss an episode

Interesting, my experience differs from yours. I got the recommendation of "Mind Illuminated" here on HN, a super valuable book for people into meditation IMHO, maybe the best?

TBF both meditation and yoga were ripped from religious practices and repackaged for Western consumption, and this version wins out because it helps sell pants.

> because it helps sell pants.

Check the etymology pyjamas, actual pants and shampoo. Though lots was stolen from other cultures I fail to see how these examples of mimicry qualify as theft. They were asymilated because it’s nice to have night pants and clean hair, just like it’s nice to put yourself in a relaxed and untroubled state of mind.

simultaneously, yoga & meditation were translated and shared in earnest with western audiences. It’s not all new age wu.

I fully agree. Although there are exceptions, much of the self-help industry has a similar spooky feel to me. Also, I find it hilarious that people are using apps to meditate or be "mindful". I cant quite explain it with words, but... If the first step of your journey is already in the wrong direction, forget about the rest...

I've done the entire stack: by myself, in class (Buddhist affiliated, weekly), app, and 10 day silent meditation retreat.

Apps are fine. It's an entry point and some people might feel uncomfortable driving to a strange place to sit with strangers doing a strange activity.

You know pretty quickly if works or not. Eventually the apps (maybe this has changed) are relatively limited as the cater to the 20 minutes crowd, and you might want to go further.

In terms of depth, Sam Harris has an app where he comingles (IMHO) fairly advanced philosophical concepts. Maybe it's snake oil to you, but feels real and material to me.

That being said, like getting enough sun or eating well or working out...it's optional and there's multiple ways to get there. No need to buy any encyclopedias if you know you're never going to open then :)

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