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Handbook of Mindfulness pp 167–179Cite as

Notes Toward a Coming Backlash

Mindfulness as an Opiate of the Middle Classes

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Part of the book series: Mindfulness in Behavioral Health ((MIBH))

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in critical engagement with mindfulness and the mindfulness industry. The critique is manifold and includes concerns about the marketing and presentation of mindfulness, its relation to the Buddhist tradition and cultural appropriation, conceptual fuzziness and exaggerated claims, methodological insufficiencies in studies of meditation and mindfulness, and the ideological function of mindfulness practices. The chapter summarizes and discusses a number of critical articles that have appeared on Web sites and in popular media during the past few years, and the responses they have elicited.

The “Western Buddhist” stance is arguably the most effective way for us to fully participate in capitalist dynamics while retaining the appearance of mental sanity.

(Žižek 2001a: 13).

This is what we are obliged to posit here: The historical tendency of late capitalism—what we have called the reduction to the gift and the reduction to the body—is in any case unrealizable. Human beings cannot revert to the immediacy of the animal kingdom (assuming indeed the animals enjoy themselves such phenomenological immediacy).

Jameson (2003: 717).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Tom Pepper: https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2013/07/10/buddhism-as-the-opiate-of-the-downwardly-mobile-middle-class-the-case-of-thanissaro-bhikkhu/.

  2. 2.

    (E.g. http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/the-mindfulness-backlash/; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11942320/Mindfulness-backlash-Meditation-bad-for-your-health.html; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/mindfulness-backlash_n_6800924.html).

  3. 3.

    (E.g., http://secularbuddhism.org/forums/topic/mbsr-as-secular-buddhist-practice/).

  4. 4.

    To make things really confusing, the mindfulness movement’s undisputed front-figure, Jon Kabat-Zinn, has been quite open with how he sees MBSR as a form of upaya, or “skillful means,” in the service of Buddhist mission.

  5. 5.

    See Iwamura (2011) for a discussion of the fetishization of the “Oriental monk.”

  6. 6.

    A parallel to French Philosopher François Laruelle’s “principle of sufficient philosophy”: a “pretension that all things under the sun are matters for x-buddhism’s oracular pronouncements, and that the totality of pronouncements … constitutes an adequate account—a unitary vision—of reality … (Wallis et al. 2013: 138).”

  7. 7.

    https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2011/07/03/elixir-of-mindfulness/.

  8. 8.

    Behind mindful.org is “The Foundation for a Mindful Society,” which later also started publishing the bi-monthly magazine Mindful which could be described as a kind of equivalent to publications like Yoga Journal or Runner’s World and has close links with popular Buddhist glossies like Lion’s Roar (formerly Shambhala Sun) and BuddhaDharma.

  9. 9.

    “Lovingkindness” is a common English translation of the Buddhist concept of metta, encompassing a generalized outlook characterized by compassion and kindness, and specific meditation practices with the aim of cultivating such qualities. In this context, one could note the emergence of “compassion-focused therapy,” an “integrated and multimodal approach that draws from evolutionary, social, developmental and Buddhist psychology, and neuro science” (Gilbert 2009: 199).

  10. 10.

    “An “empty” or “floating signifier” is variously defined as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different people: They may stand for many or even any signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean” (Chandler n.d.).

  11. 11.

    Discussions about the article has played out on several blogs and Web sites, with the participation of both “religious” and “secular” Buddhists as well as mindfulness practitioners. Here is a selection: American Buddhist Perspective (Justin Whitaker): http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2013/12/2013-as-the-year-of-mindfulness-critics-and-defenders.html

    108 Zen Books (Genju): https://108zenbooks.com/2013/08/02/on-mindfulness-muggles-crying-wolf/

    Mindfulness Matters (Arnie Kozak): http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/mindfulnessmatters/2013/09/mcmindfulness-revisted.html

    Off the Cushion (Rev. Danny Fisher): http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dannyfisher/2013/07/your-practice-is-not-all-about-you/

    Secular Buddhist Association (Mark Knicklebine): http://secularbuddhism.org/2013/08/12/from-both-sides-secular-buddhism-and-the-mcmindfulness-question/

    The Existential Buddhist (Seth Zuihō Segall): http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2013/12/in-defense-of-mindfulness/.

  12. 12.

    Terms such as “real” or “traditional” Buddhism (or Buddhists) should be used with great care, if at all. Not least because much contemporary Buddhism, including more “traditional” varieties to a great extent is shaped by “modernist” ideals (McMahan 2008).

  13. 13.

    Lopez (2012) argues, for example, that stress reduction is not a traditional goal of Buddhist meditation. Many of its forms seem rather intended to evoke a kind of existential crisis and should rather be described as a way to create stress than a means of relieving it.

  14. 14.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Avs5iwACs. A written version was later published in Transcultural Psychiatry (Sharf 2015). See also Sharf (2014).

  15. 15.

    For an insightful and thought-provoking elaboration on Sharf’s paper and Obeyesekere’s essay, see Tom Pepper’s Nirvana and Depression (in Pepper 2014a).

  16. 16.

    Interestingly enough, there seems to be a growing interest in these stages within certain groups of (predominantly younger, North American) convert Buddhists. Considered unavoidable, these dukkha nana are here referred to as “the dark night of the soul,” a concept borrowed from the Spanish 16-th Century mystic St. John of the Cross, and are often described in terms reminiscent of clinical descriptions of depression, anxiety, and depersonalization.(cf. Ingram 2008). Some meditation researchers have also showed an interest in this “dark side of meditation” and its implications for intensive or prolonged mindfulness practice.

  17. 17.

    Pace Sharf, I would add that the hope of improving psychological health and emotional well-being often seems to be an important motivation for taking up intensive meditation practice, even within a monastic regimen.

  18. 18.

    See Hori (2000), however, for a problematizing discussion about the notion of “pure” or “prediscursive” awareness in the context of orthodox Rinzai Zen. Here, I could also add that I have noticed that the word “mindfulness” is used fairly often in the context of Zen practice, but that it has less to do with an inward focus on thoughts and feelings than what could be seen as its opposite: paying attention to the task at hand, be it zazen meditation or everyday activities.

  19. 19.

    On the issue of mystification of mindfulness, see Wilson (2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Per Drougge

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  1. Per Drougge
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Correspondence to Per Drougge .

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  1. Department of Management, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, USA

    Ronald E. Purser

  2. Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA

    David Forbes

  3. Institute for Holistic Health Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, USA

    Adam Burke

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Drougge, P. (2016). Notes Toward a Coming Backlash. In: Purser, R., Forbes, D., Burke, A. (eds) Handbook of Mindfulness. Mindfulness in Behavioral Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44019-4_12

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