The Muddied Meaning of ‘Mindfulness’
Although mindfulness teachers regularly offer the practice in disenfranchised communities in the United States and abroad, the powerful have really made mindfulness their own, exacting from the delicate idea concrete promises of longer lives and greater productivity. In January, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kabat-Zinn led executives and 1 percenters in a mindfulness meditation meant to promote general well-being.
.. Mindfulness as “keeping in tune” has a nice ring to it. But it’s “focused on the task at hand” that appeals to managers, like Jackson, who are conscious of performance goals. Might workplace mindfulness — in the cubicle or on the court — be just another way to keep employees undistracted and to get them to work harder for nothing but airy rewards?
.. Maybe the word “mindfulness” is like the Prius emblem, a badge of enlightened and self-satisfied consumerism, and of success and achievement. If so, not deploying mindfulness — taking pills or naps for anxiety, say, or going out to church or cocktails — makes you look sort of backward or classless. Like driving a Hummer.
.. Thank you for this. As a long-time Zen Buddhist practitioner, I find myself dismayed when I see these practices being adapted in ways that run contrary to their true spirits. Lately the trend is “mindfulness” in the workplace, which usually means teaching folks to meditate so they can better endure endless, stressful work hours and/or increase productivity when performing tasks or producing products that may cause personal or environmental harm. True mindfulness, however, strives to change the very conditions that cause stress and physical/spiritual harm. It’s not an adaptive technique; it’s cultural revolution. The very people who believe they are being served by learning these techniques are actually just becoming more compliant tools.