Mindfulness meditation in America has a capitalism problem

As scores of people across the world take to meditation as a tool to enhance mental health, this interview with David Forbes, a professor at Brooklyn college, brings out how even this could be falling prey to capitalism. Calm, a popular mobile app used for meditation is already a unicorn (valued at over a billion dollars).

“The number of Americans who’ve tried meditation has tripled since 2012. And many are doing a specific practice with Buddhist roots called mindfulness, which involves directing your attention to your experience in the present moment with kindness and without judgment. The practice is increasingly being offered in schools, health care facilities, and prisons to improve well-being. So how is this a bad thing?…

…. The mindfulness you see in Buddhist communities is not the same mindfulness being promoted in corporations and schools across the country…. At the same time, mindfulness is also becoming an industry, and lots of companies are cashing in on it. … there are money-making studios popping up all over the place. And mindfulness is being marketed [by them] as very much an individualistic practice, which is not healthy and even further contributes to stress and ill-health.

Buddhists seek to let go of attachment to the myth of the private, solid, unchanging self, and to promote universal compassion and end universal suffering.

But capitalist culture enforces the myth of the privatized, self-centered self. So unless mindfulness is employed in the service of making the world a better place — then practicing can and does end up serving to maintain the very self-centered, greedy, individualistic institutions and relationships that contribute to the lack of connected presence, kindness, and compassion that contribute to our unhappiness.

Buddhism has ethical values and practices such as non-violence. Its deeper moral stance is that we are interconnected with all beings, to all our social relationships and institutions, and with the earth itself.

People will argue that you become kinder and more compassionate just by practicing mindfulness. But I believe people need a moral framework in addition to mindfulness, some social vision to guide them. I think [in many US contexts it has] been severed from this moral tradition. Without that, meditation can become just another tool of self-absorption.

… problem is that it ultimately doesn’t go far enough because it reinforces the sources of our unhappiness. As long as mindfulness is focused on the individual and not on our social situation, it will not help us change the conditions that are making us unhappy, namely a hyper-competitive, ultra-individualistic culture that separates and alienates us…”

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If you want to read our other published material, please visit https://marcellus.in/blog/

Note: The above material is neither investment research, nor financial advice. Marcellus does not seek payment for or business from this publication in any shape or form. The information provided is intended for educational purposes only. Marcellus Investment Managers is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and is also an FME (Non-Retail) with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) as a provider of Portfolio Management Services. Additionally, Marcellus is also registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (“US SEC”) as an Investment Advisor.