{"id":5907,"date":"2016-05-24T22:27:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T04:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?p=5907"},"modified":"2016-05-25T15:30:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T21:30:29","slug":"on-modern-mindfulness-buddhism-and-social-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2016\/05\/on-modern-mindfulness-buddhism-and-social-ethics.html","title":{"rendered":"On Modern Mindfulness, Buddhism, and Social Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There is much about mindfulness being published these days: studies, meta-studies, mega-studies, maha-megha-studies (bad\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0studies joke). And then there are the opinion pieces; \u201cWe\u2019re all doomed. Mindfulness? Humph!\u201d<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my introduction to Doug Smith\u2019s recent article here<\/a>, what we are seeing is the growth of a discussion, a dialogue. And as with many early discussions with disparate parties, it can sound a bit \u201cnoisy\u201d, and sometimes well-meaning people who are quite close in their views can seem miles apart.<\/p>\n

Let me begin by briefly summarizing Doug\u2019s piece after\u00a0those he draws from.<\/p>\n

Purser and Ng<\/h3>\n

Most recent are two articles co-authored by Ron Purser and Edwin Ng: \u201cCutting Through the Corporate Mindfulness Hype<\/a>\u201d and \u201cMindfulness and Self-Care: Why Should I Care?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The first of these explicitly points to the linkage between contemporary mindfulness practices (which are\u00a0acknowledged as useful in lowering individual stress and helping with focus) and corporate\/organization level discourse. \u00a0Claims about the benefits of mindfulness aren\u2019t disputed; it is the unwarranted contorting of those claims into \u201cmanagement science\u201d, which \u201chas a long and dubious history\u201d that has Purser and Ng worried. This focus of criticism is again stated near the end, \u201cTherapeutic benefits is one thing, callous institutional imperatives are another matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second piece, lead-authored by Edwin Ng, they pivot toward real life examples of \u201ccritical mindfulness\u201d which \u201cinvites people to be receptive to \u2018who knows?\u2019 by questioning for themselves the everyday \u2018rules of the game\u2019. To use critical mindfulness for ethical self-care is to perform an experiment\u2026. to expose and transform the assumptions and conditionings shaping subjective experience.\u201d So the critique is not against mindfulness per se, but rather an attempt to open up questions (beginning with the title itself). The point seems to be that even the choice to take up mindfulness should be made with a deeper question of\u00a0why<\/em>; the sort that philosophers and three year-olds are famous for. This\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0keeps popping up, and while perhaps irritating, it is meant to be cleansing, like the scrubbing of a mirror or the dirt off one\u2019s body after a long day of labor.<\/p>\n

Schettini<\/h3>\n

Doug also brings up Stephen Schettini\u2019s 2014 article \u201cMindful, or Mind Empty<\/a>\u201c. In it, Schettini himself does us the service of summarizing then-recent developments, from articles by Joshua Eaton<\/a>,\u00a0Ron Purser and David Forbes<\/a>, and\u00a0Amanda Ream<\/a>, all critical of certain developments in modern mindfulness (and its use by the wealthiest in society). Schettini\u2019s response: \u201csame old.\u201d Industrialists co-opted Christianity in the nineteenth century\u00a0and beyond, so we shouldn\u2019t be surprised that aspects of Buddhism<\/a> are being utilized along similar lines. And to what harm? \u201cYou\u2019ll just have to do with mindfulness what you can. Buddhism has lost control of the term. It drifts through the idiom like a lost balloon, as misunderstood now as Karma\u2122<\/a> and Samsara\u2122<\/a>. Some people will use it to calm down, perhaps even delay heart-attacks. Good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purser and Loy<\/h3>\n

Finally, Doug points back to the still earlier (2013) article by Purser and David Loy, \u201cBeyond McMindfulness<\/a>\u201c, which I have already discussed at some length<\/a>. It is there that Doug finds the claim that he bases his piece on:\u00a0\u201cUncoupling mindfulness from its ethical and religious Buddhist context \u2026 decontextualizing [it] from its original liberative and transformative purpose, as well as its foundation in social ethics \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith<\/h3>\n

Doug\u2019s piece<\/a> asks if this is, in fact, what is happening by digging into that very\u00a0historical\/textual context. His findings suggest that the Buddha had no problem teaching meditation to laypeople, and his teachings on ethics to the laity were toned down considerably from what he taught to monastics. This is important, as some contemporary writers still mistake Buddhist ethics as monolithic and renunciatory in nature. The truth is, Buddhist ethics are far more diverse and complex, from the earliest tradition (based on what we know of it) to today. Doug draws from Richard Gombrich in a section titled \u201cThe Buddha Was Not an Ethical Perfectionist\u201d, showing his use of compromise and pragmatic rule-creation. He concludes that the criticisms of modern mindfulness seem to have their roots more in the radical ideals of early Christianity than Buddhism.<\/p>\n

In further analyzing the \u201cfoundations of social ethics\u201d in the original teachings, Doug points to alcohol and sex as better targets of worry than \u201cprofit\u201d for laypeople. He writes, \u201cAt any rate, the Buddha\u2019s message contains no anti-capitalist message remotely as strong as his message against alcohol and sex. Insofar as we are concerned with recovering Buddhism\u2019s \u2018original liberative purpose\u2019 we should be aiming for eradication of the latter rather than the former.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflections<\/h3>\n
\"speak
Image via Pixabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I mentioned at the start, I think some of these discussions involve well-meaning people speaking past one another. This can happen for a number of reasons, from geographic and educational backgrounds to the necessary brevity of blog-posts\/articles like this one. Doug tends to read the above posts as suggesting\u00a0\u201ccensure or vilification\u201d\u00a0of mindfulness practice by wealth-seeking laity, and indeed that could be a fair reading. However, the articles could be read as much more focused on particular trends<\/em><\/strong> in-or alongside<\/em>\u2013 mindfulness practice today\u00a0(Purser is a professor of management, Ng is a cultural\u00a0critic, Schettini is himself a mindfulness teacher). Everyone seems to be in favor of mindfulness, it\u2019s just a matter of how \u2013 and who profits?<\/em><\/p>\n

Returning to what I wrote in 2013 (Mindfulness: Critics and Defenders<\/a>), the discussion seems to follow the\u00a0\u201ctug-of-war\u201d that has been happening in Buddhism going back at least to the 8th century in China \u2013 perhaps earlier if we read some of the debates happening in the lifetime of the Buddha and immediately thereafter. How much do ethics really matter? As Doug\u2019s piece points out and we find throughout the history of Buddhism, there is a certain amount of pragmatism in Buddhist ethics, not every \u201cgood Buddhist\u201d needs to drop everything and follow the Buddha into homelessness.<\/p>\n

As Peter Turner noted in a comment on a post here in January (Mindfulness: the Single most impactful aspect of Buddhism in America<\/a>), \u201cAll beginning\u00a0meditators are first motivated by superficial and\/or selfish reasons. The\u00a0Buddha discovered that when practiced correctly and diligently, mindfulness\u00a0meditation was key to his realization of the Three Marks of existence\u2026\u201d \u00a0So we might allow that individuals come to mindfulness for the wrong reasons. Perhaps, too, we can let corporations have their mindfulness? From a strictly Buddhist ethical point of view, there is no reason to deny them tout court<\/em>. I don\u2019t think Purser or Ng are trying to do this \u2013 their first article seems to say simply that \u201cyou can\u2019t claim systemic benefits where there is no evidence of systemic benefits\u2026\u201d and \u201cyou can\u2019t claim power neutrality\u201d where there is none.<\/p>\n

The clearer target would be other activities, as Doug suggests for individuals. Does the corporation promote harmful drug use or destroy the environment? In those cases the ethical Buddhist would be obliged, I think, to point out the harm<\/a> and seek its cessation.\u00a0Even though Buddhist soteriology is clearly directed at awakening, and this generally requires abandonment of wealth, sex, and alcohol at some point, plenty of Buddhism (the bulk in terms of sheer numbers) is found in the lives of ordinary people. Nudging people toward a more (Buddhist) ethical life through teaching mindfulness is one option. Nudging them toward historical Buddhist principles and understandings is another. Lastly, developing the Buddha\u2019s social ethics by pointing\u00a0at entire systems of dysfunction as in need of abandoning, as the Buddha did at times (most notably in DN 2, \u201cThe Fruits of the Contemplative Life\u201d), is a worthy activity which has been largely lost as Buddhism has come to the West.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is much about mindfulness being published these days: studies, meta-studies, mega-studies, maha-megha-studies (bad\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0studies joke). And then there are the opinion pieces; \u201cWe\u2019re all doomed. Mindfulness? Humph!\u201d As I mentioned in my introduction to Doug Smith\u2019s recent article here, what we are seeing is the growth of a discussion, a dialogue. And as with many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":5917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9,15,189,5,19],"tags":[519,570,516,102,571],"class_list":["post-5907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia","category-american-buddhism","category-buddhism","category-buddhism-today","category-buddhist-ethics","category-meditation","tag-american-buddhism","tag-buddhism-in-the-west","tag-buddhist-ethics","tag-mindfulness","tag-social-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Modern Mindfulness, Buddhism, and Social Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is much about mindfulness being published these days: studies, meta-studies, mega-studies, maha-megha-studies (bad\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0studies joke). 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