Reducing suffering is a noble aim and it should be encouraged. But to do this effectively, teachers of mindfulness need to acknowledge that personal stress also has societal causes. By failing to address collective suffering, and systemic change that might remove it, they rob mindfulness of its real revolutionary potential, reducing it to something banal that keeps people focused on themselves.
Unlike most articles on mindfulness, I found this one stimulating. It’s a long read, but makes some good points. I find some mindfulness practices helpful, but there is a potential for mindfulness to be reduced to a self-help ritual, or exploited as a commodity. And mindfulness is arguably a disposition rather than a technique.
Let me know what you think.
iDigress 