just for Marxists

TLDR: Mindfulness and the industry surrounding it are evil because they don't help start the worker uprising and revolution. As a secondary point, mindfulness is a product that helps people who purchase it and earns money for people who make/sell it - which is also very bad. Lastly, the world "Neoliberalism" manages to appear in this book more often than the word "mindfulness" - perhaps symbolically.

If you're already Marxist - you'll love this; otherwise, I can't see how most of the critique is relevant.

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3 people found this helpful

Brilliant!

Badly needed critique of the mindfulness industry... Please face the truth and do not ignore this book, the way mindfulness is thought needs to change.

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Jon Kabat-Zinn? Jon Kabat Burn, am I right?

Bracingly brutal takedown of the mindful-industrial complex backed with good science, astute politics, and jokes. There are a few issues, however.

The first is the author's exact stance towards the practices. He's a Buddhist himself, and there are times when the argument assumes a necessary sanctity to Buddhist religious thinking that not everyone might be willing to extend. As an example, he acknowledges that Buddhism has been co-opted in the past for repressive and statist uses but does not, for the religiously sceptical, fully explain why this is less a part of Buddhism than the revelatory and liberational potential he sees in it. Connected to this is his insistence that mindfulness cannot itself teach ethics and is therefore suspect or useless - but he does not consider how mindfulness might fit in with someone's extant, non-buddhist, ethics as a supplement. I base this on my own experience; I find mindfulness a useful adjunct to my practices, which include a functional ethics.

Probably the most significant issue is his uneasiness about whether or not mindfulness actually works. Obviously, the claims for mindfulness in the early stages were greatly exaggerated. His attack on the methods and reporting employed to do this is a strong area of the book, and more sober reviews has swept many of those claims away - but it leaves a problem for the book. If mindfulness doesn't really work, why should we care if the idiots of capital expend resources on its use? His argument about how it can still be used to shift responsibility for self management onto the individuals, rather than allowing for a critical examination of the connections around us, is still pertinent, but the extension - mindfulness itself shaping us as neoliberal agents - becomes less convincing.

Still a cracking listen/read, though!

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Included in my favourite books list.

This is a must read for anyone who is interested in meditation. It's quite unexpectedly one of the greatest books I have come across. It's a must read and I cannot recommend it enough.

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Some fantastic points - the great hijack of mindfulness

Purser really raises some interesting questions about how mindfulness has been hijacked to encourage compliance in a capitalist society. He acknowledges some of the benefits but questions the underlying science and the limitations that arise when mindfulness is decontextualised. A really thought provoking read.

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No need to get hysterical

We judge an act based on the intention of the doer. If mindfulness is used to distract employees from the real causes of their stress, we will judge it negatively, if it causes young people to be more aware and improves concentration, it will be good. As an exercise in concentration, perhaps it will contribute to better execution of military operations, including shooting the enemy whoever it may be at any given moment. The suggestion that mindfulness is a tool for terrorists and assassins is a bit clumsy and unnecessary. It's certainly disgusting to keep people believing that mindfulness will solve all the problems that lie solely within them and that solving them will result in happiness and abundance. But I don't think we should get hysterical about it, even if the mindfulness enterprise comes out of someone's greed on some level still can be used "mindfully". Some of the indoctrinated will keep their common sense and heart in place, others will change jobs and retrain as mindfulness instructors, etc. It seems that Mr. Kabat-Zin is really a terrible cynic, after all, he sold the Buddha in disguise for fat millions in XXI century.

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