It does not take much to be conscious of the popular terms of “Mindfulness” and “Meditation”. Living in North America would make it difficult to not be at least somewhat familiar with what they mean. They carry a mystical, exotic and most definitely Orientalist connotation and, for many laymen, they have clear and explicit ties to Buddhism. A quick Google search of either of the over-hyped terms and a plethora of videos, articles and other sources are at a person’s disposal – each one claiming to be more authentic and enlightening than the next. However, the sources quickly begin to sound redundant, flaunting their genuine ties to Buddhism and their nearly-magical abilities to cure any ailment. But can these resources even begin to deliver on their promises when they are set up on unrealistic and uninformed grounds? More importantly, can they even be labelled as or linked to Buddhism?
This paper will critically analyze how the terms have evolved to their modern meaning in the West and become a tool for profiteering, with little true remaining relation to Buddhism. The paper will also explain contextual factors of the mindfulness movement and meditation, as well as Buddhism, with an emphasis put on Tibetan Buddhism. The paper will conclude that, though mindfulness and meditation can be useful tools to individuals, the way in which they are marketed in the Capitalist West makes them inherently separate from the Buddhist tradition, risks harming the Buddhist tradition by eliminating the important components of dialogue and community, and carries potentially harmful political ramifications by pacifying individuals to believe their problems are a matter of perception, instead of a matter of socio-cultural barriers.
To begin, it is important define some of the terms essential to this paper and to establish the recent rise and popularity of self-help in the form of meditation and mindfulness. Defining mindfulness and meditation can be difficult due to the plethora of sources with varying thoughts on the terms and their differences, but for the purposes of this paper, I will try to provide an extrapolated definition of both: Meditation is the sort of umbrella term for a variety of consistent contemplative practices, one of which is mindfulness, or smarti (Mikulas, 2011). These practices can have different purposes and forms. Meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition takes on 3 stages – listening, contemplating and meditating (Rinpoche et al., 1994). Meditation can take on insightful, calming, compassionate and empty purposes, for example (Lopez, 2018). The purposes of it can be for insight, awareness and focus, among others. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a technique of focusing in which a practitioner attempts to notice his/her current sensations, thoughts and feelings without judging them. It is garnering an observation of 4 dimensions – your own body, own feelings, own mind and phenomena (Mikulas, 2011).
In the West, the Buddhist Modernist-linked concepts of mindfulness and meditation have garnered incredible popularity (Caless, 2019). They have become buzz-words popular with celebrities, many of whom claim their own lives have been bettered by beginning the practices. But what is Buddhist Modernism, this goliath standing behind the rise of meditation and modernism?
A global movement, Buddhist modernism was like a cultural fusion of Asian and Western Buddhist interests (Sharf, 2007). For the Asian Buddhists, many of whom were coming to terms with the major cultural changes in their homelands, the Western-based religious critiques resonated greatly. For the Western Buddhists, Buddhism served as a unique spiritual alternative to the more common Western Judeo-Christian options. This seems good and fine until it is considered that the Buddhism the Western audiences have grown to embrace is a form of Buddhism that has already undergone massive transformations as a result of Western influences that occurred in colonialized and globalized Asian Buddhist nations, like Sri Lanka and Japan (Lenoir and Vale, 1999). This Buddhism is attractive to the West because it was shaped largely by it, but this begs the question of is it really Buddhism? That will be answered later on in the paper.
Founders of Buddhist Modernism, like D.T. Suzuki, seem to condense Buddhism in a series of quick-fix solutions to modern problems. Suzuki introduced the concept of sudden enlightenment, or satori, based on his own admiration of William James, who believed that all religion should be about an unmediated experience with God (Sharf, 2007). Though not necessarily problematic, this idea stood in direct opposition to one of the 3 treasures of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha – the sangha, or community. This notion of Buddhism as a quick-fix solution to life’s problems via meditation became essentialized as the core of Buddhism (Sharf, 2007). It further got touted as a religion that was in line with modern scientific beliefs and could be adopted as a lifestyle, which suits each individual’s needs, as opposed to a structured religion (Prebish and Baumann, 2019). This is harmful because of the Buddhist components it excludes.
The ripple effects of Buddhist Modernism are undoubted. In the practices of clinical psychology and psychiatry, too, mindfulness and meditation have become remarkably popular (Chiesa and Malinowski, 2011). A search of the Indigo Website (2021), Canada’s most popular bookstore, yields over three thousand results for the keyword mindfulness and more than twenty-five thousand results for meditation. Clearly, they are relevant and important subjects in the lives of Canadians. Many of the books happen to be classified under the self-help section and tout ties to Buddhism as evidence for their authenticity and effectivity. They come with beautiful covers, often featuring mandalas or other distinctly stereotypical far-eastern Buddhist imagery. They also often come with exorbitant price tags, yet people buy them, and they have become an industry.
In fact, they have become so much so an industry that mindfulness and meditation are now worth nearly 2 billion US dollars, and they are not stopping (Caless, 2019). Forecasts predict the industry to grow by 11.4% each year, too. This is hardly surprising when it is considered that mindfulness has penetrated everything from Corporate America, even enjoying a stint at the World Economic Forum in Davos, to the US military, to public schools (Purser, 2020).
Keeping this information in mind makes it easy to see why modern mindfulness leaders, like Jon Kabat-Zinn, work in their industry. Leaders like him promote ideas of using meditation and mindfulness as tools to find peace within and escape the stresses caused by modern life. Kabat-Zinn himself believes that Western society suffers from an inability to focus and an intense system of circular thought (Purser, 2019). This “thinking disease”, as he calls it, leads him to claim that “entire society is suffering from attention deficit disorder – big time” (Kabat-Zinn, 2016).
Having established this cultural malaise, Kabat-Zinn, as well as other mindfulness advocates, advocate for a silent and internalized revolution – the kind that only individual mindfulness can inspire (Kabat-Zinn, 2016). Though on the surface a positive-seeming claim, this idea can be harmful in two ways: Firstly, the way the idea is marketed and the claims it makes to Buddhist-affiliations are inherently Orientalist and condescending. Secondly, the notion that an answer to a person’s troubles is within them enables harmful societal constructs and neoliberal capitalist structures to persist and become stronger. Rather than focusing on taking those down in unified and communitarian revolutionary ways, mindfulness and meditation perpetuate the problem and pacify the society.
Orientalism is a term coined by Edward Saïd to describe the commonly simplistic, exotified and stereotypical view of the East that the West has (Saïd, 1979). It also has relation to how the West views the East as a single entity, not recognizing the vast cultural differences between cultures there. This Orientalism can manifest in many ways, depending on the culture at hand (Snodgrass, 2003). Though Saïd’s writing focused predominantly on Middle Eastern cultures, and the West’s exotification of Arabia, his writings are still applicable to East Asia.
In terms of Buddhist-esque mindfulness and meditation marketed in the West, Orientalism shows itself often in imagery (Snodgrass, 2003). Linking stereotypical imagery like mandalas or the Buddha to books about mindfulness and meditation is not necessarily relevant to the topics at hand. Rather, that sort of imagery is linked to the resources to increase market-value, so that a layman feels the content provided comes from a reputable and genuine Buddhist source, when in actuality, it may have very little linkage to it. This is evidenced by a simple Google search of the “definition of mindfulness in Buddhism” (Google, 2021). Millions of results appear and overwhelm a reader – each one claiming it knows best. Some say that meditation is awareness of nothing, whereas mindfulness is awareness of something (Snodgrass, 2003). Others claim meditation is a way to get to mindfulness. Others tell you that mindfulness is a lifestyle that can be cultivated through practice. But which one is inherently Buddhist and which one is trust-worthy? It is essentially impossible to know.
Of course, that is not to say that all mindfulness and meditation resources are Orientalist or inherently malicious and misleading because they are not. The issue is that having so many that are exotifications of the Buddhist tradition causes an oversimplification and misrepresentation of a deeply-ingrained, over-two-thousand-year-old religion (Snodgrass, 2003).
Some would argue that this oversimplification of a religion is not intrinsically problematic. After all, every religion is read selectively, so picking and choosing certain parts is a given, especially in a religion like Buddhism that has such a rich canon (Sharf, 2015). Sometimes there is even a benefit to simplification – it makes the religion more approachable and appealing. Though parts of that may be true, it is not necessarily what is chosen that is the issue – it is what gets left behind.
It seems that Buddhism in the West has been concentrated and diluted at the same time. In one sense, a lot of the experiential gains that exist over a lifetime of practicing Buddhism have been essentialized into quick glimpses of nirvana that can be achieved in a mere session of meditation (Sharf, 2007). In another sense, a vast assortment of traditions and rituals, all incredibly pertinent to Buddhism, have been lost in the process of over-saturating meditation and mindfulness in the West and then sending it back to Asia to be exported to the West yet again (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). That is not to say that mindfulness and meditation do not have a place in Buddhism. Of course, they have clear Buddhist roots (Sharf, 2015). Buddha himself became enlightened through meditating under the Bodhi tree. But meditation does not equal Buddhism. Additionally, the purpose and reason behind mindfulness and meditation can be very different (Dorjee, 2010). Rather than being a be-all-end-all destination of Buddhism, they are very much more a pitstop in a much greater journey.
Another issue with focusing on these inherently personal and individualistic components of Buddhism is that one of the religion’s three treasures can become lost – the religious community aspect, or sangha (Sharf, 2007). Losing, or lessening, this aspect carries with it a few harmful by-products: First, it can serve to promote a self-centered -and almost narcissistic- practicing of Buddhism, which starkly opposes some fundamental principles of the religion . Modernism, though attractive due to its removed nature from the confounds of traditional religion, is a double-edged sword, which can really stand in opposition to the traditional Buddhist religion (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). Rather than considering oneself to be the center of the universe and focusing nearly-exclusively on self-centered problems, Buddhism strives to have followers transcend those tendencies and position themselves in a less-egocentric way. When the sangha component is disregarded, an ironic enlarging of those exact self-centric tendencies can appear (Sharf, 2007).
Secondly, the sangha provided a system of checks and balances within the Buddhist community (Sharf, 2007). These checks on Buddhist teachers often came from more senior members of the community. I imagine that this ensured a more objective and uniform teaching of Buddhism, which in turn promoted a more cohesive understanding of the religion among followers. With Buddhist Modernism being such a personal experience though, people seeking guidance on the religion are faced with a difficult task when trying to find it. Rather than knowing based on the community which teachers are qualified and effective at passing down religious guidance, finding the guidance sought becomes a confusing task. Often times, the teacher is chosen not for their proven guidance, but for their superficial marketability (Caless, 2019).
It is also interesting to note that, often times, the Buddhism that has become popular and mainstream in the West comes from Buddhist teachers who were controversial in their homelands (Prebish and Baumann, 2019). Insight meditation, one of the most popular forms of meditation in North America is based off of techniques established by Burmese meditation teachers who were criticized within their own communities for their propagation of attaining quick-fix experiential Buddhist states, like sotapatti (Sharf, 2007). This really is where the root of the issues faced by Buddhist Modernism begin.
This picking-and-choosing of parts of Buddhism risks creating sectarian and closed-off forms of the religion (Farias and Wilkholm, 2015). This is a problem that cuts at the very heart of Buddhism because, according to Professor Robert Sharf of Berkeley (2007), Buddhism “is a conversation about what it is to be a human being: why we suffer, how we can resolve our suffering, what works, what doesn’t, and so forth.” By forming various sects and parts, the ever-important dialogue and conversation between members of the sangha can be cut-off or narrowed and that is an intrinsically negative thing. Again, it is not that simplifying Buddhism is a bad thing, it is that it makes it difficult to have that conversation. Considering that conversation is such an intrinsic component of the religion, losing it would be devastating and simply non-Buddhist (Sharf, 2015).
This brings us to another issue when Buddhist Modernism is examined under the neoliberal Capitalist framework. To exist and survive in a Capitalist model, it is pertinent that people buy into a product or service. Rather than taking the cumbersome time and resources needed to educate oneself about a particular subject, it is much easier to walk into a bookstore and buy the book about Buddhism with the most Orientalist cover (Purser, 2020). This conveys a sense of authenticity, though in fact, the book could be very skewed and unrelated to Buddhism. Naturally, the extent to which this is the case varies from book to book. However, often times, the author of the book has little confirmable experience studying Buddhism, or simply refers to his/her writings as Buddhist though they are not, or very minimally Buddhist (Purser, 2019).
That issue aside, mindfulness has evolved to be a sort of tool of Capitalist structures to pacify the masses (Purser, 2020). Rather than recognizing grave injustices in society and addressing them through political and revolutionary tactics, people are convinced that their stresses and worries stem from themselves. If they can meditate and be mindful, they will feel at peace with their situations and no societal or structural changes will need to occur. Of course, this is not always true. In many situations, a person’s stress and difficulty stems from a societal impediment to their success: For example, a black man in the United States being marginalized and oppressed due to systemic barriers in the US to his employment. Naturally, these conditions would lead to a feeling of injustice and discontent.
If examined, many of these issues could be traced back to the perils of neoliberal capitalism (Purser, 2020). However, with the rise of meditation and mindfulness, rather than addressing those issues in a bold and external way, people are encouraged to deal with them in an internalized way. That is to say that that black man is encouraged to change his thinking and perception, instead of seeking social and structural justice. This can be highly problematic on a much grander scale and cause a form of perpetuation of injustice and stagnation of progress (Purser, 2019).
Obviously, this is not always the case. Mindfulness and meditation can serve important purposes and be of great benefit to many people. Some would argue that it is positive that even the slightest bit of Buddhism caught on in the West. Since it is still a relatively new concept here, it obviously cannot be full-fledged yet (Kirmayer, 2015). As well, it obviously needs to be malleable enough to get a foothold in a very different cultural environment, like North America.
It is well-known that religions have to adapt with changing times. Many Christian denominations have begun embracing LGBTQ members into their churches (Jenkins, 2002). Even a mere decade ago, this notion would have been unfathomable. In medieval Japan, Buddhism had to undergo changes to catch on as a popular religion. Among these changes were the single practice movements of Jodo Shinsu and Nichiren (Sharf, 2007). Translation, too, tends to be a changing force in religions. In China, when parts of the originally Sanskrit Buddhist scripture were translated, certain words were translated to terms that would be more easily adopted and integrated into the culture of the times (Sharf, 2007).
In the 1970s, there was a reformation within the Protestant Church (Jenkins, 2002). It was conducted because the church was losing members who were disillusioned by strict and rigid customs and traditions. This reformation made True Christianity “a matter of the heart: the personal experience of the divine, a private relationship between an individual and God.” (Sharf, 2007). It gradually evolved to become socially acceptable to proclaim oneself to be a Christian despite not going to Church on Sundays, for example. Perhaps Buddhism in the West is on a similar course.
To answer the lingering question of is the mindfulness and meditation movement inherently Buddhist: That is debatable. In some ways it is because it stems from clearly Buddhist ideals, though the amount to which it does tend to be over-emphasized. (Additionally, it often tends to falsely link practices to Buddhism when they in fact have no relation.) (Kirmayer, 2015; Dorjee, 2010). In other ways, it is not because it squashes the ability for conversation and community. In my opinion, the West’s take on Buddhism is the way it is because it is convenient for a society that is too lazy to pester itself with traditions and rituals and community dialogue. This is unfortunate and misleading. I, therefore, would not consider the mindfulness and meditation movements Buddhist.
I think there is great merit to why so many of the teachers popular in the West were criticized for providing quick-fixes to their followers. I also think that religion is a lifelong journey and practice. Picking and choosing what works for you and discarding what does not takes away from that experience and makes it much less enlightening than it could be.
I would say that the next time you see a White person draped in expensive silk scarves telling you that Buddhism, and mindfulness, and meditation, is a lifestyle choice that saved them from their depression, take a step back and examine whether or not they stand to gain the money they need to finance their soul-searching trips to Cambodia from selling you that vision in a self-help book. Actually, be mindful of how you spend your money and meditate on if that sort of expenditure is actually going to cure your own anxiety or only make it worse.
Of course, all things change with time. Maybe a more genuine and holistic embracing of Buddhism is to come in the West – no one can say for sure. What can be said with certainty is that mindfulness and meditation only scratch the surface of a very complex and beautiful religion.
