Mindfulness has exploded in recent years, with therapy forms and meditation apps gaining wide popularity. However, a philosopher from the University of Copenhagen warns of the potential for unexamined philosophical assumptions and oversimplifications in mindfulness practice.
Mindfulness therapy has become widespread as a means of helping individuals cope with stress, and many report significant benefits from practicing it. However, the underlying philosophical assumptions of mindfulness should be examined critically and not taken for granted.
Recently, mindfulness, inspired by Buddhist meditation traditions, has grown significantly in popularity. This is evident in the school, medical, and workplace applications where a variety of mindfulness-based therapies are available. Additionally, millions of people around the world have downloaded meditation apps such as his Headspace and Ten Percent Happier.
There is clearly a demand for mindfulness and many people find value in the technique. However, Dr. Odysseus Stone of the University of Copenhagen believes that many of the philosophical assumptions about people and their relationship to the world that underlie mindfulness are rather dubious and should be carefully considered. Masu.
“One of the key claims of mindfulness is that we should learn to see the thoughts and emotions that come and go in our mind as if they were clouds passing through the sky. The idea is that we should be aware of our thoughts and feelings, recognize them as events in our minds, but not give them too much importance or worry too much. And of course, this can sometimes make sense, let’s say you’re about to give a tense presentation at work. However, it may be wise to practice mindfulness by not spending too much energy on tension,” explains Odysseus Stone, who has just completed his doctoral dissertation on mindfulness. It also adds:
“But that’s not all. In mindfulness, this concept is thought to apply to all of our thoughts and emotions, but at least in mindfulness there is no clear-cut way to draw the line. But this It quickly becomes a big issue: Think about the beliefs and attitudes we hold deeply about ourselves, others, and the social and political world around us. Considering the feelings of anger that we might have in our lives, it is helpful to perceive such feelings as passing through the clouds in the sky with little relevance or significance to reality. We have to remember that our thoughts and feelings shape our perspective and open us up to the world. You shouldn’t.”
control one’s attention
All major tech companies are vying for our attention, making them one of the most valuable raw materials in the so-called attention economy. For Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, it’s all about having us spend a limited amount of time on their platforms.
“Attention is also a key theme in mindfulness, and the many exercises that train practitioners to control their attention are often emphasized as a solution to the information overload we are exposed to. It’s all about taking back control, which is a central component of mindfulness-inspired stress therapy, and in many ways, it’s also wise. everyone knows,” said Odysseus Stone, elaborating:
“However, because mindfulness focuses on individual attention, major structural social problems, such as the attention economy, become individual problems rather than what we need to solve together. This criticism has also been raised in the context of workplace stress, where stressed employees are offered courses in mindfulness rather than changing working conditions. In both cases, the broad structures that cause problems are not addressed through mindfulness.
But that’s not the only question about how mindfulness captures attention.
“Furthermore, one might question how mindfulness captures attention itself. However, according to some philosophers and cognitive scientists, this view is all wrong: our attention is highly dependent on our concreteness, and the material and social embedded in context.”
can you live in the moment
An equally important part of the philosophical underpinnings of mindfulness is the idea that we humans spend so much time pondering the past and the future. These thoughts prevent us from living in the present, so instead we need to focus our attention on the present. In general, we should try to be present in life here and now.
“This is an idea that many non-mindfulness practitioners subscribe to. Often it is that the present moment is particularly real or radical, or at least more real than the past or future. According to this view, the sense of oneself as a being with a past and a future, the ‘narrative’ sense of oneself, is based on a kind of error.
But it is also not clear whether we should accept this idea. On the one hand, our stories give meaning and structure to our lives. It is not clear whether they are simply unrealistic or false. On the other hand, it is very difficult to answer when asked, “What exactly is the pure now, or the absolute present, which is supposed to be real?” For our experiences and actions to be coherent, meaningful and understandable to us, they must somehow refer to our past and future. ”
Reference: “Attractive Mindfulness: A Phenomenological Investigation and Criticism” by Odysseus Stone PhD Dissertation University of Copenhagen.