How We Ruined Mindfulness

[rug]

Roman Krznaric, a social philosopher in the United Kingdom, is the author most recently of Carpe Diem: Seizing the Day in a Distracted World.

Roman Krznaric
10:46 AM ET

Breathe. Be in the moment. Live in the here and now.

Those are familiar words, I’m sure, because we are living through a mindfulness revolution. Mindfulness courses have swept the world, with hundreds of thousands of people taking classes in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other meditation techniques in community centers, schools, hospitals, prisons and businesses. Moreover, a multitude of studies have suggested that mindfulness is a near-miracle cure for everything from anxiety and depression to heart disease.

But a growing number of critics have been putting mindfulness under the microscope. It may not be the revolutionary panacea for human wellbeing that many of us have come to believe.

One of those critics may surprise you: the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, one of the world’s most famous mindfulness experts. I recently asked Ricard what he thought of the popular secular versions of mindfulness such as MBSR and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which have been described as “Buddhist meditation without the Buddhism.” As someone who has spent four decades in mindful meditation in the foothills of the Himalayas — and is reputed to be “the happiest man in the world” — I fully expected him to be a keen advocate. His response shocked me.

http://time.com/4792596/mindfulness-exercises-morality-carpe-diem/

[AtheistCrusader]

1. A Buddhist pans non-Buddhist secular duplication of part of their mental template.

I am Jack's complete and total lack of surprise.


Also, quelle further surprise he shits on people with rival non-'standard' cognitive processes.

“There are a lot of people speaking about mindfulness,” Ricard told me, “but the risk is that it’s taken too literally — to just ‘be mindful.’ Well, you could have a very mindful sniper and a mindful psychopath. It’s true! A sniper needs to be so focused, never distracted, very calm, always bringing back his attention to the present moment. And non-judgmental — just kill people and no judgment. That could happen!”

You know what? Screw that guy.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-pros-to-being-a-psychopath-96723962/

"You just came back to England this week from the Himalayas. Did that trip have anything to do with your research into psychopaths?

I was running a rather odd study over there. Psychopaths and Buddhists, in terms of their performance in the lab, have certain characteristics in common. They’re good at living in the present. They’re mindful. Both are calm under pressure. They focus on the positive. But also, both are good at mind reading. They’re very good at picking up on micro-expressions, basically lightning-fast changes in facial scenery; our brain downloads onto the muscles of our face before it decides on the real picture that it wants to project to the world. These micro-expressions are invisible to most of our naked eyes. But it seems that expert Buddhist meditators are able to pick them up, probably because they are able to slow down their perception. There’s a recent study that seems to show that psychopaths are also good at picking up on micro-expressions. We don’t really know the reason for that, but it could be that psychopaths might spend more time just studying us."

Let's stop respecting or giving a platform to people who use shades of mental differences or illness as a 'for example' punching bag.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Why are excerpt and bold tags not working?

The last line is me, not a quote from the second article.

[rug]

3. They turned it off after the hack.

I think they're working on improved security. Then it will be back.

[rug]

4. Did you see this?

[AtheistCrusader]

5. No. That last line kinda freaked me out a little bit.

I might give that a watch.

On the flipside, I've recently started focusing on the value inherent in 'other' states of mental cognitive function. I used to not question the common meme that psychopaths are dangerous people, etc. Happened to catch the movie Melancholia, which explored the strengths of what is otherwise viewed as a mental illness. I noticed Microsoft opened a program specifically to recruit a targeted number of people on the autism spectrum. Things like that. I started looking and discovered psychopathy is actually a continuum, and not necessarily anything like pop culture portrays it. There are even instances where it can be an asset.

Imagine a standard mind trying to 'mop up' after Sandy Hook, without suffering significant damage.

Discovering that something is not anything like I thought it was, is an interesting sensation. Looks like the current expression of Buddhism in some places might be an interesting addition to that category.

[rug]

6. I agree that psychopathy is a continuum.

But I also think it has on ramps and, fewer, off ramps.

[underpants]

7. Mindfulness- very interesting

Marking for later read.

[rug]

8. Let me know what you think of it.

[Voltaire2]

9. Morals like the Buddhist morality of the Japanese

military elites during WWII?

I'll stick with secular mindfulness practices and use my own ethics, thanks.