Can Mindfulness Change The World?
Promoters of the meditation technique make big claims — but do they stack up?
The monetisation of spirituality is nothing new. From televangelists to gurus, there’s a tangled thread between the dollar and the dharma. McMindfulness, Ronald Purser’s exploration of the popular awareness and meditation technique’s embeddedness in corporate life, chronicles the most recent incarnation.
In the last couple of decades, mindfulness has become a big deal. Courses have found their way into U.S. schools, massive corporations like Google, the U.K. National Health Service and even the British Houses of Parliament. Democratic Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan is a devotee. The app stores teem with downloadables, YouTube has a gazillion free meditations, there’s a plethora of celebrity evangelists and a host of neuroscientists affirming its benefits. Even the American military has its own mindfulness program.
Mindfulness, for anyone who has been living under a rock, is a practice of non-judgmental, present-moment awareness. It may help you become more focused and engaged with the world around you by facilitating dissociation from the constant background noise and mind-chatter most of us live with — projecting, ruminating, regretting, debating. Whether you’re practising mindfulness in close-eyed meditation…
