Is Mindfulness Making Us Selfless or Just Selfish?

Mindfulness can be the key to compassion, or just another exercise in self-absorption

Illustration: created by the author with Midjourney.

From the moment the universe flung itself into existence, it took over 13 billion years for conscious life forms to arise on the earth. The first thing we did was start killing each other.

Our self-inflicted suffering can mostly — perhaps entirely — be traced to the illusion that we are separate selves that need to be protected from, and favored over, other separate selves. With its focus on conscious awareness and the illusion of self, mindfulness would seem to be uniquely suited to wake us up from this discursive nightmare into a reality dominated by compassion.

But much of modern mindfulness seems to be packaged solely as self-help (“feel more calm in just 5 minutes a day with our app!”) rather than selflessness. How did that come to pass, and how can we tap into the potential interpersonal and social benefits of mindfulness?

Pure extract of mindfulness

In general terms, mindfulness is an inquiry into the true nature of consciousness and an attempt to align all of life with the results of that inquiry. This usually involves meditation — non-judgemental and non-clinging awareness of whatever…