9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga

ing Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…

susan kaiser greenland

Meet Kristin Neff, Author of Fierce Self-Compassion

Watch these fun mindful games for home, school, and Zoom.

FEBRUARY 2, 2020

Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read

an excerpt from her new book,
“Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in
Public Schools: Reforming Secular
Education or Re-establishing Religion?”
Interviewed by Marlena Trafas

Note from Susan

Two months ago we posted the first of several profiles of people

who are either skeptical of the mindfulness movement or
skeptical of its backlash. Marlena Trafas’ excellent Q & A with
Candy Gunther Brown is the second of what will ultimately be
f h fil (d di i i h d id dd
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9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…
four such profiles (depending on interest, we might decide to add
susancomments
more later). Moderated kaiser greenland
are open and welcome on
these and all other profiles.

Full disclosure,  in her latest book, Dr. Gunther Brown was

critical of some of my early writing.  I don't entirely agree with her
criticism of me, nor with every position she takes in this profile,
but her points are well taken. I feel strongly that Dr. Gunther
Brown’s voice is one that should be heard and that those
bringing mindfulness into schools would be well served by
considering her perspective. 

Editor’s Note 

Candy Gunter Brown, earned her BA, MA, and Ph.D from Harvard
University. She is a professor of Religious Studies at Indiana
University and has authored many works including The Healing
Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian
America (Oxford University Press, 2013); Testing Prayer: Science
and Healing (Harvard University Press, 2012), Global
Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, as editor (Oxford University
Press, 2011), and The Word in the World: Evangelical Writing,
Publishing, and Reading in America, 1789-1880 (University of
North Carolina Press, 2004). Her research spans the globe—
she’s conducted studies on the health effects of prayer, religious
belief, and complementary and alternative medicine in the
United States, Canada, Brazil, and Mozambique.

As an expert in the field,

Brown was sought out as a
legal expert on the
constitutionality of
mindfulness in public
schools. Her newest book
covers her role as expert
witness in the legal debate and her key takeaways from the
experience. Below, she discusses the legal definitions of
“religion” and “yoga”, biases in mindfulness research, and how
an opt-in policy is the best structure for mindfulness curricula in
public schools. 

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9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…

susan kaiser greenland

an excerpt from “debating yoga and mindfulness

in public schools: reforming secular education or
re-establishing religion?”
Yoga and mindfulness are the hottest trends in American
education. Most people assume that, despite roots in Hinduism,
Buddhism, and other religious and spiritual traditions, only
secularized versions are taught in public schools. I shared this
assumption—until I examined the histories and contexts of
nominally secular yoga, mindfulness, and other meditation
programs, serving as an expert witness in four legal challenges.
My conclusion, after fifteen years of related research, including
five years writing this book, is that many programs are both
secular and religious in purpose and effects. Paradoxically,
secular framing can both veil and heighten religious effects
through encouraging participation by those who would abstain if
they initially perceived these practices as religious. This book
argues that integrating yoga and mindfulness into public
education may result in an unrecognized, fundamental historic
and legal transformation: the reestablishment of religion in
America. 

Mindfulness promises to resolve a perceived crisis in American

education by relieving stress, focusing attention, promoting
social and emotional learning, and cultivating “character” traits
such as compassion, kindness, and generosity. Nominally
secular programs foreground scientific research, while avoiding
religious-sounding terms such as “Buddhism” and “meditation.”
Many programs were developed by Buddhists or Buddhist
sympathizers and teach a worldview and way of life premised on
more-than-physical assumptions about the nature of reality, self,
and the path to salvation from suffering. There are ethical and
legal reasons for transparency about strengths and limitations of
scientific support, risks of adverse and/or religious results, and
contraindications and alternatives. 

Part I outlines the educational and legal contexts in which yoga

and meditation entered the educational mainstream Part II
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9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…
and meditation entered the educational mainstream. Part II
narrates how yoga was integrated
susan kaiser into public schools. Part III
greenland
examines the emergence of mindfulness as presumed antidote
for the modern malady of stress. Chapter 8 unpacks the cultural
and religious history of the modern American concept of
“mindfulness” and explains how this notion embeds Buddhist-
inspired assumptions and ideals even when marketed as a
secular technique that promotes universal values. Chapter 9
assesses MindUP, Mindful Schools, and Calmer Choice as
representative. Part IV illuminates how religion, money, and
politics interact to shape legal outcomes. Part V clarifies the
stakes. Chapter 12 contextualizes scientific claims about health
benefits and considers evidence of adverse effects. Chapter 13
develops a theory to explain how embodied practices may
change religious beliefs and values. Chapter 14 advances an
ethical argument that respect for cultural and religious diversity
and informed consent require transparency and voluntarism.

The conclusion recommends best practices for educators,

courts, and families—proposing an opt-in model of informed
consent. My goal is not to ban practices. Blanket prohibitions
would be as contrary to equality, nondiscrimination, and
voluntarism as mandatory programs. But automatically enrolling
participants unless they opt out plays on human inertia, herd
instincts, respect for authority, and peer pressure. Opt-in versus
opt-out programs better facilitate active decision-making and
informed consent. Additionally, opt-in programs, especially if
offered by nonschool personnel during noninstructional hours
(before or after school or during lunch recess), are more likely to
survive constitutional challenges.

How did your understanding of religion and secularism in

public schools evolve as you became an expert witness in
these legal cases? 

I have been asked to render expert opinions in legal challenges

over public-school Ashtanga yoga, Superbrain yoga, Waldorf
Methods, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Along the
way, I have read and listened to the perspectives of many
people, ranging from supporters to critics. One of the things I
have come to appreciate is how many different understandings
of “religion” and “secular” people express! The exact same
language, practices, and objects might seem to some observers
to be obviously religious, and to others have nothing to do with
religion, and everything to do with education and/or health.
Sometimes to classify something as “religious” is seen as a good
thing, whereas—more often in the context of public schools—the
label “religion” has negative connotations. Educational
policymakers and courts often find themselves tasked with
mediating between constituencies who disagree sharply over
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whether programs are religious and/or appropriate for public

susan
schools. The stakes kaiser
can feel high togreenland
participants: disallowing a
program may seem to some like depriving children and teachers
of desperately needed help; allowing that same program may
seem to others like religious coercion and/or cultural
appropriation and imperialism.

Does your perspective change when you consider the benefits

of mindfulness curriculum for school kids outside of its legal
constitutionality? 

I do think it is a different question to ask whether mindfulness

programs benefit children versus whether it is legal to integrate
mindfulness activities into public-school curricula. Educational
policymakers must ask both questions, whereas courts focus on
the first question. When I compared claims about the benefits of
mindfulness with the scientific literature, I found a gap between
the strength of claims and the strength of evidence upon which
these claims rest. Many of the studies reporting benefits are of
relatively low quality (e.g. no active control group). There is,
moreover, evidence of adverse effects (e.g. increased stress)
and contraindications (e.g. history of trauma), and that
alternatives (e.g. music) may be more appropriate for some
children. My book proposes a voluntary, opt-in model of informed
consent that addresses both questions of benefits/risks and
legality. In this model, children/parents can be offered
mindfulness activities, but this involves informing them of
strengths/weaknesses in the evidence, risks of adverse effects,
contraindications, and alternatives. Opt-in, as opposed to opt-out
or mandatory, programs administered before or after school
avoid the problems of state endorsement of arguably religious
practices or coercion of a captive audience.

Why do the legal definitions of “religion” and “yoga”

complicate the idea that western mindfulness can be secular?

Courts have defined “religion”

in cases such as Malnak v.
Yogi (1979) [finding that an
elective high-school course in
Transcendental Meditation is
religious, despite promotional
claims that TM is science]
and United States v. Meyers
(1996) [finding that “the
Church of Marijuana” is not a bona fide religion, despite
practitioner assertions that it is].

There are, by the Malnak-Meyers criteria, five major indicia of

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9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…

religion. First, the system addresses “ultimate concerns”

(stress/sufferingsusan kaiser greenland
[dukkha]—caused by craving, aversion, delusion
—is the ultimate problem of humanity, and mindfulness is the
path to relief). Second, it is a “comprehensive belief-system”
(mindfulness as a way of life). Third, it may display one or more
surface signs analogous to recognized religions: 

1. Enlightened founder (Buddha), 

2. Important writings (“The Discourse on the Establishing of
Mindfulness” [Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta]), 
3. Gathering places (teacher retreats at Buddhist centers), 
4. Keepers of knowledge (e.g. Jon Kabat-Zinn), 

5. Rituals (e.g. meditating to the sound of a “Tibetan Singing

Bowl,” recitation of loving-kindness/heartfulness [mettā]
scripts), 
6. Leadership structure (teacher certifications), 
7. Holidays (retreats), 
8. Rules for eating (slowly, paying attention to appearance,
texture, taste), 
9. Rules for physical appearance (do everything mindfully), 
10. Propagation (public-school programs). 

Fourth, metaphysical beliefs address a reality beyond the visible

world (impermanence, interconnection of all beings, nonduality,
no “self”). Fifth, a moral or ethical system prescribes ideals
(loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, non-judging
acceptance/equanimity).

What kind of resistance do you face in the debate for removing

mindfulness and yoga out of public school curriculums?

To be clear, I am not arguing that mindfulness or yoga should be

banned, but that there are legal and ethical reasons for a
voluntary, opt-in model of informed consent. Nevertheless, there
are those who want mindfulness and yoga fully integrated into K-
12 and university curricula—making mindfulness as mandatory
as math. Many people perceive a crisis in U.S. public education.
Mindfulness-in-schools advocates have themselves experienced
benefits from mindfulness and want to make these benefits
available to all school children and teachers.

Indeed, the need for mindfulness seems urgent. If mindfulness

offers a secular way of relieving stress, promoting mental focus
and holistic health, and cultivating moral character, then
depriving children or teachers of mindfulness, or limiting access,
may seem wrongheaded.
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How politicizedsusan kaiser greenland

and/or regionalized are these lawsuits over
school-sanctioned mindfulness and yoga? 

Legal hearings have occurred in New Jersey (Transcendental

Meditation), California (Ashtanga yoga, Waldorf Methods), and
Pennsylvania (Superbrain yoga, Waldorf Methods). The legality of
mindfulness has been challenged in multiple states and
provinces (including California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New
York, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, New York, and British Columbia),
but it has not yet been litigated. Certain outspoken critics are
theologically and politically conservative evangelical Christians,
but the ranks of those raising concerns about mindfulness and

yoga include atheists, religious skeptics, Buddhists, Hindus, and

political progressives.

Reading up on the debate it can appear as though it’s west

coast hippies versus southern evangelists, how accurate is
that depiction?

This is really a misleading portrait. Not only is it the case that

mindfulness advocates and critics can be found on both coasts
and everywhere in between, but even within localities programs
are sometimes hotly contested. In fact, when a legal challenge
erupts it is generally because a given school district—for
instance, the Encinitas Union School District in San Diego,
California, site of the Sedlock v. Baird yoga lawsuit—is populated
both by adamant supporters and opponents. 

Are there acceptable versions or models of breathing and

stretching exercises for public schools? 

I do not think that breathing or stretching are “inherently”

religious. Most aerobic exercise involves some sort of stretching
and attention to breathing. Thus, it is difficult to answer this
question in the abstract without discussing particular programs
and their contexts. What kind of breathing? What kind of
stretching? What are the rationales (assumed or communicated)
for breathing or stretching in these particular ways? Are the
practices framed (implicitly or explicitly) by metaphysical
concepts such as nonduality, impermanence, or
interconnection? Are stretches sequenced to resemble ritualized
prayers (e.g. prayer to the sun god, Sūrya)? Is breathing done
while sitting in postures or placing hands in positions that have
spiritual connotations (e.g. Lotus [Padmāsana], praying hands
[añjali mudra], wisdom gesture [jnāna mudra])? Do teachers
encourage children to “go deeper” by exploring extra-curricular
“mindfulness” or “yoga” resources (many of which are explicitly
spiritual and/or religious)? 
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susanmindfulness
What would a secular kaiser greenland
model have to look like in
order to be constitutional? 

The term “mindfulness,” as most people use it in the U.S. today,

is a translation from the Pāli language. The Satipatṭhāna Sutta
(The Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness) is one of the
most studied discourses in the Theravāda Buddhist canon.
Sammā sati (right mindfulness) comprises the seventh aspect of
the Noble Eightfold Path to liberation from suffering (dukkha),
the fourth of the Four Noble Truths. 

The question then arises, what is “secular mindfulness”? Those

who describe their mindfulness programs as “secular” will often
subtract language, gestures, and objects that critics complain
are “religious,” while adding references to neuroscience and
research reporting benefits. Yet many such programs still
communicate metaphysical assumptions and cultivate values
privileged in Buddhist teachings, while remaining opaque about
the sources from which these concepts have been culled. By
contrast, I construe “secularization” not as subtraction and
addition but as radically rebuilding from foundations that make
explicit and interrogate assumptions and values, thereby
enhancing agency to act without being controlled by these
assumptions and values. I thus operationalize secularization as
transparency and voluntarism. Transparency counters the taken-
for-grantedness that imbues assumptions with much of their
power. Voluntarism offers protection from unduly coercive
powers of the state. My assessment is that an opt-in model of
informed consent is the best way to deliver a constitutional
program.

In what ways might the psychological research that promotes

the health benefits of secular mindfulness for kids be biased?

Many mindfulness researchers are themselves mindfulness

practitioners who have already been convinced by personal
experience that the practice is beneficial. “Confirmation bias”
refers to a tendency to seek or interpret evidence to support
preexisting beliefs, expectations, or hypotheses. Indeed,
sometimes the same researchers both administer and evaluate
the efficacy of mindfulness programs. “Researcher allegiance”
denotes the potential for researcher motivations and implicit
commitments to funding agencies or therapies to influence study
results or “spin.” “Publication bias” (“file-drawer effect”) is that
researchers are more likely to seek to publish—and to succeed in
convincing journals that their results are worth publishing—
positive results, while null or negative results are tucked away in
file cabinets. “Citation bias” (“sampling bias”) occurs when
researchers, including authors of systematic reviews, refer
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researchers, including authors of systematic reviews, refer
selectively to studies showing positive effects. “Expectation bias”
susan kaiser
refers to the phenomenon greenland
that subjects are more likely to report
benefiting from interventions that they expect to help, and they
tend to have higher expectations for novel interventions (e.g.
yoga versus regular physical education and mindfulness versus
health education); this is a particular problem for studies that
rely on self-report data (much yoga and mindfulness research).
Each of these factors is of heightened concern in fields such as
mindfulness where most researchers want to show benefits.

How are researchers’ promotion of secular mindfulness

different than the accepted public health practice in many
public schools of removing sugary drinks from vending

There are at least three important differences: between optional

and mandatory delivery of products that the supplier deems
healthy, between passive and active encouragement to use
them, and between the levels of information provided. Vending
machines may replace unhealthy with healthy options, but
students are free to purchase available products or bring
alternatives. No one requires or even urges students to drink
machine contents. Labels list all ingredients and relative
proportions. By contrast, mindfulness programming is often
distributed to entire student bodies. Everyone is expected to
participate or make special efforts to opt out. Curricula often
remain silent about the derivation of particular practices,
assumptions, and values that together constitute the curriculum.
In sum, vending machines stocked with carefully selected
products exemplify an opt-in model of informed consent. Many
school mindfulness programs do not.

FACEBOOK TWITTER LINKEDIN 1 LIKE

Comments (3) Newest First

Steve
2 years ago
· 0 Likes

First, I want to make it clear that I’m a strong proponent of mindfulness.

The second point I want to make is that the district I serve has limited
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mindfulness programs that are a regular part of the classroom

susanit iskaiser
curriculum. In districts a part ofgreenland
the curriculum, I’ve had parents of
elementary age students say their child is not comfortable with the
mindfulness practices while others say they like it. There could be many
reasons for this that I won't go into in this post.

When I provide Leadership Programs (Social Emotional Learning) to

high school students in the district, mindfulness is an available
ingredient. How far we go is determined by group interest. At the least,
we acknowledge its existence, and at best, we provide practices, and
then further opportunities should the interest grow.

From my perspective, there are so many instances in our culture where

we "opt out" of various “social norms” if we don’t feel they are
appropriate for us. This opting out may create rejection in certain
circles; and so isolation. Our teens are already dealing with enough
feelings of isolation in our current culture. Choice is an important part
of a truly free society and I feel that “opting in” is not only a mindful
approach but one that allows us to feel empowered. For me, this
practice is all about the many ways we can empower self and others.
We should have a “choice” moment to moment.

don salmon
2 years ago
· 0 Likes

I don't see any other comments. This is an extraordinarily rich topic and
I'd love to hear what others think.

I started teaching mindfulness in New York City, working with pain

patients (my doctoral dissertation was on the use of mindfulness to
treat physical pain). I never had a problem with religious folks up there.
By far the most common problem was the comment, "But my pain is
"real," not psychological.

In other words, the challenge up north was ontological and

epistemological, not theologian (sorry, unregenerate academic here -
simply put, the problem was with beliefs about the body and mind, not
about God).

When we moved South (2002-2010, 1 mile from Bob Jones University,

the largest fundamentalist/Southern Baptist university in the world), I
also never had a problem with religious folks.

We simply focused on near-universally accepted

neuroscientific/psychological research on the nature of attention. We
used much of our early work on Dan Siegel's study of the integrated
brain.

Not a single person ever complained of anything remotely religious

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about this, and our classes and individual students were at least 75%
susan either
Baptist/fundamentalist, kaiser greenland
at the time we taught them or in their
general culture.

I've written to Dr. Brown about this, and we really failed (I saw "we"
because I take full responsibility for my part in this failure) to
communicate clearly on this matter. She continued to see whatever I
described as covertly Buddhist. I mentioned at one point that in the late
90s, when there was very little valid research using the term
"mindfulness," I found a completely secular set of research studies on
"Somatic monitoring" and pain, and used that as the basis of my
research (Kabat-Zinn's studies, at that time, were quite poorly done,
though they since have improved somewhat).

I'd be delighted if either Dr. Brown or anyone who shares her point of
view, would join us here for a real, honest and sincere dialog.

The greatest irony of this is that I've studied Buddhist texts a great deal
over the past 50 years, and what is nowadays called "mindfulness' is
contrary to many of the traditional practices associated with the word
'mindfulness!"

don salmon
2 years ago
· 0 Likes

Is my local Starbucks a religion? According to Dr. Brown, it just might

be:

1. Addresses ultimate concerns: Starbucks is designed not just to

provide coffee, but to be a kind of ‘commons” where people can
connect, giving them the sense of meaningfulness and purpose in
life that public spaces used to serve before the global
privatization of the 80s began. Isolation and disconnection being
the ultimate program of humanity, and spaces to connect being
the path to belief.
2. A comprehensive belief system: People gathering in community as
a way of life
3. The founder with a spark of genius: Howard Schultz
4. Important writings: The business model
5. Gathering places: Starbucks!
6. Keeper of knowledge: Howard Schultz
7. Rituals: That first shot of espresso in the morning!
8. Leadership structure: CEO, managers, associates, baristas
9. Holidays: Starbucks celebrates all major capitalistic holidays and
holds retreats for its employees
10. Rules for eating: where to get your condiments, where to recycle,
etc
11. Rules for physical appearance – no shirt, no shoes, no service
12 i D i bli h l d h i i
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9/17/21, 4:07 PM Meet Candy Gunther Brown, and read an excerpt from her new book, “Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular E…
12. propagation: Donations to public schools and other civic
susan kaiser greenland
organizations

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