THINKING — SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

The 3
myths of Buddhist monk at Angkor
Wat. / Victor Fraile/ Getty

mindfulness Images

Is mindfulness
really the
panacea it's
touted to be, or
are we glossing
over some
fundamental
flaws?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Mindfulness is hugely
popular today — unless you’ve
been living on the Moon, you’ll
have come across it. One
philosopher has argued that
certain unchecked types of
mindfulness are deeply
flawed. Here we look at
three reasons why you might
want to be mindful of
mindfulness.

Y
Jonny
Thomson ou’ve been invited
to dinner at a
friend’s house
where they’ve
prepared a lovely beef
bourguignon. You all sit
down at your places, ladle
out your portions, and get
to work. Halfway through
dinner, you suddenly
notice something odd has
happened to the person
sitting across from you:
She has completely
stopped talking. What’s
more, she is staring at you
with the dead eyes of a
Halloween mannequin.
“Are you alright?” you ask,
a touch nervously. She
starts sharply as if you’ve
broken her reverie.
“Oh, sorry,” she says. “I’m
trying mindful eating. I’m
focusing on every bite.”
Unless you’ve been living
on the Moon for the last
ten years, you have
probably heard of
mindfulness. Schools and
companies worldwide
have been riding high on
the mindfulness wave.
Mindfulness apps get
millions of downloads and
mindfulness coaches are
paid millions of dollars.
People swear by its
efficacy.
The problem, though, is
that mindfulness is a
building constructed on
shaky foundations.
According to Odysseus
Stone from the University
of Copenhagen,
mindfulness makes three
big philosophical errors.
1. Not all
thoughts are
equal
If you’ve ever experienced
some guided mindfulness,
you likely heard something
like this: “Imagine your
thoughts are like cars, and
you are watching them
pass. Here comes a
thought. There goes the
thought. Do not pause for
too long on any thought.
Let them come, notice
them, and then let them
go.” Mindfulness is all
about not attaching too
closely to any one thought.
It’s about acknowledging
thoughts but not indulging
them.
But is this right?
Sometimes this strategy is
undoubtedly good. Losing
sleep over a presentation
you have in the morning
or obsessing over a dentist
appointment is silly. But
other times our thoughts
are not things to take
lightly. As Stone writes:
“Take, for example,
feelings of anger that we
might have about the
policy decisions of the
Danish government. Is it
beneficial to view such
emotions as if they are
passing clouds in the sky
with little importance or
relation to reality?” In
other words, sometimes
our thoughts and feelings
are vitally important. They
help us navigate the world
and tell us the best way to
behave. After all, it’s a
foolhardy person who isn’t
a little bit scared of
venomous snakes.

2. Your attention
is not only yours
The second key element to
mindfulness is that you
need to take control of
your attention. It is built
on the idea that we have
supreme power over how
and what we focus on. Our
minds are like a spotlight,
and we are the spotlight
operators. We choose to
focus on our anxieties. We
choose to dwell on the
negative.
The problem, though, is
that this is a vastly
oversimplified view of the
psychology of attention.
Attention is often beyond
your control. It might be
that some wizened Shaolin
monk can ignore
everything the world
throws at him, but the vast
majority of people cannot.
Attention is a social
problem. Consider
smartphones, for instance.
Yes, you can choose not to
buy a smartphone, but a
world without
smartphones is a world
with different implications
regarding our collective
attention. The 1990s had a
different attention
economy. As Stone puts it:
“According to some
philosophers and cognitive
scientists… Our attention is
highly dependent on our
embodiment, and is
embedded in a material
and social context.”

3. It is
impossible to
“seize the day”
The third dubious piece of
mindfulness wisdom is the
idea that we should live in
the moment and seize the
day. Focus on the now, and
spend as little time as is
practically possible on the
past or the future. The
problem, though, is that
the idea of “now” doesn’t
actually exist in how we
experience the world.

As the French philosopher

Henri Bergson knew, we
do not experience time like
some calendar or clock.
We do not live “in” the
current hour. Instead, we
live according to duration.
Time is constantly moving
forward, and it makes no
sense to talk about a “now”
without reference to both
the before and the after.
Human psychology
depends on the wealth of
experience, memory, and
learned behaviors from
the past. All of our actions
and thoughts are framed
by a concern for the
future. In Stone’s words:
“If our experiences and
actions are to be coherent
and to make sense and
make sense to us, they will
have to refer to our past
and future in one way or
the other.”
The baby in the
bathwater
Of course, none of this is to
say mindfulness is bad.
There’s a reason millions
of people around the
world practice it. There’s a
reason people chew their
beef bourguignon with
peculiar intensity. It works.
For the vast majority of the
trivial worries in our lives,
letting go of thoughts is
sound wisdom. Taking
greater control and
responsibility for what you
give your attention to is
great advice. And spending
less time dwelling on the
past or worrying about the
 future will probably make
you more relaxed.
As with almost all
philosophy and self-help
fads, moderation and
sensible application is key.

Tags

emotional intelligence

mental health

philosophy psychology

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