is mindfulness the enemy of change?

there is a growing movement that opposes and criticizes the practice of mindfulness. its argument takes a few different forms, but it can be summarized as follows: mindfulness opposes social change/ reinforces the status quo in terms of existing oppressions and inequalities/ benefits only the elites in society.

as a critique of mindfulness, this is nonsense in the most technical sense of the term. mindfulness is a practice or a state. it has no agenda. in fact, it could be defined as attention without agenda. however, that is not to say that there is nothing to be learned from the critique, and if we shift it from mindfulness (where it makes no sense) to those who promote mindfulness (where it does make sense in certain cases), it may contain some helpful reminders.

how did this movement come about?

the psychoanalysts have long understood that the fewer characteristics an object has, the more easily we can project our internal conflicts onto it. this gave rise to the concept of the therapist as “blank screen”, ready to receive all of the patient’s projections. mindfulness is perhaps the most perfect blank screen in the universe, psychologically speaking. it is simply paying attention to what is. it doesn’t oppose anything or grasp at anything. the movie screen has no preference, indeed no concern at all, for whether you project enlightening documentaries or snuff porn onto it. the experienced meditator knows this, because anything they project onto the experience simply shows them something about their own mind. and in an age where reality seems increasingly to be defined in purely mental or conceptual terms, mindfulness has played host to some truly fantastical projections.

we are currently maturing through a postmodern intellectual zeitgeist, and anything that becomes popular among the rich and powerful will be viewed skeptically and critically, through the lenses of power and inequality. mindfulness- which has now been widely adopted in the upper classes and corporate world for all the benefits it offers- was bound at some point to become a focal point of this scrutiny and critique. the problem is that many of the critics seem to be totally confused about what mindfulness actually is. they conflate the screen and the movie, and then blame the screen because they don’t like the movie that is being screened onto it. and they are not alone in their confusion. many proponents of mindfulness are equally confused about what mindfulness is and isn’t, and use false and fantastical claims in order to promote and market it (or more often, to promote their personal brand, which has been built on it).

it is little wonder, then, that mindfulness has gotten such a bad rap. the following reminders may help to clear up some of the confusion.

1. mindfulness is a practice or state. it isn’t an ideology, a concept, a reaction, or an attitude.  it observes those things as they arise, without identifying with any of them.  if what you experience can accurately be described by any of the terms listed above, it is not (yet) mindfulness.
2. mindfulness has no agenda. mindfulness cannot oppose social change or aspire to it. it is a state, and being a state, it has no agenda. mindfulness proponents may use the desirable effects (including increased concentration and decreased stress) of the practice as ways of marketing it, but these are also not the agenda of mindfulness, in the same way that improving gut health is not the agenda of yoghurt.
3. practicing mindfulness doesn’t make you a saint. we now understand that waking up (the path of deconstructing the false belief in a separate self and realizing one’s true nature as awareness) and growing up (ego development or maturation) are separate processes, and no amount of dedication to one guarantees advancement in the other. that means that you can be an enormously mature and healthy human being and be fully identified with the illusory separate self. it also means that you can have genuine spiritual realizations and still be immature in terms of your personality functioning. there are many examples of highly realized meditation masters who held decidedly ethnocentric or sexist beliefs, and this is no wonder, as the traditions that historically developed the waking up practices to their highest forms were not even aware that growing up was on the menu of human experience.
4. practicing mindfulness doesn’t make you an expert in Buddhism. many proponents and critics of mindfulness conflate the practice of mindfulness with the entirety of Buddhism.  mindfulness is a practice or state.  Buddhism is a vast canon of teachings and practices from many different traditions and lineages, and mindfulness is one of these practices.  even in terms of meditative practices, mindfulness is one of many that is promoted in Buddhism.  practicing mindfulness doesn’t make you an expert on concepts like karma, reincarnation, or compassion. and, in truth, there is nothing “Buddhist” about mindfulness, it is simply a human capacity that can be developed, and some of the ways we can develop it can be found among the teachings of Buddhism.
5. some proponents of mindfulness say really stupid things. like that poor people should remain poor because it’s their karma, or that mindfulness will solve all your- and the world’s- problems (it won’t, sorry). some proponents of mindfulness may well oppose social change, knowingly or unknowingly. others get caught in new-age thinking, and believe that the goal of spiritual practice is to satisfy all the desires of the illusory separate self. these are simply more fantastical projections onto the blank screen of mindfulness, and they deserve healthy scrutiny and criticism. and to reiterate, though they tell us a lot about the individuals who are doing the projecting, they tell us absolutely nothing at all about mindfulness.
6. mindfulness reveals to you the nature and contents of your own mind. so, if through your practice you become aware of attitudes opposing or longing for social change in your own mind, great. get to work on those: reflecting, interrogating, processing. doing so will greatly benefit your process of growing up. blaming mindfulness for such things will only lead to greater confusion and suffering.