McMindfulness: Aware In The Dark

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I picked up McMindfulness by Ronald E Purser when I saw it at a store, right after it had been mentioned on a podcast.  I’d heard of this look at the “mindfulness industry” and how repurposed stripped-down Buddhism was used to basically serve capitalism.  So I picked it up, read it, and found that my summary was a little too genteel.  So let me review the book – and heartily recommend it.

The book starts by looking at how, over the decades, mindfulness exercises taken in part from Buddhism had become big business in seminars and corporate advice.  The core idea is that you become more aware of your actions (and reactions) and thus mindful, are not as troubled by the world because you are so aware.  You’ll notice, by the way, it stops there – you just learn to navigate the world better as opposed to asking “why am I so stressed out?” and “why do things suck?”

The author, a Buddhist himself, walks through the Mindfulness Industry and shows how widespread it is but also how useless it is.  Since the industry is firmly lodged in neoliberal capitalism, it has no interest in fixing the system it’s in – which often causes the problem.  In fact, seeing how Mindfulness has become a corporatized product illustrates the problems of our economic and culture – which the Mindfulness Industry can’t and won’t solve.

During this tour, Purser notes firmly and intelligently that this separated selfish pseudo-self awareness misses out on Buddhism’s teachings on community, compassion, and responsibility.  The Mindfulness Industry doesn’t just take a few bits of Buddhism, it outright excludes the social elements of the religion and its teachings.  It couldn’t include them since then they’d basically be selling something that wouldn’t fill those big corporate conferences – and worse.

Because, Purser goes in depth more than I expected on mindful politics, war-waging, and more.  We’re so used to the “mindfulness” stuff we might not realize how far it’s penetrated, showing up in banal political speeches and efforts that desensitize people in the name of “not being reactive.”  Even if you pay attention to this stuff, you may be surprised beyond your capacity for cynicism.

Purser also speculated on how McMindfulness produces a selfish, separated, almost abstract sense of self.  I can see echoes of the prosperity gospel and online conspiracy theories in his speculations – both ways to seek wealth and self-aggrandizement, but without any responsibility or even real transformation.  If anything, I think there’s more to study in this area.

He does see hope – or ways – to free Mindfulness from its current corporate shackling.  So it’s not a hopeless book – it’s one carried by a kind of passionate loving rage.  So yes, you’ll get angry Buddhist when you read this.

A firm recommendation for seekers like ourselves.

-Xenofact

Saints Not Gods

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We all hear people accused of “treating people like gods,” from politicians to tech entrepreneurs to actors. We may make such accusations, and might even be the targets of such criticisms. It’s something that got me thinking recently, noting the worshipful way people approached individuals over the years.

However, when I think about it when we say people are “treating others as gods” we’re actually not saying what we think we’re saying.

Consider when people approach another human being, from a podcaster to a writer, in an almost religious way. They praise their talent and vision and knowledge and whatever, but they also treat them as infallible. Such worshipped people aren’t just talented or beautiful, but morally accurate and superior.

Know what? Doesn’t sound like they’re gods to me.

Even a passing acquaintance with any mythology reveals that your average set of deities isn’t perfect. They are powerful, they are beautiful, they are wise or talented in their sphere of action. However they’re not what we’d call perfect in a moral way, because they are beings of specific spheres and inclinations and powers. Indeed some of my favorite myths are of the peccadilloes of the gods, from Thoth’s wordiness to Hermes’ tricky plays to Lu-Dong Bin’s post-Immortality love affairs.

Gods may have something to say but they’re not perfect creatures in the moral sense in most cases. Maybe that’s what makes them so accessible, since neither are we. They’re relatable.

I think when people get strangely religious about other humans and attribute to them some great moral meaning, they’re being treated as saints. They’re being treated as some morally perfect being, unquestionable, the same way a saint is seen as some approved-by-a-superior-being creature. They are being treated as perfect.

Which let us be honest, is often hilarious because people find some of the biggest dinks to worship. Like the more messed up they are the harder the worshipers work to act like they’re some moral paragon.

So next time someone talks of another human being who is treated like a god, ask if they really mean saint. Because it seems too often that’s what people really mean.

-Xenofact

Are You A Hero When It’s About You?

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A friend recently introduced me to a YouTube culture analyst Maggie Mae Fish. She did a two part analysis of Joseph Campbell, who really is a sexist and biased person with a very limited view of people. He’s famous for the too-present “Hero’s Journey” map with the usual Call To Action, Ordeal, etc. stuff we’ve seen everywhere from psychology to writing class. It will not surprise you that Maggie effectively points out, with humor, that Campbell’s “heroic pattern” is not universal.

And in fact, I don’t think it’s that heroic. I was never enchanted by Cambell, largely because of when I grew up. It always seemed sort of generic and washed-out to me, a psych major in the 80s, where we had weird Neo-Jungianism, high strangeness, and 60’s leftovers.

First, Campbell’s idea of a generic hero’s journey for all of humanity really doesn’t stand up if you have any awareness of world culture. In my own interest in Taoist culture, many of the Taoist hero stories don’t fit Campbell’s model – the call to “heroism” is often one of withdrawal, really screwing up, midlife crises, or become a point of regret in life. Just because he got George Lucas to pay attention to his ideas doesn’t mean they’re right.

And honestly, the idea that this is some common universal map is annoying. I’m tired of seeing it as a map of how to do fiction, how to do psychology, etc. It ignores a lot of human culture, experience, and models. Plus it doesn’t seem that damn heroic if someone handed you a checklist.

But Maggie Mae Fish’s channel really drove home to me that this model isn’t that heroic.

The “Hero’s journey” is all about the hero and their realization but it doesn’t seem like there’s much heroic being done. It always seems to be about them and their issues and so on, the world or princess or whatever existing only to be saved. The world is a prop to our so-called Hero, and needing the world as your stage doesn’t seem really freaking heroic.

(Just hearing about Campbell’s take on World War II was, well, not heroic.)

We can’t exactly call people heroes when it’s all about them. Perhaps at best they’re protagonists, but are they making the world better? Are they achieving great things greater than themselves? Looking back, Campbell’s model and his take on it seem selfish, so small.

Campbell turns our mythical heroes, clever tricksters to bloody combatants in mythology, into some kind of simplified self-realization therapy. I mean even some jerk of a monster slayer at least left you with less monsters around. Sure you kinda wanted him to move on thanks but he wasn’t waxing philosophic about his daddy issues.

As I seem to note repeatedly in my own meditative and mystical experiences, the map can become shackles. In the case of these heroic maps, maybe it even keeps you from being the hero it promises you can be. Then again, maybe “real heroes” are willing to get off the map and face the real unknown.

–Xenofact