The Modern Mindfulness Craze
Commentary
One of the odder aspects of modern American culture has been the growing interest in so-called “mindfulness” practices– often portrayed as a kind of meditation practice for all. During the two years of pandemic panic, my school (following strict NY State guidelines) placed heavy restrictions on students, making school a fairly miserable place to be. In compensation, knowing they were making students miserable, they made a regular practice of subjecting students (and teachers) to mindfulness exercises, designed to help us all deal with the stresses of pandemic school.
Perhaps my school could have done little better. As a secular private school, it could hardly talk to us about redemptive suffering or the need to carry our crosses, nor could it urge or practice communal prayer. And yet, it was striking just how much those mindfulness practices were meant as a substitute for what, in a Christian society, would have been religion. It was simply the modern fad of “spiritual but not religious.” And it was worthless.
Even Christians are growing attracted by the mindfulness craze, illustrating well the astute observation from G.K. Chesterton who remarked that “these days, the Christian is expected to praise every creed except its own.” And mindfulness is not based in the Christian creed, but in another one.
It comes from Buddhism and the concept of the 8-fold path, as the means to escape the suffering of this world and reach Nirvana. One of those steps is “Right Mindfulness”, which goes with “Right Awareness,” and “Right Meditation.” In these, the final steps to Nirvana, one looks inward, rejecting desire, avoiding evil thoughts, and focusing one’s consciousness carefully. One comes to understand past and present as fleeting sense impressions, removing meaning and feeling from them. Avoiding desire (the cause of pain, according to Buddhism) is essential and a careful looking inward to stamp out any desire is the main goal. Only in this way can one escape the world of illusion and suffering and attain Nirvana, a state that Rodney Stark described as “metaphysical suicide.”
One can be forgiven for thinking there is little attractive in this. Buddhism describes the world as intrinsically evil and seeks escape from it into nonexistence and the utter loss of self. This made its way gradually into American culture, probably through the Zen Buddhism that became popular in California after spreading to China and thence to Japan, and it became modified and tamed into modern American mindfulness. (One might tell a similar story about yoga.)
There is evidence that even the tamed, current forms of mindfulness are not harmless. Recent studies have suggested that mindfulness and other new age practices are actually likely to increase narcissism and a sense of self-superiority. This should not surprise, given its origins. In traditional Buddist thought, the outside world is a world of suffering and illusion. To Buddhists, it is not even ultimately real, and this includes the people in it. Enlightenment is not found without, but within. And so the Buddhist sage is nearly always pictured meditating, eyes closed, looking inward. The outside world is little more than an obstacle in the path to Enlightenment.
this sort of worldview, an increase of narcissism is not surprising. All desires are to be rejected, including the desire to be with, or care for, others Buddha himself abandoned his wife and infant son while they slept. They were obstacles to his self-fulfillment. Perhaps, in this tendency to see family and children as obstacles to self-fulfillment, he was more modern than we might otherwise think.
But, it might be asked, did not Christ say that a man who would be his follower must despise his father and mother? Are he and Buddha really so far off after all?
They are utterly so. Our Lord’s words tell us that all, even legitimate and goood, other loves must be subordinated to the love of God. This, as he told the inquisitive scribe, was the first of the commandments: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, all thy mind, and all thy strength. But He did not end there. For He gave too the second commandment: love thy neighbor as thyself. In loving God, we can better love our neighbor as a fellow creature, made in the image and likeness of God and on the same journey to, God willing, eternal salvation. Indeed, elsewhere, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for adopting a custom that allowed a man to neglect his father. This is not hatred of family, but placing the love of God, our highest love, first.
Buddha’s aim was far different. He was not subordinating love of family to love of God, for he believed in no God to love. On the contrary, his goal was self-fulfillment, escape from a world of illusion. And so he does not abandon his family to follow God first, growing in His love and learning self-sacrifice for the sake of others, but so that he can turn inward, focusing solely on the self without distraction.
Even in modern iterations, directions for mindfulness meditation always involve looking inward, closing one’s eyes, shutting out the outside world, and focusing on something inside oneself. No wonder narcissism and a sense of self-superiority is a danger. Love makes one look outward at the beloved; one cannot love and forever look inward, unless one aims to love only oneself.
What is so strange about the mindfulness fad, though, especially among Christians, is that the Christian tradition offers so many rich and varied alternatives. Christianity offers many types of meditation and meditative prayer. A great variety of saints articulated these types of prayer. Even in the simplest of prayer we are encouraged to love God and others, by petition, adoration, thanksgiving, and intercession. Even the well-known Rosary is intended to be a meditation upon the mysteries of Our Lord’s life. One might also practice lectio divina, the practice of meditatively reading and praying scripture. One can practice adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.
One who develops and cultivates Christian meditation in their prayer life may even receive from God the gift of contemplative prayer, which the catechism calls “silence” or “silent love,” Great saints like St. Teresa of Avila can be one’s guide. How different from the mindfulness that looks only into the self. In the Christian, ascetical tradition, one may look inward away from the world, the flesh, and the devil. But one looks not inward to the self, but to God, Who is present in the soul. Even looking inwards away from the world, the Christian looks outside the self: to God.
True Christian meditation, in all its forms as passed down by the saints, retains this principle: it is not focused on the self. And so Christian meditation can offer true peace and peace of mind, not by looking inward to blot out the miseries of the world in a focus on the self, but by looking outward in love to He Who is infinitely beyond and greater than the self: God.
While Christians interested in meditation should be cautious of modern mindfulness practice, they should take advantage of the wealth of Christian traditions in prayer, seeking out the “silent love” of which the catechism speaks.
"Mindfulness" is such a part of what's offered in "CBT" therapy these days, (even by Catholics!) that it's become one of many reasons why I eschew all modern therapy.
It’s true that mindfulness originated with Buddhism, but there’s nothing about following your breath which requires you to embrace a Buddhist worldview. Indeed, Pope Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) wrote a letter as head of the CDF to Bishops saying, “That does not mean that genuine practices of meditation which come from the Christian East and from the great non-Christian religions, which prove attractive to the man of today who is divided and disoriented, cannot constitute a suitable means of helping the person who prays to come before God with an interior peace, even in the midst of external pressures.”
For me, mindfulness has helped me to intensively cultivate the ability to notice when my attention has wandered and return it to the object of focus - a skill that’s proven invaluable in my personal prayer. I think the practice holds great promise provided it’s integrated into a Catholic worldview. Dr. Gregory Bottaro has done an excellent job showing how mindfulness complements Catholic spirituality - I highly recommend his book The Mindful Catholic. I’ve also written at length on my own page in a piece called “Despoiling the Hipsters.”
As for the dangers of mindfulness, I didn’t read the article you linked to because it’s behind a paywall. But here’s a tweet from the author of the study, who adamantly claims the article misrepresents her findings. https://twitter.com/roosvonk/status/1343840291145572352 Meanwhile there are many other studies which show that mindfulness leads to pro social behavior, along with numerous studies which seem to show that it leads to mental health benefits. Granted, it’s a complex and still largely uncharted area of study. But until there’s much more and better evidence one way or the other, I don’t think it’s a good practice to casually speculate that it leads to narcissism.