I’m uncomfortable about teaching mindfulness for purely practical purposes without any ties to its Buddhist roots, but I don’t know why. I can’t think of any good reasons to support my discomfort. (Everyday dukkha?) The article below from The Guardian explores the commercialization of mindfulness. What are your thoughts?
Source: Mindfulness at risk of being ‘turned into a free market commodity’ | Life and style | The Guardian
Melting-Pot Dharma 
I’m uncomfortable too with the way mindfulness is being taught for practical purposes. The source of my discomfort is the potential for misuse and abuse. IMO, mindfulness is sometimes being offered these days as a kind of opiate for the people to keep them compliant and feeding the machine: got a problem at work? jerky boss? overworked and underpaid? hostile work environment? exploited, harassed, discriminated against? Mindfulness is the solution to your problems! Because the only thing you can change is your attitude! Responsible practitioners don’t use it this way, of course. But I think some of the business articles I’ve read, do.
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Capitalism commodifies everything it can, and mindfulness and Buddhism-related ideas and items are no exception. I’ve often thought that a lot of new age ideas are the result of the commodification of spirituality. Of course there is a long history of this, and the Catholic priests got rich selling indulgences, but the commercialization of spirituality is a more wholesale enterprise these days.
Thanks for sharing the article.
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Mindfulness in the context of the Buddha’s teaching is about the end of suffering. On it’s own it might lead to an ability to do multi-tasking, can’t see any harm it could do… might get forgotten about because there’s nothing credible to sustain it. On the other hand it might create an interest in the Buddha’s teaching…
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As someone who came at the idea of mindfulness meditation outside Buddhism, I have mixed emotions on this. I’m not 100% sure, after this many years, but I think I was introduced to meditation in a book about yoga for fibromyalgia (“Beat Fatigue with Yoga”), and I’m pretty sure my introduction to mindfulness was either in the book “The Meditation Year” (a book which made a point of saying you don’t need to practice a particular religion to do meditation – the book covered Christian meditation as well as Buddhist and Hindu techniques) or an issue of Yoga Journal. Certainly I’ve been interested in Buddhism, probably as a result of the exposure. I hope I haven’t offended you or any other Buddhists.
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No need to worry about offending a Buddhist. It’s all good. As I said, I can’t even see the logic in disliking mindfulness without some link to its Buddhist and Hindu roots. That’s why I’m curious about others’ opinions.
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