Against “Mindfulness”
“The main idea of mindfulness is to become aware of your own thoughts. On the surface this idea of self awareness looks similar to the truth of introspection. This similarity to a good mental exercise sweetens the underlying poison of mindfulness.” - Matt Postiff
I’d like to have seen more of a case here for the poison part. I’m skeptical of mindfulness, mostly because it’s faddish. But this is clearly not good reasoning:
- All A include B
- A is bad
- Therefore, B is bad
To spell it out more..
- Ideology A includes B in its practices, maybe even “invented” it
- Ideology A is bad
- There for B is a bad practice
Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Probably adherents to A brush their teeth also. Muslims are credited with having invented nasal irrigation, but I’ve often found it helpful.
Religions are famous for taking ordinary practices and attaching religious significance to them… significance that isn’t necessarily really there. That’s pretty much what an idol is, and Paul affirmed that an idol is really nothing, since there really isn’t any god in it or behind it or connected to it (1Cor.8:4).
… and there’s the whole idol meat thing. So, biblically, we know that at least sometimes, things can be separated from the religious significance others’ attach to them. What are the limits to that and if “mindfulness” can’t be excised from eastern religion, why not?
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]I’d like to have seen more of a case here for the poison part. I’m skeptical of mindfulness, mostly because it’s faddish. But this is clearly not good reasoning:
- All A include B
- A is bad
- Therefore, B is bad
To spell it out more..
- Ideology A includes B in its practices, maybe even “invented” it
- Ideology A is bad
- There for B is a bad practice
Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Probably adherents to A brush their teeth also. Muslims are credited with having invented nasal irrigation, but I’ve often found it helpful.
Religions are famous for taking ordinary practices and attaching religious significance to them… significance that isn’t necessarily really there. That’s pretty much what an idol is, and Paul affirmed that an idol is really nothing, since there really isn’t any god in it or behind it or connected to it (1Cor.8:4).
… and there’s the whole idol meat thing. So, biblically, we know that at least sometimes, things can be separated from the religious significance others’ attach to them. What are the limits to that and if “mindfulness” can’t be excised from eastern religion, why not?
It’s just repackaged metacognition, really. Various such techniques have been used all around the world for thousands of years. I hate fads in general, but only see it as problematic when attached to authentic Eastern meditation and yoga and whatnot.
Yoga is another one that is difficult to separate from its religious roots, but I know lots of Christians use parts of it one form another… and they don’t seem to be converting to eastern religion or embracing tenets of these religions. Sometimes they’re picking up some non-western ways of thinking but that’s not always a bad thing. The West, heavily Christianized though it once was, was a human thing and never perfect.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]Yoga is another one that is difficult to separate from its religious roots, but I know lots of Christians use parts of it one form another… and they don’t seem to be converting to eastern religion or embracing tenets of these religions. Sometimes they’re picking up some non-western ways of thinking but that’s not always a bad thing. The West, heavily Christianized though it once was, was a human thing and never perfect.
Yeah, I don’t consider that authentic yoga. Like Buddhist meditation, it’s meant to be an essentially religious practice. Or so say the yogis, and they’re the experts, after all.
I’ve actually read that a portion of yoga is adaptations of calisthenics brought to India by British soldiers. So we might infer that even among the experts—I am emphatically not one of them—there might be a reasonable debate about the overall meaning of the practice.
For those with back trouble, though, the “child’s pose” and adaptations thereof can be really helpful. And squats!
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I appreciate the thoughtful discussion I see on this post. Good points. Aaron’s logic, with A and B, is really the issue behind most extra-biblical prohibitions and legalism in general. Discernement begins with Scripture, but the Scriptures must be applied logically, avoiding logical fallacies.
The same is true with the obsession over the origin of things. An extra-Christian origin does not guarantee an anti-Christian result. For example, there is no harm calling Thursday “Thursday,” even though its origin in pagan “Thor’s day.”
Legalism selectively uses logical fallacies to attain the desired result.
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