Mindfulness is big business. Large corporations such
as Apple Computer, Hughes Aircraft, Google, Target, Ford, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Deutsche Bank and AOL Time Warner, and in Australia IBM and NAB to name just two, along with numerous
so-called captains of industry following the meditative example left by the late Steve Jobs, are embracing mindfulness in a big way.
Mindfulness is seen as a way of increasing productivity and thus revenue. Well, after all, the evidence is clear and unambiguous: the regular practice of mindfulness produces a calmer, more patient, stable and steady mind, improves one’s ability to cope with and release stress, enhances cognitive functioning and performance, improves concentration, capacity for focus, attention to detail and memory, results in faster sensory processing and greater responsiveness in the moment, and reduces mental distractedness.
All of this---and much, much more---has to be good for
business. Mindfulness is also a tool for enforcing compliance, something employers like to see. I mean, creativity is one
thing, but no employer wants their employees to be too creative. You know what
I mean?
I have a bit of a problem with the
corporatization of mindfulness. Well, more than a bit of a problem. Let me
explain.
Mindfulness, without the right intention, and
completely severed from its spiritual roots, is not necessarily a good thing.
It can even be a bad thing. Mindfulness has its roots most directly in Theravāda Buddhism, which for the
most part is a naturalistic form of Buddhism of which there are a
number of different schools. Now, you don’t have to be a Buddhist or even religious
to practise mindfulness, nor does mindfulness involve or require any religious
faith at all. Mindfulness does not require that you believe in one god or many
gods, or become a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Christian, or whatever. People of every
religion, and none, can derive lasting benefits from the regular
practice of mindfulness including mindfulness meditation.
However, this fact cannot be ignored. Mindfulness
meditation, even in its most secular form, has its ancestral spiritual roots in
a specific type or practice of meditation known
as vipassanā meditation, which is used as a psychological and educational tool
in Theravāda Buddhism. Vipassanā meditation is also known as insight
meditation, insightful meditation, sensory meditation and thought-watching meditation.
Now, there are several different techniques of vipassanā meditation just as
there are several types or forms of Buddhist meditation, but whether mindfulness is practised as a spiritual discipline or as a psychological tool, right
intention is extremely important.
Buddha Shakyamuni gained enlightenment through the
practice of mindfulness. Enlightenment means waking up.
You come to see things-as-they-really-are
for the very first time in your life. Thereafter, nothing is ever the same
again. Your whole outlook on life is different. The emphasis on worldly values
disappears, if not immediately then certainly over time. You become more
compassionate. You practise and seek to spread loving-kindness. This is not
just a Buddhist thing. Christianity speaks of the same experience, but uses
slightly different language and thought forms. Other religions do as well. So
does Humanism which, in its secular form, is not a religion at all.
According to the Buddha, there are three kinds of
right intention, which counter three kinds of wrong intention: first, the
intention of renunciation, which counters the intention of desire; secondly, the
intention of good will, which counters the intention of ill will; and thirdly,
the intention of harmlessness, which counters the intention of harmfulness.
Now, there are many decent and ethical businesses but we see so much evidence
these days of corporate greed and wrongdoing. Witness the recent scandal concerning Volkswagen. I suspect it’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I
worked in the ‘big end of town’ for a few years. I saw the greed and the
ugliness. I worked with so many people who thought that the answer to their
existential angst was to make a shitload of money as fast as possible.
Desperately trying to give meaning to their lives---lives that had lost all
traditional spiritual and ethical values---these people would stop at nothing to make a
commercial success of themselves. That was their sole aim in life. Pitiful beyond belief.
Of course, we are all guilty at times of greed, rapaciousness and harmful behaviour. Just
look at our appalling consumer society. Consumerism---these days it's the de facto religion of
the majority of Westerners. Actually, we all
need to practise right intention and learn to moderate our seemingly insatiable
desires, make do with less, and try to do no harm, including doing no harm to
the environment.
Mindfulness should never be seen as a means to an
end, unless the end be a noble one, namely, to become a more compassionate, more loving and kinder human being—a human being who seeks to heal, and not assist in
the ongoing destruction, of our already very badly damaged world, a human being
who, having undergone a Copernican revolution, has come to understand that the
world does not revolve around him or her. There is an old
Christian hymn written by Helen H Lemmel that
contains at least one wonderful line---‘And
the things of earth will grow strangely dim.’ Such is the experience, and the
right intention, of which I speak.
Now, I know this
much. The captains of industry who are paying good sums of money to have their
staff trained in the art of mindfulness do not want them to become enlightened
such that the things of the earth grow strangely dim for them. That would not
be good for the bottom line. Grrr.
Mindfulness without right intention is an abomination.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.