Mainstreaming Mindfulness: How Is Mindfulness Adapted to Middle-Class Needs?

Transcription

1 Oxford Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-7 of 7 items for: fulltext : management tools approaches business practices economy book conditions relbud Mainstreaming Mindfulness: How Is Mindfulness Adapted to Middle-Class Needs? Jeff Wilson in Mindful America: Meditation and the Mutual Transformation of Buddhism and American Culture Published in print: 2014 Published Online: June 2014 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Mindfulness has succeeded by providing concrete benefits that average middle-class Americans desire for themselves. In Asia, mindfulness was used primarily to create detachment from everyday thoughts and experiences, leading to the achievement of nirvana. In America, mindfulness is applied to everyday experiences in order to enhance them or gain control over them, the better to benefit from them. This chapter provides major examples from the mindfulness movement, including mindful eating, mindful sex, mindful parenting, and mindfulness at work. Mindfulness is believed to lead to weight loss, alleviation of eating disorders, increased pleasure during orgasm, heightened interpersonal intimacy, more attentive parenting, increased work efficiency, and benefits for other middle-class concerns. Thus mindfulness has lost its association with renunciation and become a vehicle for delivering thisworldly delights. Medicalizing Mindfulness: How Is Mindfulness Modified to Fit a Scientific and Therapeutic Culture? Jeff Wilson in Mindful America: Meditation and the Mutual Transformation of Buddhism and American Culture Published in print: 2014 Published Online: June 2014 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Page 1 of 5

2 Mindfulness in Asia was part of a set of beliefs and practices related to supernatural forces and posthumous existences. But mindfulness has been greatly aided in its penetration of American culture by a process of medicalization that reframed mindfulness as a psychological technique that provides scientifically verifiable physical and mental benefits. The most important driving force behind his process has been Jon Kabat-Zinn and his creation of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). This chapter examines how mindfulness was repackaged as a psychological process or technique, in part as a strategy to deliver the alleged benefits of meditation to the widest possible client audience. This has led to a shift in those who claim expertise on mindfulness, as it is increasingly the property of scientists, doctors, therapists, and motivational speakers, rather than religious leaders. A whole host of new mindfulness-based therapies has resulted. The Pattern of Buddhist Revival in the Past Jiang Wu in Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China Published in print: 2008 Published Online: May 2008 ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This chapter identifies the legacies of 17th century Chan Buddhism as expansion of Chan influence in Chinese culture and society, integration of monastic practice, and intensive networking by dharma transmission. The chapter argues that Chan Buddhism has a larger role in the history of Chinese Buddhism because it not only bridged the gap between Buddhism and Chinese culture and society and also unified the Buddhist world by systemizing monastic rituals and spreading dharma transmission. The reinvention of Chan also shows that there was a boundary within Chinese society to limit the growth of Buddhism and a general pattern of Buddhist revival can be discerned. Buddhism and Economic Development Laszlo Zsolnai in Teaching Buddhism: New Insights on Understanding and Presenting the Traditions ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ Page 2 of 5

3 Laszlo Zsolnai s contribution complements the environmentalism chapter by reviewing the classical ideals of Buddhist ethics regarding true human needs and recent efforts to articulate alternative economic models. The author provides a systematic treatment of modern Buddhists who have rejected building societies on the economics of environmental and human exploitation. The chapter argues that Buddhist Economics urges individuals not to multiply human desires but to simplify them to be closer to the minimum material comfort, which includes enough food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. In a consumerist economic system, wanting less would bring substantial benefits for the person, for the community, and for nature as a whole. Buddhism recommends moderate consumption and directly aims at changing one s preferences through meditation, analysis, and moral reflection. The author surveys the writings of both Asian and Western economic theorists seeking to apply Buddhist teachings such as karma and suffering to contemporary economies and the quest for sustainability. The Limitations of Propaganda John Powers in The Buddha Party: How the People's Republic of China Works to Define and Control Tibetan Buddhism ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ The focus of this chapter is patriotic education, a program of indoctrination aimed at Tibetans. It discusses the history of patriotic education and how it has been adapted to Tibet. It discusses how the program works and its core messages and tactics. It also describes how Tibetans resist its messages. A core focus of the chapter is the resurgence of old-style Marxism and how it has become current again during the tenure of Xi Jinping. A particular focus is the messages of essentialization of Tibetans, the racism and notions of cultural superiority that pervade the program and that create tensions between the Han instructors and their intended audience. Page 3 of 5

4 Buddhist Environmentalism Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel in Teaching Buddhism: New Insights on Understanding and Presenting the Traditions ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ The cultural resources of Buddhist doctrine and the specific actions that Buddhists have taken to address environmental issues is the subject of the chapter by Leslie E. Sponsel and Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel. Given that environmental problems are rampant from the local to the global (e.g. climate change; pollution; deforestation), Buddhists around the world have turned in various ways to their religion and its resources to solve these problems. The authors point out that there are elements of ecology and environmentalism in the Buddha s teachings. The chapter outlines the principles of Engaged Buddhism environmentalism that have developed in recent decades in Asia as well as in the West. It then reviews a variety of ways that these principles and history can be the focus of undergraduate experiential learning. Instead of discussing Buddhist environmentalism only through the interpretation of sacred texts, this chapter surveys the subject more broadly referring to institutional practices and recent activism initiatives. Acts of Ingratitude John Powers in The Buddha Party: How the People's Republic of China Works to Define and Control Tibetan Buddhism ISBN: eisbn: acprof:oso/ This chapter discusses the Chinese government s propaganda response to the 2008 demonstrations in Tibet, which were the largest and most widespread in the history of the region. It describes how they began and how the government was unprepared for them. It then shows how standard aspects of the PRC propaganda narrative regarding Tibet were brought into play and disseminated throughout China and the rest of the world. It discusses how the uprising was suppressed by a massive show of military force and how Tibetans adapted and developed new strategies of resistance, including White Wednesdays, which uses culture as Page 4 of 5

5 a weapon, and self-immolation, both of which directly challenged the certainties the PRC government wishes for citizens in Tibet and in other parts of the country to accept. Page 5 of 5