Where Mindfulness Fails | Guideposts to Happiness

 

Where Mindfulness Fails

By Will Meecham, MD, MA

 
Practicing mindful meditation and teaching it to those with chronic illness has proven valuable.

 Jon Kabat-Zinn, the well-known advocate of mindfulness in clinical settings, hardly deserves criticism. 
 
Meditation as taught in medical centers, as popularized by Kabat-Zinn, comes stripped of the Eastern metaphysical context from which it emerged long ago.

Teachers emphasize technique and downplay interpretation. There is no discussion of the nature of reality.

The origins of mind might be considered from a neuroscience perspective, but not from a mystical one.

Students learn body scanning, mindful eating, walking meditation, and nonjudgmental awareness, but they are not encouraged to question modernity’s basic assumptions about the universe.

Non-duality and cosmic consciousness are off the table.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Larry Berkelhammer, and others who have introduced the power of mindfulness to the suffering would never have succeeded had they insisted on philosophical stances contrary to what moderns consider realism. 

Medical institutions are both cautious and conventional and even devoid of metaphysics, mindfulness faced resistance at first.

Mindful meditation remains powerful as a stand-alone technique. 


(The Buddha cautioned against obsessing about unanswerable metaphysical questions; he advised us to focus on healing our tormented minds. )
  

I would argue that one big problem in the modern world is exactly our refusal to feel dumbstruck by Creation.  We believe that because we can explain its mechanistic details, we have bridled Nature. This leaves us feeling powerful, but alone.  Deluded into thinking we can control chaotic and complex forces, we destroy the very world that nurtures us.

Religions, for all their faults, encourage us to crumble to our knees before powers too vast and mysterious to be comprehended. This is the essential ingredient that contemporary mindfulness instruction lacks.
 

But let’s also be realistic in our valuation of human reason, which easily dissects processes but cannot nail down absolute reality.The appropriate stance is therefore humility, not certainty. Humanity would do well to nourish feelings of awe in place of arrogance.


  

Mindfulness is a derived technique of great value, a tool that has brought relief to many suffering souls, including mine.

Still, no single tonic is capable of healing all disease. The human collective needs mindfulness, but it also needs devotion to something greater than itself.


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After a traumatic upbringing, Will Meecham, MD, MA studied ecology, zoology, biophysics, neuroscience, medicine, ophthalmology and reconstructive surgery.

In 2000, neck disease prevented him from continuing to work as an oculoplastic surgeon.

He spent many years in emotional, intellectual, and spiritual exploration, investigating how people cope with childhood trauma, adult disappointment, and emotional distress.

He now writes and speaks to publicize how meditation and skills training enhance mental wellness. More of his work can be found at his personal website and blog, WillSpirit.com.




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Source:
Where Mindfulness Fails | Guideposts to Happiness

 http://blogs.psychcentral.com/happiness/2012/10/where-mindfulness-fails/

Fellow doctor and meditater: http://www.larryberkelhammer.com/