My short answer to this question is: yes.
Mindfulness has become a huge industry. There are books, videos, apps, courses, retreats, coaching programmes and counselling services, all promising greater calmness, less stress, better sleep, improved concentration and relief from anxiety.
Perhaps I am biased because I approach mindfulness primarily through Buddhism and feel that mindfulness is too commercial.
For me, mindfulness is not a technique designed to solve a particular problem. It is a way of experiencing life itself.
Buddha and Mindfulness
The Buddha taught mindfulness as part of a complete path that included wisdom, ethical conduct and mental discipline. Its purpose was not simply to feel better, but to see more clearly. Mindfulness invites us to observe thoughts, emotions, sensations and experiences exactly as they arise in the present moment.
This does not always feel comfortable.
Sometimes mindfulness reveals anxiety rather than removing it. Sometimes it exposes anger, craving, fear or dissatisfaction. The practice is not about escaping these experiences but understanding them.
Perhaps this is where my concern begins.
Many modern approaches present mindfulness as a product. It is marketed as a solution to stress, unhappiness, poor sleep or low mood. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Indeed, approaches such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy have helped many people suffering from depression and anxiety, and as a psychologist I recognise the value of such work.
Has Something Been Lost?
Yet I sometimes wonder whether something important has been lost.
When mindfulness is separated entirely from its wider Buddhist context, does it become something different? Has a practice intended to cultivate wisdom become primarily a tool for self-improvement? Are we using mindfulness to understand our existence, or simply to make ourselves more productive and comfortable?
I do not have firm answers to these questions.
An Invitation
What I do know is that mindfulness, for me, is not something I do for twenty minutes and then put aside. It is part of walking, gardening, cooking, writing, meditating and observing the world around me.
It is not an escape from life.
It is an invitation to participate more fully in it.
Perhaps the challenge is not whether mindfulness has become commercial, but whether we remember what it was originally intended to teach us.
If you take the challenge, why not begin with exploring The 4 Foundations of Mindfulness for yourself?
I would choose to answer a slightly different question: has Buddhist Modernism and now Secular Buddhism moved too far from their roots to make it difficult in the West to practice Buddhism (in any tradition) with real rigour? Secular Buddhism, in particular seems to have sidestepped the idea of awakening altogether, in favour of ‘flourishing’ in the burning house of samsara.
But I have no problem with separating mindfulness from Buddhism, when there is abundant evidence that it can be of genuine therapeutic value in dealing with stress reduction, for example. ‘Wellness’ isn’t a bad thing either, on its own terms.
That Western Buddhism has become so commercialised ought to be a matter of shame – but isn’t.
I never understand what mindfulness is ! I read quite a lot about in different text , articles and Oxford English Dictionary too! I never understood!
I don’t think a strict definition can be helpful. It’s more a concept, and like all concepts imported from one culture into another, there will be differences between the original idea and the understanding of it in the culture of arrival. As the post says, the term has been used and abused so much in the West in recent years, it has taken on a whiff of capitalistic exploitation.
Understanding it simply as being present with what is, focusing on the moment — and not letting your thinking run the story — is the main idea.