My doubts about mindfulness

More and more I'm starting to worry that the mindfulness movement is drifting away from me.

When we started teaching secular mindfulness, we were at the base of a wave, riding a wave, more or less comfortable in that wave of helping professionals and Buddhists (and Buddhist helping professionals) bringing these practices to people who need them.

We were quoting good studies that conveyed the benefits of those practices.

We were meeting people where they were at.

But the wave has become a tsunami. It seems reckless to me now, unhinged.

And along the way it's picked up all the flavors of the very mental habits we were (and are) working to deconstruct.

Mindfulness has, in essence, been swallowed by the wellness industry. And the wellness industry, in my view, is primarily dedicated to the promotion of false promises --

That you can be thin.

That you can be better.

That you can beat your neighbor.

That you can cheat death and defeat aging.

That you will always be happy.

That consumerism is a net good.

Mindfulness, in the way I want to teach it, is designed to unhook you from these assumptions.

I want to teach people to live in the real, the swamp of desire and turmoil, ballasted by the values they hold most dear, and anchored to this body, this breath, and this moment--not as an escape, or a plasticine solution, but as the fetid soil where wisdom grows.

So. I wonder.

Where is my place in all this?

I don't want to sit on the critic's bench, telling everyone what they're doing wrong.

And I myself record meditations for a wellness app.

Frankly, I don't mind making money doing it.

I just wonder how I can be part of all this without succumbing to the nonsense. And I am afraid I have, at times, already succumbed.

I find no neat solutions.

Do you?

For now, at least when I'm out of retreat, I'm committed to staying in the game.

What comes next is anyone's guess.

All good things,
Craig

P.S. I wrote this entry on August 24th. By the time it autoposts on November 1st I will be in a 3-month meditation retreat. Please know that, despite my absence, I am sending you all many good wishes.