The Promise of Mindfulness

If your social circle is anything like that of author Adam Grant, people around you take it as a given that you meditate. If you tell them that you don’t, they react with dismay.

I suspect that Grant’s is an unusual circle (no one I know has ever assumed that I mediate), but it is true that in the last few decades, a secularized version of Eastern mindfulness practices derived mainly from Buddhism spread in the West. One might say: spread like wildfire. According to Google’s Ngram tool, use of the word “mindfulness” increased 100-fold between 1960 and 2021. There is no shortage of books, classes, and retreats on offer, and some sources estimate that between 2015 and 2020 alone, 2,500 meditation apps were launched and downloaded by millions of users (though most users delete the apps within weeks). Mindfulness has attracted the attention of researchers as well.

But what exactly is mindfulness and what might it do for us?

At a very basic level, mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness. When we act mindlessly, we act without paying attention while the opposite is true of acting mindfully. You can be mindlessly driving or scrolling through a social media feed, or you can do these things mindfully, being selective about the posts you dwell on or noticing your surroundings.

The issue is a complex one since one can be mindlessly driving while fully focused on a challenging mental task, but I set this point aside here. More importantly for present purposes, the mindfulness of meditation practices has features that set it apart from the ordinary idea of mindfulness.

In commonly advertised meditative practices, the goal is not to mindfully do whatever it is you want to do, but rather, to practice mindfulness in isolation. While in both cases, the focus is on one's present experience, in meditation, one is instructed to abstain from all other activities and attend to a narrow part of experience such as one’s breath. Since most of us are not very good at focusing on something as repetitive as breathing for extended periods of time (Adam Grant reckons that the exercise is dreadfully boring), meditation involves also making an effort to notice when we’ve strayed, shift attention back to our breath or inner sensations, and cultivate a non-judgmental attitude toward our own failures to stay focused. In the West, meditation is typically recommended as a way to reduce stress and anxiety, and counteract depression possibly because of the expectation that taking time to sit still and attend to a benign neutral stimulus such as breathing may be beneficial.

There are also therapeutic techniques that incorporate mindfulness – Mindfulness-Based Therapy. The key idea there is that if we do not pay attention, we may easily become playthings in the hands of the emotional forces operating in us – negative ones, especially. But if we mind the mind, we may be able to remove the sting out of negative states by learning to observe them without judgment, wait for them to pass, and sometimes, by reframing them.

Can mindfulness deliver therapeutic benefits?

Mindfulness as therapy

There is a good deal of research on this, and I cannot offer a full review of the literature, but briefly, the evidence is mixed. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.) While some studies find benefits, others do not. There appear to be significant individual differences also: some people may derive large benefits while others may get none.

Another question worth asking is what mindfulness practices are being compared to when it comes to relieving anxiety and stress. Are they, for instance, as good or better than a walk in the woods? Dinner with friends? Or as two psychologists put it tongue in cheek – as good as sex?

Importantly, there is even some evidence that meditative practices may have adverse effects and lead to increased distress (for instance, to re-living trauma) and possibly to psychosis (though see this article for an alternative interpretation of the findings).

For most people, there is likely no risk, though here as elsewhere, results may vary.

McMindfulness

Some argue, on the other hand, that while mindfulness practices can deliver mental health benefits, there is something misguided about their instrumental use. This is the criticism levied, for instance, by Ronald Purser, a professor of management who also happens to be an ordained Buddhist teacher. Purser charges that the US government’s use of mindfulness techniques in the military, with the goal of making soldiers more efficient, is particularly suspect and at odds with the ethical foundations of mindfulness. He maintains also that corporations which promote mindfulness to their employees are trying to avoid responsibility for potentially stressful work environments.

What I would like to note in response is that there is nothing wrong with the instrumental use of mindfulness in principle. The question is what the goal is. Some of the goals mentioned by Purser may be questionable (e.g., help reducing stress related to killing other people), but if you are a worrier and want to calm down, it is perfectly fine to give mindfulness a try. You don’t need, in addition, to attempt to become a better person. (Interestingly, the pursuit of moral improvement through meditation is not without its own dangers. There is evidence that meditation may feed narcissistic needs and lead practitioners to draw the conclusion that they are better than other people – more aware, more spiritual, and so on.)

Mindfulness as a path to insight

Mindfulness has been recommended also as a way to better understand consciousness and the self. The core idea is, roughly, that through mindfulness, we may come to see that the self is an illusion. Moreover, we will embrace this new way of seeing things as veridical.

I note here that if we expect the self to be a “thing” that we can detect upon introspection, then turning our gaze inward and looking for the “self” is likely to result in the conclusion that there is no such thing. Philosopher David Hume once reached precisely this conclusion (without meditation). Psychedelic drugs may provide an affective, rather than a cognitive, route to the no-self idea by creating the subjective impression that one’s self has expanded or merged with the universe. There are important differences between versions of the view reached in these different ways, but I am presently interested in the similarities.

There are two questions one may ask here. First, do such experiences illuminate the nature of the self? And second, do they, in turn, have therapeutic benefits? Can the "no-self" view set us free?

Regarding the first question, it is not entirely clear how there could be either suffering or relief from it if there is no self. Who is suffering and who gets relieved?

It may well be, however, that there is something to learn about the human mind and the self by noticing, for instance, the spontaneity of mental activity, the lack of authorship that characterizes many of our thoughts. This knowledge may be beneficial as we may forgive ourselves for thoughts that come unbidden. (I’ve argued elsewhere that we must remember this is true of others as well – others may say hurtful things they don't mean and which do not stem from anything deep inside the other.)

Mindfulness as an antidote to mindlessness

Psychologist Ellen Langer is a defender of mindfulness understood as paying more attention to what we are doing. Her idea is that we can be better at what we do – more creative – as well as happier and less bored if we attend to the tasks at hand and try to see things with new eyes. She marshals a lot of evidence in support of her claim. For instance, professional musicians delivered better performances and enjoyed playing more when encouraged to look afresh at pieces they've played numerous times.

Though Langer studied meditation early in her career, mindfulness à la Langer has little to do with focusing on one’s breath for extended periods of time and much to do with the ordinary idea of mindfulness I began with. Langer’s contention is that life would go better if we are more engaged in what we do. I note, however, that reduction in stress may well be a side effect of embracing Langer’s proposal. Anxiety and stress are almost never related to the present – they come from thoughts about the future and the past. This is precisely why focusing on one's breath too may have a therapeutic effect. The advantage of Langer's method compared to meditation is that absorption in one's present activities can be sustained over much longer periods of times, leaving less mental space for worries and fears, and possibly leading to pleasurable “flow” states.

And focused activity has tangible benefits. A job well done now is an investment in our own future happiness.