The mindfulness bubble: why meditating is not the remedy for all evils

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The workshop was announced a year and a half ago in a public school in Villaviciosa de Odón as an extracurricular subject, just as other centers offer karate, French or piano lessons. «Next year we will be pioneers in our school. We will start the activity of mindfulness for children, as well as mindfulness for parents, ”indicated the circular. And then he added something that reminded a little of the language of the prospects. «It has been observed that the benefits obtained in children who practice mindfulness are multiple. Among many others: it improves attention span, concentration and memory; balances emotions and helps manage them; promotes better interpersonal relationships, helps in conflict resolution, reducing violence and aggressiveness and improving academic performance ».

With results as appealing as decoy, the workshop was then given and this course will be taught again at the Madrid school, which has joined the Spanish community of mindfulness. Yes, yes, don't pretend you've never heard of the subject. Every September and at the beginning of the year, just when good intentions are renewed, offers appear here and there: bus shelters, press announcements, online conferences, recommendations of celebrities such as the presenter Oprah Winfrey ...

Like you, you have also recently been encouraged to discover what mindfulness is about , even if you try to sneak away by saying that you don't see yourself sitting for a while each day in the lotus position. Neglect, neither the tunic nor the incense nor the Tibetan bells are needed to begin in a meditation technique to which new practitioners are added every day, whether they are Primary children or technological gurus who aspire to recover inner peace.

The fundamental message is that the underlying cause of dissatisfaction and anguish is in our head.

However, the insistence on promoting it as a magic wand against any contemporary malaise and its aroma of new age Buddhism has caused more and more analysts to consider mindfulness the opium of the people of the 21st century. It is true that researchers from the University of Oregon confirmed in 2010 that regular practice of mindfulness increases axonal density (the connections between cells) and the growth of myelin, a layer of fatty tissue that performs protective functions. But from there to that in certain cases it is advertised as a universal medicine cabinet - one, two, three, breathe - there is a stretch.

Ronald Purser, Professor of Business Management at San Francisco State University and true scourge of the phenomenon, states in his last essay, published in July, that this therapy that advocates emotional regulation based on the perception of the present moment has become « the new spirituality of the capitalist world » .

"The fundamental message of the mindfulness movement is that the underlying cause of dissatisfaction and anguish is in our heads," Purser writes about the passive acceptance it implies. “Of course, reductions in stress and increases in personal happiness and well-being are much easier to sell than serious questions about injustice, inequality and environmental devastation . The latter involve a challenge to the social order, while the former respond directly to the priorities of mindfulness: they sharpen people's focus, improve their performance at work and exams and even promise better sex lives.

Purser strongly criticizes, for example, that it is spreading among multinational executives as a way to eliminate the stress accumulated in work weeks of up to 80 hours and, instead, do not urge those professionals to examine their own decisions and policies corporate that "have institutionalized greed, ill will and fraud."

" All this can help you sleep better at night, " adds the professor on the subject of large-scale packaging and commodification of therapy, "but the consequences for society are potentially terrible ."

People who work with mindfulness are opposed to presenting it as a panacea

Thus, mindfulness would be a kind of practical application of the science of happiness, that in which positive thinking also converges , which dictates that there is no better treatment against cancer, long-term unemployment or eviction than optimism. at all costs , as the American doctor Barbara Ehrenreich denounced in her essay Smile or die (Turner).

« The people who work with mindfulness are opposed to presenting it as a panacea », clarifies Javier García Campayo, psychiatrist at the Miguel Servet University Hospital and coordinator of the Masterfulness Master's Degree at the University of Zaragoza, the first of its characteristics in Spain. « It has very specific indications (depression, anxiety, stress, pain, hypertension, etc.). For example, for posttraumatic stress (survivors of terrorism, wars, etc.) the most effective therapy is EMDR. And for phobias it is behavioral ».

If you look at it with perspective, the expansion of mindfulness resembles that of the giants of Silicon Valley: brilliant and global. Since in 1979 the American Medicine professor Jon Kabat-Zin created the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, and even more so since in 2014 he jumped on the cover of Time magazine as Consolidated trend, this method has generated abundant scientific literature, new business opportunities - its industry moves 3.6 billion euros a year worldwide - government projects such as the British Mindful Nation and countless courses, sessions and experiences halfway between Transcendence and self help.

One of the most popular mindfulness exercises and, at the same time, frequent mockery is the meditation of raisins . It consists of inviting the person who meditates to eat this dried fruit by applying the highest degree of awareness to each action: the observation of the raisin in the palm of the hand, the analysis of color and texture, its leisurely tasting ... A training that, supposedly, promotes mental control and breaks with the accelerated rhythm of everyday life. Applied to football, a little what Xavi did in the selection of the tiqui-taca .

«We live in the society of haste. Everything has to be in the shortest possible time and yield the greatest benefits. Mindfulness, if we reach it as a product of marketing, and not by reflection and personal choice, also falls within that dynamic . What would happen with diets and so many ad hoc offers, ”acknowledges Agustín Moñivas, Doctor of Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid and responsible for his chair of mindfulness and Cognitive Sciences.

This specialist emphasizes that the most popular program - the MBSR - lasts eight weeks and involves working at home based on availability. “Each one reaches a certain point depending on their degree of commitment to the practice and wherever they want to go. As Walter Benjamin said, ' sometimes when we reach ourselves we want to run away ' ».

It has influenced that it is based on Vipassana meditation, which is an oriental technique and right now everything oriental is in fashion

That mindfulness is being able to dethrone as a favorite instrument of self-exploration of the West not only to philosophy or yoga, but to life-long psychotherapy on a couch, would also be explained in these times of shamanism and coaching , of terraplanistas and anti-vaccines , for the fascination towards an emerging region of the world: Asia.

It is suggested by JM Mulet, Professor of Biotechnology at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and one of the greatest experts in pseudoscience in Spain. "It has influenced that it is based on Vipassana meditation, which is an oriental technique and right now everything oriental is in fashion, " explains the teacher. "And there comes the problem: under the label of mindfulness we can find serious psychologists, but also charlatans without any professional qualification."

Andrés Martín Asuero was the pioneer in the introduction of MBSR courses in Spain. He confesses without objection that, like any phenomenon that grows very fast, mindfulness has two faces: «The kind one is that it is now available to many people in different cities and training centers. The other is that there are programs that are promoted in formats or conditions that may not be very effective, taught by instructors who do not always have sufficient training and who, due to ignorance of the attendees, pose as experts ».

A Ronald McDonald hits tourists in Bangkok with the palms of their hands together, as if he was about to say namaste. For Buddhist monks, the corporate clown sculpture of the hamburger multinational is surely an aberration. For other citizens, Thai or not, the dummy may represent a concession to the ubiquitous Yankee imperialism. And for the majority of those who stumble upon the clown, it will not cease to be a local curiosity before which one must stand with the mobile to take the selfi of rigor. However, the truth is that the Zen clown is the perfect metaphor for the mix of meditation and business, for the parallel search for balance and economic benefit .

The spawn has even been named: McMindfulness .

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