Mindfulness and meditation
On the politicization, secularization, co-optation, and gendering of Buddhist practice
In the Western imagination, the person most associated with the words “mindfulness” and “meditation” is a young white woman who is dressed according to the “Boho” aesthetic, typically wearing Lululemon yoga pants and sitting cross-legged. She is likely in a smaller body and “fit,” she is likely affluent, and she likely has little to no connection to the spiritual practice of Buddhism she is so blatantly emulating. So, who is this woman? How did she come to be? What cultural forces culminated to lead to her creation? Answers to these questions can be reached by tracing a story of cultural exchange, translation, and modification that goes back thousands of years.
I argue that the co-optation of Buddhist practice by this imaginary woman (who is also all too real) can best be described by the term epistemological colonialism. This is a form of colonialism wherein the knowledge, beliefs, or practices of one culture are somehow policed, transformed, or stolen by a culture that is more powerful in some way. This is, of course, an immensely complicated process. Faier and Rofel utilize Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the “contact zone” to explore interactions like this, defining these zones as “‘social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination’” (p. 366). Crucially, these interactions do not always occur between ‘colonizer’ and ‘colonized,’ as interactions between cultures are frequently far too complicated to be accurately described with language that simple. Drawing again on Faier, Rofel, and Pratt, this process is also not unidirectional, as cultural interaction often does the work of mutually constituting the cultures involved. The manifestation of Buddhism as we see it around the world today has been molded and remolded, stripped and built up, by processes found within the “contact zones” Pratt describes.
These zones can be found in many places within the long history of the spiritual practice of Buddhism. Buddhism originated sometime around 400 BCE, when, according to legend, Siddhārtha Gautama achieved enlightenment, became the Buddha, and began sharing his teachings– concerning the ability of all humans to become enlightened– with the world (Harvey). These teachings spread significantly in his long lifetime, and the Buddha died with many followers who passed down his teachings through oral tradition. These followers began forming schools (monasteries) where monks and nuns could learn and practice Buddhism. These schools also housed laypeople, who provided basic necessities like food and clothing. These residents were some of the first Buddhists, who were not devotees actively seeking enlightenment, but rather laypeople who learned the teachings and practiced in less life-consuming ways. This shared community between monks/nuns and laypeople formed Buddhism’s first space of cultural encounter: this practice alone changed how Buddhism was practiced, as it translated the complex meditation practices into forms more easily undertaken by the laypeople in the monasteries (Harvey).
With the rise of Ashoka the Great in the early 200s BCE came a subculture of Buddhist missionaries who took the Buddha’s teachings and spread them as far north as the then-Greco-Bactrian kingdom, and as far south as Sri Lanka (Harvey). When the Greco-Bactrian kingdom fell and reformed as the massively influential Indo-Greek kingdom in the late 200s BCE, Buddhism’s reach extended far into China. At this same time, Buddhist teachings were also being dispersed via the Silk Road. In every place these teachings landed, the people they reached modified them in order to best fit their preexisting cultural practices. With an immensely complex and varied culture during this time, China offers a particularly revealing example of the flexibility of Buddhism. Within the population in that massive country were people practicing Daoism, Confucianism, and countless other indigenous belief systems, yet Buddhism still found a way into many folks’ religious practices (Hebert). This was, notably, not without conflict, but this conflict was typically resolved with religious schisms and the formation of new sects of Buddhism. At this site of encounter, it becomes clear that Buddhism has been continually shaped by social forces since its conception.
Continuing dispersion along the Silk Road for several centuries, Buddhism eventually made it to Japan around 500 CE (Hebert). Much like in China, Buddhism melded into Shintoism in some places, and became a site of conflict in others. One notable sect of Buddhism that popped up in Japan in the 12th century is Jodo Shinshu (referred to as Shin Buddhism in the West), which was created by Shinran, a Japanese Buddhist monk (Lai and Lai). Shinran viewed the mainstream Buddhist practice of the time as being inaccessible to anyone outside of the upper class, and sought to make Buddha’s teachings available to folks who were part of the working class, and who needed ways to practice Buddhism inside their homes. Thus, Jodo Shinshu was born, creating a new way for lower class Japanese folks to practice Buddhism and seek enlightenment. This practice has evolved greatly over the centuries since its origins, and one of the most interesting evolutions it has undergone happened as a result of the Japanese diaspora.
As is the case with migrants from everywhere around the world, establishing places for practicing their religion was very important to practitioners of Jodo Shinshu upon arrival in America (Lai and Lai). This served as a strategy for bringing a piece of home to the strange new land, building community, and honoring religious and cultural heritage and identity. However, as a result of the xenophobia Americans had against them, these Shin Buddhist Japanese immigrants felt that, in order to minimize discrimination they experienced, they needed to assimilate every aspect of their lives, down to their religious practices. This assimilation included building temples that looked more like churches, with Roman architecture and pews instead of floor mats. The assimilation was not just in structures, but in language as well: Jodo Shinshu practitioners took to calling senseis priests or reverends, calling their temples churches, and modifying the mode through which they practiced, opting for practices that closely resembled Christian worship. All of these strategies of recent immigrants sought to make themselves seem less threatening to the blatant racism they frequently came into contact with. In this specific sect of Japanese American culture, the utter assimilation of religious practice had deep impacts on the community, as well as on the religion itself, that can still be felt today.
This adaptation of Jodo Shinshu to meld into American society did not go unnoticed. It is my great displeasure to introduce you to Mr. Alan Watts. Watts was a Beatnik-era intellectual who, upon finding that the Buddhist religion he ran for in hopes of escaping traditional American culture aesthetically resembled the Christianity he so deeply despised, decided to create a sect of Buddhism that more closely aligned with the nostalgic fantasies he had about what it should look like (Lai and Lai). In an astounding act of ignorance and erasure of racialized histories, Watts viewed these Westernized temples themselves as co-opted and impure, and sought to “bring them back” to the untouched, culturally isolated version of themselves he thought they should be. He began selling books touting this exoticized version of Buddhist practice that he apparently believes he invented. In co-opting and profiting off Buddhist spiritual traditions, I argue that Watts himself partook in a specific form of epistemological colonization. He stole the practices of a culture he had a very poor understanding of, he ignored every piece of nuance that made the practices what they are, and he repackaged and sold them to an audience of likeminded people who continued to perpetuate the harms he caused.
In reshaping Buddhist practice according to the exoticized version he imagined, Watts seems to be implying that he believes that practitioners of Buddhism (and, perhaps, folks hailing from Asia as a whole) do not live any part of their lives the same way as Westerners do. In his work concerning Orientalism, Edward Said quotes a British representative in Egypt, Lord Cromer, as saying, “I content myself with noting the fact that somehow or other the Oriental generally acts, speaks, and thinks in a manner directly opposite to the European” (39). Whether he is aware of this or not, in reimagining Buddhism in a way that had nothing in common with Christianity, Watts echoed the meaning behind those words from the British representative. In order for this practice to be truly Buddhist, it has to be utterly separate from the world he knows.
This line of thinking that (arguably) began with Watts and other Beatniks evolved into the counterculture movement of the late 60s. Hippies, as participants of this movement were frequently called, brought the co-opted forms of mindfulness and meditation with them into a new generation of practitioners.
These practices took on a new meaning when the people participating in them were activists fighting against the war in Vietnam, a country with a large Buddhist population. While it could be argued that these specific practices had always been political, as they were born of a group of people who sought to subvert the conservative Christian American culture of the era, they took on an especially political meaning once protests began.
Crucially, these hippies were not the only Buddhists who were politicizing these practices, and using them as a basis to fight against the Vietnam war. Thich Nhat Hahn was a Vietnamese Buddhist who started as a monk, quickly realized that the Buddhist institution in Vietnam was not working the way it should, and sought to reform it (Dedication and Nghiêm). He believed that, given that a main tenant of many sects of Buddhism is focused on being loving and compassionate, Buddhists should be more focused on improving the wellbeing of all humans through any means necessary. He worked as a professor of Buddhism at Columbia University, educating both his students and the wider American culture on Buddhist practice and beliefs, as well as on mindfulness and meditation. He had a specific focus on meditation and mindfulness practices in everyday life, taking small opportunities to be kind to yourself and to the world.
When America began waging war against Vietnam, Hahn moved back to his home and, after witnessing unparalleled levels of human suffering, began writing to Martin Luther King Jr., seeking the support of his fellow activist in ending these atrocities. This letter, entitled “In Search of the Enemy of Man,” convinced MLK to cut ties with President Johnson and speak out against the brutal war being waged. These two men went on to become good friends, and appeared in several news conferences dedicated to anti-war activism together (Kitch).
Buddhism has, thus, been proven to be immensely useful in the fight for human rights. The point of encounter between these two ideologies, one of Buddhist belief and one of activism, is one that brings entirely new meanings to both. This point of encounter could easily be considered a ‘contact zone.’ In teaching about both Buddhism and activism, Nhat Hahn reconstituted what Buddhism can mean, what it can do, and what it can represent. Conversely, having a Buddhist monk who teaches about mindfulness and meditation as a major voice in anti-war efforts redefined what self-care within activist spaces could look like. It is for this precise reason that witnessing the complete and utter depoliticization and secularization of this practice is especially upsetting.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor emeritus of medicine, has been at the forefront of this depoliticizing and secularizing movement, though these are likely not words he would choose to describe it. He is the self-proclaimed inventor of mindfulness-based stress reduction, a practice that took the meditation practices of Buddhism and removed any spiritual, religious, or historical meaning from them. He founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and promptly began promoting these practices on the lecture circuit. Much like Watts did, in stealing these practices and using them for personal gain, Kabat-Zinn is committing a form of epistemological colonization, though his is perhaps even more egregious. This is because, in his promotion of the practice, he successfully ‘sold’ it to the psychological establishment. The reach of his teachings is immense: they have completely revolutionized the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, mental health, stress management, pain management, and likely many more.
Furthermore, in co-opting these practices for the use of science, Kabat-Zinn has completely changed who the ‘experts’ are on these practices. With the scientific community now completing study after study on the utility of mindfulness and meditation, the original practitioners of Buddhist spirituality are no longer viewed as having expertise: that honor always goes to the people with the most publications, the most citations, and the most degrees. This policing of knowledge in itself is colonial in nature; the field of psychology needed to do rigorous tests on the efficacy of meditation before they accepted it. Those scientists, thus become the experts. Kabat-Zinn, pictured below, has carefully crafted his image (online and otherwise) to posit himself as an expert in both medicine and meditation, despite being neither a physician nor a practicing Buddhist.
Simpson, Joshua. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Stethoscope. 2013.
Rebecca Karl’s concept of diachronic time seems to map on the psychological establishment’s obsession with academic expertise particularly well (83). In privileging empirical thought over embodied cultural knowledge and practices, it is implied that there is something backwards, or less advanced, or somehow less intellectually sophisticated in Buddhist thought when compared to the West’s psychological empiricism. These two cultures are existing at the same time, yes, but one is years ahead of the other (Su-Ling Welland).
Notably, one of the core meditation practices of Buddhism is Metta, also known as Loving-Kindness meditation, and it is conspicuously missing from the strategies Kabat-Zinn teaches. He is doing very specific work here, of individualizing meditation and mindfulness, so that their only goal is to cultivate the self. It could be argued that the primary goal of this entire practice of mindfulness, which only lends itself to stress reduction and the like, is to make its practitioners more productive working subjects. If it was about more than that, the practices centered around loving humanity and striving to make the world better would not have been excluded.
Capitalism, thus, is visible in the rendering of this mindfulness and meditation. To further this line of thought, the people who are privileged enough to practice mindfulness and meditation are those who can afford the books, the how-to guides, the therapy, and the life coaches. They are those who are privileged enough to take time for themselves.
Despite all of these grounded critiques, it would be immensely unfair to completely discount the usefulness of the work Dr. Kabat-Zinn has done. The mindfulness meditation practice he has been touting for decades has been extraordinarily helpful for many people, particularly for folks who are skeptical about religious Buddhist practice, or maybe just skeptical of religion in general (Hoge et al.; Walsh et al.). A lot of people need a lot of help with stress management, and a lot of those people would not be willing to convert to an entirely new religion in order to achieve the healing they’re seeking. Kabat-Zinn’s work has also completely revolutionized the field of counseling psychology, bringing a focus on awareness and introspection that the field had been sorely lacking before (Hunt et al.; Fincham et al.).
Perhaps the takeaway is that cultural exchange (and potentially even collaboration) can be very useful, but only if proper respect and citation are given to all parties. In fact, the Buddhist Churches of America, a nationwide organization of Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in America, have been opening their doors to many folks who are new to the religion, folks who have complicated relationships with religion, and folks who just need some form of spirituality in their lives (BCA). Jon Kabat-Zinn could have (and should have) collaborated with an organization like this one, so he could share Buddhist teachings in a respectful and dignified way.
Despite their current success, when Kabat-Zinn first started sharing these teachings, many people were not willing to accept them. Mindfulness, up until its validation by empiricism and science, was seen as something only hippies participate in (Paulson). It had likely been constructed that way as a result of Alan Watts, his followers, and the generations who had been inspired by him.
Our mysterious, Bohemian white women from earlier is a direct result of all of these different cultural forces coming together to create a truly enigmatic human. She is a woman because hippies are often characterized as women. She is white because the mindfulness she practices has been deliberately separated from the racialized people from whom it originated. She is wearing Lululemon pants because she is coming from a place of privilege, and Lululemon has meticulously constructed itself as a necessity for people who practice self-care; we would also be remiss to forget the racist origins of their name (Burtka). She is in the Boho aesthetic because she, whether knowingly or not, is an ideological descendant of Alan Watts and the Beatniks. Every aspect of her existence has been somehow shaped through many long years of cross-cultural translation, politicization, secularization, co-optation, and epistemological colonization.
Works Cited
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Burtka, Allison Torres. “With Anti-Asian Violence Rising, It’s Past Time for Lululemon to Change Its Name.” Prism, 7 June 2023, prismreports.org/2021/04/08/lululemon-talks-the-talk-but-doesnt-walk-the-walk-on-fighting-anti-asian-racism/. Accessed 29 May 2024.
Dedication, Sister True, and Sư Cô Định Nghiêm. “Thich Nhat Hanh: Extended Biography.” Plum Village, 2018, plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/biography/thich-nhat-hanh-full-biography. Accessed 29 May 2024.
Faier, Lieba, and Lisa Rofel. “Ethnographies of Encounter.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 43, no. 1, 21 Oct. 2014, pp. 363–377, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030210.
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Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
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Karl, Rebecca. Staging the World. Duke University Press, 2002.
Lai, Gen, and Ted Lai. “History of the Buddhist Churches of America.” Asian American History 101, season 4, episode 16, 21 Apr. 2024.
Paulson, Katrina. “Mindfulness Embarrassed Me until I Saw It’s More than Hippy-Dippy Nonsense.” Medium, Better Humans, 15 Apr. 2021, betterhumans.pub/mindfulness-embarrassed-me-until-i-saw-its-more-than-hippy-dippy-nonsense-cc33a951912d. Accessed 29 May 2024.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.
Su-Ling Welland, Sasha. “Karl and Said Discussion.” Global Asia. University of Washington. Seattle, WA. 9 April 2024. Discussion.
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