Secular mindfulness?spwhittonhttps://spwhitton.name//blog/entry/secularmindfulness/spwhittonikiwiki2015-11-18T17:09:12Zcomment 4QBOOYFW9I2LZ2V6https://spwhitton.name//blog/entry/secularmindfulness/comment_4QBOOYFW9I2LZ2V6/vince2015-11-18T17:09:12Z2013-02-11T21:34:57Z
<p>It is refined escapism, an attempt to detach yourself from the material
and intellectual conditions of your existence rather than attempting to
change it. No surprise that Western liberals are so drawn in by this,
given that they valorise mediocrity and establishmentarianism – and
also given its convenience in reinforcing implicit orientalist
conceptions of the East. Interestingly much of this is in its historical
genealogy essentially a re-absorption of Western conceptions of the
Orient in the construction of an othered Eastern ‘spiritual’ identity,
rather than having anything to do with the noble-savage mythology of
‘ancient wisdom’.</p>
<p> One is also reminded of the Japanese Zen Buddhists who claimed in the
Second World War that the soldier who knives another in the eye should
“detach” themselves from their intentionality and say that, in the
cosmic scheme of things, it is simply a knife contingently going into an
eye. Or the repressive Tibetan theocrats who justified their rule on
similar lines. Kindness and generosity do not follow from attempting to
extinguish the self.</p>