Liberating mindfulness requires us to face our own delusion. Although this is sometimes a solitary process, it isn’t a retreat from the outside world. Instead, it can deepen our sense of connection, provided we see beyond clinging to the illusory separateness of self. If we shed this defensive skin, along with the constant sense of lack that it

Social mindfulness is not an intervention conducted by experts. It makes no claim to sell “evidence-based” services. Its aims are regenerative, helping to repair solidarities and social bonds that neoliberalism devastates. It does not adopt the outlook of power, and refuses to collude with, or act on behalf of, institutional interests. Instead, it

We don’t need another form of praxis defined in biomedical and universalizing terms. Mindfulness needs to be embedded in the organic histories and local knowledge of communities, empowering them to see how things are.

Privatizing stress as a personal problem, and using science to affirm this agenda, mindfulness turns individuals on themselves. Not only does this blame the victims of cultural dysfunction, it drives a spiral of narcissistic self-absorption.

If promoters of mindfulness are seriously interested in change, they should start by acknowledging the problem: their own complicity in managing systems that naturalize suffering. Instead of channeling people’s frustrations into critical questioning of political, cultural, and historical conditions that cause unhappiness, they want to help us

Unless it is combined with more liberating teachings, mindfulness just makes oppressive systems work more gently.

Basking in white privilege, Wisdom 2.0 is like a gated community where smug elites spew feel-good sound bites. Meanwhile, the technologies of distraction and addiction they produce cause widespread suffering, while their companies contribute to widening inequality.

So-called “Mindful Leaders” become anointed with pseudo-spiritual authority, acquiring the rhetoric of wisdom, compassion and empathy that helps secure complicity with corporate objectives. Mindful leadership depends on these narratives to cloak and humanize coercion, persuading managers to fulfill a noble mission of reducing suffering in the

Headspace vows to simplify meditation, as do its peers. Their bite-sized programs help to standardize mindfulness for ease of consumption and “scaling up” revenues. This process follows George Ritzer’s sociological theory of “McDonaldization.”17 The first mark of commoditization is efficiency, which allows for mass production and delivery. The