Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture

by Jeff Wilson

Thirty years ago, "mindfulness" was a Buddhist principle mostly obscure to the west. Today, it is a popular cure-all for Americans' daily problems. A massive and lucrative industry promotes mindfulness in every aspect of life, however mundane or Americans of various faiths (or none at all) practice mindful eating, mindful sex, mindful parenting, mindfulness in the office, mindful sports, mindfulness-based stress relief and addiction recovery, and hire mindful divorce lawyers. Mindfulness is touted by members of Congress, CEOs, and Silicon Valley tech gurus, and is even being taught in public schools, hospitals, and the military.

Focusing on such processes as the marketing, medicalization, and professionalization of meditation, Jeff Wilson reveals how Buddhism shed its countercultural image and was assimilated into mainstream American culture. The rise of mindfulness in America, Wilson argues, is a perfect example of how Buddhism enters new cultures and is in each case, the new cultures take from Buddhism what they believe will relieve their specific distresses and concerns, and in the process create new forms of Buddhism adapted to their needs. Wilson also tackles the economics of the mindfulness movement, examining commercial programs, therapeutic services, and products such as books, films, CDs, and even smartphone applications.

Mindful America is the first in-depth study of this phenomenon--invaluable for understanding how mindfulness came to be applied to such a vast array of non-religious concerns and how it can be reconciled with traditional Buddhism in America.

Genres: Nonfiction, Buddhism, Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy, Meditation

280 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Carolyn Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking analysis of how Buddhist spiritualism developed into current ideas of mindfulness and how mindfulness has been interpreted in a variety of different contexts including healthy eating and workplace culture. The writing style is quite dense but covers a wide range of topics. The audiobook is well read.

[Chanelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very informative but also highly critical of the modern Mindfulness Movement. While I agree with Wilson's perspective on the watering down of Buddhist practices to fit into the American mainstream, I'm not so sure I agree with his generally negative view of the overall impact. I would, however, recommend this title to anyone interested in the roots of the Mindfulness Movement (especially MBSR and other related programs).

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meditation is becoming more and more popular in the US. Not only is it recommended by mainstream self-help gurus like Tim Ferriss, it is increasingly recognized by the medical community as a useful treatment for stress and PTSD.

I am a meditator too. I started experimenting with meditation about 2 years ago and I still try to meditate every day but before reading this, all the books I'd read on meditation were written to encourage Americans to meditate, e.g:

-Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch

-The Art of Living by S.N. Goenka

-Strength in Stillness by Bob Roth

-Where ever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Wilson is not against meditation, but he does not advocate for it either, he only focuses on examining the spread of meditation in the US as a social phenomenon.

Some things I learned:

(1) He makes a big point of emphasizing meditation's Buddhist roots. Most Americans know that meditation has some vague religious roots, but books targeted towards Americans typically don't mention religion at all.

Wilson argues that meditation is very much an intrinsically Buddhist practice and that the fact that meditation popularizers don't mention this is very deliberate.

(2) It was extremely interesting seeing how Buddhism was packaged and sold to Americans.
-Aspects of Buddhism that were "weird" were deemphasized.
-Aspects of Buddhism that seemed "scientific" were emphasized.
-Meditation is presented as the ultimate self-help tool: something that will make you slimmer, happier, richer and all other desirable things.

(3) I was really surprised to learn that for most of history Buddhists thought of meditation as a difficult advanced technique meant for monks trying to achieve nirvana, not something easy for every housewife and office drone trying to manage their stress.

(4) I was very intrigued by the idea that "American Buddhism" is changing "Original Buddhism". The popularity of the American spin on Buddhism is filtering back to the source and is changing how Buddhism is practiced in Asian Buddhist communities.

Will meditation continue to increase in popularity in the US?

Will Americans become more familiar with "original buddhism" and correspondingly change their values?

[Russell Eric Dobda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Densely written book explores how Buddhism has been appropriated into America's "Mindfulness" movement through a systematic approach: Mystifying Mindfulness to strip it of religion and its Buddhist Roots so as to attract a wider audience, including Christians who think yoga is of the devil; Medicalizing Mindfulness to break its benefits down into digestible pieces with "scientifically proven benefits" that can be more easily consumed in the world of "self help," Mainstreaming Mindfulness to make it appeal to the middle class by even going so far as the concept of "mindful consumption" and "mindful luxury" or any other mainstream activity. Marketing Mindfulness gets the word out through western marketing methods, and Moralizing Mindfulness to tie the processes into western world views and even push some of them forward. The one part they left out is what this book is: Academicizing Mindfulness -- this is a very academically written book, but the concepts are enlightening and it's a good read for anyone in the "Mindfulness Industry" whether they by yoga teachers, youtube stars preaching mindfulness, or practitioners like myself who sell meditation albums that "distill" ancient practices into pieces more suited for western consumption.

[ジェイミー · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It's about time somebody wrote this!" - Not Jon Kabat-Zinn

The book is a thoughtful counterweight to the dominant influence of mindfulness in American culture. The author asks the reader to reflect on the cultural context and values from which mindfulness was originally derived in light of its contemporary usage. I think the book is important b/c it essentially highlights the mutual transformation of two societies and the incentives that keep those within each group from evaluating the consequences of such actions. As a psychologist and researcher of psychotherapies that incorporate Kabat-Zinn technology, I found Wilson's evaluation to be fair and, if anything, too kind to the possible consequence of what it means to extract core beliefs from a group of people while simultaneously diminishing elements it dislikes.

[Duncan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent? Says far too many words and repeats way too much to be actually helpful in any discernible way, but it’s at least thorough. Seems to not really have a full on position on various things (Is mindfulness appropriation? Does it have a worthwhile purpose in America? Are current teachers of mindfulness just scamming dumb Americans?), with a lot of contradictory points. That isn’t necessarily bad, but there aren’t even strong arguments for either side of the questions. I skipped around a LOT, and I missed absolutely nothing from it. The only real reason to read this is if you need information for a research paper you are doing on American Buddhism or American appropriation, and even then honestly just Ctrl+F.

[Shaun Terry jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to take up mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, or even just yoga. It does an excellent job of pointing out how it is that many of the very problems that mindfulness attempts to solve are actually made worse by the deployment of mindfulness. I've read no book that's clearer—or more interesting—on theses subjects.

[kylie (allegedly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

jeff wilson TY!! ur gonna be bright big star in the dark dark night of my research paper

[Peyton Whirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting enough on the commodification of spirituality

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is largely an academic text (i.e. dry and sleep-inducing in several parts), the description of the evolution of the mindfulness movement in the US was thoroughly informative and interesting.

[Mills College Library]

294.34211 W7493 2014