Mind Cure
March 28, 2019
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
New Thought, often seen as a purely American metaphysical movement, was in fact shaped by transnational exchanges with Asian religions. Leaders of New Thought encountered Buddhist meditation and Raja yoga through European Orientalist writings and the Theosophical Society, and later through direct contact with Asian missionaries. Key figures included D. T. Suzuki, who popularized Japanese Zen; Anagarika Dharmapāla, a Sri Lankan Buddhist and Theosophist; and Swami Vivekenanda, who founded the Vedanta Society in North America. These interactions were fostered at events like the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions and the Greenacre conferences in Maine, revealing the movement's global roots.
Mind Cure
March 28, 2019
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
Mindfulness, despite being promoted as a secular therapeutic method, exhibits characteristics of American metaphysical religion, modernist Buddhism, and neo-Vedanta. The rhetoric of Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the modern Mindfulness movement, is tested against theories of religion and critiques from Theravāda and Māhāyana Buddhist specialists. Kabat-Zinn claims his teachings are universal, but they actually blend elements from various religious traditions rooted in Asia, the United States, and Europe. As Mindfulness is increasingly adopted in public schools, government agencies, and the military, this raises questions about the separation of church and state.
Mind Cure
March 28, 2019
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
Mindfulness may not be as broadly effective as its proponents claim. Neuroscientific images of meditators' brains from fMRI and PET scans appear to show positive changes but are produced within a 'black box' of assumptions, technological limits, and human factors that make them less definitive than they seem. Self-report studies are also unreliable. A major issue is that mindfulness is inconsistently defined and often measured by scientists unfamiliar with how canonical Buddhist texts and experienced teachers describe it. Research data suggest mindfulness can be beneficial, but it is not the panacea some advocates suggest.
Mind Cure
March 28, 2019
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
The Mindfulness movement, when compared with the early community-oriented wing of the New Thought movement, shares several characteristics with Individualist New Thought but also has significant differences. Extracting meditation from its religious contexts and meanings and turning it into an individual technique for reducing stress causes several important resources to be lost in translation. These include the social and spiritual benefits of religious community, fundamental aspects of Buddhist and neo-Vedanta spiritual paths—particularly the ethical foundations of meditation and yoga—and systemic analyses of the causes of suffering and stress-related illness, such as racism, sexism, and poverty.