Assembling mindful bodies

This chapter examines how mindfulness is practically taught and enacted in therapy, arguing that 'mindful bodies' are assembled through concrete training encounters. Since the late nineteenth century, Asian mind-body practices have been adapted in Anglo-American and Nordic countries as therapeutic responses to industrial capitalism. Humanities scholars have shown that Buddhist disciplines like mindfulness are transformed as they move across contexts, becoming compatible with empirical science and secularized for self-healing. The authors contend that for an inner state to be recognized as 'mindfulness', public criteria must exist. Mindfulness is promoted as a way to reclaim agency and humanity within 'digital capitalism'.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This chapter explores how mindful bodies are assembled within mindfulness-based therapies. Since the late nineteenth century, people of Anglo-American and Nordic countries have adopted Asian mind-body training regimes as therapeutic ways of living with industrial capitalism. Humanities scholars have shown how Buddhist disciplines such as mindfulness have been transformed as they move across time and place. Mindfulness has been made compatible with empirical science and turned into a secular psychological therapy for the purpose of self-healing. To practice mindfulness, people must learn how to ‘be mindful’, and it is how mindfulness is practically realised through concrete teaching and training encounters that we are interested in examining. To recognise an inner state, practice or event as illustrating ‘mindfulness’, there must be public criteria which make it recognisable as ‘mindfulness’. Mindfulness is often promoted as a way for people to regain control and agency, making ‘choices’, in the face of increasing automation, thus reclaiming their humanity within an expanding ‘digital capitalism’.