Why are we trying to think less when we need to think more? The neutered, apolitical approach of mindfulness ignores the structural difficulties we live with
Marina Abramović uses many techniques of mindfulness – but it’s an exercise guided by ego. Photograph: Mike McGregor for the Guardian
Most of what is wrong in the modern world can be cured by not thinking too much. From psoriasis to depression to giving yourself a "competitive advantage" in the workplace, the answer touted everywhere right now is mindfulness. Just let go for few minutes a day, breathe, observe your thoughts as ripples across a pond, feel every sensation around you. Stop your mind whirring and, lo, miraculously, everything will improve "at a cellular level".
Sorry, it's not working for me because I cannot rid myself of the thought: "Why this, why now?" There is nothing wrong with trying to relax: the problem lies in the "trying". And there is nothing new about meditation, so why has it suddenly gone mainstream?
What was once the province of people who had backpacked across India has been gentrified and repackaged as a great cure-all, legitimated by doctors and scientists. Now everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Lena Dunham and William Hague is giving it a go.
The City is awash with bankers trying to quiet their minds. Schoolchildren are given mindfulness training to help them with their anxieties. Yoga was once a bit countercultural, too, and now it vies with Zumba, rumba and Pilates classes.
We know the west takes hold of eastern mysticism, ignores its history and faith and turns it into a secular and accessible pastime. For mindfulness is Buddhism without the awkward Buddhist bits. A complex philosophy is rendered as self-help. What does freedom from attachment and desire mean in this self-centred world? What is radical acceptance? Why practise non-judgment? Those who have practised meditation all their lives may not say it's to get a promotion or be less stressed. There is a whole history of thought here.
But no, once Arianna Huffington is on the case, you know there is money to be made in commodifying blankness. Indeed, the whole of Silicon Valley has hugged mindfulness close, as have the US marines, who use it as part of "mind fitness" to help soldiers relax and learn "emotional intelligence".
These are basic meditation techniques being sold as a way to function better in an over-connected world. Thus, in the finance sector, companies where bankers are super-stressed – unlike poor people – arrange for their staff to have 10-minute daily meditations. It's all scienced-up with names such as Mind Lab to shake off the hippyish/religious/psychic-adventurer connotations. Keep fit for the brain.
It's even in art galleries. I wandered around Marina Abramović's 512 hours waiting for enlightenment. Or something. She is using many of the techniques of mindfulness, from counting grains of rice to staring at walls to get us to slow down. I like her work because she is a powerful presence, but when she took my hand and guided me to sit down, as ever, I wondered why I must do as I was told and why everyone else was so passive. But they were clearly having spiritual experiences. Or were asleep. This exercise in mindfulness then, was guided by ego – which is fitting, as the art world is the most ego-ridden, sensationalist and utterly mindless spectacle of all.
Much of the cult of mindfulness is a reaction to technology. It speaks the language of detox, of decluttering. There is too much information. We need to clear our minds. Be and not do. The new ascetic is someone who goes for a walk without their phone or takes a week off Twitter to cleanse themselves. This version of meditation requires no more than the faith that we can all be self-improving part-time gurus. It requires no commitment to a community, and it's cheap.
The corporate world sees that it can make its workers more self-reliant, balanced and focused. What could be better? Take your medicine, because the mindfulness movement is symptomatic of what late capitalism requires of us. A contemplative space opens up where religion used to be. We learn techniques to make us more efficient. This neutered, apolitical approach is to help us personally – it has nothing to say on the structural difficulties that we live with. It lets go of the idea that we can change the world; it merely helps us function better in it.
Living in the moment, non-judgmentally, being more self-aware, it's all good. But, actually, more and more people are switching themselves off. They cannot even watch the news because they feel so powerless to do anything about it.
The mindfulness coalition of life coaches, business people and healers cannot – and does not –promise peace, but why are we to think less when we need to think more?
Something here is, well, mindless. Maybe a mantra is all you need and maybe we should all devote more time to changing our minds. But for the time being I am just letting that thought drift right through me.
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