How do we position mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a phenomenon regarding which many choices are available when it comes to positioning.

Some years ago I set up a page at this website devoted to this topic. My most recent comment at the page reads:

I find 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day is a great use of my time. What works for me may not work for everybody.

I also like to read articles about cautions associated with mindfulness. Such articles are informative on many levels.

An ecosystem of perspectives regarding mindfulness is readily evident. The ecosystem is well worth exploring.

In my own experience, the practice of mindfulness has made me vastly more effective in a wide range of realms than otherwise would be the case. It is a tool, a technique, that can be used for a wide range of purposes, some of which may be benign while some of which may be other than benign.

Not unlike the uses to which the European Enlightenment has been put.

A March 2, 2022 BBC article addresses this topic.

An excerpt (I’ve omitted embedded links) reads:

There are many forms of mindfulness, but the most common techniques involve either focusing on your breathing or paying intense attention to the sensations in your body. There is some good evidence that these practices can help people to cope better with stress, yet a handful of studies over the past few years have shown that they can also have some unexpected and undesired effects. Last year, for example, researchers from the State University of New York showed that mindfulness can exaggerate people’s selfish tendencies. If a person is already individualist, then they become even less likely to help others after meditation.

Empathy

A related topic at the above-noted page about mindfulness (accessible at the loading page at this website) is empathy. That is, what is empathy?; is empathy any use to anyone?; Plenty to think about – including: how does a given person define empathy?; how is the research study designed, that seeks to arrive at some conclusion about empathy? These are topics of much interest and relevance.

And, we need not stop there. We can read a Feb. 26, 2022 article in the New Statesman with an arresting title: “Is reality a hallucination?”