As communists, we understand the causes of many of our woes in the modern life (i.e. class warfare, exploitation, etc), we are also not the most spiritual folks (at least from my anecdotal experience). Both things usually don’t mix well with this now trending topic of meditation and mindfulness in the West. Unfortunately, as with everything on capitalism, meditation was commodified, and often as not sold as the new snake-oil for mental health and improvement of lifestyle for the mordem working class of big cities, masking the causes of the many issues afflicting us in this late stage capitalism. HOWEVER, we know that meditative practices predate capitalism by several centuries. Also, anyone who’s been serious on the practice, knows that there is much more to meditation than what your mindfulness app endorsed by The Economist is promising you (helping fall asleep, focus, put up with your insufferable boss or wtv). So I’ll stop rambling and just go to my question: anyone has any Marxist oriented views on meditative practices? It’s something that interests me much, since the practice is totally self-oriented, and so, much less likely to be subject of socialism/communism discussions, but at the same time, in the East the practice is much more common and widespread, so in China, for example, there must be some interesting views on this.
Meditation is great, comrade. Like anything it’s a tool that may or may not help you as an individual.
Capitalism has commodified healthy food/lifestyle, exercise, medication, and friendships, etc. too but that doesnt mean those things aren’t good for your health and for society as a whole. I think we probably all agree that the widespread and marketed push is just another effort to obscure and distract from the capitalist hellscape that we’re all forced to live in, but that doesn’t mean that meditation doesn’t have enormous benefits. Like you said, the practice existed before capitalism. And in this current age of screen addiction, information overload, and 24/7 lack of privacy, I’d argue that meditation is an important and powerful exercise for returning to a state of mental balance. And because of all of the current BS, it makes sense – to me at least – why it’s increasing in popularity.
There are also so many different approaches to meditation. It doesn’t have to be self-centered. It doesn’t have to be spiritual. There’s nothing inherently anticommunist about it.