The Serenity Pulpit

‘Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.’
The Buddha

If raised in conversation today, the matter of mindfulness is as likely to elicit screams of objection, as anything else. Given the way the practice has been marketed since it’s apparent re-arrival on Planet Earth over the last ten years, this is understandable. Mindfulness has become extremely fashionable, making it easy prey for those wishing to dismiss it merely as vapid, New Age burbling, or for others convinced that they are being sold some kind of snake oil. There are reasonable concerns to be aired here.

The venture capitalists of mindfulness come at us with beatific smiles and shining yoga bodies, enrobed in the loose white clothing that says, ‘humble’ but screams, ‘guru’. With Buddhist principles gleaned from the random sayings and TED Talks of Steve Jobs, these beaming people are after your money, just as surely and swiftly as a Marrakech pickpocket. Unlike that more honest thief however, the gurus come armed not just with a product to sell, but a promise also: buy this thing and with it, release from your emotional troubles.

The place where meaningful help and commerce meet is rarely a pretty one, but at a time where anxiety has become the defining mental health disorder of the age, this feels to me particularly predatory. By all means, identify markets, set prices and launch products. I wish you success and profit. But what is being sold here, the product, is not really a product at all, but a rational therapeutic process, by which a troubled person can restore some psychological balance, emotional stability and physical calm to their lives. These are not things to be taken lightly, or treated as yet another fast-moving consumer product. There needs to be, and admittedly there sometimes is, some genuine heart behind the product.

There can be little doubt that people are in genuine need, and in a world habituated to convenience and with no time to spare there is, as they say, ‘an app for that’, in this case one of the mindfulness or meditation apps that are currently all the rage. These glinting, quietly addictive shards of saleable software come brimming with ‘mindful’ content aimed directly at easing whatever discomfort you’re in.

Generic fluted temple music and creepy ‘Eastern wisdom sayings’, come with breathily-voiced meditations intoned by ‘calm’ American celebrities, that end up sounding less like the teachings of the Buddha and more like a sinister bedtime story read by David Miscavige. Such serenities can be all yours at the simple, stress-free price of $39.99 a month and no lock-in fee, with freedom from anxiety hoped for, but not guaranteed. Terms and conditions apply.

The rise of the mindfulness app should come as no surprise to a society reliant on its smartphones in the way a heroin addict claws desperately for his fix (an inappropriate overstatement, but still). However you look at it, the app gurus are into some serious money, leading a global marketplace of meditation apps, worth in the region of US$150m. Staying calm has never been bigger business.

And perhaps we should pause here to fully consider the influence on all this by a noted practitioner of mindfulness and Eastern wisdom, a man who combined skilful marketing chicanery and tech brilliance, stitched together with Buddha-lite utterances and parables of late-stage capitalism to become – we see now – the true guru of the digital mindfulness revolution. The Dharma of Steve Jobs is truly upon us and, as with that other company he founded, that may not entirely be a good thing.

Taught at the feet of the master and preaching peace from their serenity pulpits, Dharmic capitalists everywhere are now being fast-tracked into a billion dollar Nirvana, a state of bliss fueled by the related epidemics of anxiety, loneliness and isolation that rage through the lives of their decidedly un-calm customers. And as an even deadlier pandemic continues its dread progress unabated through the cities and streets of the world, the epidemics that haunt our minds will only get worse too.

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But in the midst of all this noise, sound, colour and sadness, what of mindfulness itself? This venerable and clinically valuable practice has long had an important role to play in the repair, restoration and ongoing maintenance of the human mind. It may not be the panacea its more ardent advocates claim, but to dismiss it out of hand as a mere trend, is to misunderstand a process that can bring great benefit to people who are struggling.

If you ever end up in therapy, you will almost certainly encounter mindfulness as a recommended part of your therapeutic routine. This may take a number of different forms, but most likely meditation will play a big role. Embrace it. It’s simple to try at least, will quickly (although perhaps not immediately) have an effect, costs nothing and – if it turns out not to be for you – then there’s no pressure to keep it up. A more recent re-discovery, but again as old as the hills, journalling – the ancient practice of writing down your thoughts and concerns in a private book intended only for yourself – is said to calm the mind and body, and add clarity and focus to our thoughts, which is pretty much mindfulness encapsulated. It is simply you, writing back to yourself, in a spirit of quietude and honest reflection.

And don’t think for a moment that you have to wait until the point of crisis, shivering in the therapist’s chair, before you try these things out. You can of course start today, and make a friend of Prevention, before Cure becomes your only recourse.

I suggest these practices because of their inherent simplicity, a quality of great value at times of disorder. With meditation, you need only yourself and a quiet space with some time to spend undisturbed. For a journal, a pencil and some paper are the obvious and only requirements, or by all means indulge in a nicely bound tome of some kind, if you prefer. The point remains the same: ‘Shun needless complexity’, a useful starting point for any therapy that seeks to bring calm to an overactive mind.

You don’t have to know the belief system, to know that the Buddha achieved enlightenment by the simple expedient of sitting under a tree and closing his eyes. One is tempted to wonder what he would have made of the gleaming, audio-visual meditation apps that promise peace at the push of a button.

Mindfulness, in whatever form you choose to practice it, takes time and consistency to work. By definition, a process of slowing things down will take a while to unfold. By all means, you can spend a short time doing it. Even five minutes meditation a day at first will help, but those five minutes need then to be repeated every day, and in such a way that you’re not in a rush to get them over and done with. Constantly re-checking your internal clock because you have a Zoom any second now, does not a session of mindfulness make. You don’t need to buy special, loose-fit clothing, meditation mats, prayer bells or accompanying music to make it work. If you do feel the need for guidance and resources, they are all available online, for free somewhere.

An average of 6000 thoughts fly unchecked through our minds daily. But a large percentage of these thoughts are of no use to us, and if we add in those that are harmful, then we already have quite a bit on our emotional plate. We then make the fundamental, and very common, mistake of coming to believe that we are our thoughts, that they define who we are. But if this were true, these thoughts would not disappear as quickly as they appeared, they would stay with us, an inherent and permanent part of the Essential Self. The well-known phrase ‘fleeting thoughts’ is well-known for a reason. In my view and experience, it’s best – to paraphrase Kipling – ‘to treat those imposters just the same’, and try to come to a place where we can see our thoughts for what they are, and from where they stand less chance of getting the better of us. 

To do this, we need to come from a place of greater quiet and simplicity. This is easier said than done. Our lives are busy and materialistic and we run in set routines that are not easy to change. But neither is it as difficult as we may imagine. It starts, as all change must, with you. No one else can do it for you, and neither should they be allowed to. It begins with a simple decision and, for it to flourish, continues in the same spirit. No one is stopping you from downloading the mindfulness apps or buying the merchandise, I’ve happily done it myself, and except for some over-purchasing here and there, have no regrets. But most of it is unused now. The one app I do value and still use, was completely free of charge. 

But everything you need to begin is with you, here and now. That ‘everything’ is, and always has been you, in yourself. The digital gurus in their serenity pulpits are far away from here, and have nothing to do with our lives. We can start without them and carry on that way too, for there is much to gain, and we have nothing to lose but our minds.

Nick Jordan

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash