The Laity Doth Protest 

When we think of “mindfulness” today, we might imagine an app that advertises itself as something to reduce our anxiety, or perhaps a Silicon Valley company that encourages mindfulness as a means to increase worker productivity. 

Indeed, it’s a term that has been progressively corporatized and divorced from its Buddhist origins in the decades since its popularization in the United States (Gordon 2009). 

Is mindfulness the ability to detachedly analyze your emotional responses? Is it the ability to think about far-reaching consequences of your actions? Is it simply the ability to “be present”? 

In its most general form, let us consider mindfulness as a detached, inner examination of thought. 

The word “detached” is key here, as it means this inner examination is free from self-judgement. Each thought is observed but allowed to disappear naturally (a common analogy is that thoughts flow like a river). 

The ability to engage in this mindful state can be cultivated through the process of meditation, though critically, one can also practice mindfulness while engaging in daily life.

Although mindfulness is often seen today as too self-centered - and perhaps too gentle - to be useful in the practice of political action, with this expanded definition we will see that Buddhist ideas from which Western mindfulness was originally derived can support a form of mindfulness which is practical and capable of bringing about radical action. 

Consider the modern labor movement of rising union power, which demands class-consciousness and a heightened compassion for workers. Or consider the Black Lives Matter movement, which aims to dismantle a systemic phenomenon and similarly demands a critical consciousness of systems of oppression and a solidarity among people of varying identities and experiences of privilege. 

These radical social movements require a critical examination of the individual’s relation to others, and to society broadly. Further, they require a recognition of the assumptions we absorb through the behaviors and narratives which surround us, both of which can be facilitated through a form of mindfulness that we will spend some time constructing below.

Source: Bill Pugliano, Getty Images 

In her chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Meditation, Ann Gleig distinguishes “assimilative” methods from “radical” methods of meditation in the West, which both enact social change in the United States. 

While meditation is by no means the sole method of practicing mindfulness, it’s undoubtedly a popular one in the United States. And depending on the form of mindfulness a meditative method cultivates, the practice can give rise to an array of social effects.

The mindfulness meditation which has captured American pop culture represents an assimilative method, aiming to nurture better health, well-being, and productivity in its practitioners. As Gleig points out, “The assimilative approach rests on the assumption that individual meditation practice will naturally lead to social transformation”. 

Weaving together nicely with the fabric of American individualism, the assimilative method sees mindfulness as a path towards self-improvement of individuals across society.

At the level of social change, the assimilative method may manifest as a motivation to inspire collective “awakening” of individuals to a suffering-free existence, seeing this as a pre-condition for a truly equitable society. 

As individuals find stability, they may be able to minimize both the suffering they cause in others through violent thought and action, as well as the suffering they experience as a result of their perception of external causes.

There is, however, some skepticism that a meaningful societal awakening could happen in this way. 

The mindfulness associated with assimilative methods moves away from the critique of inequitable power structures, instead potentially solidifying them by pacifying worker distress. Are all of those hours of overtime stressing you out? Look inwards and you will realize it is attachment to your thought that is the issue.

Photo Credit: Felipe Teixeira 

Perhaps lesser known to many in the United States are meditative methods which, as Gleig explains, actually lend themselves to radical activism. 

These methods explicitly challenge inequitable power structures by encouraging a form of mindfulness which brings an awareness of them. 

In contrast to the assimilative method, the radical one recognizes not only the impact of the surrounding systems on the self, but that the self is a part of those systems. Indeed, we are those systems. 

Through inner examination of thought, one can become aware of the ways in which we – as individuals and as a collective – enable the systems we constitute and thus also hold the power to transform by challenging our own assumptions and baseline behaviors. 

Consider, for example, the role of the Interdependence Project (IDP), in encouraging meditation practice for activists during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not only did this practice serve to enable self-care among protestors, but according to Adreanna Limbach, a coordinator for IDP, it also worked to discourage a replication of power structures within the activists, thus strengthening the movement.

Instead of targeting society’s problems at the level of individual perception, practitioners of radical methods of meditation recognize it as a way to identify societal systems reflected in and perpetuated by the self, and to then transform the world with an enhanced degree of precision, integrity and compassion.

Importantly, the usefulness of mindfulness for activism must be understood by its connection to the Buddhist ideas it is based on.

Buddhist Roots

The term “Engaged Buddhism” was coined by famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thích Nhất Hạnh. 

In his 1993 book with Fred Eppsteiner, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, Nhất Hạnh presents guidelines for a socially-engaged form of Buddhism, including an awareness of suffering, a rejection of being absolutely bound to doctrine, and an emphasis on compassion – instead of anger and hate – being the way to understanding. 

Together, these elements are compatible with an empathetic, radical form of social activism.  

Awareness of suffering can mean a heightened awareness of systems of oppression, rejection of doctrine can mean a critical view on any ideology which suppresses thought, and compassion being the way to understanding can mean both solidarity with others and the rejection of hatred towards the “other”, thus forming a useful framework for solidarity and collective action. 

In this interpretation, mindfulness allows the individual to not only recognize the systems behind societal inequities, but to also channel the powerful impulse to change those systems through profoundly compassionate logics rather than hateful ones.

On a more abstract level, Loretta Pyles in her article “Understanding the Engaged Buddhist Movement: Implications for Social Development Practice” describes “dependent co-arising” and the “interconnected self” and their importance to the Engaged Buddhism form of activism. 

Dependent co-arising describes the essential mutual dependence of all phenomena on each other. Interconnected self is the recognition that in every moment, you are also one of these phenomena. Every action you take or don’t take affects your environment, including the lives of others. 

This awareness of interconnectedness combined with Nhất Hạnh’s principles, can cultivate a sharpened sense of active compassion for the systems and lives that surround us, thus driving a compassionate activism.

Indeed, this compassionate approach to activism was practiced by Thích Nhất Hạnh in response to the terror and violence of the Vietnam War. 

He founded the School of Youth and Social Service (SYSS) in 1964, training young Buddhists to spread the call for peace and deliver aid to rural areas of Vietnam (Luu et al., 2023). 

Thích Nhất Hạnh himself also talked to Western leaders personally throughout the war, calling for a ceasefire. Rather than supporting one side or the other, this “third way” helped people who were suffering and simultaneously worked to stop the systemic violence being inflicted upon them.

Arthur Miller and Robert Lowell with Thich Nhat Hanh, 1966; Photo credit: Peter van Zoest

Mindfulness, when understood as an internal critical process accompanying the external action, can be a potent tool for radical activism. 

Its detachedness from thoughts serves to break individuals of mindsets that are overly self-serving, demonize some “other”, or allow the individual to wallow in inaction. 

This allows the individual to have a mindfulness of thoughts that emphasizes compassion and the interconnectedness of all individuals, one can fight systemic injustices that cause widespread suffering. 

Assimilative mindfulness allows the individual to detach from harmful thought patterns and recognize self-inflicted suffering. Radical mindfulness does this as well, but it also recognizes the interconnectedness of suffering, thus forming an internal framework for effective activism.

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