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2023/07/05
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life - Big Think
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life - Big Think
HEALTH — JULY 8, 2019
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life
In Natural Causes, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich questions our obsession with wellness.
Photo by Darren Gerrish/WireImage
Twiggy (R) and Gwyneth Paltrow on stage at In goop Health London 2019 on June 29, 2019 in London, England.
KEY TAKEAWAYSJournalist Barbara Ehrenreich writes that a for-profit medical system needs healthy patients — hence, the demand for yearly examinations and constant screenings.
Certain human cells are not in favor of our continued existence, making the concept of "wholeness" questionable.
Ehrenreich concludes that the market for wellness is more a function of capitalism than health.
Derek Beres
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Fans of the “lifestyle” website Goop were recently disappointed by the company’s U.K. wellness summit. Apparently, the $5,700 entry price did not match the hype. Instead of offering credible post-summit customer service to deal with the blowback, Goop’s representative claims the “true value” of the summit was more than $8,000.
In other words, Goopies should be grateful for the bargain.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s oft-criticized company is an easy target. Day after day, the website churns out sciencey articles — that is, posts that state “science says” without any actual science behind the pushed claims. The replication problem in clinical trials is well known: results from one study are not repeatable. Yet companies such as Goop in particular, and the wellness industry as a whole, tend to find small sample sizes with questionable results and run with it.
Whether marketing the hottest “ancient healing herb” or pimping nootropics for brain optimization, the underlying catalyst for the multi-billion dollar wellness market is truly ancient: the fear of death. That much was true when Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer for making such a claim in 1973, and it is equally true when Barbara Ehrenreich published Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer last year.
Ehrenreich wears her muckraking badge proudly. The author of 21 books, she wrote about living on minimum wage in the service industry in her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed. For Natural Causes, she puts her Ph.D. in cell biology to use by exposing the façade the wellness industry uses to rake in massive profits.
Having successfully battled breast cancer, Ehrenreich notes that she’s sworn off annual physical exams and the battery of tests that go along with it. At 77, she’s just about reached the average life expectancy of American women. She’s ready to die when her time comes and has no further plans on extending her time here. Her contention isn’t with medicine, but the profit-making nature of its purveyors:
Top Stories00:1401:00
5 brilliant books told in thesecond-person perspective
“How is a doctor — or hospital or drug company — to make money from essentially healthy patients? By subjecting them to tests and examinations that, in sufficient quantity, are bound to detect something wrong or at least worthy of follow-up.”
‘I am old enough to die’: Barbara Ehrenreich questions our longevity obsession
www.youtube.com
‘I AM OLD ENOUGH TO DIE’: BARBARA EHRENREICH QUESTIONS OUR LONGEVITY OBSESSION
The small percentage of early detection successes does is not worth the massive costs of unnecessary tests, many of which lead to treatments that do more harm than good. Despite the seemingly good intentions of regular PSA screenings, she writes that there has been no overall decrease in mortality since that public health campaign began in the late ’80s.
What’s worse, the radiation and hormonal therapies attached to over-diagnosis leads to actual problems, such as cardiovascular disease and incontinence. A similar problem occurs with colonoscopies: at a cost of up to $10,000, they’ve been found no more effective at detecting cancerous polyps than the examination of feces for traces of blood.
Health care costs Americans $3.4 trillion. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent in the last days and weeks of a patient’s life in what proves to be a futile attempt. Here Ehrenreich’s academic training shines. While the wellness industrial complex seeks out means for lengthening telomeres, she focuses on an overlooked cell: macrophages, “cheerleaders on the side of death.”
The focus of modern wellness is holism; Ehrenreich considers our bodies differently. We’re not a single system but rather a number of confederations, some of which want to wrest control from others. Cancer cells (as Siddhartha Mukherjee has so eloquently written) are not foreign invaders; they’re an inherent part of our biology. Should we not try to stop their incessant growth? Of course not. We need to understand them for what they are, however.
Ehrenreich spends chapters explaining the (sometimes) murderous plight of macrophages. They play life-threatening and -ending roles in many inflammatory processes, including cancer, as well as acne and arthritis, all well beyond the fold of conscious control. She even goes as far as to note that these cells have agency:
“Second by second, both the individual cell and the conglomeration of cells we call a ‘human’ are doing the same thing: processing incoming data and making decisions.”
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich on November 27, 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where she was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2018. Photo credit: Patrick van Katwijk / WireImage
Every day, this body that I usually consider a unified “I” is really a battleground for competing forces. Humans assign agency to inanimate forces; we offer it freely to other species. At a cellular level, however, there is an agency we are not aware of. Instead of fighting it, understand it. Ehrenreich suggests the cultivation of an important quality to aid in this quest: humility.
“For all of our vaunted intelligence and ‘complexity,’ we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor.”
Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday
Fields marked with an * are required
Ehrenreich does not criticize staying healthy. She discusses her own struggles and triumphs with gym culture; even still, she exercises regularly. Her problem is treating the human body as a clumsy burden to be overcome; equally, as an infinitely wise biological organism primed for optimization. Many of our cells — what “I” is composed of — have no interest in sustaining our lives. A number of them even bet on and actively instigate our destruction.
Beyond her stretching regimen and time on exercise machines, Ehrenreich writes, “I pretty much eat what I want and indulge my vices, from butter to wine. Life is too short to forgo these pleasures, and would be far too long without them.”
Personally, I’m on team Grace Jones, who, until last month, was Britain’s oldest woman. Shortly before passing at 112, she revealed the true secret of longevity: a nightly shot of whiskey. Futurists can swallow copious amounts of resveratrol while their acolytes chug Soylent for optimal. . . indigestion? I’ll place my bets on something a bit more ancient, like fermented grain mash.
Leaders in the wellness industry thrive at the top of Maslow’s pyramid while their acolytes sell questionable goods down the steep divide. Those at the bottom shrug their shoulders at the scent of privilege. Culturally, we do need to spend more time engaging in healthier behaviors. We just have to educate ourselves to better understand the parameters. That begins, as Ehrenreich concludes, with redefining the place we are all assured to end up:
“You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.”
—
Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook.
HEALTH — JULY 8, 2019
The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life
In Natural Causes, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich questions our obsession with wellness.
Photo by Darren Gerrish/WireImage
Twiggy (R) and Gwyneth Paltrow on stage at In goop Health London 2019 on June 29, 2019 in London, England.
KEY TAKEAWAYSJournalist Barbara Ehrenreich writes that a for-profit medical system needs healthy patients — hence, the demand for yearly examinations and constant screenings.
Certain human cells are not in favor of our continued existence, making the concept of "wholeness" questionable.
Ehrenreich concludes that the market for wellness is more a function of capitalism than health.
Derek Beres
Copy a link to the article entitled http://The%20market%20for%20wellness%20is%20more%20about%20capitalism%20than%20prolonging%20life
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on Facebook
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on Twitter
Share The market for wellness is more about capitalism than prolonging life on LinkedIn
Fans of the “lifestyle” website Goop were recently disappointed by the company’s U.K. wellness summit. Apparently, the $5,700 entry price did not match the hype. Instead of offering credible post-summit customer service to deal with the blowback, Goop’s representative claims the “true value” of the summit was more than $8,000.
In other words, Goopies should be grateful for the bargain.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s oft-criticized company is an easy target. Day after day, the website churns out sciencey articles — that is, posts that state “science says” without any actual science behind the pushed claims. The replication problem in clinical trials is well known: results from one study are not repeatable. Yet companies such as Goop in particular, and the wellness industry as a whole, tend to find small sample sizes with questionable results and run with it.
Whether marketing the hottest “ancient healing herb” or pimping nootropics for brain optimization, the underlying catalyst for the multi-billion dollar wellness market is truly ancient: the fear of death. That much was true when Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer for making such a claim in 1973, and it is equally true when Barbara Ehrenreich published Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer last year.
Ehrenreich wears her muckraking badge proudly. The author of 21 books, she wrote about living on minimum wage in the service industry in her 2001 book, Nickel and Dimed. For Natural Causes, she puts her Ph.D. in cell biology to use by exposing the façade the wellness industry uses to rake in massive profits.
Having successfully battled breast cancer, Ehrenreich notes that she’s sworn off annual physical exams and the battery of tests that go along with it. At 77, she’s just about reached the average life expectancy of American women. She’s ready to die when her time comes and has no further plans on extending her time here. Her contention isn’t with medicine, but the profit-making nature of its purveyors:
Top Stories00:1401:005 brilliant books told in thesecond-person perspective“How is a doctor — or hospital or drug company — to make money from essentially healthy patients? By subjecting them to tests and examinations that, in sufficient quantity, are bound to detect something wrong or at least worthy of follow-up.”
‘I am old enough to die’: Barbara Ehrenreich questions our longevity obsession
www.youtube.com
‘I AM OLD ENOUGH TO DIE’: BARBARA EHRENREICH QUESTIONS OUR LONGEVITY OBSESSION
The small percentage of early detection successes does is not worth the massive costs of unnecessary tests, many of which lead to treatments that do more harm than good. Despite the seemingly good intentions of regular PSA screenings, she writes that there has been no overall decrease in mortality since that public health campaign began in the late ’80s.
What’s worse, the radiation and hormonal therapies attached to over-diagnosis leads to actual problems, such as cardiovascular disease and incontinence. A similar problem occurs with colonoscopies: at a cost of up to $10,000, they’ve been found no more effective at detecting cancerous polyps than the examination of feces for traces of blood.
Health care costs Americans $3.4 trillion. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent in the last days and weeks of a patient’s life in what proves to be a futile attempt. Here Ehrenreich’s academic training shines. While the wellness industrial complex seeks out means for lengthening telomeres, she focuses on an overlooked cell: macrophages, “cheerleaders on the side of death.”
The focus of modern wellness is holism; Ehrenreich considers our bodies differently. We’re not a single system but rather a number of confederations, some of which want to wrest control from others. Cancer cells (as Siddhartha Mukherjee has so eloquently written) are not foreign invaders; they’re an inherent part of our biology. Should we not try to stop their incessant growth? Of course not. We need to understand them for what they are, however.
Ehrenreich spends chapters explaining the (sometimes) murderous plight of macrophages. They play life-threatening and -ending roles in many inflammatory processes, including cancer, as well as acne and arthritis, all well beyond the fold of conscious control. She even goes as far as to note that these cells have agency:
“Second by second, both the individual cell and the conglomeration of cells we call a ‘human’ are doing the same thing: processing incoming data and making decisions.”
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich on November 27, 2018 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where she was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2018. Photo credit: Patrick van Katwijk / WireImage
Every day, this body that I usually consider a unified “I” is really a battleground for competing forces. Humans assign agency to inanimate forces; we offer it freely to other species. At a cellular level, however, there is an agency we are not aware of. Instead of fighting it, understand it. Ehrenreich suggests the cultivation of an important quality to aid in this quest: humility.
“For all of our vaunted intelligence and ‘complexity,’ we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor.”
Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday
Fields marked with an * are required
Ehrenreich does not criticize staying healthy. She discusses her own struggles and triumphs with gym culture; even still, she exercises regularly. Her problem is treating the human body as a clumsy burden to be overcome; equally, as an infinitely wise biological organism primed for optimization. Many of our cells — what “I” is composed of — have no interest in sustaining our lives. A number of them even bet on and actively instigate our destruction.
Beyond her stretching regimen and time on exercise machines, Ehrenreich writes, “I pretty much eat what I want and indulge my vices, from butter to wine. Life is too short to forgo these pleasures, and would be far too long without them.”
Personally, I’m on team Grace Jones, who, until last month, was Britain’s oldest woman. Shortly before passing at 112, she revealed the true secret of longevity: a nightly shot of whiskey. Futurists can swallow copious amounts of resveratrol while their acolytes chug Soylent for optimal. . . indigestion? I’ll place my bets on something a bit more ancient, like fermented grain mash.
Leaders in the wellness industry thrive at the top of Maslow’s pyramid while their acolytes sell questionable goods down the steep divide. Those at the bottom shrug their shoulders at the scent of privilege. Culturally, we do need to spend more time engaging in healthier behaviors. We just have to educate ourselves to better understand the parameters. That begins, as Ehrenreich concludes, with redefining the place we are all assured to end up:
“You can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and seize it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.”
—
Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter and Facebook.
** Barbara on Living With a Wild God at Miami Book Fair
Barbara Ehrenreich on Living With a Wild God at Miami Book Fair
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2,844 views Dec 8, 2014Rich Fahle interviews author Barbara Ehrenriech about her book, Living With a Wild God: An Unbeliever’s Search for the Truth About Everything at Miami Book Fair International 2014. Watch more interviews at
• Book View Now: Mi... FROM THE PUBLISHER: From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world. Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find ""the Truth"" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a ""mystical experience""-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.Key moments
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Living with a Wild God
0:02
A Moving Passage in the Book
1:35
Steps toward Finding the Truth
5:44
The Event at Lone Pine
7:15
I'M Not Tidy Enough
13:37
A History of Women Healers
14:18
This Is a Very Personal Book
14:59
Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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Christopher Lydon - Wikipedia
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Christopher Lydon (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American media personality and author. He was the original host of The Connection, ...
Open Source with Christopher Lydon | Christopher Lydon in ...
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https://radioopensource.org
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Open Source with Christopher Lydon ... history: Eileen Myles grew up in Boston/Cambridge and moved to New York in 1974 to become a poet. Chris with Eileen .
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Barbara Ehrenreich for Open Source
Topics podcast, health care, politics
Barbara Ehrenreich in conversation with Christopher Lydon
on her book Natural Causes. April 2018.
Christopher Lydon - Wikipedia
wikipedia.org
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › C...
·이 페이지 번역하기
Christopher Lydon (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American media personality and author. He was the original host of The Connection, ...
Open Source with Christopher Lydon | Christopher Lydon in ...
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https://radioopensource.org
·이 페이지 번역하기
Open Source with Christopher Lydon ... history: Eileen Myles grew up in Boston/Cambridge and moved to New York in 1974 to become a poet. Chris with Eileen .
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Mindfulness in Silicon Valley | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley
BUDDHISM CASE STUDY – TECHNOLOGY | 2019
Soren Gordhamer, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Jon Kabat-Zinn on a panel at Wisdom 2.0 in 2011. Photo by elizaIO via Flickr Creative Commons: https://bit.ly/2F8wkhk
PDF CASE FILE
DOWNLOAD CASE
NOTE ON THIS CASE STUDY
New technologies present both opportunities and challenges to religious communities. Throughout history, many religious people have created and used new technologies on behalf of their religious traditions. At times, religious needs have driven technological innovation. Yet many religious people have also tried to limit the use of certain technologies that they felt violated principles of their tradition. The relationship between religion and technology is complex and highly dependent on context. As you read these case studies, pay attention to that context: Who are the groups involved? What else is happening in their context? Who benefits from new technologies? Who get to decide if they are legitimate or not?
As always, when thinking about religion and technology, maintain a focus on how religion is internally diverse, always evolving and changing, and always embedded in specific cultures.
Silicon Valley, a region of central California, is a major economic center and home to many companies that specialize in technology like the internet, computers, social media, and more.
Over the last decade, many of these companies have heavily invested in trainings in “mindfulness,” which is the English name for a diverse set of Buddhist religious practices that have a history going back thousands of years. In particular, the forms of mindfulness promoted by these companies are influenced by 20th century Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar and Zen Buddhists in Korea. Because of Silicon Valley’s economic, political, and social power, this approach to mindfulness has spread rapidly. The mindfulness industry is now worth over $1 billion in the US, and corporations like Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, and Aetna have joined Silicon Valley in offering mindfulness training. Some estimate that 20% of US companies now teach mindfulness, and many of them fund mindfulness training in public schools. Even the US military has used mindfulness to calm soldiers before they are sent into combat.
In Silicon Valley, major companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted mindfulness practices. Companies have claimed meditation is a “technology,” and they market this technology to tech-savvy consumers under trendy names. Jon Kabat-Zinn offers “mindfulness-based stress reduction,” Kenneth Folk promotes “open-source enlightement,” Google talks about “neural self-hacking,” and Soren Gordhamer developed “Wisdom 2.0.” In 2010, Gordhamer started an annual event to discuss mindfulness in tech companies, also called Wisdom 2.0, which has drawn thousands of high-powered CEOs and tech workers. In 2011, Google invited celebrated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to Google’s headquarters to lead mindfulness practice. Many companies claim mindfulness trainings have reduced employee stress and increased productivity and profits. However, studies with control groups are inconclusive in proving these claimed benefits.
While many trainers in Silicon Valley acknowledge that mindfulness is a Buddhist practice, they also claim to remove religion from it. They often characterize their programs “Buddhist-inspired,” making the connection to Buddhism while reassuring their largely non-religious audience that they are not promoting religion. For example, Kenneth Folk described Wisdom 2.0 as “a networking opportunity with a light dressing of Buddhism.” Some question if corporate mindfulness is Buddhist at all; companies usually claim that these trainings are “secular,” even when they bring in well-known Buddhist leaders for trainings. However, some Buddhists claim that “secular” mindfulness is “stealth Buddhism,” which allows Buddhism to be exported to businesses, schools, and hospitals without accusations of proselytizing.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who gave a keynote address to Google employees in 2011. Photo by Duc Truong in 2006 via Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/2F4hqZt
Despite support from some prominent Buddhists, other Buddhists are concerned by the proliferation of these mindfulness practices. At the 2014 Wisdom 2.0 conference, Buddhist practitioner Amanda Ream and other members of a local meditation center protested the event. They called attention to the hypocrisy of the nation’s richest CEOs discussing an escape from suffering for themselves while they were causing suffering for poorer Americans through gentrification in central California. Security removed the protestors without their concerns being addressed. Ream later wrote that true dharma “directs us to feel the suffering of others.”
Ream’s protest was one example of some Buddhists’ concerns about mindfulness in the tech world. Several prominent Buddhists have accused companies of promoting “McMindfulness,” meaning the values of neoliberalism instead of Buddhism’s call to end suffering. Neoliberalism is a dominant economic philosophy in modern American industry that promotes profit-driven, free market capitalism in which workers are responsible for their own well-being. From this perspective, individuals can “choose” between being stressed and sad or being happy and healthy. McMindfulness enables this view by offering a technology workers can ostensibly use to choose health and happiness. However, Buddhist critics claim that this use of mindfulness only shifts the blame for stress onto the employees and discourages them from questioning stressful working conditions. Plus, Buddhist critics note, Silicon Valley profits from mindfulness as a solution to problems it is partially responsible for creating. These Buddhists worry that Silicon Valley is funding McMindfulness because it teaches workers to be “unquestioning consumers” and “compliant” workers. Buddhist monk Bhikku Bodhi noted, “Absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stablize… consumer capitalism.” In his view, mindfulness has become a “handy buzzword” to sell products.
With billions of dollars in funding from Silicon Valley and American consumers, mindfulness has impacted Buddhism worldwide. Historically, many Asian Buddhists have focused on ending suffering, destroying the self, and escaping from samsara, but American Buddhists have increasingly focused on mindfulness for personal, inner healing rather than future liberation. Asian Buddhists have begun to similarly emphasize mindfulness in new ways, reflecting the growth of Buddhism in the West and transforming the tradition as it encounters new cultures.
Buddhism Case Study – Technology 2019
Additional Resources
Primary Sources:
• Google video on well-known Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s visit to their corporate headquarters in 2011: https://bit.ly/1yKInY1.
• CNBC video of Google’s chief mindfulness expert teaching corporate mindfulness on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (2013): https://cnb.cx/2VG9yT0
• Huffington Post article by company founder Arianna Huffington on the money to be made from promoting mindfulness (2013): https://bit.ly/2RaKUeH
• Editorial by Zen Buddhist teacher David Loy on the dangers of “McMindfulness” (2013): https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO
• Amanda Ream on disrupting Wisdom 2.0 (2014): https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
• Editorial by journalist Kevin Williamson critical of corporate mindfulness (2018): https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G
• Editorial by Buddhist scholars Ronald Purser and Edwin Ng critical of corporate mindfulness (2015): https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ
Secondary Sources:
• RLP video explaining the concept of neoliberalism (2018): https://bit.ly/2TuwYZx
• NPR radio program on Wisdom 2.0 and the 2014 protests: https://n.pr/2GVF4Jj
• Wired article on the importance of mindfulness to Silicon Valley CEOs and employees (2013): https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek
Discussion Questions
• Why might Buddhists have such diverse views on the spread of mindfulness in corporations?
• What is neoliberalism? Why do some Buddhists see corporate mindfulness as a neoliberal tool?
• Why might corporate mindfulness trainers continue to teach the Buddhist origins of their trainings, while still claiming to be “secular”?
• Is corporate mindfulness Buddhist? Who gets to decide what is Buddhist and what is not?
• Watch the CNBC video of a corporate mindfulness training. How might you imagine different Buddhists would responds to this video? What about their cultural context might cause them to respond differently?
• Compare the two Huffington Post articles by Arianna Huffington and David Loy. Where do they agree and where do they diverge?
• Why has mindfulness become common in public schools? Why are some people concerned about this trend?
ENDNOTES
1. Richard King, “‘Paying Attention’ in a Digital Economy…,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 31-33, 36.
2. Kevin D. Williamson, “’Mindfulness’ is Just Commercialized Corporate Speak for Buddhist-inspired Help Training,” Dallas News, Jan. 9, 2018, https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G; Ronald Purser & Edwin Ng, “Corporate Mindfulness is Bullsh*t…”, Salon, Sept. 27, 2015, https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ; David Forbes, “Occupy Mindfulness,” CUNY Academic Works, July 1, 2012, https://bit.ly/2sbc3z3.
3. Noah Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley, Meditation is No Fad, It Could Make Your Career,” Wired, June 18, 2013, https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek;
Bret Stetka, “Where’s the Proof that Mindfulness Meditation Works?” Scientific American, Oct. 11, 2017, https://bit.ly/2xzyaiP.
4. Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley…”
5. Candy Gunther Brown, “Textual Erasures of Religion: The Power of Books to Redefine Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation as Secular Wellness Practices in North American Public Schools,” Mémoires du Livre 6, no. 2, Aug. 18, 2015, https://bit.ly/2TStZ1I.
6. Amanda Ream, “Why I Disrupted the Wisdom 2.0 Conference,” Tricycle, Feb. 19, 2014, https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
7. David Loy, “Beyond McMindfulness,” Huffington Post, July, 31, 2013, https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO; Purser and Ng, “Coporate Mindfulness…”; David Forbes, “They Want Kids to be Robots…” Salon, Nov. 8, 2015, https://bit.ly/2Qp2PJj; Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transformations of Mindfulness,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 14.
8. Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transfomations of Mindfulness,” 6, 14.
SEE MORE BUDDHISM CASE STUDIES
SEE MORE TECHNOLOGY CASE STUDIES
Mindfulness in Silicon Valley
BUDDHISM CASE STUDY – TECHNOLOGY | 2019
Soren Gordhamer, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Jon Kabat-Zinn on a panel at Wisdom 2.0 in 2011. Photo by elizaIO via Flickr Creative Commons: https://bit.ly/2F8wkhkPDF CASE FILE
DOWNLOAD CASE
NOTE ON THIS CASE STUDY
New technologies present both opportunities and challenges to religious communities. Throughout history, many religious people have created and used new technologies on behalf of their religious traditions. At times, religious needs have driven technological innovation. Yet many religious people have also tried to limit the use of certain technologies that they felt violated principles of their tradition. The relationship between religion and technology is complex and highly dependent on context. As you read these case studies, pay attention to that context: Who are the groups involved? What else is happening in their context? Who benefits from new technologies? Who get to decide if they are legitimate or not?
As always, when thinking about religion and technology, maintain a focus on how religion is internally diverse, always evolving and changing, and always embedded in specific cultures.
Silicon Valley, a region of central California, is a major economic center and home to many companies that specialize in technology like the internet, computers, social media, and more.
Over the last decade, many of these companies have heavily invested in trainings in “mindfulness,” which is the English name for a diverse set of Buddhist religious practices that have a history going back thousands of years. In particular, the forms of mindfulness promoted by these companies are influenced by 20th century Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar and Zen Buddhists in Korea. Because of Silicon Valley’s economic, political, and social power, this approach to mindfulness has spread rapidly. The mindfulness industry is now worth over $1 billion in the US, and corporations like Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, and Aetna have joined Silicon Valley in offering mindfulness training. Some estimate that 20% of US companies now teach mindfulness, and many of them fund mindfulness training in public schools. Even the US military has used mindfulness to calm soldiers before they are sent into combat.
In Silicon Valley, major companies including Google, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted mindfulness practices. Companies have claimed meditation is a “technology,” and they market this technology to tech-savvy consumers under trendy names. Jon Kabat-Zinn offers “mindfulness-based stress reduction,” Kenneth Folk promotes “open-source enlightement,” Google talks about “neural self-hacking,” and Soren Gordhamer developed “Wisdom 2.0.” In 2010, Gordhamer started an annual event to discuss mindfulness in tech companies, also called Wisdom 2.0, which has drawn thousands of high-powered CEOs and tech workers. In 2011, Google invited celebrated Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to Google’s headquarters to lead mindfulness practice. Many companies claim mindfulness trainings have reduced employee stress and increased productivity and profits. However, studies with control groups are inconclusive in proving these claimed benefits.
While many trainers in Silicon Valley acknowledge that mindfulness is a Buddhist practice, they also claim to remove religion from it. They often characterize their programs “Buddhist-inspired,” making the connection to Buddhism while reassuring their largely non-religious audience that they are not promoting religion. For example, Kenneth Folk described Wisdom 2.0 as “a networking opportunity with a light dressing of Buddhism.” Some question if corporate mindfulness is Buddhist at all; companies usually claim that these trainings are “secular,” even when they bring in well-known Buddhist leaders for trainings. However, some Buddhists claim that “secular” mindfulness is “stealth Buddhism,” which allows Buddhism to be exported to businesses, schools, and hospitals without accusations of proselytizing.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who gave a keynote address to Google employees in 2011. Photo by Duc Truong in 2006 via Wikimedia Commons: https://bit.ly/2F4hqZtDespite support from some prominent Buddhists, other Buddhists are concerned by the proliferation of these mindfulness practices. At the 2014 Wisdom 2.0 conference, Buddhist practitioner Amanda Ream and other members of a local meditation center protested the event. They called attention to the hypocrisy of the nation’s richest CEOs discussing an escape from suffering for themselves while they were causing suffering for poorer Americans through gentrification in central California. Security removed the protestors without their concerns being addressed. Ream later wrote that true dharma “directs us to feel the suffering of others.”
Ream’s protest was one example of some Buddhists’ concerns about mindfulness in the tech world. Several prominent Buddhists have accused companies of promoting “McMindfulness,” meaning the values of neoliberalism instead of Buddhism’s call to end suffering. Neoliberalism is a dominant economic philosophy in modern American industry that promotes profit-driven, free market capitalism in which workers are responsible for their own well-being. From this perspective, individuals can “choose” between being stressed and sad or being happy and healthy. McMindfulness enables this view by offering a technology workers can ostensibly use to choose health and happiness. However, Buddhist critics claim that this use of mindfulness only shifts the blame for stress onto the employees and discourages them from questioning stressful working conditions. Plus, Buddhist critics note, Silicon Valley profits from mindfulness as a solution to problems it is partially responsible for creating. These Buddhists worry that Silicon Valley is funding McMindfulness because it teaches workers to be “unquestioning consumers” and “compliant” workers. Buddhist monk Bhikku Bodhi noted, “Absent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stablize… consumer capitalism.” In his view, mindfulness has become a “handy buzzword” to sell products.
With billions of dollars in funding from Silicon Valley and American consumers, mindfulness has impacted Buddhism worldwide. Historically, many Asian Buddhists have focused on ending suffering, destroying the self, and escaping from samsara, but American Buddhists have increasingly focused on mindfulness for personal, inner healing rather than future liberation. Asian Buddhists have begun to similarly emphasize mindfulness in new ways, reflecting the growth of Buddhism in the West and transforming the tradition as it encounters new cultures.
Buddhism Case Study – Technology 2019
Additional Resources
Primary Sources:
• Google video on well-known Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s visit to their corporate headquarters in 2011: https://bit.ly/1yKInY1.
• CNBC video of Google’s chief mindfulness expert teaching corporate mindfulness on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (2013): https://cnb.cx/2VG9yT0
• Huffington Post article by company founder Arianna Huffington on the money to be made from promoting mindfulness (2013): https://bit.ly/2RaKUeH
• Editorial by Zen Buddhist teacher David Loy on the dangers of “McMindfulness” (2013): https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO
• Amanda Ream on disrupting Wisdom 2.0 (2014): https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
• Editorial by journalist Kevin Williamson critical of corporate mindfulness (2018): https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G
• Editorial by Buddhist scholars Ronald Purser and Edwin Ng critical of corporate mindfulness (2015): https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ
Secondary Sources:
• RLP video explaining the concept of neoliberalism (2018): https://bit.ly/2TuwYZx
• NPR radio program on Wisdom 2.0 and the 2014 protests: https://n.pr/2GVF4Jj
• Wired article on the importance of mindfulness to Silicon Valley CEOs and employees (2013): https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek
Discussion Questions
• Why might Buddhists have such diverse views on the spread of mindfulness in corporations?
• What is neoliberalism? Why do some Buddhists see corporate mindfulness as a neoliberal tool?
• Why might corporate mindfulness trainers continue to teach the Buddhist origins of their trainings, while still claiming to be “secular”?
• Is corporate mindfulness Buddhist? Who gets to decide what is Buddhist and what is not?
• Watch the CNBC video of a corporate mindfulness training. How might you imagine different Buddhists would responds to this video? What about their cultural context might cause them to respond differently?
• Compare the two Huffington Post articles by Arianna Huffington and David Loy. Where do they agree and where do they diverge?
• Why has mindfulness become common in public schools? Why are some people concerned about this trend?
ENDNOTES
1. Richard King, “‘Paying Attention’ in a Digital Economy…,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 31-33, 36.
2. Kevin D. Williamson, “’Mindfulness’ is Just Commercialized Corporate Speak for Buddhist-inspired Help Training,” Dallas News, Jan. 9, 2018, https://bit.ly/2GYjx2G; Ronald Purser & Edwin Ng, “Corporate Mindfulness is Bullsh*t…”, Salon, Sept. 27, 2015, https://bit.ly/2C2GyvJ; David Forbes, “Occupy Mindfulness,” CUNY Academic Works, July 1, 2012, https://bit.ly/2sbc3z3.
3. Noah Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley, Meditation is No Fad, It Could Make Your Career,” Wired, June 18, 2013, https://bit.ly/2d0Eiek;
Bret Stetka, “Where’s the Proof that Mindfulness Meditation Works?” Scientific American, Oct. 11, 2017, https://bit.ly/2xzyaiP.
4. Shachtman, “In Silicon Valley…”
5. Candy Gunther Brown, “Textual Erasures of Religion: The Power of Books to Redefine Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation as Secular Wellness Practices in North American Public Schools,” Mémoires du Livre 6, no. 2, Aug. 18, 2015, https://bit.ly/2TStZ1I.
6. Amanda Ream, “Why I Disrupted the Wisdom 2.0 Conference,” Tricycle, Feb. 19, 2014, https://bit.ly/2RhyBxe.
7. David Loy, “Beyond McMindfulness,” Huffington Post, July, 31, 2013, https://bit.ly/2kI9vHO; Purser and Ng, “Coporate Mindfulness…”; David Forbes, “They Want Kids to be Robots…” Salon, Nov. 8, 2015, https://bit.ly/2Qp2PJj; Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transformations of Mindfulness,” in Handbook of Mindfulness, ed. Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, & Adam Burke (New York: Springer, 2016), 14.
8. Bhikku Bodhi, “The Transfomations of Mindfulness,” 6, 14.
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2023/07/04
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes : 1 hour video, Internet Archive
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
movies 1 hour
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes
Publication date 2018-06-17
movies 1 hour
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes
Publication date 2018-06-17
Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Publisher Seattle Community Media
====
How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality is a vitally important philosophical challenge. Author and cellular immunologist Barbara Ehrenreich shares insight from her latest book Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, and tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end—while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But Ehrenreich shares the latest science which shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own “decisions,” and not always in our favor. Ehrenreich is joined onstage in conversation with KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. Together they delve into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it, starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers. Ehrenreich describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. Join Ehrenreich and Reynolds for thoughtful considerations of the aging process (and our control over it) and the offer of an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She has a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University and writes frequently about health care and medical science, among many other subjects.
Ross Reynolds is the Executive Producer of Community Engagement at KUOW. He creates community conversations such as the Ask A events, and occasionally produces arts and news features. He is the former co-host of KUOW’s daily news magazine The Record and KUOW’s award–winning daily news–talk program The Conversation.
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 5/2/18
====
How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality is a vitally important philosophical challenge. Author and cellular immunologist Barbara Ehrenreich shares insight from her latest book Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, and tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end—while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.
We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But Ehrenreich shares the latest science which shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own “decisions,” and not always in our favor. Ehrenreich is joined onstage in conversation with KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. Together they delve into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it, starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers. Ehrenreich describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. Join Ehrenreich and Reynolds for thoughtful considerations of the aging process (and our control over it) and the offer of an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe.
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She has a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University and writes frequently about health care and medical science, among many other subjects.
Ross Reynolds is the Executive Producer of Community Engagement at KUOW. He creates community conversations such as the Ask A events, and occasionally produces arts and news features. He is the former co-host of KUOW’s daily news magazine The Record and KUOW’s award–winning daily news–talk program The Conversation.
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 5/2/18
The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living by Stephen Cope | Goodreads
The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living by Stephen Cope | Goodreads
The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living
Stephen Cope
4.26
1,816 ratings131 reviews
For modern spiritual seekers and yoga students alike, here is an irreverent yet profound guide to the most sophisticated teachings of the yoga wisdom tradition–now brought to contemporary life by a celebrated author, psychotherapist, and leading American yoga instructor.
While many Westerners still think of yoga as an invigorating series of postures and breathing exercises, these physical practices are only part of a vast and ancient spiritual science. For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence:
- What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness?
- What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits?
- What is an optimal human life?
Nowhere have their discoveries been more brilliantly distilled than in a short–but famously difficult–treatise called the Yogasutra. This revered text lays out the entire path of inner development in remarkable detail–ranging from practices that build character and mental power to the highest reaches of spiritual realization.
Now Stephen Cope unlocks the teachings of the Yogasutra by showing them at work in the lives of a group of friends and fellow yoga students who are confronting the full modern catastrophe of careers, relationships, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Interweaving their daily dilemmas with insights from modern psychology, neuroscience, religion, and philosophy, he shows the astonishing relevance and practicality of this timeless psychology of awakening.
Leavened with wit and passion, The Wisdom of Yoga is a superb companion and guide for anyone seeking enhanced creativity, better relationships, and a more ethical and graceful way of living in the world.
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352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Stephen Cope is the director of the Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living, the largest yoga research institute in the Western world—with a team of scientists affiliated with major medical schools on the East coast, primarily Harvard Medical School. He has been for many years the senior scholar in residence at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, and is the author of four best-selling books.
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Ula
249 reviews
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September 26, 2011
This is the 1st book i've read about yoga and its deeper purpose. As an atheist, I am intrinsically weary of self-help and spiritual books but I am also deeply in love with yoga so I thought I'd give this book a go since I've heard great things about it. There was a lot of amazing insight in it for me, and I really like how he talks about the fact that scientists have studied what happens in our brains when we meditate and practice yogic physical and mental movements. That part of it speaks to me. Though I've done yoga on and off for probably 15 years, it never really did much for me until I needed it and in the last 2 years it really changed the way I think and live. Cope talks a lot about some of the initial changes that occur when you start practicing yoga and I can relate. I didn't connect with the latter half of the book because the whole idea of living in a yoga retreat for months on end just screams of a certain type of privilege that again, I am just intrinsically weary of. How does that apply to real peoples' lives when the insights in the book from its characters come from months (and sometimes years) of living in a cabin out in the woods? Who can really do that? Maybe some day in the future I will relate with those sections of the book as well but now, not so much.
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Phillip Moffitt
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November 9, 2010
Stephen Cope is a psychotherapist and a longtime Kripalu Yoga teacher. In this book he integrates the Buddha’s insight of suffering into the daily lives of a series of friends who are fellow yoga practitioners. He provides a thorough teaching on the overlap of Patanjali’s yoga sutras with Theravada Buddhism, while respecting both traditions. The book provides a feel for how you might start to incorporate mindfulness in your own daily life.
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Clif Brittain
132 reviews
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January 27, 2010
There was a lot of meat on this bone. I have been practicing yoga for about eight months, and as I become more familiar with the physical aspects of yoga, I find myself more interested in the mental side as well. So there is a pull factor involved in exploring the wisdom of yoga. There is also a push factor, in that I am increasingly uneasy about my relationship with my church. There have been a lot of changes within the Catholic Church - new pope, new archbishop, new pastor - none of which resonate with me, so my needs for community are changing.
Pope's book fits into this niche very well. There is almost nothing on the physical aspects of yoga here. There is more about meditation, which I found very useful. The device Pope uses to reveal the wisdom of yoga is a group of yogis that he was a part of during a two year period. This group came together at Kripalu Yoga Center, where Cope has a position.
These people are a composite of people that Cope has met through Kripalu. This method is useful, but sometimes annoying. They are very different, and I found myself becoming very interested in the people and how yoga has helped their growth. In many ways they are archetypes, the Beautiful Woman, the Wizened Old Lady, the Accomplished Guru, the Powerful Lawyer, the Fat Lady and of course, the Conflicted Scholar (the author). Two things are annoying about this convention, first that I found myself caring about them. They are fictional characters, for goodness sake. The other is the detail that Cope burdens us with. I don't think it is necessary for me to know what type of tea they were drinking as they had a particular conversation.
But the device works. Cope explains a lot about the yoga sutras within this context, applying his knowledge and experience with these people to their specific problems, many of which I identify with. For instance, craving and aversion. Most of us are drawn to certain things, food, comfort, sex, money, excitement. We also have aversion to other things, conflict, physical work, cold, etc. Cope tells us how these people have used the guidance of the yoga sutras to resolve their problems.
This book has given me a further push down the yoga path. It contains a lot of solid information and inspiration.
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Deidra
29 reviews
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February 14, 2016
I felt this book made a lot of wisdom clear and accessible. Unfortunately, the author quotes Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh/Osho a couple times toward the end and that put a damper on things for me. No matter how insightful BSR/Osho's pull quotes seem, he was a deeply corrupt person who deeply corrupted his followers and did great harm. His ideas and words do not deserve the esteem they are given.
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Liz
11 reviews
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January 6, 2013
Fantastic book. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras can be very hard to read as they are written in short and sometimes cryptic messages of wisdom. However, this book will take you through the lives of people and their struggles and apply the sutras (and more) to their life trials and tribulations. It's a great read for anyone whether you're in to practicing yoga or not.
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Katerina
356 reviews
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November 14, 2019
4/5 Stars
Library Loan
For some reason, as of lately, I have been struggling with reading spiritually awakening books, yoga books, self-help books, etc. It might have to be because of the low scoring on the last two reads. Who knows. What I do know is that something happened when I read this book. All the other books were factual and gave me clarity on yoga, meditation, and finding your own path. The Wisdom of Yoga, however, touched a part of me and opened it up.
I had been struggling in my yoga practice, as well as the grind of daily life. My control was slipping and I decided to finally bite the bullet and pick this book up...hoping that it could give me an enlightenment that I have not already read.
My heart connected to each of the stories that Cope presents of his friends. You have Susan the compulsive eater, Kate the self-centered, Jacob the overly aggressive romantic, Maggie the story-teller, and Rudi the enlightened. In each of Cope's interactions with his friends, I found myself opening up piece by piece. I found a connection with Susan and her disordered eating due to my own years of anorexia. I found myself entering Jacob's body when it came to the lack of love, and believing I will never find anyone. Each of their struggles became my own and each of their enlightenment's brought clarity to my own situation.
I can't explain this feeling that washed over me once I finished the book, but for the first time in months I was....calm. I haven't been calm or clear-headed in quite a few months and I could finally breathe. It was like the teachings that each of these individuals had including Stephen Cope resonated inside myself. To some this might be hocus-pocus, but to someone like me who has been trying to find a book to finally make some ground with my own practice and healing. This book is truly a blessing.
I did find a few things that I did not like. All the science and backstory given about yoga. He would switch between stories and the yoga science that connected to those stories. Or connect to other spiritual yogi's that have gone down the same path. While I did like some of the insight given, once again you got that taste of medical writing from a doctor and it, at times, would throw the entire experience and story off. While I did find that some of the insights were pertinent to what Cope is teaching us. I could have done without some of the beginner yoga explanations. Especially since this book is more advanced than a beginner's guide, actually this is not a guide at all.
While I can't explain my own experience with the book, I do recommend that others pick up the book to finally find clarity in their own lives and their own paths that they take. This book has done wonders at opening up something inside me that I didn't even know existed. A calm state. Which most of us can agree that we feel very little of these days.
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Colleen
84 reviews
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March 25, 2011
I read this book for my Yoga Book Club here in Portland. As a yoga teacher, I really enjoyed how author Stephen Cope wove the Yoga Sutras throughout the book, making them less esoteric and more accessible than I've experienced in the past. He touches on psychology, neurology, and Buddhist philosophy as well as dozens of years of yoga scholarship to describe the yogic path to wisdom.
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Eevee
27 reviews
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August 14, 2022
Not bad for a bunch of privileged folks finding enlightenment.
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Sandrine
120 reviews
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December 14, 2022
Another step further down the exploration of the yogic wisdom. On the one hand one wanted to know what will happen to the characters encountered serving as „real life“ examples on the other that is an exercise in the witnessing practice. On the other hand it was a valiant effort in bringing the Yoga Sūtras to a mainstream mind challenging the neurones to come to grips with the what is what and the when is when of the manyfolded path.
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Mahay
180 reviews
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April 3, 2020
At first, I was intimidated by this book. I almost took it right back to the library to find a fluffy little novel that I could rip through. However, I felt drawn to finish it and knew I could learn something from its pages. After reading it, I am grateful I chose to stick it out. It is a book that you will be thinking about weeks after you’ve put the jacket back on, and you may even find yourself returning to it in the future.
Cope’s stories of his friends at the yoga center help keep the book accessible to those with very little knowledge of ancient Yoga like myself. While each character has a distinct set of issues that they have to work through, they find commonality in their quest to finding peace within themselves. Even the more technical side of the book was very interesting to me. While I know I won’t be enlightened anytime soon, the teachings of traditional Yoga can be applicable to anyone. Patanjali teaches that “the causes of suffering are not seeing things as they are.” For example, if you fixate on that which you don’t possess, i.e. a new car, a dream job, a plot of land, or worldly travels, you will be unhappy. However, if you can recognize the gifts in your life and simply be grateful, you will find happiness that you didn’t know you possessed. I think this is a very simple lesson that everyone can use.
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Jen
126 reviews
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April 28, 2012
This book helps explain the yoga-sutra to a layperson such as myself. By using personal stories of people he's known the author shows how the concepts or sutras are manifested and/or can be put into practice. Part Five of the book (the last part) was the only part I found too existentialist, but perhaps I'm just not ready for that yet. I liked how he provided a comparative of raja-yoga and Buddhism- having read some works of lama surya das i was thinking I was seeing similarities...but wasn't sure. The author also provides a translation of the complete yoga-sutra for reference.
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Devon Blakely
3 reviews
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January 14, 2013
Beautiful work!!! Cope has brought Patanjali's yoga sutras to life for me more than anything else i have read to date! Although he occasionally lost my interest with his foray into theoretical psychology, by framing the book around personal experience he has created a very modern day identification and the opportunity for personal application of this ancient wisdom.
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Lucy Ambs
3 reviews
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March 2, 2017
Okay so i only give 5 stars if the books changed my life.THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE! 1. I have been mistaken my entire life on the most fundamental factors of being human. 2. I am now convinced Jesus was a Yogi. 3. Erratidating Duhka from my life will be but a byproduct of the life upon which i am embracing as of today. 4. WOW!
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Nancy B
2 reviews
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July 1, 2017
This is the first yoga book that I have read and found it very interesting and inspirational. I want to read Stephen's other book next....love the practice of yoga and want to continue reading more about the philosophy and practical applications.
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Charissa
26 reviews
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August 2, 2011
Love this book so much! 10 outta 5!
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Josh
2 reviews
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November 18, 2016
I like the combining aspects of Western Psychology with the inner mind working of yoga practice and meditation. Very inspiring to deepening my own practice.
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Veena
11 reviews
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March 13, 2021
Stephen Cope is a psychotherapist and a Yoga teacher at the Kripalu centre. In this book, Stephen takes the reader through Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, integrating them with western psychology and aspects of Buddhism. Stephen keeps it real by weaving the Yoga Sutras into the lives of real people. How the practice of Yoga helps and can be used as a tool for transformation and finding the peace within, is what this book talks about. It is an interesting read and takes one into a mode of reflection by looking into oneself and asking some fundamental questions. The story of each yogi mentioned in the book is very relatable and also gives one the hope that we all can reach the state they reached if we practice what they practiced. Highly recommended for psychotherapists and yogis alike.
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Jack
27 reviews
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July 15, 2021
Preface: have only read about 60% of the book
An enjoyable read as it is written more as an autobiography than a guide, but Unless you are unfamiliar with some of the basic concepts of Vedic philosophy or you don't quite understand them and you think reading about them in real-life situations would help, then this is more of an autobiography with a philosophical bent than it is a guide to moksha.
I do however think it would be a great introduction to some of the concepts of Vedic philosophy and the importance of some of its teachings to our lives for those that have not explored it deeply on their own and could lead to some profound realisations for some as to their perspectives on their lives and belief systems.
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Dan Bimrose
11 reviews
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April 13, 2018
This is an excellent book and enjoyable to read. It goes deep into meditation and provides some insight into what the possible actually is. It takes time for most of us to realize that “self” is a great deal more than what we see in the mirror. In a world full of meds to relieve depression and anxiety,any would be well served to take charge of their own healing and one does that by trying to figure out what’s going on in our head. I love speculating that many of the people that bought this book after attending a few yoga sessions at their local community center expecting tips on and a discussion on what goes on when they are on the yoga mat and discover this book is about so much more.
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Jeremiah
62 reviews
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March 14, 2022
This was a little woo woo for my taste, and I am
skeptical of the Western privileged perspectives. Most of the characters in this book are unrelatably successful, which is off-putting and adds a tension of expectation on the “less successful” listener, which I won’t further analyze here.
Nonetheless, I found some useful methods for thinking through anxiety, and I’m glad to have read this. What I keep reading in Chatter, Body Keeps the Score, Come As You Are, and this book is: try to take an outside perspective, and embrace undesired feelings and sides of yourself with non judgment. Life goals, right?
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Alistar
160 reviews
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July 24, 2018
Muy recomendable si te interesa la filosofía del yoga y la meditación. Se basa en hacer digerible para occidentales el tratado del Yoga-Sütra de Patañjali. Te permite ver que el Yoga es algo más que una colección de posturas. Me sorprendió comprobar las profundas relaciones que existen entre el raja-yoga y el budismo, ambas corrientes se influenciaron mutuamente.
Me gustó también que el autor utilizara las historias personales de su grupo de Yoga para hacer más comprensibles los conceptos que explica.
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Nava
81 reviews
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May 31, 2020
Stephen Cope gives the perspective of a psychotherapist (and Kripalu Yoga teacher) on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The presentation through individual stories is helpful. The appendices contain a translation of the sutras, as well as some distinction from Buddhism.
This book was not at all about asanas and physiology though, and more about states of conciousness and breathing -- as in Buddism.
I picked it up to learn more about the physical practice, but in the end still got a lot out of reading it.
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Logan
23 reviews
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August 14, 2020
I really love the premise and structure of this book - a balanced blend of narrative, Western psychology, and yogic philosophy. This was probably my own personal taste but I found the narrative explorations much more compelling than Cope’s analysis or interpretations of the Yoga Sutras. I found this writing slightly too technical still, or just too far-reaching to really drive home specific teachings of the Sutras. The irony in this is that through the book Cope admits his own struggle with being too scholarly or technical in his writing, which makes me forgive my own experience of this book.
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Lisa
354 reviews
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November 24, 2017
I studied with Stephen Cope twice at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and found him to be a very engaging and intelligent person. I spent a lot of time reading this book, as it's one to sip rather than guzzle. Stephen relates Patanjali's Yoga Sutras to his experience as a yoga seeker. As a yoga teacher, I'm hoping to use some of this in my teaching. The book is much more theoretical than I anticipated and quite dense.
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Scott Myers
6 reviews
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March 23, 2019
After having read Alistair Shearer's translation of "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" (an excellent translation, in my opinion; very accessible), this book expounded on the Sutras & brought them to life nicely. This book was also a nice story/journey with the characters that are followed in the book. Makes me want to head to Kripalu ... (a venture that has been on my mind for many years before this book came along!) and LIVE there.
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Kimmy Gaul
9 reviews
2 followers
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December 28, 2018
An easy, relatable read that doesn’t skimp on depth. Diving into the yoga sutra and the ordinary struggles of life, readers gain a well rounded understanding of questions and experiences that humans have had for thousands of years. This is going up on the list of one my top books. Transformative in nature, especially for those who practice yoga and meditation wanting to sink deeper. Recommended!!
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Nirupa Umapathy
45 reviews
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October 7, 2019
A deep, profound book that I did not give into reading even though I had bought the book in 2013. I did not feel ready. I could not relate. I savored this book over almost 6 months this year, reflecting deeply on my new life, and putting it to work in my daily and constantly evolving yoga practice.
While I don't seek as much as I walk everyday, this book is unforgettable. I will always return.
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Laura
28 reviews
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June 26, 2020
Top!
Ho comprato questo libro per ovviare alle spese di spedizione di altri 2 libri.
E si è rivelato un libro molto interessante. Leggere lo yoga dal punto di vista di uno psicoterapeuta era qualcosa che mi mancava.
Fa molte analogie con la psicologia occidentale e, come si legge, gli yogi antichi avevano scoperto questi concetti da ben prima.
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Jeremy Duke
59 reviews
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January 26, 2021
Long and rambling with a few brief moments of actual insight. I found the characters thin and their issues and phobia conveniently introduced only to be nearly instantly resolved. I wasn't looking for a self-help book, rather a deeper understanding of the physical practice of yoga, so the book was a disappointment to me.
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Omly
204 reviews
4 followers
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October 20, 2022
I had had Stephen Cope recommended to me, and I can see why. Having completed this one, I already have thoughts about returning to reread it, which is relatively unusual for me.
This particular book is written in a very approachable manner, presented as a series of anecdotes to highlight the philosophical concepts .
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Vince
109 reviews
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January 4, 2019
One of the most helpful things about this book is how the author clearly articulates the similarities between Buddhism and the yogic tradition (along with a few of the differences). It's a little dense, but helpful for anyone looking to understand the philosophy behind those stretchy poses.
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Diya
14 reviews
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January 13, 2019
This book was part of my yoga teacher training recommended reading list..... Goodreads just (re)recommended it to me. I often return to the journey my inner world took during this book.... ‘transformative’ is accurate. Stephen Cope walks his talk and is a very good role model.
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Cody
35 reviews
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October 2, 2019
This was a fantastic read! Personally, I would have preferred more of the “technical stuff” and less stories, but that’s just me. There’s a ton of information here and I really enjoyed each chapter. If you are AT ALL interested in the philosophy of yoga, I think you’ll enjoy this book too.
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Angela Morgan
8 reviews
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February 3, 2020
More of a guided psychological book of how to live your life based on yogic and buddhist principals, its a really good book to live your life by, I found lots of ways to incorporate actions into my daily life, and new ways of looking at old situations.
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Alyson
63 reviews
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April 29, 2020
This was the perfect book to read at this moment in time... I savored every page, especially the last chapter. I forced myself to read it slowly and went right back to the beginning when I read the last page. This is a book that I will keep close and return to again and again.
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chiara Rancan
228 reviews
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February 7, 2021
Cercavo una guida che mi permettesse di studiare, di apprendere, di comprendere con facilità gli insegnamenti degli Yogasutra, e l’ho trovata.
Da leggere, sottolineare, e ri leggere tra qualche tempo per metabolizzare e guardare dentro se.
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Kanan Choquette
22 reviews
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January 4, 2023
An amazing dive into the teachings of patanjali and yoga through the perspective of the narrarator’s learnings by interacting with a small group of friends. This more social-approach makes it feel much more relatable and breaks up the density. I highly recommend this book on yoga.
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Pradnya
152 reviews
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June 12, 2017
Interesting case studies and how the experiences of individuals evolve in response to their introspective and meditation practices.
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Jordan Yee
34 reviews
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July 17, 2017
Required reading for yoga teacher training
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Stephanie Spence
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September 28, 2017
One of my favorites that I refer to often.
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From other countries
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Such a beautiful book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 June 2023
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Read it in two sittings. Loved how the author intertwines wisdom with real life stories, making it such a compelling read with so many amazing lessons in it. Highly recommend!
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Ray
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 6 January 2023
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Truly amazing and enlightening book that will leave you wanting more. The end is really good but is the beginning of wanting to find concentration of a different nature. I have read two of his books and will re-read them both,wow and wow.
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Steven Barber
4.0 out of 5 stars Experience over theory
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 3 September 2022
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This book is a sly exposition of the key parts of yoga philosophy in a deliberately non-scholarly way. The emphasis is on direct experience, the acts of seeking, and the Importance of community. Cope comes at the Sutras from a different angle than most and in that fresh approach is clarity
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5.0 out of 5 stars I am so thankful that I found this book!
Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 11 June 2022
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I enjoyed every page and got inspired so much! I can recommend it to everyone who is interested in yoga and want to get more knowledge packed in a great story!
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Dr. V
5.0 out of 5 stars Warm, personal, lived version of the Yoga Sutras
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 July 2013
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This book is Stephen Cope's commentary and explanation of Patanjali's yoga sutras. However, it is not a dry commentary, even though it is scholarly. Cope brings together Yoga (as lived by himself and a group of seeker friends) with scholarly but accessible explanations of phenomena addressed by the Yoga Sutras. The explanations are drawn from both Eastern and Western psychology. He often illustrates concepts with quotes from Western literature, most frequently Thoreau. Each chapter begins with a person's story and struggle - which is then explained in terms of both the Yoga Sutras and Western concepts about the self. The book helps the reader join virtually the admirable group of friends Cope was a part of during a period of about two years, when they each (and all) sought freedom from their own kind of suffering. It provides a warm and personal, lived version of the Yoga Sutras, and thus makes them much more accessible to the average (but not only) reader. The book is not a complete treatise on the Yoga Sutras. And I am not sure it is necessarily a guide, since it is really explanatory, not prescriptive. But it is beautifully, wisely, and warmly written, and it will get the reader closer to the essence of Yoga - which has very little to do with physical postures.
I love Cope's combination of rigorous scholarship, spirituality, self-disclosure, warmth, and humor. His voice comes through clearly in this book and is very personable. For me, this is one of the books I hope to come back to again and again.
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KitKat1972
4.0 out of 5 stars Textbook for a course I'm to take...
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 31 December 2007
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I've participated in yoga courses for quite a few years now on and off, --some excellent and some not so great, depending on the instructors. I have an excellent teacher now and she is about to offer a new course in meditation and yoga. This is the text for it. I am excited to be learning more about what yoga is all about on spiritual/philosophical/meditative levels. This book is easy to read and offers insights about yoga for the average Westerner and how it can both simplify and enrich your life and help you understand more about yourself and others, how you can become more mindful in your daily life. Life in the 21st century is crazy, fast-paced, and full of pressures, stresses, and negativity (war, global warming, worries about the economy). Yoga is one of various paths to greater understanding, serenity, clarity, and wisdom. Earlier this year I took a course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which included some yoga as well as meditation, and other exercises for reducing stress. This course resulted in my wanting to learn more about what is behind yoga and meditation, their history, to understand more about their modern-day and past expert practitioners. I guess the only thing that bothers me at all about the book is all of the unfamiliar terms that are introduced that I can't get fixed in my mind, but perhaps taking the course will help with that, or perhaps that doesn't matter so much. The book is easy to read and understand and is very informative and insightful.
11 people found this helpful
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Sara Smithie
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Blowing approach on the depth of yoga
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 20 July 2021
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Stephen Cope has become a writer I will follow for several reasons. This book has changed my life regarding yoga and its power to change us. His writing is comprehensive and inspiring - and actually, down right mind-blowing in what he brings to the reader. I will read more if his work. Thank You Stephen Cope.
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Erick DuPree
3.0 out of 5 stars not bad... for a beginner, but not philosophy either
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 April 2014
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This is the 1st book i've read about yoga and its deeper purpose. As an atheist, I am intrinsically weary of self-help and spiritual books but I am also deeply in love with yoga so I thought I'd give this book a go since I've heard great things about it. There was a lot of amazing insight in it for me, and I really like how he talks about the fact that scientists have studied what happens in our brains when we meditate and practice yogic physical and mental movements. That part of it speaks to me. Though I've done yoga on and off for probably 15 years, it never really did much for me until I needed it and in the last 2 years it really changed the way I think and live. Cope talks a lot about some of the initial changes that occur when you start practicing yoga and I can relate. I didn't connect with the latter half of the book because the whole idea of living in a yoga retreat for months on end just screams of a certain type of privilege that again, I am just intrinsically weary of. How does that apply to real peoples' lives when the insights in the book from its characters come from months (and sometimes years) of living in a cabin out in the woods? Who can really do that? Maybe some day in the future I will relate with those sections of the book as well but now, not so much
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Jamie O'Connell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great 1st yoga book
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 17 June 2019
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I started hot yoga six months ago for back pain and it has changed my life. Now, I want to have a deep understanding of it and started to study at home in addition to spending a session almost every day at my local studios.
After googling for "best yoga books", "great yoga books", and "yoga books"...this one kept on appearing at the top of many lists, so I decided to purchase it. The book is great, reads like a novel and is highly recommended for those who are looking to increase their knowledge of yoga off the mat.
4 people found this helpful
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Rachael Enright
5.0 out of 5 stars Story of discovery
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 12 January 2020
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This book was very refreshing I am usually so drawn to facts and non-fiction. Whereas this book is a story of friends on the path of self discovery. The disclosure of each person's patterns and blocks gives you a great perspective of the range of people and issues which can attract you to yoga.
The book itself is a sweet discription of what mindfulness is and the various stages in which you fall deeper into practice and peace.
I felt like this book was really reaffirming. Nice read.
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From other countries
Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, wonderful journey into the most important principles of a 'yoga' kind of life
Reviewed in Spain 🇪🇸 on 18 September 2017
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This is probably one of the most beautiful books I've ever read, one that wish it wouldn't end. One that I will come back again and again to remind me who I am and how to get back to my center every time I feel astray.
Stephen Cope writes humbly, beautifully and so satisfying for both a fiction lover as well as for a scientific minded reader. It takes the basic principles of yoga, opens them to the understaing of us all and shows them applicability in different stories of his characters.
It's a book for beginners, for those who don't know what yoga is and for advanced practicioners at the same time.
It has really changed both my perspective on meditation, it changed my yoga practice and my way of seeing things in general
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R Sharpe
5.0 out of 5 stars Tonic for the soul
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 June 2019
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I’ve just read three of Stephen Cope’s books in succession and loved them all: The Great Work of Your Life, The Wisdom of Yoga and Deep Human Connection. They each offer a valuable distillation of more complex works enabling the lay reader, like me, to absorb truths that I otherwise may not have accessed. Stephen has a beautiful writing style and peppers his own thoughts and other quotes with stories that make his writing come alive. Each of the books I have is beginning to look rather battered as I have a tendency to keep referring back to them.
3 people found this helpful
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Amanda
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for Yoga Teachers
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 2 January 2015
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I ordered this book before I did my yoga teacher training, since it was on the recommended reading list.
It's a fascinating book that reads almost like a novel. I started reading it, then actually started over when I was just a few pages in so I could get a highlighter and mark the passages that really sang to me.
The best part of this book, for me, was learning about metta meditation. Doing that meditation was the first time I was really able to let myself sink into a meditation, and it taught me an appreciation for and interest in further study of meditation.
You might not find this book interesting if you're not into yoga. I would definitely recommend it, certainly for any yoga teacher or aspiring yoga teacher.
14 people found this helpful
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Caitlin
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book Ever
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 17 April 2014
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I saw someone reading this book and asked them about it, they told me that it was life changing. Now I hear that about a lot of things this day and age, but, being the book feign I am, I just had to go and buy it. I'm here to tell you anyone who want to know if they should by this or not, BUY IT! The book has nothing to do with poses and such, its more about the deeper knowledge and how the lessons of yoga can effect and change your life. Mixed in with the message of the book, they do however give you ideas on what to do and how to do them. Amazing and outstanding. I would buy this book for all my friends if I could
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K. Jolly
1.0 out of 5 stars No thanks
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 9 June 2023
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Recommended reading for a teacher training program. Would never have purchased otherwise. Nothing of substance to be found within these pages.
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M. Gordon
5.0 out of 5 stars now I get it- thanks Stephen
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 20 December 2006
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There is little need for another rave review about this book as I agree with the other positive reviews. I just would like to add this: I became a Cope fan reading his articles in Yoga Journal and his first book. Most of my yoga instructors learned at Kripalu. Amrit Desai, who started Kripalu, requires 2 years of daily yoga practice before you can take his teacher's training course. Now I understand why, as I have been practicing hatha yoga daily for that long now. A daily practice, from a few days a week for decades, has opened me up in ways that I would never have imagined. Reading and absorbing this fantastic, understandable interpretation of the Sutra I have now been given the gift of validation for how I manage to live an "extraordinary life" and can manage my "human" moments. Read this book and then...practice, practice, practice.
14 people found this helpful
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Barbara A. Parcells
5.0 out of 5 stars A real treasure.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 20 June 2017
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This is my second time around reading this book. With a little age and wisdom behind me, it takes me much deeper and answers the questions I couldn't have answered before without experiencing life a bit more. The author does get a bit technical from a psychology point of view, but it is in the stories of the individual people and their struggles to find an authentic, peace filled way to live that we learn and grow from it. I don't doubt that at some point I will revisit these stories again in the future.
4 people found this helpful
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Erik C. Pihl
5.0 out of 5 stars Some answers to a few of life's persistant questions
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 7 January 2007
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In his book, "The Wisdom of Yoga," Stephen Cope has created a small masterpiece. He has not tried to answer questions about man's place in the universe or or the existence of an external world. He has, however, by means of telling vignettes from the lives of people he knows well and insightful comments about what must be one of the most gnomic series of insights into the practice of Yoga, given the average reader a sence of what it is to become involved in the practice of Yoga and some of its life-changing potential. In addition to this, he has included illustrations from other belief systems, specifically Buddhist thought and Christianity that provide a wider context for his practice. The Yoga practioner, as well as the average person who would like to learn a little about Yoga, could both benefit from the wonderful book.
40 people found this helpful
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Francie Nolan
3.0 out of 5 stars I Found Myself Skimming Too Much
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 31 March 2018
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I just started doing yoga and Googled the top ten books on yoga. This was named number one on one of the lists, so it had a lot to live up to.
I found myself skimming way too early. The stories he weaves in about his friends were a distraction. I didn't feel it contributed to this book at all.
When I skim, I read the first sentence of each or every other paragraph until one holds me. Sometimes I found very interesting and riveting information. Sometimes not.
I didn't finish the book. Stopped about half way. I think the writer is a great guy. I loved his energy, but the book needed a better editor IMO.
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Debra Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars a wonderful book that brings yoga wisdom home
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 21 August 2006
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I love this book from the first page to the last! The introduction, prologue and appendices are quite helpful in providing vital information to the reader. Cope takes some everyday people and their life's challenges and brings to light some answers to the struggles of the human condition. The book reads like a novel, in a way, but is very scholarly and cites the words and philosophies of many pundits in the field of religion such as Mircea Eliade, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Thomas Merton and Georg Feuerstein, to name but a few. I didn't want the book to end and the final chapter made me cry with joy of the knowledge of contentment, despite challenges, in our lives. Thank you Stephen Cope!
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