Test your practice against the McMindfulness critique

Ask honestly whether your practice has become private stress management that leaves the causes of suffering — including social ones — untouched.

Why it works

Ronald Purser’s McMindfulness, as reviewed by Majd Jamal Hammoudeh, argues that mindfulness detached from its context has been privatised and “neoliberalised,” making individuals responsible for stress that has social causes. Bhikkhu Bodhi, a traditionalist, describes secular approaches as a “pragmatic program of training derived from Buddhism,” not a more evolved dharma. Bhikkhu Anālayo argues back that, at least for MBSR in healthcare, the McMindfulness label is not justified and that early sources already used mindfulness for health. Running the check keeps secular practice tied to ethics and care, which secular Buddhists themselves say is its point.

How to do it

1. Look at the last month of practice and ask: what did I mainly use it for — calming down, performing better, or something wider?
2. Ask whether it has changed how you treat anyone, or what you do about a problem that is not only yours.
3. If it has narrowed to self-management, add one deliberately outward element — a compassion practice, a precept, an act of service, an issue you engage with.
4. Read one critic and one defender — the Purser review and Anālayo’s reply — and notice which objections land.
5. Repeat the check every few months; drift toward private technique is gradual.

Evidence

Hammoudeh’s review summarises Purser’s argument and notes that Purser is an ordained Zen teacher in the Korean Taego order. Anālayo’s article defends MBSR against the label. Gleig places secular mindfulness in the lineage of scientific rationalism and describes Buddhist critiques that oppose its universalism, individualism and experiential emphasis. Bodhi’s position is as summarised in Schwerk’s review. The Secular Buddhist Network runs a political activism group and describes its mission as addressing the world’s ethical and social challenges. (anecdotal)

The McMindfulness critique is aimed mainly at corporate and clinical mindfulness rather than at secular Buddhism specifically, and its critics and defenders disagree sharply; this practice uses it as a mirror, not a verdict.

Sources

• Hammoudeh, M. J. (2021). Review of McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, by Ronald Purser (Repeater Books, 2019). Corvinus Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 12(1), 201–205.
• Anālayo, Bhikkhu (2019). The Myth of McMindfulness. Mindfulness, 11(2), 472–479.
• Gleig, A. (2019). From the Mindfulness Revolution to the Mindfulness Wars. In American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity (pp. 50–83). New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Schwerk, D. (2022). Review of Secularizing Buddhism: New Perspectives on a Dynamic Tradition, ed. Richard K. Payne (Boulder: Shambhala, 2021). Journal of Global Buddhism, 23(1), 87–94 — summarises the chapters by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Philippe Turenne, Roger Jackson and Gil Fronsdal.
• Secular Buddhist Network. About us: our history, vision and mission.

Common mistake

Answering the critique with guilt and then dropping practice altogether. The critics are mostly arguing that practice should carry more — ethics, community, social engagement — not that sitting is worthless.

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