Abstract
People who believe in God often think of omnipresence—the ability to exist everywhere—as one of the defining characteristics of deity. However, God may not have a corner on this attribute. Mindfulness meditation, too, seems to have seeped into every nook and cranny of American culture these days. At my regular spin (cycling) class, the midway point of the workout features a few minutes of mindfulness meditation during which the leaderboard and virtual racetrack screens disappear and the room’s now-softened lighting is coupled with slow instrumental music and encouraging affirmations. Wellness, after all, is about mind as much as body.
Jaime Kucinskas has authored an outstanding volume on mindfulness as a social movement. The Mindful Elite: Mobilizing from the Inside Out deftly employs key theoretical insights from new social movements literature, work on organizational fields, and several other relevant perspectives. A critical focal point of the volume is social change, and Kucinskas carefully examines the complicated institutional and cultural processes that facilitate such change. At the core of the mindfulness revolution is the contemplative movement. One irony of the mindfulness movement is its amalgamation of Eastern contemplative practice and hard-driving Western capitalism.
A book may not be able to be judged by its cover. However, the two-page figure—a timeline of the contemplative movement—that precedes Part One of this volume tells a very interesting story in a nutshell and is coupled with page after page of incisive analysis. This strand of the American contemplative tradition can be traced back to the counterculture movement during which meditation enjoyed a modest following for a few decades. The early timeline of key historical events in contemplative movement history fits comfortably on the first page of the two timeline pages. The second page of this timeline is packed full of key events reflecting movement acceleration since the year 2000. From that point to the present, mindfulness has attracted attention from prestigious universities, has been endorsed by many leading intellectuals (gurus of a sort), and has migrated quickly into the fields of healthcare, sports, politics, and numerous other social settings. As a researcher who often publishes on movements after they have declined (the Promise Keepers, faith-based initiatives), I must confess to feeling some envy toward a colleague prescient enough to capture a movement during its acceleration phase and zenith.
Among the many marvelous qualities of Kucinskas’s volume is its ability to balance an appreciation for the inner workings of this movement as articulated by its advocates and devotees with a healthy sense of skepticism about it. Kucinskas’s incisive sociological imagination calls attention to the striking contradictions of the movement. For example, mindfulness has its roots in Buddhist ethics but has become infused with twenty-first century Western rationality in a manner that profits from its proliferation. Moreover, while the movement has populist trappings because of its infusion into personal aspects of everyday life—from spin classes to work retreats and so forth—it really is an elite-driven movement. These are not just any elites, either. Mindfulness is led by institutional entrepreneurs, many of whom are literally, well, entrepreneurs. So often, the term “entrepreneur” is used metaphorically in sociological research to reflect someone with ideological but not financial interests in a particular cause. But here that is not always the case. The “mindfulness industrial complex” is, in many respects, big business. Kucinskas charts the rise of this practice from the counterculture movement to its current incarnation among wealthy executives, athletes, and celebrities as well as intellectuals, medical professionals, and other persons of privilege.
There is much to like in this book, but two themes were of particular interest to me. One concerns the strategy of consensus-based mobilization. Kucinskas uses many methods to conduct this investigation but relies heavily on participant observation and in-depth interviews. Her data reveal a fascinating approach that mindfulness advocates employ to spread the meditation message. Advocacy in the work world occurred through “convening and collaborating with professional insiders to create meditation interventions that aligned with localized professional cultures” (p. 188). Kucinskas wisely recognizes the intermingling of Buddhist principles and practices on the one hand with Western values and rationales on the other. Hybridization is a critical key to the success of this movement, which seems so powerful on a personal level (transforming the minds of individuals) but is, in fact, heavily orchestrated by elites.
The genius of the movement is found in the book’s paradoxical subtitle, “mobilizing from the inside out.” To be sure, this “inside out” pursuit of social change is not solely the province of the contemplative movement. One thinks of the Promise Keepers evangelical men’s movement (racial reconciliation one soul at a time), faith-based social service delivery (change people’s hearts and social transformation will follow), or even some variants of feminism (Gloria Steinem’s national bestseller, Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem). However, promises of personal transformation using “non-contentious tactics” that avoid institutional disruption may reach their apex in the contemporary contemplative movement. Kucinskas correctly recognizes the likely limits of consensus-based mobilization but also wisely cautions scholars from settling too quickly on key markers of social movement success and then dismissing this movement as largely ineffective. I would agree that the jury is still out on this movement’s impact and that social movement “outcomes” need to be defined very carefully before scholars render judgment.
Another key theme in this volume concerns the adaptability of meditation as a contemplative practice. Meditation exhibits an amazing degree of dexterity. Not only is it used by top-level athletes and affluent executives. It has also gained a foothold in military circles and among law enforcement personnel. An account provided in the book describes how Michael Taylor essentially built a contemplative bridge from high-level athletic competitions to the military and law enforcement. Quite intriguingly, Taylor talks about avoiding words like “meditation” or even “mindfulness” when marketing these practices in the largely masculinized and “data-driven” world of the military, saying “It’s all couched in science, in terms of the neuroscience and the nervous system regulation . . . It’s all under the rubric of peak performance to some degree, in terms of what we present to ‘em” (p. 72). Yet Taylor goes on to admit that everything he teaches comes from the “pantheon” of techniques available in Tibetan Buddhism.
The Mindful Elite would be an excellent volume in courses on religion, culture, social change, and qualitative methods. I will be adopting this volume in my graduate qualitative methods course, as it is an exemplary model of applying multiple qualitative methods to render a rich portrait of a complex movement. Its subject matter will appeal to a wide swath of students, and it is written in a manner that balances sharp analysis with engaging argumentation. It will definitely stimulate lively discussions.
This book left me rethinking the old Buddhist saying, “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.” One common interpretation of this saying is that no one who is pursuing enlightenment needs a teacher. Anyone who believes a teacher is needed for spiritual progression must overcome that obstacle by “killing” the desire to receive instruction. The Mindful Elite leaves me convinced that there are many Buddhas on the road today. And the road on which these mindful Buddhas walk leads not only to enlightenment, but to fame within this subculture and social influence beyond it.