I'm interested in hearing more about about being a charlatan with the meditation app especially considering, as far as I remember, you can get it for free by just asking.
There's two types of people you meet who are into mindfulness: high practicioners (monks) and yoga guy from Los Angeles who is "kinda" into mindfulness but not really
I can only go by what he and other people close to him say but he says he used to do plenty acid and been to retreats in asia for months and months (cumulatively) during his early life and seems to be good pals with people like Joseph Goldstein (who studied under asian teachers in 60s/70s). He has probably experienced all kinds of stuff.
Point being, if you get (at least some of) what there is to get then does it matter where your body was born or what it looks like? Is it a bad thing that western born people are bringing this (buddhist/hindu/jain) thought to the west?
I would revise your statement that there are the monastics who dedicate their lives to this, the lay people who practice and the commoditized 'yoga' as exercise/stretching folk/peddlers who are far removed from its spiritual components.
Eh, if you use the word "mindfulness," you are yoga guy. A monk isn't mindful, he is mortifying his flesh to practice the tenets of the religion he believes in so fiercely enough he is willing to self-imprison to follow it better. What you see as mindfulness is just the surface results of winning that struggle. It is very possible to lose it instead, and monks are often open about the dangers of monastic life.
I think people really don't get religion in this sense. The radical, wild, anarchic aspects of it. Mindfulness is more just a wish for stoicism in religious guise; the idea of being not stoic, and weeping over your prayers in a cell because you feel the weight of the world's sin and know that the time is short will not often occur to people.
>Eh, if you use the word "mindfulness," you are yoga guy
Everything in Buddhism and meditation surrounds around mindfulness/sati/awareness you call it.
>A monk isn't mindful, he is mortifying his flesh to practice the tenets of the religion he believes in so fiercely enough he is willing to self-imprison to follow it better.
Monks have to cultivate the 8 fold path which includes right mindfulness so saying he isn't doesn't make him monk. And also wow that sounds so disrespectful and ignorant.
What exactly is wrong with being a regular person who practices mindfulness? Are the benefits they receive not legitimate in your eyes?
The philosophy I have been exposed to through meditation has helped me better understand how the ego can cause problems. It seems you are rather attached to the idea of a very pure, austere study of meditation and associated philosophies. There are other valid ways of approaching such things that you are unjustifiably disregarding.
Alternatively, you could look at it as someone simply being earlier on their path, and provide encouragement instead of ridicule.