[bigred100]

Can someone tell me why it’s socially acceptable to have these mindfulness things in work? I’m sympathetic to the argument that religions should be largely kept out of the workplace, so this isn’t a “checkmate atheists” argument. But if some guy came into my office and started saying we’re going to recite the rosary with all the “Jesus” and “Mary” parts replaced with something generic like “the universe” I cant imagine he’d get away with it.

[depr]

This is explained in the book:

“Successful branding stories are often characterized by disruption, which turns an established industry or experience upside down. The MBSR brand is one such disruptive force, with Kabat-Zinn’s talking points including pithy quips such as: “The Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist,” or Buddhists “don’t own mindfulness” because it is “an innate, universal human capacity.” Potential customers are thereby assured that MBSR is a non-religious product, yet still offers the best bits of what the Buddha taught. In Kabat-Zinn’s words, his version of mindfulness is “a place-holder for the entire dharma.”

The Western world has co-opted an aspect of Buddhism, which works to improve productivity, and discarded the part that doesn't fit its worldview; the other pillars of Buddhism. This enables it to be sold as non-religious.

[emptysongglass]

You're misunderstanding mindfulness as a tool or symptom of religiosity. Mindfulness, put another way by John Yates the neuroscientist-cum-Buddhist-teacher, is a poor word for peripheral awareness. That's it. No rosaries or unlimited abstractions to cloud it.

[0xcde4c3db]

I think the main thing is that generic mindfulness exercises don't have a devotional aspect, i.e. no worship or veneration of deities, prophets, saints, spirits, or the like. A lot of people in cultures influenced by Abrahamic traditions don't think of something as "religion" unless it has devotional practice.

An important exception is that some Christian fundamentalists regard any form of magic or mysticism other than God's miracles as being inherently Satanic. This can even extend to fictional systems of magic (as in fantasy novels or RPGs), which may be regarded as an obfuscated form of the real thing.