Afhængighed og mindfulness

En narkoman lider af narkomani.

Narkomani er en ustoppelig trang til narkotiske midler.

Narkotiske midler er lammende, bedøvende og smertestillende.

Der er noget stimulerende i en smertestillende bedøvelse, fordi det, som gør ondt er livet.

Narkomaner er blandt en voksende grupper af mennesker, som i samfundets øjne er upassende – især de, der lever på gaden. De skal ligesom invalide, arbejdsløse og traumatiserede flygtninge opgraderes i forhold til samfundets normer.

Sjældent stilles der spørgsmålstegn til, hvorvidt alle kan og bør tilpasses efter samme kapitalistiske model. Sjældent stilles der spørgsmål til, hvorvidt det reelt er disse krav, som skubber nogle ud i et misbrug, hvorved misbruget netop bliver noget smertestillende.

Og måske skulle man spørge, da mange er blevet afhængige. Nogle tager stoffer for at blive tyndere, andre for at arbejde mere effektivt; nogle går i swingerklubben for at blive begæret, andre sælger sex til mænd og damer, der ikke kan acceptere deres eget livs kedsomhed.

Afhængighed er alle steder. I alle former.

Narkomani er ikke samfundets skyld, men et problem, der udspringer af samfundets moralske deroute. Det er i dag nemt at føle sig isoleret og udenfor. Man kan sågar blive afhængig af ”likes” på Facebook?

Ingen form for narkomani er sund.

Gabor Maté har In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts vist, at mindfulness kan hjælpe med at opløse de automatiske mønstrer, der fodrer vores afhængige sind.

I Buddhist Foundations of Mindfulness redigeret af Edo Shonin, William Van Gordon og Nirbhay N. Singh kan man læse, at mindfulness er en Buddhist praksis, der skærper ens opmærksomhed og fremmer ens mentale velvære. Endvidere står der, at mindfulness kan fremme ens erkendelse af at være en moralsk agent, dvs. ansvarlig for ens handlinger og gerninger. Både de der retter sig indad og de, der retter sig udad.

Mindfulness kan som en kultivering af vores opmærksomhed fremme en social ansvarlighed, hvis praksissen løsrives fra den Buddhistiske ide om, at sandheden findes inde i os selv. Her er det oplagt at betone det sociale engagement, som den Vestlige filosofi er kendt for.

Vi har mistet intimiteten med hinanden, som Terry Tempest Williams siger.

Et sted at begynde, er at udvise omsorg for hinanden. For narkomanens vedkommende kunne dette ske ved at genetablere et fortrolighedsforhold mellem en praktiserende læge og narkomanen, og – ikke som nu – fastholde en relation mellem narkomanen og henholdsvis pusheren og politiet. Et skifte fra en kontrollerende instans, hvor flertallet kun kan lide det, som vedkommende kan forstå (læse: det som kan betale sig), til en etik, der interesserer sig for det, den ikke umiddelbart kan forstå. Sidstnævnte kan nemlig lære os noget. Når vi lærer noget, skabes der nye erfaringer; erfaringer, som gør virkeligheden større.

Forskning viser, at krigen mod narkotika reelt kun hjælper narkokarteller og rockere, at kun omkring ti procent bliver afhængige af narkotiske stoffer, at de fleste narkomaner gradvist trapper ned, eller helt holder op, hvis deres liv uden narkotika ikke kun er smerte og ensomhed.

Forskning viser, at afhængighed ikke kun er et genetisk problem. Ingen arver sin mors druk. I højere grad er det omgivelserne, som præger ens udvikling af hjernen, der påvirker hvordan en person søger belønning og tryghed, hvordan vedkommende kan regulere sine følelser. Misbrug i ens omgivelser fører nemt til misbrug.

Konklusionen er, at legalisering er vejen frem – sammen med skabelsen af et mere venligt og inkluderende samfund, der ikke er blind overfor bivirkninger af et kapitalistisk samfund. Det vil sige et samfund, der kultiverer en nysgerrig medfølelse i stedet for en dømmende holdning.

For interesserede kan jeg anbefale:

– Gabor Matés In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, der rummer historier fra gaden i Vancouver, henover forfatterens personlige anekdoter, mens han løbende diskuterer nyere forskningsresultater.

– Carl Hart, High Price, der refererer til egen forskning (og Bruce Alexanders), bogen er ligeledes en memoir.

– Johann Hari’s Chasing the Scream er en journalistisk rejse i begrebet ”krigen mod narkotika”, der viser, at krig altid fremmer død og had, og netop ikke omsorg og varme.

– Bruce Alexander’s The Globalization of Addiction, fortæller historien om, hvordan kapitalismen har medført et spirituelt forfald. Han refererer også til sin egen forskning, der viser, at rotter – hvis de kan leve sammen med andre rotter – ikke vælger narkotika. Dette er vel hovedværket.

Moralen er klar: Enhver narkoman vælger kun narkotika, fordi det er som at få ”et stort varmt knus” (som Maté citerer en for at sige). Der var også en grund til at Jeppe på Bjerget drak.

Og for mindfulness kan jeg anbefale Buddhist Foundations of Mindfulness redigeret af Edo Shonin, William Van Gordon og Nirbhay N. Singh. Det er en tung antologi, som er befriet for den frelste og “selvhjælpende” tone, som ellers findes i mange bøger om mindfulness.

Who Killed Gilles Deleuze?

Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is a novel about one man’s obsession with the purported suicide of a famous French philosopher.

When a young Danish man, who has just arrived in Barcelona, meets the Spanish writer Rodrigo, he becomes a witness to a four-day-long monologue about philosophy, identity, love, and life and its possible limits.

Rodrigo scrutinizes the suicide of Gilles Deleuze with as much passion as if his own future depended on it. For several years, he has devoted all his time and energy to solving this mysterious death, which he is convinced, is a murder. His own life has been on pause.

How can a life-affirming philosopher kill himself? How can a person who believed that each self is already a multiplicity kill himself without letting any self survive? Is there any part of Deleuze living on the run in hiding in the US?

The Spanish writer approaches this suicide with the methods of a detective elaborating different theories of who to blame and not blame, describing how the philosopher’s fall from his apartment could have happened; he casts doubt on the assumption that Deleuze killed himself due to illness.

The meeting between the young Danish man and Rodrigo takes place in the fabled streets of Barcelona, where Rodrigo draws on the Spanish city’s characteristics and history of political struggles to exemplify the enigma of Deleuze. After four days, Rodrigo disappears, leaving the young Danish man bewildered and with only one choice: to take on Rodrigo’s investigation as his own or risk becoming obsessed as well.

Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is the young Danish man’s story of his meeting with Rodrigo, whose only reason for living was Deleuze, whose only reason for killing himself was not to die at all.

Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is 86 pages long and written in Danish by Finn Janning. It was released on the 17th of June 2016. See here.

Or see my essay Happy Death of Gilles Deleuze.

hvem-myrdede-gilles-deleuze

Lance Armstrong as Teacher

“In a world where people take no responsibility for their lives, Armstrong is the villain. In a world where we do take responsibility for our ordinary lives, we can learn a lot from Armstrong. That is his resurrection. In the most unlikely way, he has become one of contemporary society’s best teachers. If only we dare to use him to look deep inside ourselves.”

Read the entire essay here.

Everything will be OK

The Nihilist: A Philosophical Novel was written by John Marmysz, who—like the story’s narrator—is a philosophy teacher at a college.

The narrator is a nihilist, explaining that, “The thought that I will at one point no longer be here, that I will evaporate into nothingness never again to exist, drives me to nihilism. This one fact of death makes everything else in life meaningless.”

For a great part of the novel, death is the centerpiece—either as the concrete death of a mother, friends, or colleagues, or as constant reminders of the narrator’s own impending death and those of the loved ones around him.

Does this sound sad? Perhaps, but the novel is rather funny and thoughtful in showing what living as a nihilist is like. An underlying force in the story, as in classical existential literature, is how the narrator refuses to give up even though life is meaningless.

The concept of “nihilism” is often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who used it to describe the lack of cultural values in his time. For Nietzsche, nihilism was something to overcome—for example, by producing works of art that bring new existential values and beliefs to the world. Nihilism is not overcome by referring to another transcendent world, but through a will to create. However, the problem is that people tend to cling to old, dying values (e.g., religion). Even though people who take this approach may confront current values (e.g., the happiness industry) and call their bluff, they still feel incapable of doing anything. Nietzsche labeled this tired approach “passive nihilism,” which stands in opposition to “active nihilism,” where one fights back in spite of it all.

The Nihilist succeeds in placing itself in between the passive and active forms of nihilism. Telling the story is, after all, an example of trying to make sense, and philosophy “encourages me to take nothing for granted,” the narrator says.

The route from passive to active is facilitated in a way that makes philosophy therapeutic. The narrator tries to understand and make sense regardless of his inability to do so. Sometimes he just has to accept that the feeling of oneness that he experienced as a young member of a punk band is gone. Sometimes he has to accept that he might violate philosophy’s rebellious callings by striving to earn tenure.

The novel opens with the death of the narrator’s mother. “My mother died when I was well into my 40s.” From there, the story moves back and forward in time, reflecting on various scenes from the professor’s life. There are many deaths: one person is shot, one kills himself, and one becomes so mentally unstable that he dies.

The professor tries to illustrate—and at times convince himself—that philosophy is not separate from life but is a part of it. What can we learn from all this death? Complain about our own deaths, as he suggests. Or, as he also offers, “My point is, when we introduce ourselves to new people, we tell them what sort of work we do for a living instead of telling them that we’re into punk music, or that we’re nihilist or anarchist, or that we fear death.”

So, instead of contributing to the meaningless system of capitalism that measures everything in money, we could be honest and share our experiences of what it means for us to be human beings.

A key figure in the novel is the philosopher Heraclitus, who famously said, “We cannot step into the same river twice.” This old Greek also explained that the world is fire—that is, impermanent. “Life is like fire.” This metaphor of fire returns in several places in novel: when the professor suffers from stomach pain that makes him vomit fire, when he breathes fire during an intense dream, and when he actually catches fire while running. The fire works as an existential guide that illustrates how life affects him. Some examples:

“‘So why did I fail the class?’ the student asked again. I smiled at Marlene again, trying to muster my patience. I also started to feel a burning sensation creep from my stomach up into my esophagus. My heartburn was starting to erupt once again.”

Later, he again experiences this sensation at the dinner celebration for tenured faculty:

“During my argument with the history professor I began to experience that old burning pain in my stomach… Before I was able to stand up and turn around, my mouth filled with stomach acid. The taste and the hot, burning feeling triggered a retching response and I vomited all over.”

The mind and body are connected.

The Nihilist is passionate because the narrator is on fire. Amid the strong influences and passions for philosophy and nihilism, the novel’s strength shines through: we see the narrator’s relationship with life. The professor allows himself to be surprised and even excited by life.

I read The Nihilist as a movement from passive to active nihilism—from philosophy as an abstract exercise to philosophy as a concrete therapeutic practice. It is about the professor becoming a philosopher.

Philosophy is always before us. Gradually, the professor realizes that life might be tragically absurd and meaningless because it raises more questions that he can answer. However, philosophy is “an open-ended process of ongoing questioning.”

The Nihilist ends with a kind of semi-resolution, not a moralizing finale or happy ending (although the narrator finds some comfort in running, but even here he burns). However, the reader may ask whether this burn is life-affirming, since he finally acknowledges that it “is a pointless exercise leading nowhere.”

Isn’t one of life’s beauties that it comes from everywhere, leading each one of us nowhere?

The Nihilist is a rich story that also finds comfort (albeit temporary) in other people. For a while, many of us—though unfortunately not all—have someone we can live with and perhaps even love and share crucial experiences with. For the narrator, this is his college sweetheart Colleen.

She tells him, “It’s OK it’s OK … Everything will be OK.”

And that’s enough. The last thing that the nihilist narrator does? He laughs.

 

thenihilist

Det sande liv

“Én kvinde er altid i sig selv det jordiske bevis på, at Gud ikke eksisterer, at Gud ikke behøver eksistere.” – Alain Badiou, Det sande liv

Den franske filosof Alain Badious bog Det sande liv – opfordring til ungdommen er filosofisk let, men ikke uden dybde.

Badiou tilhører den store generation af franske filosoffer, der efterfulgte Sartre og de Beauvoir m.fl., hvor vi finder navne som Michel Foucault og Gilles Deleuze, og som stadigvæk tæller Michel Serres (en anden gigant).

”Hvad er et sandt liv? Det er filosofiens unikke spørgsmål,” siger Badiou. Han revitaliserer Platons filosofi, hvilket bl.a. sker ved hjælp af begreberne sandhed og væren; begreber, som Foucault, Deleuze og Serres, eksempelvis, er mere skeptiske overfor.

Skulle man være uenig med Badious præmis, er det i grunden ligegyldigt, da Det sande liv ikke er en filosofisk afhandling, men et debatterende essay, der er relevant læsning for alle studerende, deres undervisere og forældre.

Badiou vil ”fordærve ungdommen.” Det vil sige, vække den fra dens åndelige dvaletilstand, hvorved den (læs: ungdommen) blindt følger den slagne vej. Filosoffen forsøger at vise – eller overbevise – ungdommen, ”at der er et falsk liv, et ødelagt liv, som er det liv, der er tænkt og udøves som en vild kamp om magt, om penge.”

Det falske liv er domineret af kapitalismens idealer og normer. Sandheden for Badiou er tættere på Marx end neoliberalisten Milton Friedman, hvilket man nu ikke behøver være filosof for at se det indlysende i.

Og dog! Hvorfor har de unge så svært ved at anerkende muligheden af det sande liv?

De unge baserer deres liv på et falsk fundament, siger Badiou, der kommer til udtryk i to former for lidenskab.

  • Lidenskaben for det umiddelbare liv, fx kortvarige forhold, spil og fornøjelser.
  • Lidenskaben for succes, fx drømmen om at blive rig og magtfuld

At leve for fornøjelser alene kan de fleste nok se det overfladiske i, men mange vil nok mene, at drømmen om rigdom er fornuftig, fordi den fremmer en lydighed overfor den eksisterende sociale orden. Det er studenten, der fortsætter på universitetet eller handelshøjskolen, mens hun skæver til hvilke jobs, der rummer mest prestige (læs: magt og penge). Begge er falske og nihilistiske. Den ene uden fremtid, den anden med en naiv tro på det forløsende i karriere og penge. Begge lidenskaber mangler en overordnet ide.

For Badiou – som for Platon – må det sande liv guides af en overordnet ide, fx kærlighed.

De to indre fjender er dog ikke de unges eneste problem. De har svært ved at ville vokse op, da de netop hyldes, fordi de er unge. At være ung er blevet et attraktivt ideal. Ungdommen lever endvidere under en større frihed, forstået som ” fraværet af visse forbud”, ”en negativ frihed…” Endelige mangler de unge symbolske ritualer, der kan hjælpe – især drengen/manden – med at blive voksne, fx værnepligt.

Det betyder, at de unge fortsætter en tilværelse af uendelig ungdom, der er kendetegnet ved en nærmest infantil adfærd, hvor det vigtigste synes at være indkøbet af legetøj. Legetøjsbilen bliver til en rigtig bil. Dukkehuset bliver til en lejlighed på Mallorca. Plastik telefonen til den nye iphone.

Badiou er nok lidt moraliserende, men han er ikke nostalgiker eller konservativ. Han efterlyser ikke den gamle autoritære mand. Nej, han vil vække de unges evne til at spørge: Hvad er det sande liv? Eller i det mindste: Hvilket liv er også muligt?

Efter at have opridset problemerne, vender Badiou sig nu mod de unge drenge og piger. Hvad kan filosofien sige til ungdommen?

Det, der adskiller filosofien fra sociologi eller psykologi er, at den har blik for det, som er i færd med at blive. Det, som er i sin vorden. Det, som fortrænges eller forsømmes, hvis man lever falsk, det vil sige blot kæmper imod det bestående (uden at skabe alternativer), eller blot gentager fortidens succeshistorier, det som en virksomheder kalder ”best practice”.

Fremtiden for nutidens drenge ser mørkere ud end pigernes. Det er efterhånden velkendt, at manden er fremtidens taber. Drengen har mere end pigen brug for ritualer eller indvielser, der kan vække manden i ham (ikke karikaturens Rambo). Disse mangler. I stedet for har drengen udsigt til, hvad Badiou kalder ”den perverterede krop, ”den ofrede krop” eller ”den meriterende krop.” Den piercerede og tatoverede revolte eller søgen efter identitet; den politiske selvmordsbomber, der ofrer sig for politisk eller religiøs tomhed og den lydige krop, der har fundet sig et arbejde.

Fremtiden for pigerne er lysere, sandsynligvis fordi deres fortid generelt har været mørkere. Dog, ser Badiou ikke det store potentiale i den dominerende ”borgerlige femisme”, hvorved kvinden reduceres til at blive én, nemlig karrierekvinden. En tro kopi af manden stereotypologi.

Det store problem er kapitalismen. Den fastholder drengene i en infantilt stagnation. Mens fraværet af en ydre markering, fx (ægteskab eller en mand, som tidligere) medfører at pigerne bliver kvinder for tidligt.

Badiou tilføjer ny energi til den ”borgerlige feminismes” lidt trættende positioneringskamp, der – ganske uambitiøst – handler om at fratvinge manden hans position, selvom dette reelt er en reduktion af kvindens potentielle. Kvinden er en proces, ikke en position. Manden er fastlåst i én position – historisk – som lovens garant, men når nu Gud ikke eksisterer, er der frit spil.

Historisk er kvinden blevet betragtet som farlig, fordi hun reelt rummer to positioner (eller To-positionel, som matematikeren Badiou skriver). Husmoderen er ”kun kvinde, hvis hun virtuelt dubleres af forførersken, forførersken er kun magtfuld, fordi hun færdes på kærlighedens bredder …” Kvinden er altid to-positionel ”noget, som udspiller sig mellem to positioner … Man forstår ikke meget af alt dette, hvis man ikke er overbevist om, at Gud ikke eksisterer, og dermed at ’Faderens Navn’ som En-positionel ikke længere eksisterer. En kvinde er processen i denne ikke-væren, som konstituerer det En-positionelle hele væren.”

Manden har undertrykt (og undertrykker (visse steder!)) kvinden for at bevare sin position, som den En-positionelle magt og lov. Af samme grund spærrer mange religioner kvinden inde i et sort boks eller gemmer hende af vejen.

Heldigvis – hvilket Badiou ikke nævner – vil de fleste unge mænd i Vesten ikke reducere kvinden til noget som helst (ej heller ophøje sig selv, fordi du tilfældigvis er født mand). (Et muligt problem er, at Badiou skriver med sine sønner in mente, men disse er angiveligt i slutningen af fyrrene (eller mere), da Badiou er næsten 80 år, hvorfor han heller ikke helt har blik for det, som er i sin vorden blandt de lidt yngre, hvor manden også kan rumme flere positioner).

Det overordnede problem er nu, at kvinderne har et ansvar overfor menneskeheden. Enhver kvinden bærer potentielt fremtiden i sit skød (en mands sæd kan blot fryses ned). ”Enhver kvinde kan være en pige uden noget ønske om moderskab. At det er en mulighed, er fuldt ud legitimt. Men man må indrømme, at det ikke kan være en regel.”

En regels universelle konsekvenserne skal nemlig altid undersøges, og en universel afvisning af moderskabet betyder slet og ret menneskeracens endeligt. Ergo: Det er en dårlig regel, fordi den ødelægger spillet.

Det er denne balancegang der p.t. er udfordringen, og som nok ikke overvindes ved at opfordre kvinderne til at tælle deres æggeløsninger. Løsningen er altså ikke pligter, men en kultivering af et fælles ansvar, som nødvendigvis må inddrage manden, hvorved omsorg, pleje og kærlighed vitterligt bliver et fælles anliggende, der udspringer af kærlighed – og ikke en frygt for at kvinderne taber eller vinder terræn på arbejdsmarked.

Til trods for sine matematiske ideer om kønnet, så virker Badiou i sine tanker en smule gammeldags. For eksempel slutter han med at spørge: ”Hvad er en kvindelig kunstner, musiker, maler, digter? … Hvad er en kvindelig filosof?”

Dette er ikke interessante spørgsmål. Her fristes jeg til at gentage Foucaults spørgsmål: Hvad betyder det for kvaliteten af det sagte, hvem der har sagt det? Ingenting. Det er indlysende, at der findes store kunstner af alle former for køn og ikke-køn.

Det kunne have været interessant, hvis han var dykket lidt ned i andre, mere progressive feministiske teorier eller posthumanismens tanker.

Selvfølgelig betyder kønnet ingenting med hensyn til god litteratur, kunst, filosofi og matematik, men kulturen, religionerne, uddannelsessystemet og fiktive kønsroller har alt for længe bildt os ind, at det er sådan.

Hvad nu hvis den italienske forfatter Elena Ferrante viser sig at være en mand? Enhver litteraturelsker, ville sige: So what?

Badious bog er ikke desto mindre vigtigt, fordi den gør de unge opmærksomme på, ”at der kunne ske noget andet end det, der sker.” En anden, mere fair og kærlig verden, er mulig. Det er ikke etableringen af position og karriere, ”der står i første række, men derimod en sand tanke.”

Det sande liv kan stimulere de unges spørgelyst, hvorved bogen til fulde tjener sit formål.

A Revolution Against Progress

“I’m actually a quite different person, I just never get around being him”

– Ödön von Horváth cited in Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration

There is something paradoxical about today’s achievement culture. For example, in most Western countries, we work fewer hours than the generations before us, we can communicate and get information faster and easier than ever, and we can travel farther faster, yet we lack time. We’re stressed.

Time has become the main character in modern life. Like Pierre in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, who was present due to his absence, time is everywhere, because it is nowhere.

The logic goes something like this: Faster = more efficient. More efficient = more money. “Time is money,” as Benjamin Franklin said many years ago. Now, sadly enough, this is common sense.

In Social Acceleration—A New Theory of Modernity, German sociologist Hartmut Rosa explores the concept of acceleration and its influence on our lives. Systematically, he shows the causes and consequences of an acceleration that doesn’t stop for anything. He identifies three categories of change: technological acceleration (e.g., transportation and communication), social change (e.g., knowledge), and pace of life.

Hartmut borrows his underlying thesis from his German colleague Luhmann, “the division of time and value judgment can no longer be separated.” For example, if I spend little time with my kids, although I claim to love them, then I might be living incoherently. The moral that Hartmut outlines is: How we spend our time shows what we value.

Some may object here. Others might mention the awful concept of “quality time,” but as Hartman says, “the quality of ‘our times’, its horizons and structures, its tempo and its rhythm, are not (or only to a very limited degree) at our disposal. Temporal structures have a collective nature and social character.”

A pregnancy still takes nine months. (Is this the reason why some outsources pregnancy to “rent a mum”?). In most societies, people still need to be 16 or 18 years old to vote or drive a car. Still, acceleration also affects us socially. Because I receive your update on Facebook right now, you expect me to “like” it right now (or at least very soon). There is an underlying norm related to acceleration.

Hartmut inscribes himself in a long tradition of German sociologists with a philosophical touch, like Luhmann and Habermas, but most notably Honneth. Like his predecessors, he doesn’t see sociology as pure description but rather as something that can initiate change (which brings him closer to philosophy, where knowledge is transformative). Whether, Hartmut operates with a normative ideal like Habermas and Luhmann will not be debated here.

Social Acceleration presents us with a new lens (i.e., acceleration) through which we can see part of society more clearly. It presents an impressive analysis of acceleration that helps us see how our well-being is not just an individual matter but also a social one. If everything speeds up, it can be difficult to stay calm, offline. Due to the “shrinking of the present,” we can also see different forms of counter movements, such a slow living and mindfulness, that try to convince us that if we pay attention to each moment, then the chance of forgetting something important is less likely, e.g., forgetting to experience the living present.

Hartmut presents us with a new critique of alienation – an acceleration-theoretical one. In the end, he quotes from Horváth saying, “the acceleration society gets people ‘to will what they do not will’, that is, to pursue . . . courses of action that they do not prefer from a temporal stable perspective.”

As my old philosophy professor once said, “It takes time to think.” Ergo, today, few people are thinking. The price we pay for not thinking is stress, burnout, and careless ego trips.

Hartmut adds more fuel to the debate about whether or not “doing nothing,” such as reading and writing, is profitable or a sin. If it’s the latter, then I accept being an almost full-time sinner, trying to revolutionize capital-initiated progress.

Mindfulness in Rome

May 11 – 15, 2016: 2nd International Conference on Mindfulness, Sapienza University of Rome. See here the website of the event.

Among the many interesting presentations, I presented the paper entitled Mindfulness as an Ethical Practice.

In this paper, I ask two questions. The first is: What is an ethical practice? The second question is: Is mindfulness an ethical practice? My ultimate concern, however, is the possible link between the two issues: What relationship does mindfulness have with ethics? To answer these questions, I first draw on three ethical theories from the Western history of philosophy—Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Deleuze—to define ethics as a particular way of being. Then, I integrate and compare some significant elements from these ethics with the practice of mindfulness, mainly as Jon Kabat-Zinn defines it. This is done to clarify to what extent mindfulness is an ethical practice. My study reveals that not only can mindfulness be viewed as a classical ethical practice (as understood in a Western philosophical context), but—and perhaps more surprising—mindfulness is closer to some Western ethics than to Buddhism, e.g., regarding whether “the Good” is known beforehand, whether ethics is an immanent or transcendent practice, and whether ethics is a judgmental or nonjudgmental practice. Finally, I briefly discuss the ways in which Western philosophy can shed new light on mindfulness.

 

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