North Central Sociological Association Presidential Address. The Mindful Society: Contemplative Sociology, Meta-Mindfulness, and Human Flourishing

Abstract

Mindfulness as a spiritual and a secular practice has been gaining both adherents and scientific legitimacy as a path to emotional and physical healing. There is also an emerging social movement that posits mindfulness as a solution to many otherwise intractable social problems. Influential social and political leaders are promoting the ideal of a “mindful society” as a foundation for increased human flourishing and ecological well-being. This Presidential Address explores these developments by offering a kind of meta-mindfulness, a sociological awareness of the strengths and limitations of how mindfulness has been adapted to our cultural milieu. I offer suggestions on the positive contributions that sociology might make to the mindfulness social movement, with special attention to the concept of sociological mindfulness. I suggest that sociology has an important role to play in the shift toward the contemplative that is happening in higher education across many disciplines.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

An earlier version of this address was delivered at the annual conference of the North Central Sociological Association in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 11, 2015. Conversations with Joanna Lee, John Eric Baugher, Kathy Feltey, Jodi Henderson-Ross, Becky Erickson, Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, Layli Maparyan, students in my “Love in Action” class, and many others have greatly enriched my thinking about the topics covered in this address. I am especially indebted to John Eric Baugher for detailed comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

¹ For more on the DIY approach, see the cover stories in the March 2015 issue of Shambhala Sun.

² Others were already working on just such a project. Barry Boyce (quoted in Wilks 2015:48) noted that the Foundation for a Mindful Society was established four years ago, along with a related website and publication (Mindful magazine), to advance the “secular mindfulness” movement’s goal of linking individual and social change (see also his chapter “Creating a Mindful Society,” Boyce 2011; and “Creating an Enlightened Society,” Trungpa [1978] 2007). Another example of this intention to build a more mindful society is Tim Ryan’s recent book, A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit. Ryan is the member of Congress representing the district in which my hometown and university are located, so it was perhaps inevitable that I would come into contact with the mindfulness movement sooner or later.

³ For an alternative construction of meta-mindfulness rooted in the Buddhist Eightfold Path, see Phang and Oei (2012).

⁴ My co-authored book focused on Christianity, but as Wei ([1963] 2002:14) pointed out, for “Masters” of Eastern paths “rendering service was their sole use of living.” Similarly, the “Shambhala vision” articulated by Chogyam Trungpa ([1978] 2007:17) expresses a “centuries-old idea: by serving this world, we can save it.” John Baugher, in a personal communication to me on June 26, 2015, suggested that wisdom and compassionate action are Buddhism’s inseparable equivalents of AA’s love and service.

⁵ The organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement provided an example of mindfulness as a supporting strategy. They used it to reduce tendencies towards violence and aggression that were emerging among activists with different perspectives, although these practices were called “grounding exercises” rather than “meditations” to avoid “religious or spiritual connotations that could potentially alienate participants” (Rowe 2015:para. 21).

⁶ Kathy Feltey was quoting the words of a fictional character created by Octavia Butler.

⁷ There are a number of developments that might be called “post-Buddhist,” including “secular Buddhism, agnostic Buddhism, non-traditional Buddhism” and others that might also be known as “post-traditional” (Michaelson 2013:59; see also Bartone 2015). Many leaders in the secular mindfulness movement no longer refer to themselves as “Buddhist” and some never did in the first place (Williams and Kabat-Zinn 2013).

⁸ An important co-authored book by my friend Margaret Poloma offers a cautionary tale about the excesses of spiritual materialism and how it contributed to the unraveling of a large Christian ministry to the poor. A “skeptical Buddhist” graduate student named Chris was impressed by the deeply compassionate acts he observed within this ministry until the leader returned, attempted to assert his authority, and wreaked “havoc” (Poloma and Hood 2008:179–80). Chris noted, “It appears that ego (in the Buddhist sense of the word) is the problem” (180).

⁹ The word dharma (sometimes capitalized) has been used to refer to a variety of things, including the teachings of the Buddha, certain inevitable laws governing the universe, or teachings that have the capacity to reduce suffering in the world.

¹⁰ Although at times Trungpa ([1978] 2007:8) presented his teachings in a secular manner to a secular audience, emphasizing enlightenment “without the help of any religious outlook,” he was recognized as a reincarnated lama in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He drew on his extensive religious training and frequently engaged with questions of ultimate concern that dealt with the meaning of life and the nature of existence, including reincarnation and other non-material issues.

¹¹ Baugher (2014a) explicitly outlined how his non-dualistic, emotionally-embodied, contemplative sociology differs from Peter Berger’s classic statement of the sociological perspective precisely because sociological mindfulness invites a compassionate response to suffering.

¹² Three decades ago, Stephen Batchelor (1983:128) wrote that “the idea that one can effectively transplant even modified versions of Theravada, Tibetan or Japanese Buddhism into the environment of the modern world is unrealistic” but also that there is a “strong trans-cultural flexibility in the essential nature of the Buddhist experience” and that a “radical reformulation” of the Dharma could work in Western contexts. This has occurred in the intervening years.

¹³ Many observers will disagree that a coherent fourth vehicle exists, while others have constructed one in somewhat different terms. For example, Queen (2000:2) described “Engaged Buddhism” (discussed above) as a fourth vehicle and Coleman’s (2001:12) typology draws distinctions among “new Western Buddhism,” “ethnic Buddhism of migrant enclaves,” and “traditional Asian Buddhism,” which are all united by a “common quest: liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion and the suffering they cause.” Because these other constructions have not been widely used in the literature, and because the secular, post-Buddhist fourth vehicle that I describe seems to encompass so many people who are not aligned with one of the other vehicles, I find it helpful to use the term. Of course the lines between Buddhist and post-Buddhist practices are often blurred, so time will tell whether the fourth vehicle I am discussing remains a useful concept.

¹⁴ One critic of the fourth vehicle argues that it is “an artifact of modernity and postmodernity using elements abstracted from Buddhism, tailored to gain popularity by satisfying contemporary prejudice” (Brazier 2015:para. 2).

¹⁵ For a non-Buddhist, but in my view still deeply mindful example, see the discussion of the Delancey Street prisoner re-entry program in Grenny et al. (2013).

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Matthew T. Lee

Matthew T. Lee is Professor and Chair of Sociology and Interim Chair of Anthropology and Classical Studies at the University of Akron. He is vice-president of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, Past-Chair of the Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Section of the American Sociological Association, and previously served as vice president of the Center for Restorative Justice of North Central Ohio. His research has been published in such journals as Criminology, Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Problems, and Sociological Quarterly. His latest book (with Margaret M. Poloma and Stephen G. Post) is The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love. He is currently working on two funded research projects: “Compassion for the Compassionate: Serving Those Who Serve Others” with Rebecca J. Erickson and “Character Development Through Service and Reduced Recidivism: Project SOS (Service to Others in Sobriety)” with Maria E. Pagano, Stephen G. Post, and Byron R. Johnson.