Mindfulness is not: "value-free”

Jon Kabat-Zinn chose the term mindfulness. He could have called it "Compassion Based" as well. Then we would have had different misunderstandings to write about.

There is no mindfulness without kindness, respect, and dignity. Compassion is not separate from, nor opposed to mindfulness. It is an essential element of it. A mindfulness training that is not a compassion training, is not a mindfulness training.

Mindfulness originated in healthcare, where these values are inherently present. Care is, after all, the raison d'être of healthcare.

A completely different situation arises when mindfulness enters other contexts. There, we need to be much more explicit. If a company wants to offer mindfulness not to promote humanity in the workplace, but solely to increase productivity, then that is not mindfulness.

February 2017

This text is part of a series about misunderstandings regarding mindfulness.
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