Mindfulness Meditation: Benefits and Dilemmas April 19th, 2025 at 2:30PM Past Event Watch the video » Mindfulness meditation is one of the most popular contemplative techniques in the world. Recently, however, a number of influential criticisms of the practice have emerged, many of which frame the technique as part of a larger neoliberal endeavor meant to privatize emotional well-being. Others have pointed to potential dangers of the practice, identifying cases where, for some people, it may actually trigger some of the dilemmas it is meant to treat, including anxiety, depression, and dissociation. And yet, it is difficult to find a major institution today that does not have some kind of training program or space devoted to various forms of meditation, accompanied by claims that it will help you live longer, enhance your performance at work, stay focused in an age of distraction, heal from trauma, and increase your compassion. What kind of reasonable expectations can one have regarding mindfulness? Has the practice become too commoditized to be effective? Is there an “authentic” mindfulness meditation? What philosophies of mind inform the practice? This roundtable will explore these and other questions on the way to gaining a better understanding of what the practice has come to mean today. Participants: Mark Epstein Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, is the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire, Psychotherapy without the Self, The Trauma of Everyday Life and Advice… read more » David Forbes Emeritus, Urban Education Doctoral Program, City University of New York David Forbes, PhD, is an Emeritus in the Urban Education Doctoral Program at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. He teaches and writes on critical and integral approaches to mindfulness in education and has consulted with New York City schools on developing social mindfulness programs. He recently helped form the CUNY Mindfulness… read more » Andrea Jain Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University Editor, Journal of the American Academy of Religion Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford, 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from… read more » Tim McHenry Author & Curator Tim McHenry has been presenting Rubin Museum of Art audiences over the past twenty years with what the Huffington Post has called “some of the most original and inspired programs on the arts and consciousness in New York City.” McHenry created 26 onstage conversations around Jung’s Red Book in 2009 with Jungian analysts paired with the likes of… read more » Catherine Wikholm Clinical Psychologist Dr. Catherine Wikholm is a Clinical Psychologist based in Kent, UK. She is registered with the HCPC and Chartered by the BPS. Having previously worked in the National Health Service (NHS), Catherine currently works in private practice and specialises in child, adolescent and young adult mental health. She is the co-author of The Buddha Pill:… read more » R. John Williams Associate Professor, English, Film and Media, at Yale University R. John Williams, PhD, is Professor of English, and Film and Media Studies at Yale University. He is the author of The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West, and has published as well on a number of topics including religion, futurology, systems theory, psychoanalysis, and film and television. His… read more »
Mark Epstein Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, M.D., a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, is the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire, Psychotherapy without the Self, The Trauma of Everyday Life and Advice… read more »
David Forbes Emeritus, Urban Education Doctoral Program, City University of New York David Forbes, PhD, is an Emeritus in the Urban Education Doctoral Program at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. He teaches and writes on critical and integral approaches to mindfulness in education and has consulted with New York City schools on developing social mindfulness programs. He recently helped form the CUNY Mindfulness… read more »
Andrea Jain Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University Editor, Journal of the American Academy of Religion Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford, 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from… read more »
Tim McHenry Author & Curator Tim McHenry has been presenting Rubin Museum of Art audiences over the past twenty years with what the Huffington Post has called “some of the most original and inspired programs on the arts and consciousness in New York City.” McHenry created 26 onstage conversations around Jung’s Red Book in 2009 with Jungian analysts paired with the likes of… read more »
Catherine Wikholm Clinical Psychologist Dr. Catherine Wikholm is a Clinical Psychologist based in Kent, UK. She is registered with the HCPC and Chartered by the BPS. Having previously worked in the National Health Service (NHS), Catherine currently works in private practice and specialises in child, adolescent and young adult mental health. She is the co-author of The Buddha Pill:… read more »
R. John Williams Associate Professor, English, Film and Media, at Yale University R. John Williams, PhD, is Professor of English, and Film and Media Studies at Yale University. He is the author of The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West, and has published as well on a number of topics including religion, futurology, systems theory, psychoanalysis, and film and television. His… read more »
Let’s not be critical. The speakers are deep spiritual travelers who understand meditation in universal terms, not authors who have written books on meditation for Western audiences or science. I recently attended a Buddhism and psychedelics conference, so let’s expand the topic, and extend it into the pan-human nature that is to answer the quest for self-understanding, as members of a species that will soon collapse civilization into oblivion, if not worse. The audience of these writers, for whom meditation is such an important subject, represents a wealthy elite, a small percentage of the world’s population, who oversurvive without limits. Given the absurdity of the modern mindset, I expect revelation, something more than feeling good about oneself for driving an electric car to stave off global warming, or meditating, or whatever. It would appear that humans have a potential for meditation by nature, to be content from the inside, to quell the insatiable material desires that otherwise have us contribute to the end of the world as we know it. I would expect the speakers to outline how meditation provides a way out of the madness humans have created for themselves, but I feel I will only get bandaids and empty promises for a better tomorrow. Why did nature create spirituality? To fulfill us from the inside so as not to chase unlimited emptiness (desires) created by our capacity to oversurvive (at the expense of others). Which implies decoupling from modern society and its many contradictions, including the consumption of resources that future generations need to flourish. Science cannot answer these questions (and be scientific about the answer) and spiritual teachers get lost in infinities when the answer needs to be practiced, and come with a holistic sharp social critique. Reply
Mindfulness allows us to imagine, be in transition, the felt texture of truth in each moment which is a benefit. The dilemmas become known and difficult to bear at times. Reply
Thank you for mentioning the risk of escaping into individualism and individual self-absorption. If individualism is the water we Western fish swim in and too often forget to notice, sati also invites us to remember our social and collective condition and our suffering as communities. The early historical context of the emergence of Buddhism was arguably a social rebellion against the elitist excesses of a decadent Brahmin culture. In other words, mindfulness could be transformative in the context of building transformative collective action, transformative community, and transformative social movements. Otherwise it runs the risk of reinforcing structural contradictions and re-inscribing systemic pathologies. Reply