Mindfulness: Is Health and Happiness Enough?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that adopting mindfulness as a way of being contributes to happiness and physical health. Then again, belonging to almost any faith community increases happiness and physical health. That fact alone doesn’t entice me to convert or join. Truth-value matters.

You don’t see psychologists promoting, say, Mormonism as a reliable ticket to well-being, even though it may be – as long as you buy into the Mormon doctrine. The difference with mindfulness is that many psychologists do buy the creed, so they don’t seem to have qualms about trying to sell it to others.

None of this is to deny the value of mindfulness practice.  Or even the value of temporarily adopting a mindfulness mindset. The question is whether the value can be retained without embracing the religious and ideological elements within the mindfulness message.