Continuing with an exploration of mindfulness as a discourse....
“As you begin paying more attention to your inner landscape, you will discover that the mind is very active with uncomfortable thoughts that you've been trying to avoid.” Paying Attention with Acceptance
This is a form of mind reading that has a grain of truth – sure, we probably all have uncomfortable thoughts that we’d rather just go away – but is that the most prevalent or most important feature of our “inner landscape”?
What constitutes an “uncomfortable thought”? For some people, thinking about unfinished business does that, or thinking about the gap between one’s goals/values and current behavior, or thinking about recent social missteps. Without these thinking patterns, homo sapiens would have never survived to the present day.
Interesting that the author assumes people would try to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. Maybe this is truer for people who prioritize feeling happy over feeling truth or feeling ethical. Is mindfulness especially attractive to people for whom experiencing positive feeling-states is a strong value?