The White Science of Meditation

sa.meditationThis month, Scientific American launches a cover story on the “Neuroscience of Meditation” describing how this ancient Hindu and Buddhist practice is now being accepted in the secular world. This article is just the latest of many proclamations that meditation has moved on from the realm of “bearded swamis” (read: “mystical” South Asians) to acceptance in the American mainstream (read: “normal” white people).

The Scientific American article illustrates how problematic such an assertion is. To demonstrate how meditation has become more acceptable in the American intellectual community, the three white and European authors cite over a dozen white and European scientists and a total of zero people of color. Apparently, when enough educated white people are willing to sign off on an “exotic” practice of “unwashed hippies” (who were of course heavily influenced by Indian and Native Americans), then we should all start taking the practice seriously.

What may be most surprising is that obvious prejudice against meditation’s Hindu and Buddhist roots is nakedly embraced. Cue Richard Davidson, founder [pullquote align=”right”]What may be most surprising is that obvious prejudice against meditation’s Hindu and Buddhist roots is nakedly embraced.[/pullquote]of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds: “There is a swath of our culture who is not going to listen to someone in monks’ robes, but they are paying attention to the scientific evidence.” Naively, Davidson may have intended to say that people in this country trust science over religion, but the 83 percent of Americans who identify as Christian would likely disagree. In particular, the 42 percent of Americans who believe that “God created humans in their present form” seem perfectly comfortable listening to someone in robes tell them what to believe, we just need to switch the kasaya for a western habit.

Instead of the difference between religious and scientific sources, then, what seems more likely is that [pullquote]Americans are starting to hear messages about meditation from sources they are more comfortable with, namely, “normal” white people.[/pullquote]Americans are starting to hear messages about meditation from sources they are more comfortable with, namely, “normal” white people. Thus TIME’s  coverage of the “mindfulness revolution” glorifies a white, thin, cisgender woman in meditative bliss on its cover (though props to them for consistency), and the New York Times tells us about this South Asian spiritual practice from the perspective of a white, cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual man. To reach the broadest possible audience of Americans, mainstream publications hew to a strict racial, gender, and class phenotype in order to “earn their trust.” A la Davidson, this means representing meditation with faces and voices as far from South Asian descent as possible.

There is value to conducting rigorous studies on meditation to evaluate its scientifically measurable effects. However, it’s too easy to let ourselves off the hook — as a society and as individuals — by saying that this shift from the religious “fringe” to the the secular “mainstream” isn’t rife with colonialism, oppression, and cultural appropriation.

The perfect example of how not to take into account power, race, and history in one’s analysis comes from Sam Harris, author and CEO of Project Reason. He helped remove any doubt about his ethnocentricity by comparing mainstream Muslims to “Christians of the 14th century.” Harris (for those keeping track, also a white, heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgender male) gleefully proclaims his Manifest Destiny, writing in “Killing the Buddha” that “well-educated Westerners…bear the greatest responsibility for the spread of ideas.” If Harris is particularly unkind (and arguably bigoted) toward Muslims, he is much more charitable toward Buddhism, but still feels that those who openly identify as Buddhist are “complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree.”

Harris’s arguments exemplify the white/European’s culturally hegemonic one-two punch: well-educated Westerners propagate their ideas freely while South Asians must leave their identities at the door. Viewed from a different angle, Harris’s interpretation also seems like the most appropriate way to characterize three white and European authors citing over a dozen white and European scientists in order to describe an ancient, South Asian practice as finally being “accepted” by the American mainstream.

Based out of Oakland, California, Vishnu Sridharan, J.D., has worked on international and domestic anti-poverty platforms for the past decade. He also has a deep background in human rights, in particular social and economic rights, from his legal advocacy in China and community building efforts as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia College and a law degree from Stanford Law School. His writings have appeared in Foreign Policy, CNN.com, the Christian Science Monitor, Slate and Politico. Read more at vishnusridharan.com.

11 thoughts on “The White Science of Meditation”

  1. I’m glad science is catching up with something that people have known for millenniums. I believe that meditation is the next big health revolution & will one day be as normal as brushing your teeth!

  2. This is an excellent article shedding light on the very worrisome trend that has long been the basis of America’s and the west’s new-age based spiritual renaissance. Not only was vippasana diluted and stripped into mindfulness (heavily used in CBR and other forms of therapy), now DBT, an up and coming form of therapy, heavily relies on eastern meditation techniques without proper attribution. In the future most advances in psychology and neuroscience research will continue to take from Indian and Dharmic thought.

    The wrongful appropriation of Dharmic systems and practices and their subsequent digestion into western universalism is a core topic of Rajiv Malhotra’s book: Being Different. A highly recommended read for anyone interested in this article.

  3. Good article, but “cisgender” is really the term you should be using, as its counterpart is “transgender.” Nobody is “cis-genderED” or “trans-genderED” because the term isn’t hypenated and because gender is not something that *happened* to you, it’s merely an adjective, just as you are “tall,” not “talled.” Needless to say the typoed “cis-genGered” is right out as well.

    Perhaps more importantly, I take some issue with your assumption/statement that the women pictured are discernibly or obviously cisgender; many trans women are indistinguishable from our cisgender sistren and implying otherwise feeds the stereotype of the obvious and masculine trans woman who is fundamentally unfeminine.

    Thank you for the article and for your consideration of the points I’ve raised.

  4. Everything has to be about race now? Even meditation? Two covers of Time Magazine and suddenly meditation is being taken over by the whites?

    What if they put a Hindu man or woman meditating on both cover with sun rays beaming down? Imagine the blog posts…

  5. As an Indian, I feel that we would be in a tough spot if the “whites” were to complain of “cultural appropriation” of western stuff by Indians. Everything from modern science and technology, modern medicine, the internet, to the Indian constitution and cricket have “white” origins. We don’t feel the need to homage to the genius of the West (i.e., “whites”) whenever we enjoy the products of “white” civilization. But following your logic, perhaps we should.

    • Arun, whites would never claim “cultural appropriation”…. They would (have called) call it spreading civilization to the barbarian masses. These days it’s called “spreading freedom.” The notion of “white man’s burden” ring a bell. The problem with comments like yours that want to present a “reverse” arguement is that it is completely ahistorical and ignores issues of power that are ALWAYS embedded in matters of race, colonialism, cultural appropriation, etc. Are you Indian or Indian-American? Are you aware of the how the British demonized (still do!) Hinduism and Buddhism in their desire to spread Christianity…. Now since they want to enjoy meditatin they have to find someway to distance it from its South Asian origins. That IS what cultural appropriation is… Claiming something as your own without giving proper respect and acknowledgement to the people that originated it. It’s like someone moving into your house refusing to acknowledge thar you are still living there.

  6. Haha. The propagator of zen into china was white blue-eyed. And he was not the only one, for those who care to do some research.

    Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian. He is referred as “The Blue-Eyed Barbarian” (碧眼胡:Bìyǎn hú) in Chinese Chan texts.[17]

    NEXT UP: HUMANS REALIZE THE REAL BRAIN IS THE SPINAL CORD

  7. First and foremost most of us Americans are thinking that one can “do” meditation like brushing etc. In reality ‘meditation happens’ which is similar to sleep. How sleep doesn’t happen properly for someone with a troubled mindset, the same way meditation. A society which Prozacs and what not for a simple thing like sleep – how are we going to do the so called “scientific medication”- even if we can – why can’t we do such as thing for the millions of sleep deprived. So this science, which deals with sensory perceptions – how it can deal with extra-sensory thing like meditation. At the best all one can do is “self hypnosis” – and the overdose of this will create, its own new kind of mental health problems. Meditation is not for mainstream – because that’s not what they really want – all they want is some peace from the extremes of materialism and greed.

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