As communists, we understand the causes of many of our woes in the modern life (i.e. class warfare, exploitation, etc), we are also not the most spiritual folks (at least from my anecdotal experience). Both things usually don’t mix well with this now trending topic of meditation and mindfulness in the West. Unfortunately, as with everything on capitalism, meditation was commodified, and often as not sold as the new snake-oil for mental health and improvement of lifestyle for the mordem working class of big cities, masking the causes of the many issues afflicting us in this late stage capitalism. HOWEVER, we know that meditative practices predate capitalism by several centuries. Also, anyone who’s been serious on the practice, knows that there is much more to meditation than what your mindfulness app endorsed by The Economist is promising you (helping fall asleep, focus, put up with your insufferable boss or wtv). So I’ll stop rambling and just go to my question: anyone has any Marxist oriented views on meditative practices? It’s something that interests me much, since the practice is totally self-oriented, and so, much less likely to be subject of socialism/communism discussions, but at the same time, in the East the practice is much more common and widespread, so in China, for example, there must be some interesting views on this.

  • @KommandoGZD@lemmygrad.ml
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    102 years ago

    It’s great if you can make a habit out of it. It doesn’t cure your depression, make you a billionaire or a ripped gigachad. It’s just, as the other comrade said, a tool in the box.

    With social media, news, spotify, podcasts, audiobooks, music everywhere and general distractions lurking around every corner, combined with the stress of the daily hamster reel we often just start drifting through life, more like a machine going through motions rather than consciously living. We start doing things, building habits just cus and start forgetting why we do them, what life makes us feel like, how we’re actually doing. Sometimes you don’t even realize how bad you are at the moment, sometimes you actually don’t realize how good you feel. Meditation can bring you back down, back in touch with your own feelings. It makes you touch grass so to speak 👀

    Idk or care about the spirituality and imo for some people meditation itself becomes just another distraction to indulge and loose oneself in. It’s just a concentration exercise really.