Mindfulness, spirituality, wellbeing – these words are treated as interchangeable in the global wellness marketplace. But spirituality is not the same as being happy. Spirituality, according to almost of the world’s great wisdom traditions, requires work, service and sacrifice.
The world’s dominant religions – Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam – all encourage practices such as yoga, mindfulness meditation, chanting, prayer, group singing and dancing. These have long been effective tools in giving followers an experience of deep connection, sometimes accompanied by sensations of awe, ecstasy and transcendence – feelings that encourage them to return.
But a sense of joy or connectedness is not an end in itself. These feelings are the emotional motivators of ethical action. Every religion sets out rules for right conduct – consider Buddhism’s eight-fold path, Judaism’s 10 commandments, or Vedic Hinduism’s restraints and observances. Indigenous traditions go beyond these religions, including humans and non-humans (or “more-than-humans”, as the Potawatomi botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer describes our partners in the natural world) in the circle of those to whom we owe service.
Yet today’s global wellness industry would have us think that spirituality is just another dimension of feeling good. The Buddhist practitioner Miles Neale coined the term “McMindfulness” to describe the western tendency to extract practices from ancient religious traditions and turn them into “colourfully packaged bite-size morsels for … mass consumption”. The US$1.5tn wellness market seeks to sell the health benefits of spirituality, divorced from the ethical frameworks within which these practices developed.
Religious ethical frameworks are hugely damaging when they are used to support power inequities in the realms of gender, class, race and sexual identity. But the use of spiritual practices, in the absence of any ethical requirements, can also be damaging. For example, scientific studies have shown that yoga and meditation can actually increase people’s sense of “spiritual superiority” and focus on the self rather than quieting the ego and encouraging charitable acts of service.
Evangelical Christian megachurches have grown, well, “mega” through their use of age-old practices such as group singing, music and pageantry. They create experiences of “collective effervescence”, as identified by the sociologist Emile Durkheim back in 1912 as the foundation of religion. An age-old problem arises when churches connect such spiritual emotions not to ethical action but to intolerance, selfishness or greed.
As far back as the 14th century, Christianity was taking advantage of people’s spiritual feelings for money-making ends, selling “indulgences” for the benefit of souls in purgatory (God’s hypothetical waiting room). Martin Luther opposed this practice as detracting from people’s ability to give to the poor. In one of religious history’s great ironies, Luther’s theology of a personal connection to God would eventually provide the foundation for the prosperity gospel of some of today’s megachurches.
Living a spiritual life is not about adhering rigidly to a church dogma. Nor is it about engaging in practices such as meditation in the absence of a larger context. Indeed, yoga means “yoke” and the type of yoga popular in the west is just one way unite oneself with a greater consciousness, something bigger than oneself. Other yogas of the Hindu tradition include work, philosophy, learning and acts of service.
I don’t want to be “McMindful”. I don’t want to extract practices from religious traditions to commoditise them and make myself feel good about myself. Well, I probably do want to feel good about myself. But wellbeing practices start and end there, whereas spiritual practices are supposed to extend myself beyond my “self”, encouraging me to contribute to the wellness of all beings.
I want a spirituality that draws on the wisdom and practices of thousands of years and places these learnings in a modern ethical framework that I believe in. If I am going to spend 20 minutes a day sitting on my butt cultivating compassion to others, I am also going to get up and act on that sensation, making donations, volunteering or just being nice to someone I don’t really like. If I am going to sing about how God/dess loves us all every Sunday, I am also going to take that love and turn it into charitable, non-judgmental acts of kindness every other day of the week.
I can meditate and do yoga (actually I kind of suck at yoga) or raise my hands in group worship. But I cannot treat these activities and the feelings they create as ends in themselves. These practices are tools to help me stay focused, cultivating the attitudes and emotions that sustain me as I attempt to live an ethical life. Living spiritually is about being connected in a deep and meaningful way to the mystery of life – and behaving accordingly.
Jackie Bailey is the author of The Eulogy, winner of the 2023 NSW premier’s literary multicultural award. When she is not writing, Jackie spends her time helping families to navigate death and dying. She is an ordained interfaith minister with a masters of theology, and this article includes excerpts from her forthcoming nonfiction book about spirituality in a post-religious world
