Edwin Ng

The Critique of Mindfulness and the Mindfulness of Critique: Paying Attention to the Politics of Our Selves with Foucault’s Analytic of Governmentality

This chapter examines the analytic of governmentality drawn from Michel Foucault’s work. It invites consideration of the analytical possibilities which might be developed through a twofold task: the critique of mindfulness and the mindfulness of critique. The chapter first unpacks Foucault’s account of neoliberalism as a mode of governmentality that is directed at the production of the subjectivity of homo economicus. This will shed light on why mindfulness is so malleable and adaptable across diverse settings today. The chapter then connects Foucault’s account of neoliberalism with his reevaluation of the ethical practices of spiritual self-cultivation in antiquity. This will clarify how an analytic of governmentality turns on an understanding of the subject as constituted by historically contingent practices, and invites an analysis of contemporary mindfulness as the emergent and contested outcome of techniques of domination and techniques of the self. A Foucauldian understanding of the subject is accompanied by an understanding of ethics as critical practice. By connecting Foucault’s curiosity about neoliberalism with his curiosity about ethical self-cultivation, the chapter will propose some ways by which the practices of critique and mindfulness might reciprocally nourish one another as the critique of mindfulness and the mindfulness of critique. The chapter concludes with some reflections on how this ethos of critical mindfulness might relate to the challenges facing scholars and researchers of mindfulness working within the increasingly corporatized institution of the university, which is a key site and relay point for the production of knowledge on mindfulness in the contemporary world.

A Profession of Faith

Chapter 9 argues that the question of faith cannot be ignored if cultural studies is to honour the ethical commitment to always be response-able to difference. The chapter first shows, by way of an analysis of a discussion thread on a Buddhist forum I participate in, how I have come to trust in Buddhist teachings with a faith that makes its leap where knowledge ends: a faith in and of undecidability. I then elaborate on faith in/of undecidability by examining the dispute between a radical-atheist and a theologically inspired reading of deconstruction, as well as the consonances and points of disagreement between Charles Taylor’s and William Connolly’s thinking on immanence/transcendence. With these analyses I will offer a two-pronged proposition about the question of faith: that faith enables a relation with the other and is necessary for the fostering of intellectual hospitality and relations of reciprocity within academic discourse and beyond; and that the ethical and political implications of faith be investigated in relation to the affective and visceral dynamics of experience.

Buddhist Critical Thought and an Affective Micropolitics of (Un)Becoming

Chapter 8 examines selected discourses on the affective, visceral registers of experience, to chart trajectories of future inquiry for an emergent Buddhist critical/social theory. I will show how prevailing models of Buddhist critical/social theory overdetermine macropolitical accounts of power, even though ethical self-cultivation is posited as the fulcrum on which the transformation of oppressive social forces must pivot. To make the case for a more nuanced micropolitical account of power in Buddhist critical/social theory, I will propose four conversational topics between Buddhist critical thought and research in affect studies.

A Foucauldian Analysis of Vipassana and a Buddhist Art of Living

Chapter 7 cross-reads the Foucauldian and Buddhist arts of living to elucidate how the Vipassana meditator: (1) adopts as ethical substance bodily sensation and contemplates on it as an object of meditation to develop insight about the utter contingency of the experience of phenomenal reality and selfhood; (2) constantly remakes the decision to ‘let go’ and thus accepts the open-endedness of existence as a mode of subjection; (3) performs the ethical work of desubjectification by using the contemplation of bodily sensations to defuse habitual tendencies; and (4) cultivates the telos of the ongoing work of freedom by exposing the body to unexpected limit-experiences that may usher in new ways of becoming. This analysis will be sensitive to constructivist understandings of the historical and cultural forces that shape experience, whilst remaining hospitable to the Buddhist sacred claim of unmediated awareness. This chapter will show that Foucault’s criticopolitical itinerary joins Derridean deconstruction and Buddhism in affirming unconditional unconditionality unconditionally.

The Care of Self and Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies

Chapter 6 shows how the analytical shift in Foucault’s History of Sexuality project to the sexual ethics of the Greco-Roman world invites us to rearticulate in contemporary contexts the praxis-ideal of an art of living as framed by Foucault’s fourfold analysis of ethical substance, mode of subjection, ethical work and telos. I will reconnect this praxis-ideal with the enunciative practice of ‘speaking personally’ in cultural studies. Along with the previous chapter, this chapter sets the analytical grid for my examination of Vipassana.

The ‘Religious Question’ in Foucault’s Genealogies of Experience

Chapter 5 explores the neglected subtextual ‘religious question’ in the Foucauldian corpus, or the twin concepts of ‘spiritual corporality’ and ‘political spirituality’. Part I of the chapter considers how the concept of ‘experience’ develops in Foucault’s itinerary as both structuring conditions and transformative force. This will show how ‘spiritual corporality’ refuses the mind/body dualism, and offers a way to investigate religious praxis-ideals as both a technology of domination and a more positive technology of desubjectification. Part II of the chapter will map the concept of ‘political spirituality’ against the analytical reorientations that occurred during the late phase of Foucault’s intellectual life (post 1976). Marked by a so-called ‘ethical turn’, Foucault’s late work devotes greater attention to the challenge of activating different forms of subjectivity and fresh ways of becoming. I will show how this neglected aspect of Foucault’s oeuvre not only problematises the distinction between the religious and the secular, but also affirms a messianic ontology in politics.

Methods, Traditions, Liminal Identities

Chapter 3 connects the challenges of a spiritually engaged cultural studies with the methodological reorientations developing within the field of religious studies to redefine its work as a multiperspectival and polymethodical form of cultural studies. This move to open up channels of dialogue and research on ‘religion’ is taking shape in the emergent discourse called Buddhist critical-constructive reflection. Much like cultural studies work, Buddhist critical-constructive reflection is committed to always being mindful of the role of the subject in its own discourse. Hence, this chapter interweaves personal reflections with historical analysis to contextualise this authoring-I’s experience as a postcolonial ‘Western Buddhist’ convert.

Towards a Spiritually Engaged Cultural Studies

Chapter 2 considers how cultural studies could draw on the prevailing ethos of engagement within its own archives to address questions concerning spirituality and faith. It situates contemporary contestations over spirituality within a Foucauldian framework of governmentality. This will show how the politics of spirituality is coterminous with the politics of subjectivity. The chapter then makes a case for a ‘reparative’ reading strategy that investigates the productive micropolitical functions of socially engaged forms of spirituality. This is evinced by the transnational movement of Engaged Buddhism, which seeks to develop the Buddhist path of Awakening as a spiritual-social praxis for our times.