Liberating Mindfulness: From Billion-Dollar Industry to Engaged Spirituality

In an attempt to reclaim mindfulness from the commercial and corporate juggernaut it has become and to demonstrate its usefulness in spiritual (including Christian) life, the author incorporates insights from retreats she has attended at top meditation/mindfulness centers and from interviews with key leaders in the field. This is a spiritual manifesto about the perils and promise of the contemporary mindfulness movement, in which Stearns exposes some of the ways in which mindfulness meditation has been coopted in Western culture as a tool for individualism and consumerism, revealing new possibilities as mindfulness tools are interwoven with ethical and spiritual practices. Drawing from stories of her own spiritual journey as a mindfulness teacher, professor, and minister, interviews with mindfulness teachers and practitioners, and critical analysis using gender and race theory, she invites readers into a deeper understanding of mindfulness and its potential for communal liberation.