Who Is Misrepresenting Mindfulness?

Sahanika Ratnayake was raised a Buddhist in Sri Lanka and New Zealand but had no interest in meditation before going to Cambridge. Clinical psychologists were exploring the therapeutic potential of mindfulness and, like many other students, Ratnayake learned to practice mindfulness meditation to help her cope with the stress of student life. Mindfulness helped her “to be calmer, more relaxed, and better able to step away from any overwhelming feelings,” but she “also became troubled by a cluster of feelings that [she] couldn’t quite identify.” She “could no longer make sense of [her] emotions and thoughts,” she wrote in a July article for Aeon.