As a philosopher steeped in Western
traditions, I am curious about Eastern modes of thought.  Jon Kabat-Zinn is known as a popularizer of
meditation, and Wherever You Go There You Are has been one of the more
successful books aimed at explaining some of the central ideas of
Buddhism.  I owned a copy of the book
for several years, but it sat on my bookshelf unread and eventually I got rid
of it. So I was pleased to see that an abridged version on 3 CDs has now been
released as an audiobook read by the author, with a new afterword for its tenth
anniversary. 

The aim of the book is to explain
mindfulness meditation.  Kabat-Zinn sets
out the advantages of being in the present moment rather than being preoccupied
with the past or the future, and he presents some ways to achieve this.  He argues that the limitations of Western
approaches have been noted not just by other cultures, but also by thinkers
such as Emerson and Thoreau. 

Kabat-Zinn suggests that being
present will help us reduce the number of unnecessary tasks we perform; we
should learn to just accept things as they are, at least for a short time.  We can learn to accept the world as it is,
and ourselves as we are.  Indeed, he
emphasizes the point of meditation is precisely not to make our lives better,
but rather to accept our lives as they are. 
Yet at the same time, he says that striving will lead us to go in circles,
while the best way to get somewhere to stop trying to go anywhere at all.

It is this sort of language that
makes such popularizations of Eastern philosophy hard to accept.  So much of what Kabat-Zinn says sounds like
nonsense or trite and unhelpful statements of the obvious.  Filtering out his new-age jargon, it often
seems that he is saying that it helps to be aware of oneself, one’s emotions
and reactions to the world, and it helps to act carefully rather than rashly.  Take a moment in each day to be still and
peaceful.  It sounds like good advice,
but it does not seem particularly Eastern. 
Indeed, it is advice that parents give to a five-year-old child. 

As the book proceeds, Kabat-Zinn
goes into more detail about the nature of meditation and the many ways to do
it, and this is a little helpful.  But
all the way through, he expresses himself in ways that seem problematic and
even confused.  For example, he says
that when people say that they cannot meditate, they must be mistaken because
anyone can pay attention to what they are doing.  He suggests that what they really mean is that they don’t like
how it feels to meditate or they do not want to devote their energies to doing
it.  However, for people who are highly
distractible, paying attention to themselves is enormously difficult, and it
seems pretty obvious that some people are more suited to meditation than
others. 

So Wherever You Go There You Are is a paradigm of new-age
Eastern-influenced thought, complete with soft sounds in the background behind
Kabat-Zinn’s words.  Some people are
predisposed to like this sort of work, and they should love this book.  For the rest of us, we are probably better
off looking elsewhere for instruction on how to meditate. 

Link: Audio
Renaissance

© 2006 Christian
Perring. All rights reserved.