Mindfulness for professional formation: why should we nurture awareness?

Abstract

With the globalization of cognitive technologies we risk, while emphasizing a vision of man that favours attention to the internal conditions of our psychophysical functioning to the detriment of the socio-relationship dimension, of distorting the vision that originated the practices of awareness, in particular the oriental matrix Buddhism, where beside the ‘proper awareness’ there is also the ‘proper action’. Indeed, the widespread and often indiscriminate appropriation of mindfulness techniques by organizations and developers of formative programs has led to conflicts and tensions between the fundamental principles of awareness practices and the pragmatic ‘priorities’ of productivity linked to the employee development programs. All this, with the risk of promoting McMindfulness training processes (Purser and Loy, 2013), based on the commodification of the present moment, formative processes that, excessively focusing “on the inside”, could feed less and less ‘radical’ or critical gazes that evaluate the way in which the external conditions shape the inner and psychic lives of people, looks ready for action.