As a father of a toddler with a full-time job and an old house to maintain, I’ve found that I have lost both the time and energy that I once had for reading. I remedy this at times by taking breaks from work to read essays and long-form articles from the Atlantic, The New York Times, or the New York Review of Books. These periodicals, and others, help maintain my knowledge of the world and the thoughts of many wise people who have time to read deeply, analyse slowly, and express their thoughts lucidly.
I am grateful for these outlets, though I know that they do not replace the value of a well-studied book. In a further effort to claw my way back into the habit of reading books, I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks in some of my longer periods of quiet.
Today, I began listening to The Art of Being from the great psychologist and humanistic philosopher, Eric Fromm (1900 – 1980). The book was originally published posthumously in 1989 and, despite now being over 30 years old, it holds important truths for our lives today.
Having
Fromm’s book asks us to look at two modes of living: Having and Being. Having, he explains, is the mode of life we obtain when we follow society’s dictates: to first get and have a degree, then to have a spouse, then to have children and a house, a dog, a car, and so on.
He explains that this is a result of our success. We’ve exited a period of human deprivation and starvation and live in a time when we have our basic needs met. A necessary caveat, of course, is that this is not true for everyone. But in general, our concerns are now about having and less about the need to simply survive.
Having Spirituality
Fromm also writes, very presciently, about the rise of sham spiritualities. These are movements that tend to arise around smiling leaders who promise easy spiritual progress and happiness. They capitalize on people’s desire for something beyond material possessions. And yet, Fromm points out, they mirror capitalist marketing techniques and hierarchical structures. Some even become quite clear franchises, profiting off of the popularity of a charismatic leader. They sell access to the teachings and then, for even more money, sell “qualifications” to be teachers.
As Fromm points out, the “product” is usually quite benign. His example was TM, or Transcendental Meditation, built up around the Indian Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The practice, like many similar relaxation techniques, works well enough. But the sellers of the practice promise virtually miraculous results that simply aren’t attainable.
Mindfulness
The current-day example that looks like this is mindfulness. As an academic with a PhD in Buddhist ethics, I first grew interested in mindfulness in 2012, when the “mindfulness movement” was just gathering steam and beginning to organize. Of course, mindfulness has been around for as long as humans have been around, and the teachings as we know them today more or less came from the Buddha 2500 years ago.
The problem, as Fromm would point out (and others have), is that mindfulness has become commodified. It is sold as a product with several smiling gurus and training courses and legions of “certified” teachers. I write that as someone who has one of those certificates! In 2015, when I had finished my PhD and was looking for full-time work, I took a short training course, completed some exams, and became a certified meditation teacher.
I don’t disvalue the certification process. Nor do I think mindfulness or meditation are problematic. Quite the contrary: I still practice and promote them. The problem, as it arises again and again, is the having mindset that can arise in our commodifying culture.
Right Mindfulness
One of the ways we can move away from a having mindset toward one of being is by getting to the roots of our motivations. For the Buddha, anyone can be mindful, but right mindfulness required proper intention and understanding.
That understanding requires that we first accept the immense complexity of ourselves and the world we live in. There are no shortcuts. There are no easy answers. Mindfulness as a practice might be wonderful for three people but extremely painful for a fourth. Why? It could be that the fourth person is doing something wrong. Or it could be that they are doing everything just right and have brought with them a great deal of pain that hasn’t yet been acknowledged.
Having teachers that can work with students is immensely important, as they are often the best equipped to see what is going on behind a struggling meditator.
Shift to Being
When we let go of our need for meditation to go well, we are shifting to a being mindset and out of the having habit. Being is a struggle. It is a process. It is an unfolding of the layers of reality. It’s not easy.
Fromm himself recommends meditation practice along with psychoanalysis and concentration practices to help individuals move into a being mindset.
Another aspect of being is that it is playful. Or at least it can be. Even pain can be playful. I learned this in 2004 when I went on my first long meditation retreat. We were asked to sit motionless for 40 minutes at a time as we either followed our teacher’s guidance or sat in silence. By then I had been meditating for a few years, but 20-25 minutes at a time was my comfort zone. More specifically, 20 minutes was my knees’ comfort zone.
On the retreat, though, I pushed through, watching the pain. It danced. It moved. It never remained solid. While I don’t recommend trying this at home—at least not without a few years’ practice and a good teacher present—I offer it as one case in point of pain becoming playful as we shift to a mindset of being over having.
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. He lives in Missoula with his family.