Criticism matters

a response to Rick Repetti

Glenn Wallis

pp. 495-504

in: Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, Adam Burke (eds), Handbook of mindfulness, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

In a paper titled "Meditation Matters: Replies to the Anti-McMindfulness Bandwagon!", Rick Repetti aims to refute four common criticisms directed at the Mindfulness community. The present paper offers a response to each of Repetti's four refutations. The main contentions made in this rebuttal to Repetti are that he: (i) conflates the ideological construct known as Mindfulness with a cognitive ability, called mindfulness (lower case), of paying attention "in a particular way" to what one is thinking, saying, and doing and (ii) claims for mindfulness a materialist "phenomenological self-mirroring" that is, in fact, more consistent with idealism. On the basis of Repetti's refutations, my chapter argues throughout that Mindfulness advocates have failed to respond adequately to the brunt of the most serious criticisms leveled against them.

Cited authors

Repetti Rick