Modes of Mindfulness in Post-Catholic Ireland

Abstract

The Republic of Ireland has undergone a seismic religious and social transformation in recent decades. Through the processes of secularization and detraditionalization, as well as several major scandals within the Irish Catholic Church, irreligiosity has become an increasing reality in terms of the hitherto overwhelmingly Catholic population. At a time of spiritual climate change in this post-Catholic Ireland, the contemporary phenomenon of mindfulness has exploded in popularity across various elements of society. Against this backdrop, three distinctive modes or strands of mindfulness are proposed as being operative in the Irish context, each catering to the needs of different practitioners. The proposed modes include psychological and clinical mindfulness and commodified and post-secular spirituality. Within the lacuna created by the receding of Catholic belief and practice, the emergence of mindfulness in the Irish context is explored, mapping how this originally Buddhist practice has gained such a foothold in contemporary spiritual discourse.

1. Introduction

Mindfulness meditation has become ubiquitous across several facets of Western societies, including Ireland. This contemporary phenomenon can be observed in workplaces, schools, colleges and health services as a practical tool towards improved wellbeing, bolstering Wong’s claim that “…in the early 21st century, mindfulness will be regarded as one of the major cultural icons” (Wong 2021). The benefits of mindfulness practices for mental health and well-being are supported by an increasingly substantial body of research (Khoury et al. 2013; Querstret et al. 2020). While the practice originates from Buddhist wisdom traditions, contemporary mindfulness is broadly understood today as a secular activity (Baer 2011; Bishop et al. 2004). This popularity of mindfulness is operative in an Irish context in which the hitherto Catholic hegemony has crumbled (Ganiel 2016).

Against this backdrop, the aim of this article is to explore the place of mindfulness in an Irish spiritual climate that has been transformed by secularization and detraditionalization. It seeks to contribute to contemporary discourse on the growth in popularity of mindfulness practices in Ireland and in secularized Western countries more generally. It is anticipated that the content of this article may raise further study into conceptualizations and categorizations of contemporary mindfulness practices as intersections of spirituality and secularity.

To this end, this article is split into two parts. First, it charts the transformed post-Catholic religious and spiritual landscape in Ireland, with particular interaction with the ideas of Belgian theologian Lieven Boeve. In the second part, three distinctive modes of mindfulness will be proposed to be operative in contemporary Western society, including the Irish context. These three modes will be conceptualized as clinical mindfulness, commodified mindfulness and mindfulness as post-secular spirituality. For the purpose of clarity, these modes will be referred to as Mindfulness 1, Mindfulness 2 and Mindfulness 3 in the article below. Finally, the possible future of mindfulness practice in post-Catholic Ireland will be proposed, suggesting that spiritual hunger will find in mindfulness a cipher for discerning deeper meaning in life.

2. Secularization, Detraditionalization and Post-Catholic Ireland

In his recent book on the history of the Christian faith in Ireland, Crawford Gribben concludes that “What has passed as Christian Ireland is dead” (Gribben 2021, p. 219). Such a stark assertion is supported by several developments in recent times. First, the population of Catholics in the Republic of Ireland continues to decline. The 2022 Census data indicated that 69% of the population in the Republic of Ireland self-identified as Catholic, down 10% from the previous Census just six years earlier, while irreligion cemented its place as the next largest grouping at 14%, increasing by 4% (CSO 2023b). Catholic religious practice too has receded in terms of monthly Mass attendance, plummeting from 91% in the mid-seventies to approximately 28% in 2020 (Bauluz et al. 2021, p. 25). These figures quantify the rapid secularization of Irish society over the past fifty years, marking the “…shift in the balance of institutional cultural power away from the Catholic Church towards the state, the market and the media” (Inglis 2017, p. 21).

Legislative reform in recent decades mirrors an increasingly pluralized, secularized Ireland and the changing attitudes of its citizens towards a myriad of social and moral issues. This includes the availability of contraception in 1979, the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1993 and the legalization of divorce in 1995. Moreover, constitutional change via popular vote has resulted in the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 and access to abortion and the decriminalization of blasphemy in 2018. This cultural and societal climate change has been expedited by the implosion of the Church’s moral authority in Irish society. The perpetration and coverups of clerical child sex abuse, the systematic institutional abuse of women in Magdalen laundries and most recently, the grim discovery of nearly eight hundred infant remains in an unmarked mass grave in a former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co. Galway, have acted as accelerants to this collapse in Church credibility (Boland 2014; Corless 2021; Scally 2021).

Before outlining the scale and depth of religious transformation in Ireland, it is first important to recognize that Catholicism shares the Christian landscape in Ireland with fellow Christian branches such as the Church of Ireland, Presbyterians and Pentecostals. Without downplaying the existence of these Protestant or nondenominational branches of Christianity in Ireland, the subsequent dismantling of Catholic hegemony offers the most explicit and compelling example of Gribben’s proclamation of the death of Christian Ireland. As such, while terms such as post-Catholic and post-Christian may be used at times interchangeably, it should be clear that in the context of the Irish Republic, post-Catholic is the term that gives the greatest expression to what is called post-Christian, the historically dominant Christian narrative in a wider Christian terrain.

Ireland’s transformation from a conservative, overwhelmingly Catholic country to an increasingly secular liberal republic has aligned it with the broader contemporary European context, which Lieven Boeve describes as post-Christian and post-secular. The prefix “post” here does not refer to that which occurs after an event or the cessation of Christian or secular narratives. Instead, Boeve is highlighting that our relationship with both narratives has changed, which has implications for identity construction (Boeve 2022). Central to this transformation is the detraditionalization of not just the Christian narrative but all narratives that offer sources of meaning and values, including those that speak to the spiritual life. Boeve argues:

“The term post-Christian then indicates that, although the traces of Christian faith in our society and in our culture, in our collective and individual identity formation, are still in abundance, at the same time the Christian faith is no longer the obvious, accepted background that grants meaning”.

(Boeve 2012, p. 145)

Ireland is thus post-Christian (and post-Catholic) insofar as the Catholic narrative has lost its hitherto axiomatic character as the overarching arbiter of meaning. The intergenerational transmission of the Christian tradition has been interrupted, meaning that to identify as a Catholic in Ireland today is increasingly a conscious choice rather than an assumed inherited identity (Boeve 2005). Accordingly, identity has become more reflexive, with the individual tasked with constructing spiritual meaning and authenticity from sources beyond the Church.

Boeve’s analysis of our contemporary situation as post-secular is instructive in this regard. The term signifies that religiosity in Ireland has not dissipated, but instead has been changed, akin to how postmodernism has meant the transformation rather than the end of modernity (Lambert 2004; Koči and Roubík 2015, p. 103; Halík 2016, pp. 12–32). This is a repudiation of the secularization thesis, which argues that as society becomes more modern, it becomes less religious (Bruce 2002; Bruce and Voas 2023). This decline versus transformation of religion debate in secularized societies has been posited by some to mirror secularist, rationalist presuppositions in contemporary sociologies of religion (Taylor 2007, p. 549; Hogan 2010, p. 140; Davie 2013, p. xxi).

Notwithstanding this continuing debate, it is unquestionable that within post-Catholic Ireland, spiritual seeking and sources of human flourishing are no longer exclusively framed in Catholic norms, teachings and societal expectations. Moreover, conceptions of spirituality and flourishing are now possible without any reference to a theistic or transcendent source (Taylor 2007, p. 18). Along with these secular narratives are more opaque shades of spiritual seeking and meaning-making, encompassing a plethora of options:

“…the widespread search for spirituality (instead of “ethics”,) …replacement of the term ‘religion’ with ‘spirituality’…the tendency to religious indifference and relativism, and to practical agnosticism and atheism instead of theoretical agnosticism and atheism…”.

(Boeve 2003, pp. 14–15)

The lacuna of meaning-making emergent from this shattering of Catholic hegemony must thus be filled from these fragments of religious, spiritual and secular narratives present in contemporary culture. The decline of religious institutions and grand narratives has enabled this pluralization of open narratives, widening the search for spiritual authenticity (Boeve 2003, p. 51; Boeve 2014). This is akin to Charles Taylor’s ‘nova effect’; the explosion of worldviews that the individual must contend with and investigate in a secular age (Taylor 2007, p. 300). The desire for spiritual fulfillment remains, in which the individual has a gamut of worldviews, ideologies and belief systems to choose from, in which religious belief is an optional extra rather than the central meaning-making tenet in how they perceive reality. It is within this milieu that mindfulness has emerged as an exponentially popular cultural phenomenon that traverses religious, spiritual and secular boundaries.

3. Mindfulness 1: The Evolution of Clinical Mindfulness

Several contemporary meditative practices originating from Vedic traditions such as yoga and Transcendental Meditation have been observed as growing in popularity in Western contexts (Gathright et al. 2019; Cartwright et al. 2020; Bellehsen et al. 2022). However, there is a lacuna of knowledge in the literature on these practices within the Irish context. Mindfulness enjoys far greater visibility in this sense, in terms of secular Buddhist centers and mindfulness courses, and as such, merits the sole focus of study in this article (Cox 2013; Starkey 2023).

The term ‘mindfulness’ itself stems from Thomas William Rhys David’s 1881 translation of the Pāli word sati, the equivalent term in the Sanskrit canon being smṛti which can be translated as ‘memory’ or ‘calling to mind’ (Monier-Williams 2005). In correspondence with theologian Peter Tyler, Buddhist scholar Rupert Gethin proposed three distinctive strands of mindfulness operative in our current Western context:

“…first, clinically mindfulness as developed by practitioners such as Kabat-Zinn and (Mark) Williams in their MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) courses. Second, mindfulness as a commercial phenomenon, promulgated by apps for making you a better worker, businessman, lover, etc.—what is sometimes called ‘McMindfulness’. And finally, mindfulness as a new Western phenomenon that… ‘eschews the traditional framework of karma and rebirth, where the goal of nirvana is understood as liberation from the round of rebirth, and replaces these with a more therapeutic framework where nirvana is understood as a kind of equilibrium and state of well-being achieved by mindfulness meditation.’ Such practitioners will still claim the title of being ‘Buddhist’ and hold that ‘mindfulness’, is as they see it, the essence of Buddhism”.

(Tyler 2018, p. 15)

Before exploring and developing these mindfulness modes, it is first imperative to trace the common ancestry of this trio of strands in the meditative practices of Eastern wisdom traditions, particularly Buddhism. In tracing the Buddhist origins of mindfulness, it is also important to note that Buddhism itself is not a monolithic philosophy, but a dynamic and diverse set of cultural traditions and schools (Harvey 2013, pp. 4–5; Wilson 2014, pp. 19–23). Despite this plurality of beliefs and practices, Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation are integral elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, an important set of teachings observed across the Buddhist landscape (Keown 2013, pp. 58–60). This interdependent and interrelated Path seeks to cultivate an ethical benevolence towards others in the pursuit of Nirvana and the liberation of all beings from suffering. Bodhi illustrates the integral role of mindfulness:

“However, to fulfill its role as an integral member of the eightfold path mindfulness has to work in unison with right view and right effort. This means that the practitioner of mindfulness must at times evaluate mental qualities and intended deeds, make judgments about them, and engage in purposeful action”.

(Bodhi 2011, pp. 26–27)

Mindfulness in its traditional Buddhist ethical and soteriological framework as active vigilance and evaluation of the moral valence of situations contrasts with contemporary iterations of mindfulness, broadly understood as passive or nonjudgemental (Kabat-Zinn 1994b, p. 4; Bishop et al. 2004, p. 3). The migration and transformation of mindfulness from Buddhist precept to secular psychological phenomenon can be framed as part of a complex intellectual interaction between Eastern traditions and Western Enlightenment over the past 150 years, referred to as ‘Buddhist Modernism’ (McMahan 2008). In the Irish context, which has encountered Buddhism in many ways over fourteen centuries, mindfulness practice is subject to these same processes of adaptation and reimagining (Cox 2013).

While not limited to Western settings, this reformation, modernization and reinterpretation of Buddhist teachings and practices signify how mindfulness has evolved via interaction with the prevailing narratives of Western modernity characterized by secularization and rationality. These modern forms of Buddhism are seen as compatible with a scientific, rationalist Western worldview as they are perceived as non-theistic modes of empirical investigation. Religious or supernatural elements of Buddhist doctrines such as reincarnation, demons and karma are demythologized, with certain branches of mindfulness meditation becoming “…disembedded from the Buddhist tradition and rearticulated as a technique of self-investigation, personal satisfaction, and ethical reflection, taking on a life of its own, in some cases altogether outside of Buddhist communities” (McMahan 2008, p. 185).

Mindfulness 1 represents this detraditionalized, secularized practice which does not require adherence or identification to Buddhist beliefs or practices. Central to this mode of mindfulness has been the recontextualization of sati from active vigilance to “bare-attention”, a lucid, nonevaluative awareness of the present moment. This development is observed in the work of Buddhist teachers Mahāsī Sayādaw and Nyanaponika Thera (Thera 2014; Scharf 2015, p. 172) who promoted this bare-attention mindfulness to a Western audience, without the necessity of Buddhist affiliation or prior knowledge of Buddhist doctrines or practices. Evidence of the lasting influence of Thera’s teaching on contemporary mindfulness can be seen in the 2014 edition of his book The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: The Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness, with eminent mindfulness advocate Jon Kabat-Zinn’s endorsement: “The book that started it all.”

The popularity of Mindfulness 1 is observed in its absorption into contemporary healthcare and therapies, with meta-analyses suggesting positive outcomes associated with this mode of mindfulness (Shires et al. 2020; Zhang et al. 2021; Zuo et al. 2023). This includes third-generation cognitive behavioral approaches which integrate mindfulness methods to present patients’ thoughts as impermanent and fleeting and cultivate a nonevaluative outlook on thoughts and feelings (Hayes 2004; Farias and Wikholm 2015; Thompson 2018, pp. 26–43). In these clinical contexts, mindfulness is strictly a therapeutic tool for improved mental health and well-being purposes. To this end, any connection to religious language or concepts is removed so as to provide these therapies to a wider audience, ensuring that Buddhist connotations with mindfulness meditation are not obstacles to mindfulness practice. Examples of these therapies include Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DCT) (Baer and Krietemeyer 2006; Kirmayer 2015, pp. 454–56; Hayes and Hofmann 2017, pp. 245–46).

MBSR is among the most popular iterations of Mindfulness 1. Founded by molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1970, MBSR is a participant-centered behavioral medicine program initially designed to empower patients to engage proactively in their own healing and pain reduction (Kabat-Zinn 2000). The purpose of this robust eight-week program is to radically change how patients view their illness and their lives more generally. Transforming a patient’s attitude to their momentary experience through non-judgmental awareness and acceptance can reduce suffering and negative well-being. Patients practice daily mindfulness exercises, including body scans and vipassana meditation, focused on breathing (Moloney 2016, pp. 269–70). Other elements of Buddhist teaching and practice that influenced Kabat-Zinn’s original development of MBSR include “…the mindfulness-based practices of Zen, Theravada Buddhism and yoga practice, along with significant influences from Tibetan and Vietnamese Buddhism” (Husgafvel 2016). The secularizing and detraditionalizing of Buddhist forms of mindfulness is for Kabat-Zinn a necessary development as firstly, it presents the benefits of mindfulness to both religious and non-religious audiences, and secondly, mindfulness is itself “…the wisdom and the heart of Buddhist meditation without the Buddhism” (Fisher 2010).

While Kabat-Zinn’s goals here are laudable, his presentation of Mindfulness 1 as a secular, psychological distillation of Buddhism has been critiqued by several commentators. The disembedding of mindfulness from its traditional Buddhist ethical and wisdom framework to maximize its appeal to users risks cutting off deeper insights into the self and sources of suffering, emptying the practice of its emancipatory potency (Forbes 2019, pp. 15–16). Moreover, while Kabat-Zinn argues “…the personal responsibility of each person engaging in this work to attend with care and intentionality to how we are actually living our lives, both personally and professionally, in terms of ethical behavior” (Kabat-Zinn 2011, p. 194), there is no self-evident ethical standard in Mindfulness 1 as it has been deracinated from its traditional Buddhist ethical framework of right mindfulness (Monteiro et al. 2014, pp. 1–13; Stanley 2015, pp. 89–113; Schmidt 2016). In certain situations, mindfulness can thus be utilized for aims alien if not contradictory to Buddhist ethical teachings or practices, such as soldiers developing their military skills, which has been termed “the mindful sniper” (Vörös 2016, p. 7; Bruyea 2017).

While Mindfulness 1 is presented as a secular activity, Kabat-Zinn has at times made claims about mindfulness and MBSR that go beyond the scientific framing that MBSR is understood within psychological and healthcare circles. This includes reference to “…direct experience of the numinous, the sacred, the Tao, God, the divine, Nature, silence, in all aspects of life” (Kabat-Zinn 1994a). There are also statements on how the technical contents of MBSR are “…merely launching platforms or particular kinds of scaffolding to invite cultivation and sustaining of attention in particular ways” that lead to “…ultimate understanding” which “…transcends even conventional subject object duality” (Kabat-Zinn 2003, pp. 147–48). While maintaining the secularity of Mindfulness 1, these statements present the practice as possessing a spiritual dimension, open to metaphysical or transcendental realms of being. This raises questions as to whether the secularized, detraditionalized mode of mindfulness offers the potential for a spiritual practice beyond its framing as a therapeutic instrument in clinical settings.

4. Mindfulness 2: Commodified Mindfulness

While Mindfulness 1 is operative within clinical contexts, this second mode of mindfulness has grown beyond these healthcare parameters, evolving into a consumable product available to wide sectors of society. Mindfulness 2 encompasses websites, books, corporate programs and mindfulness applications on devices for personal use, utilizing body scans, breathing exercises and guided meditation. The mindfulness industry has exploded in popularity in recent years, generating billions of in annual revenue (Dawson 2021). As of 2021, the global meditation and mindfulness app market alone was valued at USD 97.6 million with a projected valuation of USD 307.1 million by 2031 (Gupta and Sumant 2022).

Benefits linked to mindfulness app use include enhanced mental health, stress reduction and increased self-compassion (Huberty et al. 2019; Gál et al. 2021; Linardon et al. 2024). However, “…in the capitalistic milieu even abstract meditation practices become products and proliferate a range of products in the American religious, health, and self-help marketplaces” (Wilson 2014, p. 134). The Irish marketplace is no different in this regard, with celebrities such as actor Robert Sheehan, broadcaster Dermot Whelan and musician Niall Breslin releasing several mindfulness meditation books in the past five years (Breslin 2018; Whelan 2021; Sheehan 2024). Veritas, Ireland’s largest religious bookseller has a dedicated mindfulness section on its website, offering dozens of mindfulness journals and self-help books (Veritas Website 2024). Podcasts such as Where is My Mind? and the Mind-Full Podcast further highlight how mindfulness practice has been commodified to meet the needs of the Irish marketplace (Breslin 2024; Whelan 2024).

While the benefits of some of the products above may be laudable, such as decreased stress and improved mental health, the pattern of mindfulness being commodified and repackaged for a host of practical benefits has been critiqued as the emergence of McMindfulness (Purser 2019). Defined as “…cherry-picked teachings from ancient, mostly threatened, wisdom cultures and mass-marketed them as consumerist goods”, McMindfulness is a symptom of “…a feeding frenzy of spiritual practices that provide immediate nutrition but no long-term sustenance” (Neale 2011). McMindfulness represents the commodification of mindfulness into a capitalist spirituality, promoted and sold as a universal elixir to practically any situation in life that needs improvement, all for a price. ‘Take this workshop, buy that book or magazine. Sit still for a weekend and be happier. If this one doesn’t make you feel better in short order, move on and buy that one” (Magid and Poirier 2016, p. 42). In this sense, the goal of wellness is always short-circuited by the primary capitalistic impulse to maximize profit, through the purchasing and consumption of the next mindfulness product.

This commodification of mindfulness resonates with the broader trend of Asian wisdom traditions being appropriated and adapted to Western contexts (Carrette and King 2004). The issue here is that the transformative and communal aspects of traditional mindfulness practices are reduced to individualized, privatized practices that require no lifestyle change. This aspect of Mindfulness 2 risks placating stress on an individual level and not confronting structural sources of suffering and stress such as economic and social inequality. There is a tension here between acknowledging the historical links mindfulness shares with Buddhism and a practice that contradicts the original intention of mindfulness, to reduce suffering at both the individual and communal levels. In this sense, Mindfulness 2 without a social critique or ethic could be utilized to buffer rather than challenge structural inequalities and sources of stress, a cipher for perpetuating consumer capitalism as a dominant social narrative (Žižek 2001; Eaton 2013; Forbes 2019, p. 141).

Neoliberalism is an accelerant in this evolution of Mindfulness 2 as a capitalist spirituality. As Forbes argues, “This ideology promotes a privatized, individualistic, market-based worldview and structure. Its ideology posits that stress, lack of attention, and reactivity are problems that lie within the individual, not society, societal institutions, or social relations” (Forbes 2019, p. 27). This neoliberal influence on Mindfulness 2 inculcates a sense of docility in the practitioner towards deeper sources of suffering in society. By internalizing problems, stress is instead seen as a personal issue rather than an external force. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s claim that “…entire society is suffering from attention deficit disorder- big time” (Kabat-Zinn 2006, p. 143) is perhaps an inadvertent example of this development. By pathologizing stress in this way, mindfulness can be misappropriated into a means of supporting rather than subverting pressures and stresses that negatively impact the well-being of practitioners.

This problematic element of Mindfulness 2 is also present in the incorporation of mindfulness programs in the industrial and corporate sectors. The popularity of these programs is supported by a growing body of research linking mindfulness in the workplace to improved mental health and decreases in the risk of burnout and stress (Janssen et al. 2018; Hafenbrack et al. 2020, pp. 21–38; Toniolo-Barrios and ten Brummelhius 2023). Reducing the stress of workers is a laudable aim, while also ensuring that low motivation and poor well-being are removed as barriers to worker productivity, and consequently, company profit margins. The danger here is the abuse of Mindfulness 2 as “bare attention’” by companies to produce economic growth and profit no matter what the social and environmental cost. Nonevaluative mindfulness can be used instead to build resilience rather than to interrogate the inherent causes of employee stress within a company, denying the worker the opportunities to question ethical or social concerns they may feel are contributing to their stress levels (Senauke 2016, p. 76).

David Loy offers one example of ethical concerns associated with practicing Mindfulness 2 in corporate settings, in which he writes a public letter to William George, a Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil board member and mindfulness advocate. In an interview with the Financial Times, George states that he “…started meditating in 1974 and never stopped. The main business case for meditation is that if you’re fully present on the job, you will be more effective as a leader, you will make better decisions and you will work better with other people… I tend to live a very busy life. This keeps me focused on what’s important” (Gelles 2012). In his letter, Loy questions how George compartmentalizes his meditation practice from any sense of ethical or social responsibility (Loy 2016, p. 25). As a board member at Exxon Mobil, George is part of a company that has aggressively lobbied against climate action policy and has historically contributed to environmental pollution (Goldenberg 2016; Ambrose 2021).

The possible benefits of Mindfulness 2 such as enhanced mental health remain at risk of this reduction to a capitalist spirituality at the service of the market. The commodification of secular mindfulness into a privatized, individualized product risks bolstering “…people’s conceptions of themselves as self-contained and autonomous agents, rather than relational and interdependent- and an individualized practice requires no communal ties, moral commitments, or substantive lifestyle changes” (Purser 2019, p. 101). In this sense, elements of Mindfulness 2 like McMindfulness represent some of the most reductive tropes of New Age movements and spiritualities, in which a proliferation of goods and self-help books offer short-term satisfaction without lasting nourishment. These practices are temporarily therapeutic without any call towards personal transformation or the emancipation of stress or suffering in society. Originally intended to induce selflessness in the practitioner, Mindfulness 2 risks leaving the practitioner more selfish than ever, “…soothing rather than subverting our well-heeled complacencies” (Lash 1996, p. 174).

5. Mindfulness 3: Post-Secular Spirituality

In his 2017 book Secular Beats Spiritual; The Westernisation of the Easternisation of the West, Steve Bruce argues that a “…seepage across the secular/spiritual divide” is operative in relation to mindfulness practice in the UK (Bruce 2017, p. 100). This third mode of mindfulness emerges from this interplay between secularity and spirituality, itself an element within the broader processes of Buddhist modernism (McMahan 2008).

The term “post-secular” as indicated earlier posits to the contemporary conditions of belief where zero-sum secularization theories have not been realized (Taylor 2007, pp. 428–29). Instead of the replacement of religious belief with an atheist or secularist rationality, religion remains a potent source of meaning for many, while an increasingly irreligious cohort holds a variety of spiritual beliefs outside of a naturalist worldview. This growing demographic has been categorized as “spiritual but not religious” or SBNR and was estimated to represent 22% of Americans in 2023 (Pew Research Centre 2023). In the aforementioned study, the SBNR cohort displayed similar levels of belief in the existence of the soul, an afterlife and the existence of a spiritual reality beyond human perception. Mindfulness 3 is situated in this spiritual grey area, encompassing both transcendent spiritual beliefs and a secular spirituality that seeks depth in the mystery of everyday life. In his recent book, McMahan distinguishes elements of this form of mindfulness meditation from practices promoted as scientifically verified or framed within a naturalist context:

“…many practitioners use meditation to assure themselves that there is ‘more than this’, more than the desacralized world portrayed by science… It is a ‘more’ that affirms this-worldliness but at the same time attempts to break open secularism and show that this world exceeds what it seems to be on first glance… it occupies a field of tension between, on one hand, comfort in the dominant discourse of secularity- the naturalistic worldview taught in public schools and taken for granted in mainstream newspapers… and, on the other hand, the destabilization of that very discourse, and the bending of it toward the possibility of a kind of secular re-enchantment of the world”.

(McMahan 2023, p. 21)

The writings of writer and teacher Stephen Bachelor offer another glimpse of Mindfulness 3. The self-described “secular Buddhist” admits that his mindfulness practice retains an inherently religious quality to it, as for him, “…it is the conscious expression of my ‘ultimate concern’—as the theologian Paul Tillich once defined ‘faith’” (Batchelor 2012, p. 3). Batchelor also cautions against a pruning of mindfulness meditation to a problem-solving technique or purely a science of the mind as this reduces the transformative spiritual potential of the practice.

“Meditation is… a way of penetrating into the mystery that there is anything at all rather than nothing. When a problem is solved, it disappears, but when a mystery is penetrated, it only becomes more mysterious… By stripping all overt elements of religious behavior and belief from the dharma, Secular Buddhism… could also end up rejecting any sense of sublimity, mystery, awe, or wonder from the practice”.

(Batchelor 2014, p. 47)

This problem-solving technique that was highlighted in Mindfulness 2 is not oriented towards these deeper yearnings for spiritual meaning and identity (Gooch 2014, p. 106). In this sense, Mindfulness 3 is a means of nourishing the spiritual hunger of individuals in a post-secular (and post-Christian) Western context. For a growing number of people who identify as non-religious, this offshoot of Buddhism presents one contemplative option for cultivating a spiritual disposition or outlook. Mindfulness 3 emerges as a reformatting of Buddhist meditation to harmonize with the prevailing norms and needs of the cultures within which they are now operative.

In a post-secular context, a spiritual hunger for meaning or authenticity emerges as one such need. In this regard, Mindfulness 3 has emerged to fulfill the spiritual needs of those who face what Charles Taylor refers to as “cross-pressures”, those who search for meaning in light of the nova effect mentioned earlier, the explosion of beliefs, worldviews and religious conceptions of human flourishing present today. This pluralization, fragmentation and fragilization of spiritual options (Taylor 2007, pp. 299–305) means people are caught “between orthodoxy and unbelief… cross-pressured, looking for a third way” (Smith 2014, p. 64). Mindfulness 3 can be located within this third way, providing an approach for a growing demographic to encounter depth or mystery outside of traditional religious narratives or naturalist worldviews.

Mindfulness 3 presents as a viable option to this post-secular seeker in post-Christian contexts in that it answers spiritual yearning through the possibility of spiritual or depth experiences without the requirement of adherence to religious commitment, doctrine, or orthodoxy. In this way, it is congruent with cultures that have moved from the primacy of obedience to religious institutions to the primacy of experience as the metric for meaningfulness in life (Gallagher 1990, p. 81; Davie 2015, p. 159). In this sense, Mindfulness 3 is a post-secular spirituality.

One challenge facing this mode of mindfulness is whether it can reliably provide answers to the questions spiritual seekers possess. Spiritual traditions have developed theories or frameworks, unlike spiritual practices (Sheldrake 2012, p. 32). These theories enable practitioners to approach problems and questions in life via ethical systems, communal practices, or doctrines, such as the Noble Eightfold Path in Buddhism or the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus within Christianity and Judaism. Without these frameworks, Mindfulness 3 may be hamstrung in providing any answers to the deep spiritual yearnings of practitioners, or returning to Tillich’s term, their “ultimate concern”. Questions of the reliability of mindfulness in grounding our identities through spiritual practices alone remain. Without developed beliefs to accompany and ground the practice, practitioners of Mindfulness 3 risk frustration and desolation in the search for spiritual meaning and authenticity (Gooch 2014, p. 106).

The popularity of Mindfulness 3 in post-Catholic Ireland has yet to be quantified in the literature. However, there are several indicators of the practice enjoying greater visibility and the role it has begun to take on in the lives of many Irish people today. First, the number of visitors to Buddhist temples and centers to partake in secular meditation courses, retreats and events continues to grow (Clifford 2017). Notably, the number of Buddhists in Ireland actually decreased in the last Census, implying these visitors and practitioners are from other religious backgrounds and worldviews (CSO 2023a). As Ireland secularizes and pluralizes, some are drawn to an alternative practice separate from the perceived deficiencies of the previously dominant Catholic Church. As Dublin-based Buddhist teacher Jnanadhara argues:

“In many ways traditional religions offer a ‘take it or leave it’ approach and people aren’t always satisfied with that," he says. "Buddhists do not believe in a god that will punish those who commit sins and for many that’s refreshing. It’s not an authoritarian religion but rather one which encourages debate, conversation and contemplation”.

(Clifford 2017)

Similarly, Irish actor and mindfulness advocate Robert Sheehan offers a perspective similar to a significant demographic of Irish who were baptized and formed in the Catholic faith in their youth, attending Catholic schools yet finding no lasting spiritual nourishment to sustain either religious belief or practice in the Church today (Carroll 2023, pp. 327–33). As outlined at the beginning of this article, the trajectory towards post-Catholic Ireland was accelerated by abuse and scandal, but also a weakened faith formation.

“In the breath of one generation, the Church went from being the cornerstone of society to a dusty old arch-roofed building full of perverts. And I cite the Church not to be accusatory, but because they were and still are the only spiritual game in my own. Our town’s only public space meant for us all to connect in a way that doesn’t require words”.

(Sheehan 2024, p. 44)

Mindfulness 3 has emerged in a vacuum where religious practice has receded, meaning that for the growing irreligious generations of Irish, spiritual nourishment outside of institutional narratives becomes an increasing reality. In post-Catholic Ireland, Mindfulness 3 thus represents what Grace Davie describes as a contemporary spiritual practice “…internal motivations rather than external restraints” (Davie 2015, p. 159). As such, Mindfulness 3 has evolved into a response to the contemporary hunger for spiritual experiences that transcend the mundaneness of everyday day experience, offering a glimpse into the mystery and a re-enchantment of a secularized world.

6. Conclusions

Within a post-Catholic Irish context, recent Census data points to decreasing Catholic religiosity and increasing religiosity. While subject to processes of secularization and detraditionalization, historic scandals in the Irish Church mean that for many, the Catholic faith has been mortally tainted by institutional and clerical abuse and violence. For many Irish ex-Catholics (Scally 2021; Turpin 2022), a void has emerged for spiritual succor and nourishment. The three distinctive modes of mindfulness operative in the Irish context discussed above have each located themselves within the particular social, cultural and spiritual needs of people. Where Mindfulness 1 has emerged as an increasingly influential clinical tool for enhanced well-being, Mindfulness 2 has evolved into a spiritual commodity for consumer use, which offers both positive and negative potentialities. Mindfulness 3 offers the growing spiritual but not religious population a practice for contemplation that is liminal, between the margins of faith and unbelief and secularity and spirituality. As Catholic religiosity recedes in Ireland, the waves of mindfulness show no indication of faltering, these modalities of mindfulness serving the needs of post-Catholic Ireland.