Excerpts from an interview given by British philosopher Odysseus Stone, to the BBC's Spanish service, BBC News World.
It seems that in our time there is broad support for mindfulness meditation.
On the websites of some world-renowned institutions, such as the Mayo Clinic in the United States, the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, and Harvard University, there are texts about its benefits for physical and mental health.
They claim that full awareness of the present can reduce anxiety and stress, help people concentrate, sleep better, treat depression, and even relieve pain from certain conditions.
And, of course, there is a huge amount of scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals and books that support its effects on people's lives.
A 2017 national survey conducted by the United States Centers for Disease Control revealed that among the participants, 14% had engaged in some type of meditation at least once during that year, and among the modalities was the mindfulness technique.
But what if, beyond its effects on the human body, there existed a set of beliefs around mindfulness that are not necessarily beneficial for us? And what if mindfulness meditation, which supposedly derives from traditional Buddhist meditation, is actually an activity very distant from its initial idea?
These are some of the questions raised by British philosopher Odysseus Stone, who was part of the Research Center for Subjectivity at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he completed his PhD.
Stone is an expert in phenomenology and philosophy of mind and has dedicated himself to analyzing the phenomenon of mindfulness meditation.
BBC News Mundo, the BBC's Spanish-language service, spoke with him about his ideas on this popular form of meditation.
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