I have no idea if mindfulness meditation can cause a "dark night" of the soul or what -- although many viewings of the Nolan Batman movies certainly suggests that it may be the case! -- but this makes all that OM stuff seem way cooler than I assumed! Under every hippie in yoga pants could lurk a sociopath...

You know, they have a point here.

3. It can be disempowering and keep you passive, contained and compliant.

In the mainstream arena, mindfulness meditation is merely a tool or way for calming and focusing oneself. But, mindfulness meditation in its original Buddhist tradition is more about gaining insight into the human condition, reducing stress and suffering in our own hearts and minds, and also in the world of which we are a part. It certainly has calming benefits in situations where we cannot do much to change things and it’s necessary to calm down and de-stress. However, there are times when we should be angry, distressed and determined to change things.

The single-minded enthusiasm in which meditation is now being deployed in schools, hospitals and even offices of companies like Google to paper over the cracks in situations where oppression, inequality, discrimination and other difficulties face us is concerning. This kind of deployment is tantamount to using repressive psychopharmacology to restrain people, or an injunction to ‘stop thinking about it,’ which is quite disempowering. It is an effective way to keep you isolated, passive and compliant.

Some things in our lives DO suck, and we should not just calmly, passively meditate them away.