Mindfulness is now a zeitgeist. The mainstreaming of mindfulness – what Time Magazine calls the “mindful revolution” – is being powered by research documenting the physical and mental health benefits of meditation. Like most revolutions, the mindful revolution is composed of multiple, competing forces. While corporate “McMindfulness” has received considerable and appropriate critical attention, less work has been done on the generative political potential of contemplative practices, particularly on how they might support the liberation goals of progressive social movements.

This book is the first collection to systematically map the political implications of contemplative practices of all kinds – Buddhist meditation, yoga, and Indigenous ritual to name a few – with an explicit focus on the political, with an interdisciplinary approach, and from practitioners with first-hand experience. In addition to making a novel argument about the author’s own area of expertise, each chapter includes a literature review that maps the existing research and commentary at the intersection of contemplative praxis and applicable terrain of political struggle being covered in the chapter. Readers will come away with both a broad and deep understanding of emerging themes, new areas of research, and future directions.

Contemplative Praxis and Politics brings together some of the most experienced and creative scholars and scholar-practitioners interweaving contemplative practice and radical politics to embody and envision better ways of being. Building on but going far beyond critiques of the individualistic commodification of mindfulness, contributors offer ways to engage in contemplative praxis—from meditation to indigenous prayer, yoga to ritual—in communal and life sustaining ways. Contemplative Praxis and Politics reminds us that transformative politics must be rooted in human depth and human depth must be expressed in justice. Living during a time in which, to quote James Baldwin, we cannot afford despair, this collection and the collective contemplation that forms it brings the hope that we always need. Essential reading.

Ann Gleig, Professor of Religion and Cultural Studies, University of Central Florida

Social and political analysis of the mindfulness movement has generally been critical of the potential of mindfulness to reinforce tacit norms, the political status quo, and regimes of self-care that uphold neoliberalism and corporate capitalism. But are there potentials for mindfulness—and the concepts and ethics surrounding it—to challenge norms and support more progressive political projects? Contemplative Praxis and Politics answers that question affirmatively with a diverse array of essays addressing the relationship between contemplative practices and education, activism, disability, colonialism, gender, and other issues. This volume expands the territory of humanistic research on contemplative practices and opens up new, provocative, and productive realms of inquiry.

David L. McMahan, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies, Franklin & Marshall College

James K. Rowe, Canada, University of Victoria. Rowe’s interdisciplinary research program is motivated by a desire to understand and strengthen social movements working towards social and ecological justice. His most recent book is Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital (Routledge 2024). He has published in the journals: The Arrow; BioScience; Mortality; New Political Science; Socialist Studies; Studies in Political Economy; and Theory & Event.

Shannon Mariotti, USA, Trinity University. Mariotti’s scholarship focuses on democratic theory and practice, with a focus on 19th century American Transcendentalism and Romanticism as well as 20th century Critical Social Theory and Modernism. She is the author of Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal: Alienation, Participation, and Modernity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) as well as Adorno and Democracy: The American Years (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016). She is also co-editor of A Political Companion to Marilynne Robinson (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016).

Farah Godrej, USA, University of California, Riverside. Godrej’s areas of research and teaching include Indian political thought, Gandhi’s political thought, cosmopolitanism, globalization and comparative political theory. She is the author of Cosmopolitan Political Thought: Method, Practice, Discipline (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Fred Dallmayr: Cross-Cultural Theory, Post-Secularity, Cosmopolitanism (London and New York: Routledge, 2017); and Freedom Inside? Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2022).