There's a scene that plays out in corporate wellness rooms around the world: employees sit in ergonomic chairs, eyes closed, guided through a 10-minute body scan. They return to their desks refreshed, focused, ready to be more productive.
This is mindfulness. But is it Chan?
The McMindfulness Critique
The term "McMindfulness" — coined by Ronald Purser — describes what happens when meditation is stripped from its ethical framework and sold as a stress-reduction technique. Like McDonald's, it's convenient, standardized, and available everywhere. Also like McDonald's, it may not be nourishing.
Chan has always understood meditation as inseparable from ethics. The Precepts aren't optional add-ons; they're the ground practice stands on. A soldier who meditates to shoot more accurately is not practicing Chan. A CEO who meditates to extract more labor from workers is not practicing Chan.
What the Tradition Actually Demands
The Bodhisattva Vows are clear: "I vow to save all sentient beings." Not "I vow to feel less stressed." Not "I vow to improve my focus." The scope of Chan practice is all beings — not just the practitioner.
This doesn't mean secular mindfulness is worthless. It means it's incomplete. It's the technique without the telos, the method without the meaning.
The Deeper Problem
McMindfulness individualizes a tradition that is fundamentally relational. It turns a practice of liberation into a practice of adjustment. It says: the problem is your stress, not the system that causes it.
Chan says: the problem is that you think there's a problem. And the solution isn't a better coping mechanism — it's seeing through the illusion that you need to cope at all.
What Would Huineng Say?
Probably something like: "If meditation is your stress relief, your stress relief is your prison." The Sixth Patriarch wasn't big on comfort. He was big on freedom.