The Tranquil Meditator: A Western Iconographic Misrepresentation
The Tranquil Meditator: A Western Iconographic Misrepresentation
Does the western meditator icon misrepresent meditation as just relaxation, happiness, and a calm mind?
I had previously written about some common misconceptions around mindfulness, with one of them being how mindfulness and relaxation become synonymous and associated which each other.
Although this association mindfulness is not synonymous with relaxation, and we had pointed out how the main focus of mindfulness is learning how to cultivate an all-encompassing open awareness that opens up, holds and remains present with any emergent state within the mind or body, let it be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Therefore, mindfulness is not about feeling relaxed but meeting our experience as it is. As Choden and Regan-Addis (2018) would say, “without preference”, meeting our inner environment as it is, which sometimes is far from relaxing, without wanting it to be another way acknowledging how we feel.
What happens is that as we cultivate and strengthen this open-holding awareness of our inner environment, relaxation often comes as a by-product because of an ability to hold, stay and approach our inner experience just as it is.
However, if you go into practising mindfulness with the idea of practising to relax as seasoned meditators and mindfulness teachers will tell you this will ultimately backfire as it seems that the instance you sit down to do your mindfulness meditation rather than calming down the mind usually does the opposite and starts firing at you all kinds of thoughts. So, the question to ask here is, what might have perpetuated this idea that you practice mindfulness to relax?
I personally believe that the root of this misconception might have started at the inception of mindfulness meditation as an intervention for well-being. You might ask, how come?
This might have emerged as a direct consequence of the title given to the first mindfulness intervention created by Jon Kabat Zinn, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.”
The moment that we hear the term stress, the opposite word that comes to mind for it is to relax. Because of this, many times when hearing the words “Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction” might invoke an image of a class of people sitting in a cross-legged position or lying down engaged in exercises to relax in order to combat stress.
Unfortunately, this is usually how marketing material promotes mindfulness meditation classes and what further amplifies this misconception is a universal westernised iconographic representation that has developed around mindfulness.
This being represented by the image that has become synonymous with meditation, that of the “tranquil meditator”. The universal way in which media publications have come to portray the mediator visually as sitting cross-legged in a peaceful environment with a serene, tranquil smiling expression on their face (Farb, 2104; Mitchell, 2014; Wilson, 2016). This perception of practising mindfulness meditation to relax being further amplified through it being commodified and turned into a product as something that can be sold, but this is a topic for another blog.
The Tranquil Meditator
The term “Tranquil Meditator” was coined by Scott Mitchell (2014), who noted a recurring iconographic theme of how predominantly American media was portraying the meditator visually. Mitchell (2014) noted how, more often than not, western media usually presents us with an image of a meditator that is often female, sitting in a lotus position with a serene expression meditating in solitude, insulated from the world around them.
Mitchell (2014) points out that this is very reductionist, commenting, “the Tranquil Meditator is just that—a meditator— and this points to her specific activity that is engage in for a specific outcome” (p. 48). Mitchell further continues that in this image, “the Tranquil Meditator’s method is a specific type of seated meditation, a practice engaged in not for the sake of enlightenment but for specific secular or mundane benefits” (ibid. p. 84).
Moreover, this image of the “Tranquil Meditator” is usually found in connection with advertisements for spa centres, beauty products, massage services, and products to help you relax and calm down and “achieve Zen.” Mitchell (2014) notes how these, “advertisements work by making an explicit connection between calm, relaxed, centeredness, and the practice of seated meditation” (p. 84).
It could be argued that this is just a miss-appropriation of the image of the “meditating Buddha figure” and a miss-representation of the richness of Buddhist and eastern contemplative practice, which are aimed at deconstructing oneself, one’s views of the world and reality in relation to the “Three Marks of Existence” 1) That things are impermanent (Anicca); 2) That things are unsatisfactory (Dukkha); 3) That that inherently there is no self as something permanent that you can pinpoint (Anatta) (Gethin, 2002; Gethin, 1998). This while also denying the compassionate “Bodhisattva” element within the practice of meditation, that of working towards “enlightenment” with the aim of guiding all beings towards liberation from the “wheel of suffering” (Gethin, 1998). This is usually represented in the Bodhisattva Chenrezig (Gilbert & Choden, 2014).
Ultimately the western iconographic representation of the meditator within the image of “The Tranquil Meditator” is just a misrepresentation. As Mitchell (2014) points out, although there is an explicit connection between the meditating Buddha figure and the “Tranquil Meditator,” this connection is just limited to the posture they are both sitting in. Because arguably, what is being eluded to through the image of the tranquil meditator is not aimed towards the contemplative understanding of Buddhist enlightenment but pointing towards a mundane worldly sort of relaxation. As Mitchell (2014) argues that the character of the tranquil meditator depicts a,
Vague and ill-defined Asian spirituality or mysticism that is directly tied to a calm, centering, and relaxed state of mind. (ibid. p. 84)
This just further misrepresents and perpetuates the misunderstanding of meditation as one other hedonistic practice where one meditates to relax. As Lutkajtis (2021) puts it,
The tranquil meditator trope reinforces the popular mainstream view of meditation as a seated practice that is associated with happiness and relaxation, and engaged in for secular pragmatic purposes such as improved health and wellness. (ibid. p. 116)
References
Choden, & Regan-Addis, H. (2018). Mindfulness based living course. New Alresford: John Hunt Publishing.
Farb, N. A. (2104). From retreat center to clinic to boardroom? Perils and promises of the modern mindfulness movement. Religions, 5(4), 1062-1086. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5041062
Gethin, R. (1998). The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gethin, R. M. (2002). The Buddhist path to awakening (2nd Revised ed.). London: Oneworld Publications.
Gilbert, P., & Choden. (2014). Mindful compassion. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
Lutkajtis, A. (2021). The dark side of dharma: Meditation, madness and other maladies on the contemplative path. London: Aeon.
Mitchell, S. A. (2014). The tranquil meditator: Representing Buddhism and Buddhists in US popular media. Religion Compass, 8(3), 81-89. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.12104
Wilson, J. (2016). Selling mindfulness: Commodity linages and the marketing of mindful products. In R. E. Purser, D. Forbes, & A. Burke (Eds.), Handbook of mindfulness: Culture, context, and social engagement (pp. 109-119). Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44019-4_8