What are your thoughts on Richard Dawkins?

[Edwardo Piet]

What is "pseudoscientific" about separating oneself from one's emotions in order to approach them more objectively? Be specific.

I have no way of comparing my own internal experience of my attempts at mindfulness to anyone else's... no way of judging whether I'm doing it properly or not... no objective measure of what is by its very nature subjective.

Science can't study qualia by its very nature and mindfulness is all about qualia. Therein lies the problem.

I don't see how it's possible to approach emotions objectively or to control one's will by willpower at all. I don't see how it make sense without free will and I don't see how free will makes sense either.

I have zero control over my thoughts.

I accept that mindfulness is not about controlling thoughts or emotions... it's about accepting them and observing them, etc. But I don't see how I have any control over that. I don't see how I can learn to accept what in itself I have to accept anyways because I have no control over it. I don't see how I can really change my mental behavior to make me more or less mindful either way because I think my mental behavior just happens and isn't really a 'behavior'. It's more of a 'happening'. At least that's how I experience it which is why I struggle relating to other people's anecdotes about their own experience of mindfulness.

It's like how ultimately I think the term "self motivation" is an oxymoron because motivation drives the self not the other way around. You can't drive your self your self is already driven by your motives. It's the same problem as trying to control your brain when your brain is the part of you that does the control. We can't motivate our selves for the same reason that we can't control our brains. The brain and the self is one and motivation and the self is one.

Anyways, this may or may not sound relevant but I think it very much is because I don't see how mindfulness can be a skill when I basically have zero control over it all. My mind goes where it goes and trying to will it is like telling myself to open a door that's already open or close a door that's already closed.

I don't see how any of this can be tested. My thoughts and feelings just happen and I may or may not be mindful of them and I can try as my might to do differently but my trying or not trying will have zero effect either way. The only thing that trying does is stress me out by expecting results from trying to control the uncontrollable. One cannot will the will itself when the will itself is already willed.

I really struggle at explaining this stuff.

Religious or spiritual or mystical bullshit this guy believed aside... this makes more sense to me than mindfulness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choiceless_awareness

That's more akin to how I experience my world.