What are the flaws of the mindfulness movement?

Mindfulness is committing to the present moment instead of letting our minds wander and drift into past recollections and future imaginings—all the while judging and commenting. This idea of how to conduct our lives cleanly and clearly, without stressful meanderings is not new. The Buddha came up with it roughly 2500 years ago. So I wouldn’t exactly call it a movement.

It is such a simple idea, I’m sure others thought of it before Buddha but he is the one who articulated it. Mindfulness means the ability to keep something in mind. This means the skill to keep one thing in mind instead of being taken off course. It takes three forms:

• Stay alert to what you’re doing in the present moment.
  
  
• Recognize the skillful and unskillful qualities that arise in the mind.
  
  
• Know how to get rid of the qualities that get in the way of concentration, then developing the skillful ones that promote it.
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I don’t think anyone can find a flaw in mindfulness. Maybe someone could say that if our minds don’t drift, we wouldn’t have imagination and therefore we couldn’t come up with creative solutions. But even in problem solving, being mindful is more effective than being scattered and all over the map. Furthermore, mindfulness brings peace and clarity, which brings happiness and cleans away distress.