I used the term "cultural appropriation" instead of more positive sounding "cross-fertilisation" thinking it implied oversemplification and misrepresentation.

According to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation is not always clearly negative.

What I was referring to is the existing trend to pick ideas from hundreds of years ago, relabeling them while "forgetting" to mention the sources, and selling them as new in some self-help section in a library. This happens to western philosophy as well, and butchering complex philosophies to make them more palatable is hardly beneficial.

Agree. That's how things spread and become "familiar" to people. It's amazing how mindfulness is slowly starting to spread in the US... thousands of years of evolution and only now is the value being seen. Better late than never!

Every time I read the phrase cultural appropriation I am reminded of the Kimono Try On protests in Boston and I cringe: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-33450391

Back to the original topic: it's breathing. Nobody owns breathing. It can't be trademarked or patented. The technique can be renamed and passed on for free or for profit.

Those kimono protests are ridiculous, I'm surprised it's not an April Fool's joke. Thanks for the link.

As for 'nobody owns breathing', nobody fundamentally owns anything, ownership is just a social construct. Someone owns something if a majority agrees they own it. What's being discussed is a style of breathing rather than breathing as a whole. It's no different to attributing the history of styles of music, dance, food, etc... to certain groups.

It boggles my mind that anyone thinks cultural hybridity and cross-fertilisation are a bad thing, regardless of whether proper attribution is given. Which, as in this case, it never is and almost never can be.

It's one of the more stupid ideas from a cluster of stupid ideas.

I'm not saying cross-fertilisation is a bad thing, quite the opposite. Butchering ideas often prevents them from being taken seriously and turns them into fads - that's the bad thing.

Mostly agree – except maybe in cases where the practice devolves into a cliché. American Indians and feathers come to mind.