Mind Matters: Contemplative Education for Liberatory

For tens of thousands of years, contemplative practices among many Aboriginal, First Nations, and indigenous peoples have connected humans with life in all its forms, including ancestors, country or land, and community. Enlightenment and embodied understanding of the nature of mind result from Buddhist teachings and practices as they have traveled from South Asia to East and Southeast Asia to the rest of the world, turning us away from attachment to material comforts and privileges and toward experiential inquiry into human experiences of suffering and flourishing. Contemplative practices, including mindfulness meditation, qigong, taiji, and yoga, have been the subject of recent decades of research into their impacts on wellbeing and compassion. Studies in cognitive and affective neuroscience, cognitive and developmental psychology, integrative medicine, comparative religion, education, and sustainability science examine the impacts of contemplative practices on mental and physical health, socio-emotional learning, and a less consumption-driven future. The application of these practices has similarly flourished in mindfulness-based interventions and programs in therapeutic settings and schooling from early childhood to adult education and professional programs including counseling, law, medicine, social work, and teacher education. Pedagogical approaches apply to classroom contexts as well as informal settings such as environmental education and include diverse approaches such as collaborative poetry and contemplative photography. This course introduces students to practices that span hundreds of generations and diverse faith traditions and the ethics, epistemology, and psychology underlying them; recent studies that aim to understand their efficacy, underlying mechanisms, and methods of inquiry, and educational models and practices for offering these approaches. Students will learn through engagement with and micro-phenomenological inquiry of contemplative practices—including two weekend retreats, reading of recent empirical research, and educational application in the context and at the level based on student interest. Summative assessments include a synthesis of a practice-based micro-phenomenological journal, a blog synthesizing relevant empirical research for a student-chosen audience, and the design and/or facilitation of a contemplative educational experience focused on a practice of interest and for a student-chosen audience.