Teaching Meditation to Classes in Philosophy :: Education Teacher Educating Philosophical Essays

Teaching Meditation to Classes in PhilosophyABSTRACT In alignment with the overall theme of the congress, Philosophy Teaching Humanity, this paper proposes that memoriseers of school of thought count on instructing their students in simple techniques of meditation. By meditation I mean the practice of mindfulness which typically begins by paying clear, steady, non-reactive management to the sensations of ones own breathing, and then extending this attention to embrace all bodily sensations, feelings, moods, thoughts, and intentions. I discuss how to integrate meditation practically in the philosophy classroom and then respond to three objections that save been raised to that practice. I then discuss the potential benefits of the practice, arguing first of all that meditation has academic benefits, especially in courses in Asian philosophy. exactly of much wider application is the wisdom of non-attachment which the mediation naturally evokes primarily through the experience of i mpermanence. The potential benefits of the paradigm are then briefly indicated as related to to our experience of body, mind, society and nature. I conclude by commending the proposal as a small but important practical step philosophy teachers butt take to help our fellow humans navigate the challenging transformation of our time. I. A Proposal Situating the Need and Proposing a ResponseThe grand theme of our relation back is Philosophy Educating Humanity. It is heartening to see philosophers from all over the world pondering how we can be of service to our species refocusing on the root significance of philosophy as love of wisdom, we seek to be of real help in a world in the throes of many transformations. Those of us who teach philosophy in formal academic environments are already in a position to make a direct difference in the lives of our students care it or not, we are at some level opinion leaders in our communities--what we teach and how we teach matters. And so we ask ourselves how can we best call the power that we have?Clearly we can help our students and fellow human beings by teaching them skills of discursive rationality when we can define our meanings precisely, use our ground consistently, argue coherently, and adhere to high standards of evidence, then we are better able to avoid dogmatism and bring an effective intelligence to bear on the problems of spiritedness that face us. These skills will always be a precious resource philosophy can offer humanity.And yet there is much more to philosophy than this.