Source: BOOK CHAPTER
APA
Citation:
Forbes,
D. J. (2016). Critical integral contemplative education. In R. Purser, D.
Forbes, & A. Burke (Eds.) Handbook of
mindfulness: Mindfulness in behavioral health. Switzerland: Springer
International Publishing.
Author
bio:
David Forbes, PhD, LMHC, is Associate Professor in the School Counseling
program in the School of Education at Brooklyn College/CUNY and an affiliate
faculty in the Urban Education doctoral program at the CUNY Graduate Center in
New York.
Notes:
There is a need to embed mindfulness within critical,
integral programs that uncover and resist dominant ideologies and institutions
in which we swim and to consciously help us heal and create new relationships
that work toward optimal personal development and universal social justice. 355
What place and role does mindfulness education have in
a shrinking, interdependent world – amidst predatory corporate institutions
that generate poverty and inequity, racist and cultural domination and the
rollback of civil rights, alarming climate destruction, and global militarism
and violence? … Overall many do little to nothing to link agency with social
justice and challenge the moral crises of our day that are based on
self-attachment, greed, and delusion which fuel the sources of stress in the
first place. 355-6
A critical integral approach includes the best of
traditional prophetic and contemplative values and practices, modernist
scientific methods, knowledge and critical thinking, and postmodern
multi-perspectives and inclusivity. It situates mindfulness education within
the waters of both inner and outer awareness and enhances it from a more
evolved and comprehensive perspective. 356
For Buddhists, mindfulness is not about stress
reduction or being non-judgmental but is part of the study and practice of the
dharma which indeed includes judging and enacting what is right. But for Kabat-Zinn,
mindfulness, in his words, is “not about Buddhism, but about paying attention”
356
Kabat-Zinn’s approach is akin to spiritual by-pass,
the appeal to absolute truths as a way to avoid and dismiss painful or
difficult everyday needs that require concrete consideration … he even suggests
that mindfulness itself can lead to a moral life. Kabat-Zinn’s brilliantly ambiguous
move has allowed secular mindfulness to
flourish and become many things to many people … secular mindfulness
generates various interpretations and practices that aim to promote personal
wellbeing in education as well as in medicine, psychotherapy, government, the military,
and the corporate workplace. 357
McMindfulness
occurs when mindfulness is used, either with intention or unwittingly, for
self-serving and ego-enhancing purposes that run counter to both Buddhist and
Abrahamic prophetic teachings to let go of ego-attachment and enact skillful, universal compassion. 357
[McMindfulness’] therapeutic function is to comfort,
numb, adjust, and advance the self within a neoliberal, corporatized,
individualistic society based on private gain. 357
McMindfulness ignores seeing our inseparability from
all others and from social institutions; it thereby abandons the moral demand
that follows this insight to enact universal compassion, service, and social
justice in all ways and all forms of human endeavor. 357
McMindfulness critics insist that the personal and the
social are inseparable and that mindfulness should contribute to both full
development and universal social justice in all areas of life. 357
Many educators do not question the problematic,
socially constructed nature of schooling and school values in which they offer
mindfulness programs. Without this, mindfulness
itself becomes an ideology that reinforces the ideology of neoliberal schooling.
Students and teachers are directly encouraged to perceive things as given
reality; in this way, implicit culturally constructed meanings are glossed over
yet still operate in the background. 358-359
AS AN ASIDE:
Neoliberalism =
denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism
(source: wiki)
Neoliberal
education favors a particular education policy discourse. For a
neoliberal approach to life and education, the economic reality and rationality
are more powerful than all others …
“What I’ve learned (and
what some readers of this column no doubt already knew) is that neoliberalism
is a pejorative way of referring to a set of economic/political policies based
on a strong faith in the beneficent effects of free markets. Here is an often
cited definition by Paul Treanor: “Neoliberalism is a philosophy in which the
existence and operation of a market are valued in themselves, separately from
any previous relationship with the production of goods and services . . . and
where the operation of a market or market-like structure is seen as an ethic in
itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action, and substituting for
all previously existing ethical beliefs.” (“Neoliberalism: Origins, Theory,
Definition.”)”
(Stanley Fish, professor
of humanities and law at Florida International University in Miami; source: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/neoliberalism-and-higher-education/
)
Without a critical
understanding of the neoliberal education agenda, mindfulness practices
geared toward stress reduction, conflict resolution, emotional regulation,
anger management, and focus and concentration serve as functions of social
control and reinforce emotional self-regulation that puts the onus back on the
individual student. 360
Mindfulness of one’s anger and frustration in the ‘here
and now’ leaves out the social context
of the social injustices that many students of color experience. In particular,
SEL programs tend to ignore the cultural context and cultural capital of
students of color and the impact on them of racism and prejudice … mindfulness
programs teach awareness of emotions. But they do not address or analyze how emotional
life is inextricably related to the complex, rich, and often problematic social
nature of the lives of students, teachers, and community members. 361
A mindful teacher or student may attain an advanced
meditative state through mindfulness but one’s developmental structure constrains one’s worldview and how the
experience is interpreted 361
Mindfulness
practice by itself does not lead to critical questioning,
moral reasoning, or skillful and moral
actions. Nor by itself does it lead to later stages of autonomous thinking,
the ability to hold ambiguity, and to think on one’s feet from a
post-conventional cognitive or moral developmental order. 361
Mindfulness is mostly taught and practice in the service of producing conventionally
successful students and teachers who can adjust to the demands of
neoliberal society. 361
[reference Ergas, 2015, The deeper teachings of
mindfulness-based ‘interventions’ as a reconstruction of ‘education.’]
Mindfulness
programs rely on social emotional learning (SEL) curricula to
provide the best version of secular ethics with which mindfulness can
associate. Yet, SEL programs are unaware
of their own self and moral developmental stage and worldview. The competencies
or behavioral skills favored by SEL fit in nicely with neoliberal
achievement-oriented values designed for conventional levels of success in a
competitive, corporatized, marked-based society. 362
SEL
skills are framed in terms that emphasize pseudo-objectivity, self-control, and
success. These include the ability to ‘accurately’ recognize
one’s emotions and thoughts; ‘accurately’ assess one’s strengths and
limitations; self and stress ‘management; attain relationship skills such as
cooperating and resisting ‘inappropriate’ social pressure; ‘responsible
decision making’; and with a nod to positive psychology, having ‘a
well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism’ (quoted from CASEL, n.d.).
Teachers and students can be mindful of thoughts and feelings and learn the
latest skills that pass as secular ethics, yet continue to swim within conventional and conformist structures that
govern and restrict their awareness. 362
We can consider paths for new directions that frame mindfulness
in education within a critical integral
meta-perspective. The challenge is to re-construe (re-interpret) the
contemplative and the prophetic as part of a broader project in education that
revitalizes the wisdom and values of earlier traditions on new ground. It requires
that we incorporate the best of contemplative and prophetic traditions, along
with modernist knowledge and progressive post-modern awareness of multiple,
culturally constructed and developmental perspectives on gender, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation and other categories. At the same time, we seek
to challenge and transcend the current limitations of a society governed by neoliberal,
market-based structures, ideologies, and policies. 362-3
Post-modern(ism)
= a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism,
subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity
to the role of ideology in
asserting and maintaining political and economic power.
Views: (1) there is no
objective reality; (2) there is no scientific or historical truth
(objective truth);
(3) science and technology (and even reason and logic) are not vehicles of
human progress but suspect instruments of established power; (4) reason and
logic are not universally valid; (5) there is no such thing as human nature (human behavior and psychology are
socially determined or constructed); (6) language does not
refer to a reality outside itself; (7) there is no certain knowledge; and (8)
no general theory of the natural or social world can be valid or true (all are
illegitimate “metanarratives”).
A critical
integral approach helps students and teachers uncover implicit cultural
values, interrogate neoliberal educational policies, and act to change them in
terms of more encompassing and universal moral stages of self, cultural, and
societal development. 363
The goal is to contribute
to rekindling and enacting values of democratic, quality education within a
society that is seeking to create new mutually satisfying relationships and
social structures that are healing and fulfilling for all. 363
A program would include the individual practice of meditation and mindfulness to gain greater
capacity to experience contemplative states and which can lead to the insight
of non-duality. 363
A thicker
prefrontal cortex is not the goal, becoming a morally evolved, wise person who
skillfully acts in the social world, is. 364
Teachers and students can employ contemplative practices to deepen and strengthen meaning
and connection in learning which is made more whole within a critical
integral awareness of educational context … engage in critical mindfulness
research that investigates and uncovers hidden norms in everyday culture and
local social systems such as consumerism that impede personal and interpersonal
development 364
School community members can mindfulness investigate and uncover barriers in the
social structure that impede social justice … [then] engage in mindful social action for social justice 364
Together, they create
healthy more inclusive, socially just, policies, systems, and political arrangements
in schools and defend and demand universal quality public education,
sustainability, and interdependence. 364
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