Contemplation as Co-creation:

Traditional Practices from a Relational

Viewpoint

Donald McCown, PhD Assistant Professor, Integrative Health

West Chester University of Pennsylvania dmccown@wcupa.edu

Intentions •  To notice, very quickly, that much contemporary

secular discourse of contemplative practice privileges individual, “inner” experience over the relational view

•  To share and explore the relational space that is created through the pedagogy of the mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs)

•  To articulate the qualities of that space in a way that might be helpful beyond the clinical context

•  To engage in dialogue around the possibilities that a relational view of contemplative practice may suggest for higher education

The Individual View

•  In clinical context, outcomes of individuals are measured

•  Self-report instruments and physiological markers, with a neuroscience emphasis

•  Seeing practice as a solitary “going within,” despite the testimonies of participants

•  Reifying practices and attempting to ensure fidelity to tradition

Mindfulness …is “paying attention, on purpose, in the present

moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn)

So let’s try it!

Mindfulness …is a co-creation of the participants and teacher in the

gathering. It is the product of the pedagogy. ������

So, our practice is the pedagogy. ���Together or alone, we are in relationship, we are in

the ethical space. ������

Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs)

•  Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) •  Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) •  Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) •  Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy (MBAT) •  Mindfulness-Based Relationship Enhancement (MBRE) •  Mindfulness-Based Eating Awareness Training (MB-EAT) •  Mindfulness-Based Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

(MBREBT) •  Mindfulness-Based You Name It (MB-ETC)

•  Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) •  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

The Meta-Structure of the MBI Curricula

A spectrum of teaching intentions Experiencing New Possibilities

Discovering Corporeality

Cultivating Observation

Moving Towards Acceptance

Growing Compassion

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Qualities Revealed in the Curricula

•  Corporeality: turning to the body, the senses—trading habitual cognitive understandings for direct experience

•  Contingency: things are not what they seem (like the raisin), and are constantly changing

•  Cosmopolitanism: openness towards the creation of meaning—how is it for you?

•  Friendliness: befriending that which is alien and painful in moment-to-moment experience

The Four Skills of MBI Pedagogy

1.  Stewardship: All participants are equal and whole. The teacher as steward protects the physical space – which becomes the ethical space

2.  Homiletics: Friendly conversation, not expert lecturing

3.  Guidance: Ultimately offering the freedom to have this experience now

4.  Inquiry: Making the participants’ experiences in the moment the texts for the pedagogy

Qualities Revealed in the Pedagogical Skills

In addition to the four qualities identified in the curricula: •  Non-hierarchical: no one has a better

understanding of a participant’s experience than the participant

•  Non-pathologizing: “…as long as you are breathing there is more right with you than there is wrong”

•  Non-instrumental: the intention of the practice is not to fix or change anything; it is rather to see what may be known

The Practice is Relational •  The space we are in with others is most important

•  Perhaps this vignette is a workable description •  This space is identical with the pedagogy of the MBIs, which is co-creation

•  It is ethical in the sense of ethos and mores, but is non-foundational

•  Let’s consider a “stack” of descriptions—none ‘right’ but all suggestive

•  We can describe such a space in neurophysiological terms •  Self-regulation/co-regulation of affect offers more availability of

responsiveness in mirror neuron systems, reinforcing possibilities for shared meaning making—Porges’s social engagement response to safety

•  Or we can describe it in attachment theory terms (Tronick) •  Dyadically expanded states of consciousness: “Out of the recurrence of

reparations the infant and another person come to share the implicit knowledge that ‘we can move into a mutual positive state even when we have been in a mutual negative state’ or ‘we can transform negative into positive affect’”

The Practice is Relational •  Or we can describe it philosophically (Buber)

•  Dialogue can be silently transforming: “For where unreserve has ruled, even worldlessly, between men, the word of dialogue has happened sacramentally”

•  Or we can describe it in anthropological terms (Turner) •  Liminality is characteristic of the MBIs—participants are in suffering, crisis,

transition, so roles and positions in the world don’t matter

•  This generates communitas, “a moment in and out of time, in and out of the social structure,” which generates possibilities…

•  Or we can describe it developmentally (Vygotsky) •  The zone of proximal development: a collaborative process for children to

develop the levels of understanding of those around them •  “The learning develops…in non-instrumental ways particualr to the people

involved, in collaborations arising from within their resourceful attunement to each other”

The Practice is Relational •  Or in even broader systems-informed terms (Ingold)

•  Not “socialization,” but “enskillment”: learning is both biological and social—knowledge doesn’t come in from outside, but rather is grown into in joint activity in a shared space

•  “…you only get an omelette from a cook-in-the-kitchen”

•  Or in communications terms (Shotter) •  Dialogical or conversational reality is a nonrepresentational,

embodied, sensuous form of practical-moral knowing •  Located neither inside nor outside people, but in the space where

inside and outside are one—the “situation”

A Different Discourse •  Hearing these stacked descriptions with ears attuned to the common

individualistic discourse of bounded being is one thing; hearing them within a different discourse of relational being is something else again (Gergen)

•  The discourse of bounded being posits autonomous individuals acting from an untellable inner life, a preexisting “I” •  If the answer to “Why did she do that?” is that she made a decision

“herself”, on the “inside”, then we can put something in there to fix her—a virtue, a belief, a pharmaceutical

•  Ethical action in a world of bounded being is about the dispositions, deliberations, and deeds of individuals—and individuals in groups

•  So we look to leverage cause and agency for ethics: to inculcate virtues, obey commandments, make moral measurements, summon the better angels of our nature…and still there is the morning news

•  There is beauty and heroism in this discourse; yet we are also aware, with each command to be compassionate, that we are separate from others, that our natural instinct is for self-gratification

A Different Discourse •  The discourse of relational being is limited by our language, which insists

on the bounded: nouns and pronouns and transitive verbs perpetuate it – we say, “she treated him nicely”, so there are bounded beings with inner intentions •  In describing relational being, Gergen replaces causality and agency with

confluence, in which “participants” are mutually defined •  In an MBI class, meditation defines meditators and a guide, then dyad

partners in conversation, then a group in plenary dialogue •  There is no causality, no one and nothing forces what happens next;

rather, it arises from the confluence of relationships •  Confluence is what is intelligible in the gathering (my placeholder word

for participants and teacher in relationship); everyone knows what makes sense to do next—what is “right” •  In the sense of correct and in the sense of ethos or mores, the roots of ethics and

morality, meaning the “habits of a people”

Ethics in a Relational Key

•  As we live within a particular form of life—an MBI group—we create meaning and value, what is “good” for “us” •  Within a group like this, a transgression of the good would make no

sense—“that just isn’t done!”

•  Gergen labels this establishment of goods as “first-order morality” — we flourish together •  These goods conflict and impinge on each other between groups,

between individuals, and even within individuals •  This can have tragic consequences •  And, we can leverage this fact for a clinical ethics of the MBIs—if we can

define a model of the ethical space

•  It may be possible, as well, to identify a practice, a form of life that is not about care of self and other, but rather about being responsible for the relationships •  This would be a second-order morality, a form of life in which

conflicting first-order moralities reveal a way to go on

A Model of the Ethical Space The relational ethical space has these possibilities, these qualities, these ways of knowing as background: •  Corporeality—attending to a

body that may be mostly absent •  At root of pedagogy from the start—

experience as text •  Makes the space tangible, not

intellectual •  Contingency—following the

leading of the present moment; speaking/learning with, not about •  That everything changes is integral to

the pedagogy •  Shifts the perspective on the sense of

self—”unselfing” •  Cosmopolitanism—no particular

belief system is required, while any is supported •  Meaning is made and held in freedom

A Model of the Ethical Space

The defining qualities of the ethical space arise from the practice—I like to think of them as non-foundations: •  Non-Pathologizing—the

interest is in the experience of the moment, not of •  Overcoming self-pathologizing, self-

surveillance, as well

•  Non-Hierarchical—teacher as catalyst, resource, and just a part of the circle •  Stance of “not knowing” in the space—

both teacher and participant

•  Non-Instrumental—experiences are experiments; the question is not “what did you get?” but “what did you notice?” •  Expectations to notice and learn, not to

change and “improve”

A Model of the Ethical Space

There is a seventh quality that adds to and epitomizes the other six qualities: •  Friendship—perfumes the entire

space with mutual well-wishing •  Just for reference, this is congruent

with both an Aristotelian and a Buddhist summary ethos •  Within a discourse of bounded being,

yet tilted towards the social •  Mutual well-wishing, without self-

involvement (Aristotle)

•  Metta practice (early Buddhist tradition)

The Ethical Space

Aristotle

Perfect friendship is the friendship of those who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good—and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. Aristotle.  (1934).  Nicomachean  ethics.  Cambridge,  MA:  Harvard  University  Press.  

Aristotle.  (1934).  Nichomachean  ethics.  Cambridge,  MA:  Harvard  University  Press.  

The Buddha

…Venerable Ananda went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, Venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord; admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie.” “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, and comrades, he can be expected to develop and pursue the noble eightfold path.” —Upaddha Sutta (SN 45.2)

Translated  from  the  Pali  by  Thanissaro  Bhikku  (1997–2012)  

Let’s say it in American •  We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all

the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human

family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many

persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we

honor, and who honor us! How many we see on the street, or sit with

in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read

the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth. ���

•  …Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship

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