The Middle Way between Faith-Based and Secular Education: Teaching Spiritual Practices in a World Religions Class (original) (raw)
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This qualitative study explores an eclectic range of meditation practices, and specifically considers: the phenomenology of the actual meditation experience, motives for taking up meditation and their evolution over time, and outcomes of meditation practice and the associated mechanisms of change. Employing Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis with a narrative focus, the researcher invited ten participants with a current meditation practice to participate in a semi-structured interview. The findings indicate that all participants gained considerably from their meditation practice, irrespective of the specific practice they undertook or the length of their practice, with a short (10-15 minutes), daily practice being sufficient to generate transformational change in the lives of some participants. Two additional mechanisms of change supporting such transformations, beyond those already reported in the literature, were uncovered: ‘an enhanced inner connection to self’ and ‘an enhanced inner connection beyond self’. Both these additional change mechanisms appear to directly link the phenomenology of the meditation experience to outcomes arising from practice. The study is the first to provide empirical validation for D.Shapiro’s (1992) three-stage model of motives, suggesting that motivations for meditating do evolve in a structured manner over time, at least for some individuals. These findings support the potential for using and prescribing meditation in clinical and counselling contexts.
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There has been much discussion of the growing need for spiritual education in school settings, but less investigation of the form and shape that such a practice might take. This article begins by recalling Hannan Alexander and Terence McLaughlin’s distinction between religiously ‘tethered’ and ‘untethered’ spirituality, but it then eschews these distinctions in favour of an anthropological, inclusive approach. The research question then focuses on the challenges and opportunities for introducing practices such as sensory awareness exercises, reflective practices or mindfulness meditation in educational settings in Ireland, North and South. Given the observation of Brenda Watson and Penelope Thompson that the disposition of the teacher is fundamental to the spirit of a subject, we focused the investigation on the experiences of teachers who undertook training in spiritual practices and then reflectively engaged with these practices in a classroom setting. The primary instrument of data collection was a ‘journal of contemplative practices’, which had an ordered structure in order to facilitate the collection of comparable data from the different sites involved. While interesting findings emerged from the 50 per cent of journals that were completed, questions did arise regarding the sites where the project was not completed. The reluctance of some teachers to implement the practices suggested that further work regarding the cultural sensitivities and pedagogical foundations for such practices needs to be undertaken.
Journal for the Study of Spirituality, 2012
There has been much discussion of the growing need for spiritual education in school settings, but less investigation of the form and shape that such a practice might take. This article begins by recalling Hannan Alexander and Terence McLaughlin's distinction between religiously 'tethered' and 'untethered' spirituality, but it then eschews these distinctions in favour of an anthropological, inclusive approach. who undertook training in spiritual practices and then reflectively engaged with these practices in a classroom setting. The primary instrument of data collection was a 'journal of contemplative practices', which had an ordered structure in order to facilitate the collection of comparable data from the different sites involved. While interesting findings emerged from the 50 per cent of journals that were completed, questions did arise regarding the sites where the project was not completed. The reluctance of some teachers to implement the practices suggested that further work regarding the cultural sensitivities and pedagogical foundations for such practices needs to be undertaken.
This report describes the first three iterations of the mini-course entitled "Meditation for Health," taught by a Health Educator at Emory University Student Health Services in the Fall semester of 2009 and Spring semester of 2010. The course was intended to introduce students to mindfulness meditation and lovingkindness meditation as tools for improving concentration, reducing stress, improving immunity to certain illnesses, and improving the meditators' overall sense of wellbeing. The evaluation suggests that the curriculum met its objectives and that university students are interested in learning meditation as a means of improving academic performance through enhanced concentration and sense of wellbeing. The report is intended as a reflection on the curriculum rather than as research findings.
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There has been a remarkable amount of interest in the relationship among spirituality, religion, psychology, and health of late. Contemporary interest in spirituality and religion is hot among not only the general population but among professionals in the mental and physical health disciplines. While most people believe in God and consider themselves to be spiritual, religious, or both, most mental health professionals have little if any training in this area. Psychologists can use spiritual and religious principles and tools to better serve their clients even if they do not share the same religious interests. The purpose of this article is to offer thirteen spiritual and religious tools common among all of the major religious traditions that can be used by contemporary professional psychologists in clinical practice to enhance the already high quality professional services that they provide. Examples of spiritually and religiously integrated treatment along with several ethical precautions are noted as well.
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Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2016
Despite its ubiquity, the term spiritual capital continues to lack a sufficient level of empirical scrutiny to merit categorical independence from its religious variant. To remedy this gap, this article presents an ethnographic study of a meditation group called the Dhyana Centre situated at the heart of London UK, and offers a bottom-up account of the ways in which spiritual capital is recognised, exchanged, and adopted in the absence of institutional mechanisms of legitimacy. Building on Verter's conceptualisation of spiritual capital as originally derived from Bourdieu's theory of practice, this study argues that the distinct configuration between knowledgeable and practical mastery in dynamics of spiritual capital exchange marks a modus operandi which is not fully accounted for by conventional notions of religious capital. This study of spiritual capital thus allows for the translation of a notoriously slippery phenomenon into a much more tangible object of study without having to resort to essentialist readings of spirituality
Meditation as a kind of leisure: the similarities and differences in the United States
Leisure Studies, 2014
Meditation has been shown to be a cost-effective means to help individuals reduce stress, alleviate anxiety and depression. Similarly, leisure has been found to reduce stress, improve mood and contribute to overall health and well-being. The similarities and differences in outcomes between meditation and leisure suggest that a comparative analysis may determine if and how experiences and outcomes of meditation may be similar to and different from those of leisure and provide deeper insights into the ways in which both can contribute to improved quality of life. The purpose of this study is to examine the similarities and differences in meditation and leisure as perceived by a range of individuals engaging in meditation. Results indicate that meditators experience stress reduction, emotional balance and an enhanced quality of life during both their leisure and meditation. Many of the positive experiences and outcomes derived from meditation render it very similar to leisure. Nevertheless, meditation and leisure also differ in several important ways.
Modern postural yoga is an amalgamation of practices that continues to defy traditional explanatory models that understand religious, spiritual, and secular to be mutually exclusive categories. In this project, I conduct in-depth interviews with yoga instructors in the Ozarks. In these interviews, I asked my informants to explain how they understand religious, spiritual, and secular. I then asked if and how they would use those words to describe yoga. These interviews revealed that religious, spiritual, and secular are not mutually exclusive, but are instead related, blended, and connected, especially when used to describe yoga. These findings inform my proposed explanatory model which reflects how my interviewees talk about yoga with respect to these categories.