Spring 2011 Retreat

Dear Educators:

The spring semester Mindfulness and Education Retreat is just around the corner (April 22-24) and I am looking forward to practicing with you again very soon. Though Thay Phap Dung has been a key leader for these bi-annual retreats, he will be away at Plum Village for this one. The other monks and nuns of Deer Park are sure to facilitate a great learning environment for the students and faculty.

As we consider this retreat, what are you looking from the weekend? What kinds of things could be handled differently than in the past? What are your personal aspirations of practice?

I hope we can use this space to reconnect before the retreat.

Peace.
Kenley

about 1 year ago unsworth responded:

Hi Kenley!

I just registered for the retreat - hooray! (and a sigh here too - even thinking about the retreat helps me to feel more relaxed :) There are also some students from my class who have registered, so I'm excited about that. I don't offer extra credit for students to attend and I think it's great that students are drawn to the retreat anyway. I always enjoy Thay Phap Dung's stability, teachings, and humor at the retreats, so I will miss him this semester, but I know he will still be there in many ways :) If you know of any way I can help out, just let me know.

I do have one question or theme that I would be interested in exploring at the retreat: What are the conditions that allow us to facilitate mindfulness and meditation activities in our education contexts? I find that sometimes the conditions are sufficient for me to lead meditation activities, and sometimes the conditions do not seem sufficient. What are the challenges we face in leading these activities, and how can we actively create the appropriate conditions? In my classrooms at SDSU, the dynamic between myself and the students often changes. Some students love learning about mindfulness and meditation, and other students consider it to be a waste of time. I notice that when I am more stable in myself and my practice, I have more confidence to lead these activities. But I also wonder about what I can do to introduce these activities in a way that eases students' worries, uncertainty, and discomfort when I introduce these activities. There seems to be a thin line between mindfulness and some idea we have of something new-agey and irrelevant. As a psychologist, I can present mindfulness research to set the stage for mindfulness and meditation in my psychology classes, but students are sometimes still uncomfortable. I am interested in learning from the experiences of other educators - how do you introduce mindfulness in a secular context?

My personal aspirations of practice at this time are to continue learning and developing ways of increasing selflessness in my ideas and actions.

Thanks for opening up this conversation. Let me know if you receive this email because I'm not totally convinced that posting on a blog should be this easy :) Also - I can't seem to find a password for the meditation and education blog - could you send a reminder for how to log in? Thanks!

See you soon
Sara

Meditation and Education

About