Workshops

Please join us for a preconference on Reimagining Contemplative Education at this pivotal moment in history when the opportunities for developing a common scholarly language, building community, engaging in collaborative research and practice, and networking within and across different educational settings in relation to Contemplative Education seem genuinely limited. These challenges can be seen as opportunities for renewal, and we see this as a critically important time to reimagine what Contemplative Education could be as a field of scholarly study and practice.

The goal of this preconference is to realize the opportunity for renewal that is at hand by spending time together: (a) determining the range of interests, expertise, and research within our broadly defined field; (b) discussing and defining what we mean by “Contemplative Education;” (c) experiencing contemplative practice together; (d) starting to build community; and (e) planning for future meetings in terms of a newly formed collaborative network.

What is Contemplative Education and what is its relevance during this time of global change and the movement towards AI? What are the best pedagogical approaches and desired outcomes of Contemplative Education? What educator qualifications are needed? What theories can guide research and practice in this regard, and what does research regarding Contemplative Education say currently about this endeavor? Finally, what opportunities and barriers exist currently regarding the introduction of contemplative practices in schools and higher education settings, and how can we better organize ourselves to collectively take advantage of such opportunities and overcome barriers? In this preconference, we will engage with these issues in a dialogic and collaborative way as a means of beginning to form a new network around Contemplative Education. We hope you will join us.

Although people of the Global Majority (e.g., people of Indigenous, African, Asian, Middle-Eastern, and Latin American heritage) are 85 percent of the global population, their perspectives and priorities are underrepresented in contemplative research. To establish a knowledge base that is rigorous, ethical and valid, we must critically examine and disrupt default perspectives and methodological practices that perpetuate scientific colonization, and develop new frameworks and methods that advance equity and collective liberation (Buchanan et al., 2021; Clark-Goings et al., 2023; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012).  

In this preconference workshop, contemplative scholars from across the humanities, education, clinical sciences, neuroscience, and other disciplines will convene to explore questions including: What are efficacious liberatory research frameworks and how can they be applied across disciplines of contemplative research? How do our positionalities, contexts and awareness shape how we show up in contemplative spaces (including this conference) and the work that we do? How may taking a relational approach to contemplative practices and science advance equity in a manner that honors common humanity? How can participatory methods promote liberatory practices in contemplative science? We will include opportunities for practice and application, and attendees will leave with experiences, expanded awareness, practical tools and strategies to employ in their work.  

We hope to create a Learning Community that can continue to engage this awareness, consideration and engaged inquiry throughout the conference and beyond, ultimately developing a set of guidelines and practical strategies for promoting efficacious liberation, inclusion and equity in contemplative research. 

Attending to the heart is not easy but it might be useful and perhaps necessary in order to understand and counteract some of the tensions, the indifference, and the intercultural misunderstandings that characterize our contemporary world. Is it possible to give the qualities of the heart more space in research and teaching, in scientific criticism, and in our engagement with the communities and environments in which we live and work? Can the bodily, emotional, and spiritual heart be both an object of enquiry and a starting point for research? In this talk I introduce audiovisual, multimodal, and microphenomenological methods that I believe can help us to address these questions by deepening our understanding of the role of the senses, the body, and emotions in human life. I also invite for a short auto-elicitation exercise and present examples from ongoing research on the ways in which practitioners in Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim traditions relate to the heart and how in different ways they experience and seek to cultivate love in their lives. Taking inspiration from the exercise and these examples I hope to engage the audience in a discussion about what an anthropology of and from the heart would look like.

Subjectively, people tend to feel engaging in a contemplative practice has a huge effect on them. However, objective evidence for such effects is often lagging behind. In this workshop, we will discuss suitable outcome measures to quantify the effect of contemplative practices. We will discuss tasks, paradigms, psychological and biological measures that may show the most promise. In tandem, we will discuss what the target psychological constructs are for a variety of contemplative practices. We hope to end with an outcomes measure registry that includes a repository of target tasks and measures that can then be used across labs to build a more solid base of evidence.

Following the ISCR Meeting 2024, we will hold a 90-minute post-conference session aimed at (a) evaluating insights and experiences around frontiers in Contemplative Education explored at the conference; (b) planning for future activities and gatherings to continue the momentum around these frontiers and the more general task of reimagining Contemplative Education going forward; and (c) establishing a mentorship network that supports the creation and development of educational programs in Contemplative Studies. We warmly welcome you and encourage you to attend this post-conference reflection and planning meeting. 

The field of contemplative research has many unresolved issues, no doubt. But the one that makes us the most uncomfortable is the question of should a contemplative researcher, scholar, or educator have a personal contemplative practice in order to be able to competently work in their particular area? Or is it better to completely abjure any personal practice in order to do the most objective work? At issue here is the question of whether or not bringing in a subjective perspective in any way actually informs or biases our own research. Directly related to this is the issue of whether any research is truly objective. Finally, how does this question pertain to contemplative educators? To what extent should we ourselves have our own contemplative practice in order to be responsible teachers in the primary, secondary, and post-secondary classroom. And if we are educational researchers, to what extent is our work improved or biased by our own personal practice?

This session offers guidance and inspiration for enriching your approach to mentoring with contemplative approaches as well as best practices for developing more effective mentorship programs. We will discuss how we developed a nonhierarchical mentorship paradigm wherein both mentors and mentees grow and learn. We will demonstrate how mentorship grounded in contemplative practices can deepen inquiry and insight in research, clinical practice, teaching, and other scholarly activities. We will demonstrate how to center the development and leadership of Global Majority (aka BIPOC) scholars, clinicians, educators, and researchers towards the advancement of all scholars and institutions. This model challenges the status quo by building an inclusive educational culture that nurtures individual development and professional success, interpersonal holistic growth, and institutional equity. Our vision of successful mentorship is not just about navigating present challenges but reimagining what mentor-mentee relationships can achieve in the rich tapestry of global academic communities. 

Participants in this session will learn:

• How contemplative practice can be incorporated into mentorship
• How to effectively mentor and be mentored by Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Arab and Asian scholars
• How to engage contemplative practices in eliminating racism, ableism, Islamophobia and other inequities in higher education and the academy.

Presenters in this workshop will briefly review research highlights of the current renaissance of psychedelic-assisted therapy for treating conditions such as treatment-resistant major depression, substance abuse disorders, trauma and existential anxiety, and potential neural and psychosocial mechanisms of action. They will consider efforts within these realms to incorporate mindfulness and other contemplative training into preparation and integration components of the therapy. The bulk of the workshop will be devoted to informal interactive discussion of issues regarding research methodology and best practices, and ethical considerations in psychedelic assisted therapy more generally.