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3
The 3rd International Conference of The Institute of Mind
Humanities
: Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
: 2013. 2. 15() ~ 16()
:
:
: (NRF)
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International ConferenceThe Institute of Mind Humanities
Wonkwang University
I. Conference Title
: Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
II. Time and Place
1) Date: February 15th(Fri.) ~ 16th(Sat.), 2013
2) Location: Soongsan Memorial Building
Wonkwang University, Iksan, Korea
III. Organization and Sponsorship
1) Host: The Institute of Mind Humanities, Wonkwang
University
2) Sponsorship: National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
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2 15()
10:30~10:50
10:50~11:00 (, )
11:00~11:50 , U.
(, )
11:50~13:00
13:00~13:50 (, )
13:50~14:40 , , J. (, )
14:40~15:00
15:00~15:50 ( )
15:50~16:40 , ? :
( )
16:40~17:00
17:00~17:50 :
( )
18:00~19:30
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2 16()
10:00~10:50 Sri Aurobindo ( )
10:50~11:40 ( )
11:40~11:50
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February 15th (Fri.) Program
Time Schedule Presenters
10:30~10:50 Registration
10:50~11:00 Opening Address
Han, Nae Chang(Director,
The Institute of Mind Humanities)
11:00~11:50 The Role of Morality in Mindfulness TrainingKrgeloh,
Christian U. (Auckland University
of Technology New Zealand)
11:50~13:00 Lunch
13:00~13:50 The Spiritual Foundation of Moral EducationWong,
Ping Ho
(The Hong Kong Institute of Education)
13:50~14:40 Mindfulness, Meditation and Free AssociationRosen,
Helen J.
(The Won Institute of Graduate Studies)
14:40~15:00 Break
15:00~15:50 Embodied Mind Model of HealingRhee, Young E
(Kangwon National Univ. Humanities Therapy Project)
15:50~16:40 How Can We Find a Peace of Mind Departing from
Anger? : Dynamics of anger and peace of mind
Kim, Kyung Ho (Chonnam National Univ.
Institute of Honam Studies)
16:40~17:00 Break
17:00~17:50 The Humanities Therapeutic Approach to Yeatss Later
Poetry : The Acceptance and Overcoming of Ageing
Yu, Keon Sang (Kangwon National Univ.
Humanities Therapy Project)
18:00~19:30 Dinner
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February 16th (Sat.) Program
Time Schedule Presenters
10:00~10:50 The Structure of Mind and Mind Education in Sri
Aurobindo's Thought
Jung, Hyejung (Wonkwang Uni.
The Institute of Mind Humanities)
10:50~11:40 Understanding of Mind in Buddhism and Mindfulness in
Daily Life
Jang, Jin Young(Wonkwang Uni.
The Institute of Mind Humanities)
11:40~11:50 Closing
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training / Krgeloh,
Christian U. 1 [] / , U. 20
The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education / Wong, Ping Ho 33
[] / 62
Mindfulness, Meditation and Free Association / Rosen, Helen J.
65 [] , / , J. 80
Embodied Mind Model of Healing / Rhee, Young E 93 [] / 104
, ? : / 107 [Abstract] How Can We Find a Peace of Mind Departing
from Anger? : Dynamics of anger and peace of mind / Kim, Kyung Ho
134
The Humanities Therapeutic Approach to Yeatss Later Poetry : The
Acceptance and Overcoming of Ageing / Yu, Keon Sang 137 [] : /
150
Sri Aurobindo / 153 [Abstract] The Structure of Mind and Mind
Education in Sri Aurobindo's Thought / Jung, Hyejung 176
/ 187 [Abstract] Understanding of Mind in Buddhism and
Mindfulness in Daily Life / Jang, Jin Young 212
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1
The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
Krgeloh, Christian U. *1)(Ph. D, Department of Psychology,
Auckland University of Technology New Zealand)
AbstractThe present paper gives an outline of the role morality
plays in mindfulness
training. Three of the most commonly used mindfulness-based
psychological
interventions are mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR),
mindfulness-based
cognitive therapy (MBCT) and action and commitment therapy
(ACT). The first
two were directly inspired by Buddhist teachings, and all of
these so-called
mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have been receiving much
attention in the
recent psychological literature.
Much research has established the effectiveness of MBIs, but the
mechanism
of their beneficial health effects still needs to be
investigated in more detail.
Many of these MBIs are delivered as a package containing a
variety of
exercises, and the search for a core common ingredient is meant
to inform the
theoretical links between mindfulness practice and psychological
wellbeing.
Because of the roots of mindfulness in religious traditions,
such as Buddhism,
comparisons are also frequently made with religions, especially
also because
religions contain a much wider range of practices including
devotional,
traditional and cultural than MBIs, which have been deliberately
designed to be
secular.
* , .
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
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One issue of contention in the recent academic literature is the
role that
morality plays in mindfulness training. Some scholars argued
that restricting
MBIs to mindfulness and meditation practices has led to too much
of a reduction
compared to Buddhist traditions, which also place emphasis on
developing
morality and wisdom. The present paper discusses the validity of
these arguments
and speculates to what extent morality might play an important
role in Western
MBIs even if it is not explicitly or formally instructed.
Psychology as a scientific discipline is secular, but because of
its application
in all domains of life, it is inevitably confronted with
religious practices,
behaviors and traditions. Religions no doubt play a powerful
role in the
maintenance of peoples psychological wellbeing, such as in its
resources to
provide coping mechanisms during times of stress. Religious
coping has thus
been described as serving multiple functions, including
generating a framework
for problem-focused coping or providing access to emotional and
instrumental
support from a religious community (Krgeloh, 2011; Krgeloh,
Chai, Shepherd,
& Billington, 2012). On many occasions, psychology limits
its treatment of
religious practices purely to description of behaviors, which
appears to be the
preference in a science that intends to remain objective
(Schoenfeld, 1993). If
this approach is followed, psychology continues to be secular
and avoids any
direct engagement with the metaphysical assumptions that
underlie religious
traditions.
In recent years, mindfulness practices and programs for
psychological
intervention have started to enjoy a surge of popularity
(Williams & Kabat-Zinn,
2011). As part of so-called third wave therapies (Hayes, 2004),
mindfulness exercises
have been practiced systematically to produce various
psychological benefits. While
such programs maintain a secular flavor, they are largely
adapted from Buddhist
traditions (Kabat-Zinn, 2003; Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). There
is now ample empirical
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
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evidence that demonstrates that mindfulness practice is
generally associated with
positive psychological outcomes as well as other health benefits
(Eberth and
Sedlmeier, in press; Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach,
2004), but the precise
mechanisms by which this happens still need to be explored.
During the process of
secularization of mindfulness practice, many religious practices
were discarded, and the
question now is whether what remains is indeed the core active
ingredient of
mindfulness practice, or whether too much has been removed. One
such element
relates to moral practice. Rules of conduct and morality are
integral to any kind of
religious practice, while psychology is descriptive as opposed
to being prescriptive.
The present article outlines discussions in the academic
literature about the
similarity between the mindfulness practices in Buddhist
traditions as opposed to
MBIs. Core to this discussion is the definition of mindfulness
per se, as some
scholars have recently expressed concern that the practice of
MBIs has become
too incongruent with that of Buddhist traditions. The present
paper discusses the
validity of these arguments and speculates to what extent
morality might play an
important role in Western MBIs even if it is not explicitly or
formally instructed,
nor formally included in its theoretical definitions of
mindfulness.
The rise of mindfulness-based psychological interventions
The actual term mindfulness has only recently been used
frequently in the
psychological literature, although related and overlapping
psychological processes
or phenomena have always been part of psychological therapies to
some extent.
These include the psychodynamic techniques, such as free
association and
interpretation, transference and countertransference, as well as
cognitive-behavioral
tools, including decentering and deautomization (Martin, 1997).
Within the various
psychological paradigms, therefore, concepts and processes
similar to mindfulness
have been integrated into psychological theory, but the recent
popularity of the
concept in psychology has led to attempts to define the concept
more broadly,
which has been a challenging task. A definition of mindfulness
that is one of the
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
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most commonly cited in the psychological literature has been
provided by
Kabat-Zinn (1994): paying attention in a particular way: on
purpose, in the
present moment, and non-judgmentally (p. 4). More detail and a
wider range of
aspects has been given by Bishop et al. (2004), who see
mindfulness as a
process of regulating attention in order to bring a quality of
nonelaborative
awareness to current experience and a quality of relating to
ones experience
within an orientation of curiosity, experiential openness, and
acceptance. We
further see mindfulness as a process of gaining insight into the
nature of ones
mind and the adoption of a de-centered perspectiveon thoughts
and feelings so
that they can be experienced in terms of their subjectivity
(versus their necessary
validity) and transient nature (versus their permanence)
(p.234).
Three widely used MBIs include acceptance and commitment therapy
(ACT;
Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999), mindfulness-based stress
reduction (MBSR,
Kabat-Zinn, 1990), and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy
(MBCT) (Segal,
Williams, & Teasdale, 2002). The latter two have been
specifically designed as
therapies for particular psychological health issues, namely
coping with chronic
pain and stress, and relapse from depression, respectively.
Meditation is a central
intervention tool in MBSR and MBCT, while ACT uses a variety of
mindfulness
exercises within its therapeutic framework, which may or may not
include
meditation.
MBSR (Kabat-Zinn, 1990) was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and is
now
offered in many places around the world. Participants in this
program typically
get together in evening groups for 8 to 10 weeks, as well as one
full-day
workshop half way through the program. During the weekly
sessions, the
instructors introduce participants to various meditation and
mindfulness techniques,
such as mindfulness meditation, Hatha yoga, breathing exercises,
body scan
exercises, as well as mindful walking and eating. As the program
progresses,
participants are gradually taught how to apply these techniques
to their everyday
lives. This is reinforced through the use of homework tasks,
such as a diary, as
well as the expectation to practice mindfulness techniques daily
for around
45min.
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
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MBCT was designed as a therapy for patients who have
previously
recovered from depression but who are still vulnerable to
relapse (Segal et al.,
2002). The goal here, therefore, is more explicitly on changing
the ways in
which participants respond to their own cognitions. Through
mindfulness
exercises, clients learn to change the habit in which they
typically process
cognitions, in order to prevent re-emergence of depression when
they are faced
with new challenging situations. Instead of focusing too much on
the literal
content of their thoughts, clients are taught to observe them in
a non-judgmental
manner. This way, they will come to understand that thoughts are
impermanent
and transient, and more importantly that the actual content of
the thoughts is not
always accurate. Many clients with depression engage in forms of
negative
self-talk, which start a downward spiral of a depressive
episode. With MBCT,
however, clients learn that they do not need to identify
themselves with these
thoughts and react to them blindly, but instead learn to observe
them
non-judgmentally. A person having the thought I am useless, for
example, thus
becomes aware that I am having a thought that I am useless. MBCT
uses a
similarly structured program to MBSR. But because of its focus
on depression, it
includes more exercises on cognitions, such as observation of
the associations
between mood and worried thoughts (Evans, Ferrando, Findler,
Stowell, Smart, &
Haglin, 2008).
In contrast to MBSR and MBCT, ACT uses mindfulness techniques
within
its broader therapeutic framework, and thus there is not the
same kind of
structured program for mindfulness practice. One of the main
therapeutic goals of
ACT is acceptance of negative thoughts and feelings (Hayes,
2004). As with the
other MBIs, clients are taught to accept the occurrence of
negative thoughts and
simply be aware of them first instead of reacting to them
immediately. A variety
of breathing and meditation exercises can be used, but often the
habit of
acceptance is fostered through regular conversations with the
therapist. In one
simple exercise, for example, the therapist presents the client
with a series of
cards with written sentences of examples of negative self-talk
statements (Spiegler
& Guevrement, 2010). The client is eventually understands
the analogy between
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 6 -
the sentences and his/her thoughts. In other words, just as one
can distance
oneself from the meaning of written sentences by perceiving them
as a series of
letters, so can thoughts be regarded simply as a series of
words. This exercise of
teaching different ways of perceiving is thus intended to
reinforce the realization
that one does not need to react blindly to the literal content
of thoughts.
To what extent MBIs are effective is yet to be formally
established (st,
2008; Spiegler & Guevrement, 2010). In a meta-analysis,
Hayes, Luoma, Bond,
Masuda, and Lillis (2006) showed that ACT appears to provide
results that are
clinically significant and superior to treatment as usual,
although other evidence
only points to equivalence with other psychological
interventions (Powers, Zum
Vrde Sive Vrding, & Emmelkamp, 2009). More research has been
conducted
about the effectiveness of MBSR, but also there, more research
is needed (Baer,
2003; Grossman et al., 2004). MBSR has been shown to produce
positive and
clinically significant results for a range of problems,
including chronic pain
(Kabat-Zinn, 1982), coping with cancer symptoms (Grossman et
al., 2004; Smith,
Richardson, Hoffman, & Pilkington, 2005), as well as
wellbeing, depression and
anxiety in female patients with fibromyalgia (Grossman,
Tiefenthaler-Gilmer,
Raysz, & Kesper, 2007). In nonclinical situations, MBSR has
been used as a tool
for relationship improvement in couples (Carson, Carson, Gil,
& Baucom, 2004)
and to help nurses cope with their stressful workloads
(Mackenzie, Poulin, &
Seidman-Carlson, 2006). Studies investigating the effectiveness
of MBIs often
struggle with methodological limitations, such as small sample
sizes, attrition, or
lack adequate control or comparison groups (Baer, 2003).
Which elements exactly are responsible for the positive effects
of the
mindfulness practice taught in MBIs still needs to be
investigated (Lau &
McMain, 2005). According to Kabat-Zinn (2003), the effectiveness
of MBSR is
not simply due to relaxation, but due to the development of
meta-cognitive skills.
Clients learn to maintain a non-judgmental attitude towards
their sensations and
simply observe them as they occur in the present moment. This
definition of
mindfulness as non-judgmental awareness, however, has been a
point of
contention in recent academic debates. Dreyfus (2011), for
example, argued that,
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
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unlike MBIs, Buddhist practice attempts to achieve cognitive
transformation rather
than simply self-acceptance. Mindfulness in Buddhism is thus
different, as it
contains evaluative, discriminative, and introspective
components, such as when
assessing ones spiritual progress or judging whether ones
behavior is in line
with moral guidelines and precepts. In the Buddhist Pali canon,
mindfulness is
described as only one part of the noble eightfold path to
overcoming suffering,
which includes right understanding, right thought, right speech,
right action, right
livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right
concentration (Rahula, 1974).
To what extent secular psychological therapies have limited the
conceptualization
of mindfulness too much, particularly in respect to morality,
will be the topic of
the following sections.
Is the concept of mindfulness in psychology different from that
of Buddhism?
Gethin (2011) listed four types of attitudes that one could hold
about MBIs:
Firstly, these recent developments are a distortion of
traditional Buddhism and no
longer align with the Buddhist goals of salvation, namely the
elimination of
greed, anger and delusion. Secondly, MBIs are just another way
to spread the
dharma to more people. Thirdly, the core teachings of Buddhism
are maintained
in MBIs, and only the unnecessary historical and cultural
appendages of
Buddhism have been removed. Lastly, MBIs combine Western
psychological
science with Buddhist practices to create an approach that is
superior to
traditional Buddhism.
MBIs are deliberately non-religious, as they have been designed
to appeal to
a wide range of people of different religious and cultural
backgrounds. Cullen
(2011) wonders to what extent MBIs might even become some kind
of new,
American Dharma (p.190), namely one that has distanced itself
from Buddhism
and is thus some form of universal dharma (Cullen, 2011;
Kabat-Zinn, 2011).
Future developments will show to what extent MBIs will
eventually become their
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
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own Buddhist lineage, but one must not forget the fact that
participants in MBIs
often develop an interest in mindfulness practice for health
benefits or as part of
psychological intervention, while practitioners of Buddhist
traditions typically have
a lesser focus on immediate health benefits (Krgeloh, 2012)
The motivations of people to develop and deliver MBIs and people
to
participate in them are likely to be related to the way in which
mindfulness itself
is conceptualized. Mindfulness may thus have been defined and
practiced in ways
that are starting to deviate substantially from traditional
Buddhism, as has been
the criticism in recent academic debates. The English term
mindfulness appears to
have had its origins in the translation work of Rhys Davids
during the late
19thcentury(Gethin,2011).TheoriginalmeaningofthePaliwordsati is
memory, but the
word gradually gained additional meanings in Buddhist scriptures
(Bodhi, 2011),
which eventually lead to the decision to translate into English
as mindfulness.
Memory and mindfulness is certainly somewhat intertwined, as
Buddhist
practitioners are encouraged to bring to mind the teachings of
the dharma in
every single action. In the classical text The Questions of King
Milinda, the
Buddhist monk Ngasena answers the questions of the Indo-Greek
king Menander
I. Here, Ngasena describes mindfulness as a lack of drifting of
the mind.
However, in addition to focusing ones thought within the present
moment,
Ngasena also emphasizes the role of ethical components in
mindfulness, such as
when discriminating between wholesome and unwholesome mental
states. It is for
that reason that Dreyfus (2011) argues that mindfulness in the
Buddhist sense is
different from Kabat-Zinns (1994) definition of non-judgmental
awareness, as
mindfulness according to Ngasena contains elements of
evaluation, discrimination,
and introspection. Dreyfus argues that the emphasis of MBIs on
self-acceptance
and a non-judgmental attitude may be beneficial for
psychological interventions,
especially for people with ruminative and depressive thought
patterns. However,
within Buddhism, this constitutes only a small part of everyday
practice. Instead,
Buddhism is more concerned with cognitive transformation than
self-acceptance,
and therefore the kind of mindfulness that Buddhism promotes is
better described
as wise mindfulness (Dreyfus, 2011).
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
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An evaluative component of mental states is also implicit in the
Pali canon,
where distinctions are made between wholesome and unwholesome
mental states.
The noble eightfold path includes sammsati
(right/wholesome/complete
mindfulness) as one of eight elements of the path towards the
end of suffering
(Kang & Whittingham, 2010), with the complete list being:
right understanding,
right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood,
right effort, right
mindfulness, and right concentration (Rahula, 1974). The first
two factors
constitute the practice of praj (wisdom), the subsequent three
la (ethical
conduct), and the last three are part of samdhi (concentration).
In Buddhist
practice, all three factors are dynamically related. Ethical
conduct, for example, is
the basis for mindfulness, but ethical conduct also relies on
mindfulness to recall
which wholesome behaviors are to be encouraged (Kang &
Whittingham, 2010).
Similarly, wisdom is necessary to understand the need for
ethical conduct and
concentration. Again, this implies that the practitioner cannot
be completely
non-judgmental, but must evaluate and appraise his or her mental
states (Bodhi,
2011).
The reason for the association of mindfulness with
non-judgmental
awareness in MBIs may be related to the use of the expression
bare attention.
The German-born Theravada monk Nyanaponika typically referred to
bare
attentionthe fleeting moment of awareness before one
conceptualizes and
identifies an objectin his teachings of mindfulness (Bodhi,
2011). Other scholars
or teachers continued the disseminations of Buddhist teachings
to the West with
the understanding of mindfulness as bare attention as well as
with references to
non-judgmental awareness (Gethin, 2011). However, to what extent
bare attention
is a part of mindfulness or whether it can be equated to it, is
contentious among
Buddhist scholars. Bodhi (2011) argues that bare attention has
its use as teaching
instructions for cultivating mindfulness, but that it is not
valid as a theoretical
account, for the above-mentioned reasons that mindfulness in
Buddhism involves
evaluation of wholesome and unwholesome mental states.
How does the Western secular conceptualization of mindfulness
compare
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 10 -
with that of different Buddhist schools of thought?
The above discussion has started to highlight some differences
between the
Western secular conceptualization of mindfulness and that of
Buddhism. However,
since Buddhism is far from being a uniform body of teaching,
the
above-mentioned differences may just as much be a reflection of
differences of
various traditions within Buddhism. The mindfulness promoted in
MBIs, therefore,
may thus be more similar to certain types of Buddhism and less
so with others.
Within the same above-mentioned special issue of the journal
Contemporary
Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Dunne (2011) provides a
response to
some of the arguments that the Western and Buddhist
conceptualizations of
mindfulness were different. According to Dunne (2011), Dreyfus
(2011)
interpretation that mindfulness must contain an evaluative
component is based on
the Abhidhamma, a part of the Pali Canon from around 100 B.C.E.
A strand of
the Mahmudr tradition, in contrast, which started to emerge from
the seventh
century C.E., more accurately matches the approach to
mindfulness that is
presented by todays MBIs. The particular feature that Dunne
(2011) describes is
a type of practice that transcends subject-object duality, which
was articulated in
Mahmudr traditions but not in the Abhidhamma. The latter can be
described as
a form of constructivism, where certain cognitions, such as the
faulty belief in a
permanent ego, must be eliminated, and other qualities must be
developed. The
Mahmudr tradition, in contrast, teaches that all cognitive
patterns hinder the
emergence of ones innate Buddha nature. In other words, the
qualities that a
Buddha embodies are not acquired through learning, but by
unlearning, such as
discarding cognitions that discriminate between space, time, and
identity.
The meditation instructions in the Mahmudr tradition emphasize
abiding in
the present moment and returning ones mind to its natural state,
namely a state
of non-conceptual awareness. The meditator concentrates on his
or her breath, but
also gradually enters into a state without any explicit focus.
All cognitions are
believed to involve effort, and must be abandoned to reveal a
state of calm
awareness without evaluation and judgment. These meditation
instructions are
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
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obviously highly congruent with Kabat-Zinns (1994) definition of
mindfulness
that makes reference to non-judgmental awareness. Dunne (2011)
is aware that
one must not confuse practical meditation instructions with
theoretical discussions
and definitions of mindfulness, and he does to fall into this
trap. Instead, he
continues his discussion of the implications of meditation
instructions on the
development of a state of mindfulness. The need for a
discriminating process to
monitor progress in ones practice is the reason that Dreyfus
(2011) presents
against the conceptualization of mindfulness as pure
non-judgmental awareness. It
appears like a paradox that a beginner engaging in practices of
non-judgmental
awareness must recall the instructions regularly not to evaluate
and also evaluate
to what extent his or her state of mind is consistent with these
instructions.
Dunne (2011) argues that this kind of monitoring process still
involves cognitive
effort and thus falls short of the ultimate goal of non-dual
practice, namely the
natural and non-conceptual state of the mind. In contrast to
monitoring and
effortful mindfulness, the non-dual state is best described as
an effortless
mindfulness, which thus resembles the definitions typically used
in the literature
of MIBs.
Dunne (2011) limited the scope of his discussion to links the
Mahmudr
tradition, and admitted that his arguments were only of
exploratory nature. Links
to additional Buddhist theoretical frameworks would strengthen
his line of
arguments that the Western secular conceptualization of
mindfulness has more
similarities with those of later emerging schools of Buddhism
than traditional
Buddhism. In regard to non-dual practice and thinking, Mdhyamaka
philosophy
and the teachings of Ngrjuna around emptiness (should
immediately come to
mind. Emptiness follows from the concept of causality in
Buddhism, since every
event is thought to be causally related to another and thus
lacks its own
self-nature (Cooper, 2002). The concept of emptiness must
nevertheless not be
interpreted as nihilistic (Abe, 1975). While everything is
empty, this is not meant
as a contrast to form, as emptiness itself is empty, and the
distinction between
emptiness and form is transcended. To distinguish between the
two uses of
emptiness (emptiness as contrasted with form versus emptiness
that transcends
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 12 -
this contrast), Mdhyamaka philosophy speaks in the latter case
of true emptiness
(). The term wondrous being () then refers to being that is
dynamically indistinguishable from emptiness.
The relevance of the concept of emptiness to mindfulness
practice emerges
when trying to integrate seemingly contradictory notions: on one
hand, a
definition of mindfulness as non-judgmental and
non-discriminating awareness, and
on the other, the inevitable necessity to participate in a world
that presents itself
as phenomena and thus requires discriminations and
categorizations. As Abe
(1975) states, the Buddhist idea of Emptiness can be properly
realised not
conceptually, but only holistically, subjectively, or
existentially through the
realisation of ones existence as a self-contradictory oneness of
being and
non-being (p.188). Awakening to the concept of true emptiness
that transcends
an opposition of concepts, such as good and evil, provides new
mystical insights
and a mechanism for Buddhist salvation. As a result of the view
that the Buddha
nature is inherent in all of us, practitioners in Mahyna
traditions are typically
instructed to discard delusions in order to reveal their
original and
non-discriminating mind, which is thought to function naturally
without cognitive
effort, attachment, and distortions, and which is thus often
referred to as no
thought in chn Buddhism (Allen, 2010; Yampolsky, 1967). Similar
to Dunnes
(2011) description of effortless mindfulness, mindfulness that
is thought to result
from the awakening to ones Buddha nature is said to operate in
the background,
even when the working mind is occupied with daily tasks that
require
discriminations, categorizations, and judgments (Zhu, 2005).
Conclusion: What is the role of morality in Western mindfulness
training?
As discussed so far in the present article, there is no
straightforward answer
to the question to what extent the emphasis on non-judgmental
awareness during
the conceptualization of mindfulness in MBIs has deviated from
that of Buddhist
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The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
- 13 -
traditions. The arguments presented above against the
non-judgmental nature of
mindfulness (e.g. Dreyfus, 2011) appear to be relevant in the
context of an
non-enlightened practitioner monitoring his or her progress in
mindfulness
training, but less so when non-judgmental awareness is used in
the sense of the
non-dual concept of no thought in thought. As discussed, one
needs to be
cautious not to confuse instructions of mindfulness practice
with mindfulness per
se, as well as whether a definition of mindfulness is intended
to describe the
state of mind of someone who has perfected his or her practice
or whether it
encompasses the mind of the many more who have not reached that
point.
It is clear that MBIs do not place the same explicit emphasis on
the
development of praj (wisdom) and la (ethical conduct) as
Buddhist traditions.
That does not necessarily imply that they are totally absent.
Similarly, not every
tradition actively practices loving-kindness meditation, but
this does not imply that
only followers of those traditions develop the relevant
qualities. Maex (2011)
noted that participants in eight-week mindfulness programs
naturally developed
more compassion for animals, and Cullen (2011) even argued that
intention to
cause harm and mindfulness simply cannot occur simultaneously.
One thus needs
to be careful not to confuse elements of mindfulness with
outcomes of
mindfulness practice. Brown and Ryan (2004), for example, argue
that a
definition of mindfulness does not need to make explicit
references to acceptance,
as this follows directly from giving full attention to the
present moment, as
opposed to re-directing attention to alter, avoid or escape a
certain situation.
Proponents of MBIs have nevertheless acknowledged the importance
of
ethical conduct (Kabat-Zinn, 2011). The reason that ethical
conduct is not given
much formal emphasis in MBIs is the secular nature of such
programs. As
Cullen (2011) described, a secular program cannot prescribe a
single set of
ethical guidelines in order to avoid contradictions with belief
systems of
participants from the often very diverse cultural and religious
backgrounds. There
is no doubt that participants in such programs will bring with
them their own
personal ethical rules of conduct, and ethics in MBIs thus
inevitably relates back
to personal responsibility. As Kabat-Zinn (2011) describes it,
MBIs contain an
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 14 -
ethical foundation in a natural way, as embodied by the
instructors who follow
professional codes of conduct and function as a role model
throughout the whole
program. Because of the relatively short history of MBI programs
and the lack
of an ongoing sense of community beyond the delivery of
mindfulness courses,
graduates from such programs are frequently encouraged to seek
support for their
practice from local Buddhist groups (Cullen, 2011). It is thus
likely that a
significant proportion of those will gradually adopt Buddhist
values and precepts.
The role of morality is thus by no means completely absent, and
it is likely
going to play some kind of role in mindfulness training,
irrespective of the
background of the participant and despite the fact that it is
not emphasized
explicitly in MBIs.
To summarize, the present article provided an exploratory
discussion of the
links between mindfulness as defined by recent secular and
generally Western
psychological theory and practice with that defined in Buddhism.
Certainly,
Buddhism has a long history and therefore does not present with
a uniform body
of teaching (Dunne, 2011). Over its approximately 2,500 years of
existence,
Buddhism has produced a wide range of schools of thoughts with
diverse
discourses on and practices of mindfulness and meditation. Most
of the criticism
of Western psychological conceptualizations of mindfulness
appears to have
emerged when making comparisons with scholastic Buddhist ideas.
As illustrated
above, when comparing MBIs with so-called non-dual schools, such
as
Mahmudr, Mdhyamaka, or chn Buddhism, differences appear much
less
dramatic.
Language is inherently limited as a medium to transmit and
discuss the
teachings of the Buddha, which obviously extends to the present
discussion. Just
as meditation instructions must not be equated with mindfulness
(Dreyfus, 2011),
philosophical discourse can also only point to a certain limited
range of cognitive
and phenomenological aspects of mindfulness. The present
discussion highlighted
that the conceptualization of mindfulness in Western MBIs does
not sit outside
the diversity of conceptualizations of mindfulness within
Buddhism itself. Where
MBIs do differ from all forms of Buddhism is its lack of
explicit emphasis on
-
The Role of Morality in Mindfulness Training
- 15 -
morality, although this does not necessarily imply a complete
absence of a role
of morality in the mindfulness training of MBIs. As mentioned
earlier,
compassion may equally be argued to follow directly and
naturally from
mindfulness and might not necessarily need to be an explicit
component of
mindfulness training. The role of ethical conduct may be similar
(Cullen, 2011),
especially since most people have generally been exposed to at
least one kind of
ethical system through the socialization process since
childhood. Future research
might even explore to what extent certain specific forms of
ethical conduct are
more the outcome of mindfulness training than the requirement
for it. An
important question for future research is also whether the
diverse manners of
teaching instructions actually make a practical difference on
the development and
experience of mindfulness (Dorjee, 2010)
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 16 -
Acknowledgments
This paper is directly based on and adapted from an article that
has been submitted
to the journal [Won-Buddhist Thought & Religious Culture].
However, the present article provides a more explicit focus on the
role of morality in
mindfulness training. The original idea of this paper was
inspired by comments
received from the audience at an invited talk at the Institute
of Mind Humanities,
Wonkwang University, and the Won-Buddhist Headquarters in Iksan,
South Korea, in
June 2012. I would like to thank the audience for their
thoughtful feedback.
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1
, U. *1)
. ( MBSR), ( MBCT) ( ACT) . . ( MBI) .
MBI , . MBI (MBIs) , . MBIs , , .
. MBIs .
* , .
-
- 21 -
MBI .
, , , . , . , . (Schoenfeld, 1993). , .
, (Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2011). 3 , . (Kabat-Zinn, 2003;
Walsh & Shapiro, 2006). (Eberth and Sedlmeier, in press;
Grossman, Niemann, Schmidt, & Walach, 2004), . , , . . .
MBIs
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 22 -
. MBIs . . , MBIs , .
, . , , , , (Martin, 1997). . . - (1994): : , , . (p. 4). . , .
. (p.234).
MBI (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999), (MBSR)
(Kabat-Zinn, 1990), (MBCT) (Segal, Willians, & Teasdale, 2002)
. ,
-
- 23 -
. MBSR MBCT ACT .
MBSR (Kabat-Zinn, 1990) - . 8-10 . , , , , (), () . , . 45 .
MBCT (Segal et al., 2002). . , . . , . . MBCT , , . , . MBCT
MBSR . .
MBSR, MBCT ACT , . ACT (Hayes,
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 24 -
2004). MBIs . . . , . (Spiegler & Guevrement, 2010). . , , .
, . MBI . Meta-Analysis( ) , , , (2006) ACT . . MBSR . MBSR , , .
MBSR . MBIs , , . MBIs (Law & McMain, 2005). - MBSR
Meta-Cognitive Skill ( ) . . . , MBIs .
-
- 25 -
. (), (), (), (),(), (), (), () (Rahula, 1974). ? .
?
(2011) MBI . , , , . , MBI . , MBI , . , MBI .
MBIs . (2011) ? . , (Cullen, 2011; Kabat-Zinn). MBIs , , MBI
(Krgeloh, 2012).
MBIs . , . mindfulness 19
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 26 -
(Gethin, 2011). sati memory(). (Bodhi, 2011). , mindfulness .
Memory() Mindfulness() . , - 1 . . , , . , , (2011) - . MBIs . . ,
. (Dreyfus, 2011).
, . () (sammmsati, : , , ) (Kang & Whittingham, 2010) (),
(), (), (), (), (), (). , , (samdhi). . , , (Kang &
Whittingham, 2010). . ,
-
- 27 -
(Bodhi, 2011).
MBIs (bare attention) . (Bodhi, 2011). (Gethine, 2011). .
Bodhi(2011) , . , , .
?
. . MBIs .
Contemporary Buddhism (): An Interdisciplinary Journal ( ),
(Dunne, 2011) . , (2011) 100 . 7 MBIs
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 28 -
. . . . . , .
, . . . . - . , . .
. , . (2011) , (non-dual) . () () MBIs .
(2011) , .
-
- 29 -
. () . (Cooper, 2002). (nyat) (Abe, 1975). () () . . ( ) () . ()
. . ( , . (1975) , , (p.188). , . , . , , (no thought) . () , .
: ?
, MBIs
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 30 -
. , . , .
MBIs . . . . (2011) 8 . (2011) . . (2004) , .
MBIs (Kabat-Zinn, 2011). . . . MBIs . - . MBIs .
-
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-
- 33 -
2
The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education *2)
WONG Ping Ho *3)(Ph. D, Centre for Religious and Spirituality
Education
The Hong Kong Institute of Education)
1
Moral education, like so many things in life, is a contested
concept. I do not pretend
to be able to put forward a view of moral education that is
incontestable. A point
to be made below is that there comes a point in the discussion
of moral issues where
no more logical justification is possible or even desirable.
Therefore in this paper
I can only aim at presenting my position, hopefully in an
intelligible way, and invite
the readers to judge if they can recognize the sense of the
points made, and to
challenge those points if they find them do not make sense.
My starting point is that moral education should aim at helping
pupils to be moral
individuals. This immediately raises at least two questions. The
first is why I should
say helping pupils to be moral individuals instead of helping
pupils to become moral
individuals. The second is whether the whole statement is merely
a tautology. Let
us address the latter question first.
* Paper presented at the 2013 International Conference of The
Institute of Mind Humanities: Healing and Moral Education of Mind,
held at Wonkwang University, Iksan City, Jeonbuk, Republic of
Korea, 15-16 February, 2013.
* , .
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 34 -
My contention is that moral individuals do not merely act
morally, if by moral
actions1)we mean those actions that are in line with the
behavioural norms of a
certain culture. The Chinese sage Confucius said, If a man is
not humane, what can
he do with the rituals? (Confucius, 1997, p.58) Here humane is
the translation
for the Chinese term ren, which has been variously translated as
benevolence, love,
agape, altruism, kindness, charity, compassion, magnanimity,
perfect virtue,
goodness, human-heartedness, and humanity in English. (Hall
& Ames, 1987,
p.112) Rituals is the translation for li, which refers to a code
of propriety.
(Confucius, 1997, p.20) Confucius was of the opinion that simply
going through the
motions according to the code of propriety without being
animated by the spirit that
informed the construction of the code in the first place is
unsatisfactory. In a similar
vein, but in the context of law, and putting forward a starker
contrast, Roger Scruton
distinguished between law-abidingness and legalism:
We distinguish law-abiding people, who have the spirit of the
law, and
wish to be guided by it in a humane and reasonable way, from
legalistic
people, who use the letter of the law, as Shylock used it, to
their own
advantage, and hold others to an impossible standard of
rule-guidedness, so
as to defy the spirit on which a law-abiding community depends.
(Scruton,
1997, p.5)
Although li (propriety), law and morality are not the same
thing, the notion of code
of propriety could comfortably be replaced by moral code, and
the above statement
by Confucius would stand equally well, if not better. Behaviour
that is in line with
the prevailing moral code but is not inspired by the proper
moral sentiment, leaves
something to be desired, to say the least. Therefore a proper
moral education should
not aim at producing individuals that abide by the prevailing
moral norms, but should
instead aim at cultivating moral individuals, in the sense that
the actions of these
individuals are inspired by a moral consciousness.
1) For the purposes of this paper, I use the terms moral and
ethical interchangeably.
-
The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
- 35 -
This bring us back then to the first question of why I should
say that moral education
should aim at helping pupils to be, rather than to become, moral
individuals. My
consideration is, as mentioned again below, that human beings
are in a sense innately
moral, so it is not exactly the case of initially amoral
individuals being educated
to become moral. It is rather that this innate morality needs to
be protected and further
nurtured, extended and deepened, so that its potential can be
more fully realized. If
anyway the word become is an intuitively apt expression in this
context, then perhaps
the statement should be elaborated a bit to read moral education
should aim at helping
pupils to become morally-cultivated individuals. But then in the
absence of further
elaboration, this sounds dangerously similar to the
tautological, question-begging
statement that moral education should aim at helping pupils to
become
morally-educated individuals.
The crux of the matter of course lies in what morally-cultivated
individuals are.
As hinted above, such individuals are inspired by a certain
moral consciousness, which
is labelled as ren by Confucius. For the sake of ease of
expression, one of its English
translations human-heartedness will be used in the rest of this
paper. Is it possible
to capture the essence of human-heartedness in a neat
formulation? While, as
recorded in the Analects, each time Confucius mentioned
human-heartedness, he said
something different to elucidate its myriad aspects, the
following characterization of
an individual of human-heartedness is particularly relevant for
our purposes: one who,
wishing to establish himself, helps others to establish
themselves and who, wishing
to gain perception, helps others to gain perception. (Confucius,
1997, p.85) In a
similar vein, when a disciple asked for a single word that one
could practise throughout
ones life, Confucius responded with the word shu (like-hearted
considerateness), with
the following elaboration: What you do not wish for yourself, do
not impose on others.
(Confucius, 1997, p.156) These two statements are easily
recognizable as two different
formulations of the same basic principle in ethics called the
Golden Rule, upheld in
diverse cultural traditions in history. As Hans Kng observed in
the Declaration
Toward a Global Ethic he prepared for Parliament of the Worlds
Religions:
-
Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 36 -
There is a principle which is found and has persisted in many
religious and ethical traditions of humankind for thousands of
years: What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others.
Or in positive terms: What you wish done to yourself, do to others!
This should be the irrevocable, unconditional norm for all areas of
life, for families and communities, for races, nations, and
religions. (Kng, 1993, p.7; italics in the original)
This is in effect a principle that guides the way we take others
into consideration
when we act in the world. As emphasised above, when one acts
according to the
Golden Rule, one should ideally be motivated by the moral
sentiment inspiring the
principle rather than simply be following the moral exhortation
of the literal principle.
Where does this moral sentiment come from?
2
The fact that we do not live alone by ourselves requires that we
take others into
consideration when we each live our own life. The question is:
How do others figure
in our consideration, and in what ways is this consideration
likely to proceed? As
a starting point, we can be certain that what we do will affect
our own well-being
as well as others well-being. Similarly, what others do will
affect our well-being.
To greatly simplify matters, we could imagine the following
possibilities:
1. On all occasions one aims to maximise ones well-being through
whatever means
that are appropriate. Sometimes this might involve promoting
other peoples
well-being; on other occasions this might involve harming other
people. However,
any such good or harm done to other people is incidental to ones
pursuit of ones
well-being.
2. One considers both ones well-being and others well-being. The
latter is
considered for the others sake, not as a means for promoting
ones own well-being.
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The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
- 37 -
One attempts to strike a balance between the two, and this might
entail ones
well-being not being maximised.
These oversimplified formulations both gloss over and beg a host
of questions.
We will raise two and consider only one. Firstly, in reality
others are a diverse
lot, each with their own concrete interests. Even if the second
possibility applies,
often it is not a matter of striking a balance between the
interests of two, but between
those of a number of parties. Whose interests are to be given
priority and why? These
are knotty problems. Given the limited scope of the paper, I can
but leave this question
and its associated problems aside and consider another question,
one that I consider
to be more fundamental: what does ones well-being consist in?
Both possibilities
presented above assume that others well-being cannot be an
intrinsic part of ones
well-being. What I mean by this further possibility that others
well-being is intrinsic
to ones well well-being is something stronger than the case of
ones well-being being
intertwined with that of others. In the latter case, ones
well-being is ultimately
dependent on others well-being. We might be better off in the
short-term by pursuing
our immediate well-being at the expense of others, but our
long-term, overall well-being
will be compromised. However, this still means that others
well-being is only
instrumental to the achievement of mine, and is strictly
speaking not intrinsic to my
well-being. But then what exactly does others well-being being
intrinsic to my own
well-being mean? Is it possible? Here I am on the verge of being
lost for words.
The best approximation would be to say that I am happy when
others well-being
is enhanced. Such a psychologised description cannot be faulted,
but it runs the risk
of trivialising any altruistic act by interpreting it as
instrumental, in that it invites the
suspicion that I seek to promote others well-being only so as to
make myself feel
good, which is an instance of possibility 1 above. In the face
of such suspicions
of self-serving altruism, which, it must be admitted, are very
often justified, I can
offer no logical argument to convincingly show that such a
psychologised description
does not completely convey the sense in which others well-being
is intrinsic to my
own. Such an inability may be due to the inherent limitations of
language, which
forces things into a linear cause-effect structure, or, more
fundamentally, to the
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Healing and Education of Mind : History and Methodology
- 38 -
inevitable operation of the Kantian a priori category of cause
and effect through which,
in conjunction with other categories, human thinking is made
possible. Or such an
inability shows that there is actually no sense in which others
well-being is intrinsic
to my own, on top of either the sense that they are intertwined
or the sense indicated
by the psychologised, hedonistic description. I do not think
this is the case, and
I believe that it at least makes sense to say that others
well-being is intrinsic to ones
own. Why do I believe so if it is not and cannot be logically
proved? I believe
so because I can recognise2) its sense.3) Similarly, to
communicate the sense of
this statement that I recognise, what I can do is appeal to
readers own judgment and
hope that they may similarly recognise its sense, possibly with
the assistance of all
sorts of rhetorical device if I were a good communicator.
Now it must be emphasised that the fact I recognise that the
statement others
well-being is intrinsic to ones own makes sense, does not
necessarily entail that I
think it is actually possible that others well-being is
intrinsic to ones own, even less
that I agree, or actually feel or perceive, that others
well-being is, at least on
some occasions, intrinsic to my own, or in other words, that I
recognise the statements
truth. However, I tend to believe that recognising the sense,
rather than non-sense,
of such a statement as the one we are discussing does facilitate
the recognition of
its truth.4) And no matter whether one simply recognises the
sense of the statement,
2) No word seems to be completely satisfactory to convey the
sense in which the sense (sorry for the clumsiness of expression),
not to mention the truth, of the statement in question is grasped.
Now I have just used the word grasped in the last sentence. In the
text I also use recognize, feel and perceive, although feel may
easily lead to the misunderstanding that it is just a matter of
feeling. Such a difficulty, perhaps even impossibility, in finding
the right word, is part and parcel of the difficulty in discussing
spiritual issues.
3) This explains why, given that I have raised the possibility
that others well-being is intrinsic to ones own, I did not consider
the symmetrical possibility that others suffering is intrinsic to
ones well-being at least being applicable to some people, which
should be similar in terms of logical admissibility (or
inadmissibility) to the former possibility. I did not consider the
latter possibility, because, besides the repulsiveness of such a
suggestion (which should not carry weight in a discussion of its
possibility), I cannot recognise its sense.
4) I recognise that this is a bold speculation which is by no
means well thought through. Since this is not
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or also recognises the possibility and even the truth of the
state of affairs referred
to, it is ultimately not a matter of logical proof, but a matter
of an immediate grasping
of, or rather, of being grasped by, a certain understanding.
There is the further difficulty of ascertaining what it means to
say that the statement
others well-being is intrinsic to ones own is true. It may mean
that it is an objective
fact that everyones well-being is intrinsic to everyone elses
well-being. As such,
the assertion is problematic because some, if not most, people
would deny that others
well-being is intrinsic to their well-being. Is it possible that
the statement is true after
all, only that these people mistake what truly constitutes their
well-being and therefore
delude themselves into thinking that sometimes they need to
pursue their well-being
at the expense of others and act accordingly? If so, the
statement others well-being
is intrinsic to ones own being is at once descriptive and
prescriptive. It is descriptive
in that it claims, in a sense analogous to that of a physical
law, that others well-being
is intrinsic to ones true well-being, implying that if others
are hurt, our well-being
will be jeopardised. It is prescriptive in that it then follows
that we should not delude
ourselves and should recognise what our true well-being consists
in, and pursue our
and others well-being one and at the same time. Once one
recognises what constitutes
ones true well-being (is this recognition what is meant by
enlightenment?), one would
see the truth of the statement others well-being is intrinsic to
ones own and act
the place to pursue the point, I can only remark on it briefly.
In most cases, the fact that we can make sense of a statement only
provides the prerequisite condition for it then to be considered
true or false, but in no way increases its likelihood of being
true. For example, we can make sense of the statement that 2 + 2 =
5, but that does not make the statement more likely to be true.
However, I have a hunch (which might turn out to be both groundless
and wrong) that the statement others well-being is intrinsic to our
own belongs to a different class of statements. Such statements
have the characteristic that they are likely to be true provided
they can be made sense of, probably because of an element of
reflexivity involved. (That begs the notion of truth applicable in
their cases.) Somehow Anselms ontological argument for the
existence of God also comes into my mind at this point. Probably it
exemplifies yet another class of interesting statements, which
might prove to be in some way related to the class just
mentioned.
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accordingly, of ones own accord.5) But having said all this, the
basic question still
haunts us: what constitutes ones true well-being6)?
3
By engaging in the discussion in the previous section, I do not
really intend to argue
that it is indeed the case that others well-being is intrinsic
to ones own. In fact,
if the previous discussion has indeed worked, it should have
shown that any such proof
by argument is impossible, and the question about our true
well-being cannot be given
a convincing verbal answer. Instead, the previous discussion is
meant to serve as
an illustration of the characteristics of that which is
spiritual, in the sense(s) in which
I use the term. What then are these characteristics?
First, the spiritual7) is concerned with that which is ultimate,
for example, ones
true well-being. It is the starting point of reasoning. And
often it is the end-point
of reasoning, the kind of reasoning which attempts to
progressively uncover the ground
of ones beliefs. It is thus where the leap of faith occurs and
is the leap of faith
itself. (Although the word leap easily suggests that a person
makes a leap of faith,
in fact often it may be difficult to decide whether it is more
appropriate to say that
one makes a leap of faith or that the leap of faith occurs. And
as indicated below,
it is a characteristic of the spiritual that distinctions
between subject and object, agent
and experiencer, action and happening, get blurred.) Being the
end-point (or the starting
point) of reasoning, the basis of our beliefs cannot further be
verbally justified,8) but
5) Dont take the language too literally. It is equally
acceptable to reverse the order of the two clauses and say that
when one sees the truth of the statement others well-being is
intrinsic to ones own, one would recognise what constitutes ones
true well- being.
6) I am aware that language such as true versus false needs and
true well-being is liable to abuse, leading to oppressive
practices. I believe that ultimately ones true well-being can only
be recognised by oneself, but the issue is complicated.
7) I am a bit uneasy about using the term the spiritual, rather
than, say, that which is spiritual or spirituality to denote what I
am discussing, but it seems to be the best term I can think of for
my immediate purposes, and I hope it can do its job without leading
to awkward language or nonsensical statements. That which is
spiritual and spirituality will also be used when I feel the sense
and the context so demand.
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The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
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can only be seen, and I would describe this seeing as spiritual
seeing. In Wittgensteins
words, such fundamental truths make themselves manifest. As Monk
puts it, the
Wittegenstein of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was
concerned
to distinguish what can be said from what has to be shown. For
him,
the truths of logic were of a piece with those of ethics,
aesthetics and religion,
in that it was fruitless to attempt to put them into words: one
would only
see them, and, having seen them one was forced to remain silent
about them.
For Wittgenstein, mysticism and logic were as one. There are,
indeed, things
that cannot be put into words, he writes. They make themselves
manifest.
They are what is mystical. (Monk, 1996, p.568; italics in the
original)
There are difficulties with such a stand, although to the person
who takes it, this
is a stand he sees he must take. A first difficulty with this
stand is that someone
can always take it as a retreat from reason, an easy way out,
just as Russell thought
that this mysticism was no more than a misguided intellectual
defeatism..that what
he [Wittgenstein] likes best in mysticism is its power to make
him stop thinking.
(Monk, 1996, p.568) And this is of course related to a second,
more primary difficulty,
which is that an appeal to direct seeing does not guarantee that
others are also able
to see what one sees, in spite of ones effort at showing.
However, it may be in
the nature of things that such is the case, and to deny this may
not be wise. Returning
to Russells objection to stopping thinking, we might note that
there may indeed be
situations in which one should stop thinking, and in which
indeed it would be a sign
of defective virtue to raise further questions:
..it would be a mistake, a moral as well as philosophical
mistake, to
infer that anything whatever can be reasonably and justly put in
question..It
is one of the marks of the virtues of just generosity that those
who possess
it are not only disposed to find in someones need in such
circumstances
8) Just as not all statements in a mathematical system can be
proved within the system itself, as proved by Gdel.
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a sufficient reason for going to her or his aid, but will also
be unable to
conceive of such a reason as requiring or being open to further
justification.
To offer or even to request such a justification is itself a
sign of defective
virtue. (MacIntyre, 1999, 158)9)
As Bernard Williams might have put it, this is a case of an
agent having one thought
too many. (Williams, 1981, p.18) Williamss view, expressed in a
paper entitled
Persons, character, and morality, is that things that give
enough substance in a mans
life to compel his allegiance to life itself (p.18), are prior
to abstract moral reasoning,
in the sense that the former both limit and help to define the
latter.
Now it must be stressed at this point that this direct seeing
does not mean that
reason is not involved, although it is difficult, if at all
possible, to distinguish clearly
between moral perception and moral sentiment, and many people
would contrast moral
sentiment with reason and say that it is prior to all
reflection. For example, for
Rousseau, who felt that compassion (or pity) was the quality
from which all the
social virtues flow,
compassion is prior to all reflection; it is not learned from
tradition or
custom but is a natural sentiment. Despite all their morality,
he writes,
men would never have been any better than monster if nature had
not given
them pity to support reason (Todorov, 1997, p.292).
In even stronger terms, Bauman asserts that It is the primal and
primary brute
fact of moral impulse, moral responsibility, moral intimacy that
supplies the stuff from
which the morality of human cohabitation is made, and therefore
morality is and
is bound to remain irrational (cited in Junge, 2001, p.109). And
in China, Mencius
held that man is born with the four beginnings of the four
constant virtues (Fung,
1997, p.145), namely, the feeling of commiseration which is the
beginning of
9) MacIntyres treatment of this point is in fact more nuanced
than what this extract might suggest. Please refer to p.157-p.159
of MacIntyre (1999) for the context in which this point is
made.
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The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
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human-heartedness; the feeling of shame and dislike which is the
beginning of
righteousness; the feeling of modesty and yielding which is the
beginning of propriety;
and the feeling of right and wrong which is the beginning of
wisdom. People are
advised to fully develop these four beginnings into the four
constant virtues.
Indeed the crucial importance of the emotions is highlighted by
recent
psychophysiological research which shows that impairment of the
emotional regulation
system in the brain jeopardises ones decision-making ability
despite normal functioning
of what we would normally consider to be the faculties of
reasoning, including a
normal social-knowledge base,..preserved higher-order
neuropsychological functions
such as conventional memory, language, basic attention, basic
working memory and
basic reasoning in the sense of logical manipulations of
information. (Damasio, 1994,
p.51) An intact emotional regulation system is required for ones
observing social
convention, behaving ethically, and making decisions
advantageous to ones survival
and progress (p.17). However, such facts can precisely be
interpreted as showing
that reasoning is far from a case of the logical manipulation of
ideas, with emotion,
as a potential source of interference, to be shut out of the
process as much as possible.
Rather, emotion is an integral part of healthy reason.
Granted that what has been said about the crucial participation
of emotion in reason
is correct, it might be observed that I have shifted the focus
of discussion from direct
seeing, and more narrowly, moral perception, to emotion, and the
legitimate query
arises as to the relevance of the latter to the former, and
whether I have lost track
of the argument. I admit that moral perception cannot be reduced
to emotion. But
I wish to suggest that moral perception, and more generally,
direct seeing, involve
the perception of value, which very probably is related to
emotional functioning,
although it is not the place to explore the possibly subtle
involvement of emotion in
value perception. I would even venture to suggest that what
philosophers such as
MacIntyre call practical reasoning, often involves direct seeing
in the making of
judgments, and is intrinsically bound up with the perception of
value.
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Still the references to emotion, and further back, to the views
of Rousseau and
Mencius about the innateness of moral feelings, may give the
impression that I am
stressing the innate aspect of direct seeing, including moral
perception, and therefore
downplaying the significance of knowledge and reasoning. The
reference to MacIntyre
provides an apposite entry point for me to set the record
straight. In fact I believe
that in most cases direct seeing is the outcome of experience,
and in particular
dedicated practice. In MacIntyres (1999) own words:
To judge someone good in some role or at discharging some
function within
some socially established practice is to judge that agent good
insofar as there
are goods internal to that activity that are genuine goods,
goods that are to
be valued as ends worth pursuing for their own sake, if they are
to be pursued
at all. Whether there are and what they are is
characteristically and generally
something to be learned only by being initiated into this or
that particular
activity. (p.66; emphasis added)
It is clear that the learning referred to in the last quoted
sentence does not mean
learning to state whether there are goods internal to a certain
activity and what they
are, but rather becoming able to see for oneself whether there
are such goods and
what they are through actually engaging in that activity. This
applies also to the serious
practice of thinking. Thus, with regard to the statement a
couple of pages back that
the spiritual is the end-point of reasoning, there is a second
sense in which the spiritual
is the end-point of reasoning, which is that at the end of
learning and thinking, a
new perception arises. In this regard, Woods (2001) interesting
discussion on Hegel
on the heart is worth quoting at some length:
Hegel claims that, after a sufficient process of development, a
lower and
more abstract aspect of mind betrays the presence in it, even to
experience,
of a higher grade. Under the guise of sensation.....we may find
the very
highest mental life as its modification or its embodiment..The
higher ideas
such as God and morality cannot only be thought; they can also
be felt and,
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The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
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indeed, must be felt..So, higher level operations, defined by
their relation
to more encompassing wholes, can penetrate into the lower levels
of sensations
and feelings. When they do so, they render the heart intuitive.
There develops
a feeling intelligence in which our higher operations are
concentrated. It
is ultimately necessary to speak from an intuitive grasp of the
subject-matter
in any field. For Hegel, this demands that a man should have his
heart
and soul, in short, his whole mind or spirit, in the subject
matter..
(p.134-p.135)
Despite the rather obscure language, this is of course nothing
mysterious in itself.
A commonplace analogue to the lofty examples of ethics and
religion can be found
in the practice of reading. After learning the individual
letters of the alphabet and
much serious practice at reading, we are able to perceive a word
directly as the word
rather than deducing what the word is from the string of letters
individually recognised.
Then if we are really good readers, we may even grasp the
meaning of a sentence
at once without actually becoming aware of the individual words.
This is presumably
a widespread phenomenon that is at work in many diverse areas.
For example, the
mathematician Devlin (2000) describes, based on insider
experience, in the following
terms what a trained mathematician perceives when he or she
reads mathematics:
When a mathematician looks at a page of mathematical symbols,
she does
not see the symbols, any more than a trained musician sees the
musical
notes on a sheet of music. The trained musicians eyes read
straight through
the musical symbols to the sounds they represent. Similarly, a
trained
mathematician reads straight through the mathematical symbols to
the patterns
they represent. (p.77)
The following description is even more interesting, to me as a
non-mathematician:
To me, then, learning new mathematics is like constructing a
mental house
in my mind; understanding that new mathematics is like becoming
familiar
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with the interior of my mental house; and working on a
mathematical problem
is like arranging the furniture. Thinking mathematics is like
living in the
house. As a mathematician, I create a symbolic world in my mind
and then
enter that world. (p.124; italics in the original)
The symbolic house is very difficult to build in the first
place, and that requires
intense concentration. However, if people could only get beyond
the plans and enter
the house, they would find it as easy to wander around that
mathematical house as
an ordinary house. (p.125) He sees the place and its beauty,
which someone who
is not a mathematician is unable to see. Devlin cites another
famous mathematician,
Paul Erds: Its like asking why Beethovens Ninth Symphony is
beautiful. If you
dont see why, someone cant tell you. I know numbers are
beautiful. (Erds, cited
in Devlin, 2000, p.135) Discoveries are made when, for example,
something new
is seen in an unsuspected corner of the mathematical house. But
then sometimes another
type of difficulty arises, that of conveying what is seen,
through translating it into
a proof in the language of mathematical symbols. This may prove
to be no easy
task.
There is the possibility that through the practice of ethical
virtues and maybe
facilitated also by the philosophical quest, one would perceive
the good, in a way
analogous to a mathematician perceiving some mathematical truth
after the struggle
to construct the mathematical house. Suppose someone does so
perceive the good,
I would suppose he or she would have great, if not impossible,
difficulty in
communicating what the good that he or she perceives consists
in, a difficulty
immeasurably greater than the one a mathematician faces when he
or she has to translate
a perception of mathematical truth into a formal proof.
There are a number of problems with this account, and I would
briefly mention
a couple. First, it may be queried that while I would definitely
describe the perception
of the (ethical) good as spiritual, yet certainly I would not
say the same for the holistic
perception of a word? But my argument has been based on
extending the operational
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The Spiritual Foundation of Moral Education
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principles of the latter to the former. If the latter cannot be
said to consist in a spiritual
perception, then neither can the former. My probably not very
satisfactory rejoinder
is that spirituality is not an all-or-none matter. A very dilute
form of spirituality is
present in our everyday existence, evidenced not least by our
ability to understand
each other. The mundane activity of holistic word perception is
very weakly spiritual.
I am aware that this is a very risky speculation, likely to
trivialise the concept of
the spiritual to such an extent as to render it meaningless. I
nevertheless put it forward
with some trepidation because I can see sense in it.
Second, the crucial element in my discussion is perception. The
talk about seeing
and moral perception is derived from the psychological
phenomenon of sensory
perception. The psychological model of perception indicates some
serious potential
problems with the seeing of the truth of ethics, aesthetics and
religion. In everyday
life misperceptions are common. Often there are alternative
perceptions that are equally
plausible. And it is often possible to find a more satisfactory
perception than the
existing one. Does ambiguity also apply to seeing in
Wittgensteins sense? For
example, Hick (1988), who also relied on the model of perception
but in the very
different context of an exploration of religious pluralism,
remarked that every religious
interpretation is underdetermined, because there is insufficient
available consistent
evidence to allow a definitive interpretation of the world. Just
as a perceiver in the
case of