Course Materials
Here’s the schedule for the ten-week version of this course I’ll be teaching Fall 2024. You can also view the full syllabus here.
You can copy this this Google Doc and use it to keep all of your reflections in one place.
Overview
This course is designed for students to explore and develop a personal ecology of contemplative practices aimed at integrating their academic and professional journeys with their personal values and aspirations. Through a comprehensive curriculum that blends theory, practice, and reflection, students will critically examine their values, motivations, mental models, and habits of mind.
Each week, we will focus on different contemplative practices, their historical contexts, theoretical foundations, underlying philosophies, and practical applications in daily life. Our readings will include ancient and modern manuals of practice coupled with scientific literature on the benefits of these practices, as well as poetry and selected readings from psychology and philosophy. Students will be encouraged to experiment with meditation, journaling, creative expression, and intentional dialogue as they deepen their self-understanding and define a personal vision of self-actualization.
Structure + Aim
This course is broken down into ten modules, each containing a few core ideas/concepts, in-class activities and discussions, and home practices. The readings and other media I’ve included throughout are there to support our explorations by providing useful language, scientific foundations, historical context, and useful frameworks.
This doesn’t mean that we’re here to learn facts and analyze texts as we might in a traditional literature or philosophy course. This course is about you, and the most important material is your unique, subjective experience. If something you read or watch sparks something in you, sheds light on an aspect of your life that feels interesting or challenging or helpful, or prompts a meaningful reflection, great! If not, then feel free to let it go.
I hope that these ideas and practices will serve as tools that you can bring to bear on your pursuit of self-knowledge. In my experience, there’s great delight in finding a phrase or story or image that reveals something I felt I knew all along.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. - Kahlil Gibran
Weekly Practices
I would encourage you to practice meditating for at least 10 - 15 minutes a day, but a minimum of five minutes coupled with other informal mindfulness practice is a great starting point. Consistency is more important than quantity. Though the specific practices, journaling prompts, reflection assignments, and readings will vary, this is a rough outline of our weekly workload.
Journaling and Other Reflection Assignments (20 - 30 minutes)
Each week, you’ll reflect on the readings, class discussions, and - most importantly - your experiences with the contemplative practices for that week.
Mindful Pauses (1 minute x 5 times/week)
Throughout the week, pause for one minute. Look away from your screen or book, and simply take note of what that moment is like. What are you thinking? What’s your general mood? Are you rushing into the next moment? Dwelling on a past experience? Feeling stressed? Joyful? Tired? What do you notice in your environment?
Quickly jot down your observations.
Meditation + Rapid Logging (At least 5mins x 4 times/week = 20+ mins)
Each week we’ll add a new meditation practice. You should practice the new one at least once outside of class, and then feel free to mix and match any of the practices from previous weeks. You don’t need to do more than five minutes at a time, but I encourage you to try sitting longer. After each meditation, rapid log your reflections on the practice.
Contemplations + Reflections (20 - 30 minutes)
To complement our meditation practice, we’ll have specific contemplations and reflections each week. Because these may be very personal in nature, I will make submission for these optional. We’ll discuss these in class, but you can be as specific as is comfortable when reporting on your experiences and findings.
Reading/Watching/Listening (15 - 30 minutes)
Most of the reading materials and other media are suggested, but not required. On the course website, I’ll provide summaries for the core ideas that week, which shouldn’t take more than 10 - 15 minutes. Beyond that, you can read, watch, or listen to anything that interests you. In other words, don’t feel like you have to consume all the suggested media.
Modules
Each module contains summaries of core ideas related to that module’s theme, further reading for each core idea, descriptions of in-class practices, and instructions for home practices.
MODULE 1: Introduction & Motivation
MODULE 2: Beginner's Mind
Core Ideas
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Mindful Eating (Optional Growth Challenge)
- Novel Observations of Everyday Experiences
- Journal: Spend 15 - 20 minutes summarizing your experience with the practices listed above as well as any reflections on any of the readings and/or class discussions.
MODULE 3: Having Mode vs. Being Mode
Core Ideas
In-Class Activities
- Revisit The I AM Exercise
- Reflection on B-Needs and D-Needs
- Light and Dark Triad Test and Reflection
- Discussion on Having vs Being in Education and Vocation
Home Practices
- Anchor to Open Awareness Practice
- Listen to or read any of the suggested reading from this week.
- Field Notes on Having Mode and Being Mode
- Journal: Take 15 - 20 minutes to reflect on your meditation, your having/being or deficiency/being observations.
MODULE 4: Knowledge
Core Ideas
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Meditation on Thoughts
- Koan Practice
- Journal
- Reflect on knowledge that has changed or shaped you. This could be knowledge in any form or from any source - e.g, a book, a movie, a new skill, a conversation, a quote, a poem, etc.
- Based on the meditations we’ve done so far, how would you characterize the form(s) of knowledge that mediation affords?
MODULE 5: The Conversational Nature of Reality
Core Ideas
- David Whyte and the Conversational Nature of Reality
- Thich Nhat Hanh and Interbeing
- Attachment styles
- TED Talk: What makes a good life?
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Social Interbeing Contemplation
- Mindful Communication Practice
- Choose your own meditation: In addition to the mindful communication exercise, practice any meditation you like for at least five minutes two or more times this week.
- Journal: Reflect on your experiences with mindful communication and your social-interbeing map. Consider applying the frameworks of attachment theory and the key ideas form the longest running study on happiness.
MODULE 6: Virtue and Values
Core Ideas
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Caring Moment Practice
- Lovingkindness Practice
- Identifying Core Values
- Journal: Reflect on you core values and the compassion practices we did this week. For each of your core values, identify two or three ways that you enact (or hope to enact) those values in your life.
MODULE 7: Wonder & Awe
Core Ideas
- Peak Experiences
- Beginner’s Mind
- Hermann Hesse and Goethe on wonder
- From The Marginalian
- Emerson on nature
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Keep a Wonder Log
- Forrest Bathing
- Journal: How do you experience wonder and awe? What are some of the most awe-inspired moments in your life? What are the conditions for wonder and awe to arise? How do wonder/awe experiences relate to meditation/mindfulness for you?
MODULE 8: Resistance, Liberation, and Creativity
Core Ideas
- Steven Pressfield’s idea of resistance in the creative process
- What is inner-freedom?
- Flow and wuwei
- The inner critic and internal family systems
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Free-writing and Morning Pages
- Letting Be Meditation
- Journal: Reflect on your experiences with free-writing and the letting be meditation.
MODULE 9: Purpose
Core Ideas
- Ikigai
- Goal hierarchy of personal strivings
- Motivational quality continuum
In-Class Activities
Home Practices
- Ikigai Activity
- Analyzing Ikigai Map through Having-Being Lens
- Self-Inquiry Practices
- Journal: Reflect on your ikigai diagram and analyze your map based on the having-being framework, your values assessment, and any other pervious activities.
MODULE 10: Meaning
Core Ideas
In-Class Activities
- The Well Meditation
- The I AM Exercise
- Sketching a Personal Ecology of Practices
- Mattering Purpose and Coherence Map
Home Practices
- The Well Meditation + Any others of your choosing
- Mattering Purpose and Coherence Map
- Sketching a Personal Ecology of Practices
- Journal: Reflect on which practices, ideas, and activities resonated the most for you.