Friends, Fools, and Foes: Restorative Buddhist Paradox and Transformation

• In Event: Infusing Healing Energy into Education: Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian Insights

Abstract

The intersection of mindfulness and mindlessness behooves the educational paradigm. With the development of AI in education, intrapersonal and interpersonal engagements have a unique positioning that dehumanizes the curriculum milieu. Building on William Pinar’s currere, the paper engages Buddhist friends, fools, and foes in curriculum theorizing through the Sixth Patriarch text; acknowledged as one of the prajna (wisdom) texts in Buddhist traditions, lively student-teacher characters, narratives, and encounters is a foundry of seminal educational gems to illuminate the dwindling wellness of humankind from within and without. Exercising Buddhist paradoxical listening, this paper deconstructs the norming of friends, fools, and foes; desensitizes friends, fools, and foes; converges friends-fools-foes; and interplays friends, fools, and foes, and heal the complacent and conceited curriculum.

Author

• Jin Jr Shi, Teachers College, Columbia University