Connecting to the Source of Life Through Contemplative Practices.

• In Event: Meditation and mindfulness for effective teaching/learning & wellbeing in adult and higher education settings

Proposal

A summary of McGilchrist’s (2009) work is helpful in providing context for this presentation.
"The left and right hemispheres (of the brain) have differing insights, values and priorities. Each has a distinct ‘take’ on the world – most strikingly, the right hemisphere sees itself as connected to the world, whereas the left hemisphere stands aloof from it… the left has become so far dominant that we’re in deep danger of forgetting everything that makes us human… the left hemisphere has grabbed more that its fair share of power, resulting in a society where a rigid and bureaucratic obsession with structure, narrow self-interest and a mechanistic view of the world hold sway, at an enormous cost to human happiness and the world around us" (Laszlo, 2009, back cover).
According to McGilchrist’s (2009), at its very core, the right brain connects with change, movement, and life, while the left is oriented to matter, stasis or non-life. Consequently, the right brain connects to and is oriented to creativity, while the left is oriented to organization, and structure. To elaborate a little on the nature of right hemisphere consciousness we refer to Jill Bolte Taylor (2006), a neuroscientist who suffered a stroke to her left brain which provided her the opportunity to observe the state and values of the right brain. This is how she describes right brain consciousness as her left intellectual brain shut down.
"My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me… My left hemisphere no longer inhibited my innate awareness that I was the miraculous power of life (p.67). My right hemisphere consciousness is a character that is directly connected to my feeling of deep inner peace… It is completely committed to the expression of peace, love, joy, and compassion in the world… "(p. 133).

Bolte Taylor acknowledges she became aware of a very different consciousness present in the right brain. McGilchrist argues that the left and right hemispheres need to be brought into balance or integrated. The question is how to achieve that balance?
Contemplative exercises quiet the left brain enabling the emergence of the right hemisphere nondual awareness (Goleman, & Davidson, 2017). Vokey (2001), an educator and practicing Buddhist spoke about unconditioned awareness that is similar to that described by Bolte Taylor:
"It is unconditioned in the sense that it is not created or manufactured, but is always already there, primordial. It is unconditioned also in the sense that it is prior to and so free from all reference points, including the basic duality of self and other…Unconditioned awareness naturally manifests as inseparable insight and compassion, and it is only our habit of imposing the reference points of self and other that obscures the boundless clarity and warmth of ‘our’ basic nature" (p. 257). The similarities to Bolt Taylor's description are apparent and meditation can provide access to this kind of awareness (Vokey, 2001)
In addition to meditation, exercises designed to surface emotions also appear to provide momentary access to right hemisphere awareness (Culham, Shivhare in preparation), as emotions are primarily processed in the right hemisphere (McGilchrist, 2009).
Since 2010 a range of business classes have included meditation (Culham, Shivhare, accepted for publication) and practicing emotional intelligence skills, and Informing, Listening or Conflict Management (Culham & Shivhare in preparation; Lombardo, & Eichinger, 2004). The purpose is to assist students in managing their relationships with others which is recognized as a vital business skill; after all business is about working with others to achieve some purpose. If one is unable to work with others effectively reaching goals and targets is made more difficult if not impossible. The skills were chosen because they engage students in emotional interaction with others. Students are advised to select a skill that they are not comfortable with. For example, if someone is usually talking they are advised to listen to others for an uninterrupted time. Conversely, if someone is usually listening they are advised to speak to others for an uninterrupted time.
This puts students out of their comfort zone and gives rise to emotions such as fear, in the case of those practicing informing, and impatience in those practicing listening. Students are instructed that they need to practice emotional regulation. This involves acknowledging emotions and choosing what to do about it rather than acting impulsively on the emotion. For example, when someone who normally likes to speak, practices listening without interrupting others for a set time, after listening for a while they might notice the urge to blurt out something or add their views on the topic being discussed. Given the instructions noted earlier they are required to acknowledge how they feel and then choose to continue to listen. This exercise opens the individual to acknowledging and experiencing emotions arising from the unconscious, thereby momentarily connecting the student to right hemisphere consciousness. Further, the instruction to make a choice to continue listening engages the left hemisphere such that the two hemispheres operate in a balanced integrated way.
Virtues and the calming of the emotions of fear and impatience emerge out of this process. Students who practice speaking transform fear into courage and those who practice listening transform impatience into patience. Other transformations emerge as well. Othering where one sees other people as strange transforms into empathy. Self-loathing or self-criticism transforms into compassion for oneself and others. In sum virtues, such as compassion, courage, patience, empathy etc. arise out of these seemingly simple exercises. I believe the reason is that the exercises provide a safe means of accessing emotional experiences in a way that is bounded, that is, one is able to experience the fire of emotional experiences without being overtaken by them. This integrated way of working with emotions enables the emergence of intrinsic virtues that are available within each and everyone of us as Jill Bolte Taylor described.

This presentation will provide participants a description of the theory of this approach accompanied by examples from action research describing the class experiences noted above.
References
Bolte Taylor, J., (2006). My stroke of insight. New York: Penguin Group.
Culham, T. & Shivhare, N. (accepted for publication). Action Research on the Application of Meditation in Business Ethics Education in J. Lin, T. Culham, S. Edwards (Eds.). Contemplative Pedagogies for Effective and Profound Transformation in Teaching, Learning and Being, Book Series: Transforming Education for the Future. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
Culham, T. & Shivhare, N. (in preparation). Transformative Potential of Virtue Ethics Course: Exploring the Efficacy of Contemplative Practices in Business Education. Unpublished.
Goleman, D., & Davidson, R. J. (2017). Altered Traits: Science reveals how meditation changes your mind, body, and brain. New York: Avery
Laszlo (2009). Back cover, In McGilchrist, Iain (2009). The Master and His Emissary. Yale University Press.
Lombardo, M. M., & Eichinger, R. W. (2004). For your improvement: A development and coaching guide for: Learners, supervisors, managers, mentors, and feedback givers. Minneapolis MN: Lominger Limited Inc.
McGilchrist, Iain (2009). The Master and His Emissary. Yale University Press.
Vokey, D. (2001). Moral discourse in a pluralistic world. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Authors

• Tom Elwood Culham, City University of Seattle in Vancouver

• Neha Shivhare, Assistant Professor, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University) Agra, India;