Contemplative practices in higher education can reveal and enact intersubjectivity—the shared, relational dimension of experience—creating conditions for transformative learning that affects students' consciousness and their overall journey of transformation. A review of theoretical and research literature on postsecondary contemplative education, combined with qualitative data from graduate students in a contemplative inquiry program, provides evidence that these intersubjective, second-person approaches to learning have transformative potential.
The current mindfulness movement has decontextualized and appropriated mindfulness from its Buddhist foundations, favoring a model that offers objectively verifiable biophysical and mental benefits. Self-transcendence, whether from the perspective of Buddhism or Viktor Frankl's Existential Analysis, offers an existentially viable path forward for college students, in lieu of the current medical-therapeutic paradigm promoted by advocates of mindfulness-based interventions. The authors conclude by considering Existential and Buddhist notions of self-transcendence in dialogue, suggesting they offer an educational practice worthy of implementation.
In response to rising polarization, violence, ecological disasters, and student mental health crises, the fields of contemplative inquiry and somatic studies offer holistic educational approaches that cultivate presence of mind, promote healing, and integrate physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and ecological dimensions of wellness.