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.
In an interview, Avraham Cohen and Thomas Falkenberg discuss the origins and practices of their personal inner work and argue for integrating such reflective, self-aware practices more broadly into society. They explore how inner work—cultivating self-awareness, emotional honesty, and ethical presence—can address contemporary crises and improve education, relationships, and community life. The conversation emphasizes the importance of intentional inner development for personal and collective well-being.
Teaching is reframed as a contemplative professional practice grounded in the idea that what teachers attend to shapes their actions and moral living. The article argues that attending pre-conceptually and non-judgmentally to one's inner life while teaching moment-by-moment provides a basis for engaging developmentally in teaching as a moral endeavor. Central to this conceptualization is ongoing work on awareness, attention, and noticing of one's inner life during teaching, undertaken in regard of students, thereby making teaching a moral practice.