Getting to why? Contemplative practice as reflection on intentionality
Francois Wessels
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies March 23, 2015 DOI: 10.4102/hts.v71i1.2701 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Interventions | Mindfulness reflecting on soul |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Argues that escaping stuckness requires reflecting on intentionality rather than merely changing actions, and that contemplative practices can facilitate this reflection. |
Abstract
In my experience, conflict and other forms of being stuck or (as it is commonly referred to in narrative texts) ‘stuckness’ are related to actions, behaviour or events. If we consider a narrative paradigm, they happen in the realm of the Bruner’s ‘landscape of action’. Efforts at escaping these problem-saturated experiences mostly resort to replacing these actions, habits, modes of operation or rules with a different set of rules, without first reflecting on the intentionality or ‘why’ behind the actions. Most often this only serves to perpetuate the problem. This article will attempt to show that alternating between various initiatives in the ‘landscape of action’ provides only temporary respite to the problem, if any; that the intentionality behind these actions needs to be revisited and that contemplative practice facilitate such reflection on intentionality. This is therefore an exercise in reflecting on intentionality or even purpose, that is, a teleological question. This process traverses the dimensions of ‘what’ (actions), ‘how’ (methodology) and ‘why’ (intentionality), referring to the biology of human decision-making in the process of doing so. This article posits that this reflection may be facilitated by contemplative practices such as mindfulness and reflecting on soul.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |