Mindful Inquiry

Mindfulness for Educators

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:57:05 -0500

Download Claire's Article (pdf) about mindfulness.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:54:53 -0500

What is the connection between mindful inquiry and meditation?
Mindfulness meditation practice develops the mind's capacity to see more clearly at obvious concrete levels and at more subtle levels. Practicing regularly on a daily basis, even for short periods of time, reduces stress, develops the mind's capacity for clear seeing, creates a sense of spaciousness in the moment and throughout the day, and fuels creativity in daily life.

With even minimal meditation practice, a person is better equipped to begin mindful inquiry in the midst of his or her life. Mindful inquiry is the important opportunity moment between and idea, the impulse to take action, and the action itself. With mindful inquiry, we investigate the intentions, motivations, and wisdom of any action. Once the habit of mindful inquiry is established, we begin to function with greater compassion, insight, and intelligence in the world. Training the mind through meditation and mindful inquiry brings results no matter what one's profession or circumstances in life.

What is the difference between online courses and face-to-face courses?
The main difference is in the medium. Online courses allow participants to continue their daily life and work, while taking courses through CMI. Face-to-face courses give participants the opportunity to interrupt their lives and work and focus on study and practice only. However, at the Center for Mindful Inquiry, our process for working with participants is the same.

Are CEU's (continuing education units) available for CMI online and face-to-face courses?
At the moment, the Center for Mindful Inquiry is pursuing options for offering continuing education units for those who take all of our courses. Whenever we teach face-to-face courses at other accredited institutions of learning, CEU's or PDP's (professional development points) are available.

How do I arrange for a consultation?
Please contact Dr. Claire Stanley at cstanley@mindfulinquiry.org and she will be happy to respond to your questions. Or, you can call (802) 451-6514 to speak directly with a person or to leave a message.

How can I receive more information about the Center?
Please contact us at registration@mindfulinquiry.org or send us a message through the Contact Us link on the website and we will be happy to respond to your questions. Similarly, you can call (802) 451-6514 to speak directly with a person or to leave a message.

Learning the Language of Awareness

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:13:02 -0500

By Claire Stanley
Published in ASCENT magazine Vol. 6, Summer 2000

We sit shoulder to shoulder on a train which barrels into the night. From six o'clock to ten o'clock this evening, Margarita will teach Spanish in a cold classroom in Germany to adult students, ages 25 - 72, who want to learn what for them may be a second, third or fourth language. She has journeyed a long way from her homeland of Colombia to come to this other country, where terror and physical violence are no longer daily national events.

Loving-kindness at Work

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:14:40 -0500

By Claire Stanley
Published in ASCENT magazine 10, summer 2001

In an Applied Linguistics class, fifteen adult graduate students stand up to form working groups and complete a task that I, their professor, have just assigned. They are notably avoiding a person I will call Peter who has distinguished himself as a particularly difficult person to work with. When I accepted Peter into my class at the beginning of the semester, knowing full well of his stormy relationships in groups, I began the intentional daily practice of loving-kindness (Metta) meditation. Each morning, I would begin my meditation by connecting to the heart centre and feeling a sense of warmth and caring. Then I would first visualize myself repeating the phrases, "May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be liberated." I would hold myself in this place of open acceptance and love, feeling the energy of Metta permeating body, mind, and spirit.

Then I would move to the category of Benefactor, my teacher, who has taught me this Metta meditation practice. I would visualize her in my heart and feel the same acceptance and love both going toward her and coming from her. "May you be happy, Sharon. May you be peaceful. May you be liberated." Then I would see several dear family members in the same way, before turning to my Applied Linguistics class. I would then visualize each of the students in the class, repeating the phrases, "May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be liberated." The end of the meditation would move out to embrace all beings, everywhere, in the ten directions, seen and unseen, known and unknown. "May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be liberated." At this final point, there would be a feeling of holding the whole world in my heart, holding it with acceptance, caring and compassion.

In Buddhist meditation practice, purifying the heart-mind and dedicating oneself to non-harming are aided through the Metta meditation practice in its various forms. Instruction during intensive retreats, as well as practice on a daily or weekly basis, can actually strengthen the muscle of caring and compassion for all beings. The Dalai Lama often says, "Kindness is my religion." Metta meditation is a way to incline the heart-mind in that direction.

Now, sitting in this class, feeling the tension rising in the immediate group that Peter is working with, as well as from other groups who can overhear his abusive attitude, I begin to reconnect with the energy of Metta. While I do not now say the phrases, as I had this morning, I do feel my heart opening very wide, encompassing all of the beings in that room with deep care and compassion, embracing those who are skillful and those who are not skillful. Then, quite to my surprise, the dynamic in Peter's group shifts. Minhe says, "You have proposed one way, Peter, but what about doing it this way?" and she explains a viable alternative. Boris drops his arms away from guarding his chest and Fusako's face comes alive again as she leans forward to second the alternative. And Peter leans back in his chair. "Okay," I head him say, "let's try it that way." They complete the task in a civil, if not perfectly harmonious way.

There are so many unhappy people and painful or violent situations in the world; it is easy to feel both helpless and fearful in the face of this reality. Metta, or loving-kindness, meditation offers a way to face the suffering and to hold it in an open, spacious, kind and loving awareness. This practice helps us heal our own hearts and gives us the strength to extend the capacity for loving-kindness into the world.

Grounding

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:00:05 -0500

Whether you are teaching in a classroom or working in another capacity in an educational context you can maintain a sense of being grounded and mindful. Mindfulness of the body is an ancient technique that allows you to know that you are right there in the very moment. Two realities happen simultaneously at any single moment. We often get caught up in one or the other and lose ourselves or rather lose mindful awareness of the moment. One reality is what is happening in the moment externally - the people, the activity, and the environment. The other reality is what is happening in the moment internally - how you are responding inside of yourself in relation to what you think you are perceiving outside.

I will talk more later on about this two-planed reality that arises in any given moment of teaching or any other human activity. First, let's talk about grounding. Grounding means that you have your feet planted on the ground. It means that you can feel roots all the way down into the earth.

There is a tree on my neighbors' land that I love to visit. The tree is over 300 years old and I can see the worn bark, the places where limbs have fallen off, and even a place that appears to be completely dead and yet, the tree as a whole is still very much alive. The tree produces beautiful soft green maple leaves in the spring. When I stand beneath this tree in the springtime, I feel her branches and leaves and new growth reaching up to the sky. Sometimes, I can stop and listen so deeply that I can hear and feel how she has been growing for these centuries, one tiny increment at a time. She is the oldest living, breathing thing I know.

At the same time that I can see these enormous branches reaching up into the bright blue sky, I can also feel the roots beneath her that go down into the earth beyond a depth that is imaginable. When I stop to feel the roots of her, I contact the earth itself, right here and now. The earth holds us up, allows us to step on it wherever we go, and continues to offer its protection moment by moment to all of us who live on this planet. And I can feel the element of earth every time I stand under the ancient maple tree on my neighbors' land.

I can also feel the earth every time I simply stand and imagine roots that extend from my own body down into the earth. My roots may not be as old or as deep as the ancient maple's roots are, but if I connect with these roots on a daily basis, they remind me that I have a rootedness. They remind me that I too am of the earth, having been born on this planet, having walked on this earth, and having the ability to stand as straight and as tall as the ancient maple with my head reaching up to the sky and my roots extending from the soles of my feet down into the ground.

This kind of groundedness or rootedness can be brought to the world of the classroom. When I am teaching, I often find myself standing up in front of my class either talking or working with the white board or the power point presentation. Even as I am standing in the middle of a classroom, I can begin to feel a sense of rootedness coming into the soles of my feet. I stand on the earth; the earth supports me as I stand. To know that we are grounded in the earth each time we stand and each time we walk is a kind of wisdom that brings us into balance moment by moment no matter what we are doing at any time of the day.

From this place, we can then be with ourselves, present, mindful and aware even as we are with our students, the subject matter and the activity of the classroom. There is both an inner and an outer awareness that is a source of harmony, balance, and joy. By maintaining connection with the inner life and the workings of the body, heart and mind, we bring more spaciousness and clarity to our work. Over time, we can develop this sense of balance in the midst of our work. We are simultaneously present to our inner life and to all that is happening in the classroom. From this place, our capacity to respond with wisdom and compassion increases.

Try this:
Become aware of the fact that you are standing the next time you are teaching or conducting a meeting. Feel the soles of your feet. Feel the sensations of pressure, tingling, or pulsing. Feel the roots of energy that extend from your body down through the floor you are standing on, all the way down through the building and into the foundation and then down into the earth. Pause for just a moment in the midst of whatever you are doing. Feel your energy touching down into the earth and then feel the earth's energy coming back up to touch your feet and support you as you stand there. Feel the weight of your body being supported by your feet. Feel where the weight is distributed - are you more on the balls of your feet; more on your heels; more on the edges? Take a moment to spread the balance out evenly. Feel your weight being distributed across the whole length and width of the soles of your feet. Feel the groundedness and rootedness that comes from this awareness. Reflect on how, like a tree, you reach with the top of your head up into the sky and with the soles of your feet down into the earth. Imagine yourself standing beneath a weeping cherry tree in the springtime. Feel the strength of the tree, and know the strength of your own body as it stands there. Know that you are held by the earth and by mindful awareness that allows you to connect with grounding at any moment in time.

At the same time, pay attention to all that is happening in the moment of teaching and learning that is all around you. Cultivate the capacity to be aware of both your internal world and the external reality of what is happening in the classroom. See your students as they are engaged in their own moment-to-moment experience. Stand in the place of a participant-observer, knowing fully that all of you are human beings in this precious moment of life in the here and now.

Claire M. Stanley, Ph.D.
Center for Mindful Inquiry
167 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301

Pausing

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:58:00 -0500

Most teachers walk into their classrooms at the last minute, close the door at the start of the class, and begin their two hours, or one hour or thirty-five minutes of teaching without any pause. There is a dashing, breathless quality that drives each day. Get up, get dressed, cup of coffee, drive to school or university, say hello to one or two people, walk down the hall, walk into classroom, begin teaching. No space divides the time of everyday ordinary mind from the time of extraordinary mind, the time when learning begins, the time for the teacher as the vessel, teacher as the impetus, teacher as the firing neuron to place the spark of learning into the students' hands.

What would it be like to pause, even just for a moment to mark a change in time? Like the ships that put up sail when they cross the Greenwich mean time marker in the Pacific ocean, is it possible to mark the moment when one has changed from the ordinary mode into the extraordinary? Tara Brach and others talk of a "sacred pause" and although it sounds like something grand, it is but a moment taken intentionally before one begins anew. It is but a breath, felt deeply in the body. It is but a breath that fills the lungs and lets the body stop to step out of time, out of rush, and into the timeless. The sacred pause and just one breath interrupts life on automatic and brings with it, purpose, clarity, wholeness.

Think back on any time you have attended a music concert. The conductor walks onto the stage to the sound of applause. She turns her back to the audience. She does not begin haphazardly, flying into the piece of music as if she has just dashed out of her car, coat dangling off her left arm, cup of coffee in the hand and briefcase dragging her along through the corridor. She does not ask the orchestra to start playing, or the chorus to begin singing, or the soloist to lift his voice in a way that might suggest that they were running a marathon. She does not send forth a signal to begin a marathon and then ask everyone to simply start dashing, dashing toward the end of the time, toward the end of hours and minutes together until all the time is used up.

No, the conductor stops and pauses. There is a silence in the audience and in the whole space of the opera house or the intimate salon or the theatre. Anticipation then mounts in the minds and hearts of the listeners. Awareness and attention arises in each member of the orchestra, or each member of the chorus. Notice how their faces turn upwards towards the conductor, notice how they stop, breathe, anticipate the opening of this glorious work of music with joy. Then the conductor lifts her hands, raises the baton and on one beat, moves everything forward. And in that moment, everyone is there, everyone is present, pulsing, muscles in arms and shoulders, muscles in throat and lungs moving in the present moment to create the beauty of the piece, to lift up the hearts of all listeners.

It is possible for a teacher to pause at the beginning or in the midst of her teaching in a similar way. He can walk into the classroom and stop. He can pause to put down his books, briefcase or papers. He can stop and just breathe for a moment. He can be silent for just a moment. He can look out at the students before him like the conductor looks at each member of the chorus or orchestra. Then he, the teacher can draw them in, bring them into his sphere, touch them with a sense of presence.

Some teachers I know also ask their students to come into a moment of silence before the class begins. This is nothing special but it is extraordinary. Everyone in the rooms simply sits in silence for one or two minutes. How many minutes of the day are taken in silence? There is a chance for everyone to stop and breathe, to take a sacred pause out from life in the fast lane, to get off of the treadmill, to drop into the moment and in so doing connect with the timeless.

This pausing is worth its weight in gold, a golden moment as it were, something that says to all those present, "What we are about to do is important. What we are about to do matters. What we are about to do is going to be done with care and joy." So much is communicated by the tiniest of gestures. I once saw a ballet dancer command an audience of thousands by the pointing of one finger. I once saw the Dalai Lama speak to eighty thousand people in a sports stadium and commanded everyone's attention by taking a moment to stop and simply look out into the crowd with a beaming smile on his face as if he were meeting a small group of friends in his living room. I once saw a teacher walk into her classroom, then just stop and stand there facing the her students for just a moment. With this simple gesture, the students also stopped and began again from a place of clarity and purpose.

Try this:
Practice pausing several times each day, at the beginning or in the midst of your teaching. One of my teachers says, "Being mindful is not difficult to do, it is difficult to remember to do." Take the time to leave the ordinary and take a journey into the extra-ordinary. Take the time to leave the rush, interrupt it, by simply stopping right in the middle of some fast-paced, moving-forward moment in the hectic swirl of your teaching life. Take just a moment to pause to reconnect with mindfulness of breath, or sounds or body.

And when you have paused, then take that moment to breathe. Know that as you have taken that one breath, so have your students. See any one person in front of you and know that he or she too is a fragile being just like you whose life depends on just one breath. Know that when there is no more breath, there is no more life. Feel the life in you right now surging and rolling in and out like the waves of the ocean. Feel the space of all of life and then begin again to connect with all that is ordinary in your teaching life but in a fresh and mindful way.

Claire M. Stanley, Ph.D.
Center for Mindful Inquiry
167 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301

Seeing Space

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:56:02 -0500

I believe that a person does not choose to be a teacher because it is just a job. Teaching demands too much of the mind and body and heart to be just a job. It is not something you do where you go into work, punch a clock, sit at a table, turn on a machine, then turn it off, leave the job and go home and forget it. Teaching demands you to be with it for the time that you are doing it and then often for most of the rest of the day as well.

When most teachers get up in the morning, they are thinking about that one class that is not so well put together yet, or about that one kid you has not come around, or about the assignment that needs to be posted on the website, or about the adult learner who clearly needs some support, or about the deadlines for course content, or about the process of learning and who is and who isn't and why. All of this takes over the space of the mind until planning mind dominates and there is nothing else. Teachers give all of themselves to this most of the time of the day.

Recently, a teacher attending one of my weekend retreats told me that she does not have time in the day to go to the bathroom or to get a cup of tea. She eats her lunch in her elementary school classroom with the kids and when she goes home, there is always more to do. A university professor told me some time ago that it always looks like the academic calendar is a great way to work and to have a lot of vacations. But in truth, she actually spends a lot of her time not teaching in the classroom - say during the summer - researching what she needs to have in place for the next course she will teach in the fall. Or she is reading and writing about the topics she teaches in order to publish them and maintain her position. Finally, another teacher just wrote to me to say that she was not sure she could take an online course on mindfulness for teachers. Her response said, "Ironically, most teachers are so stressed that they do not have the time to do anything for themselves to work with the stress, even if it is not a lot of time." There is the sense that there is no time; no time for self-care and no time for the space and grace that leads and inspires a teacher.

What teachers need to know is that in truth, there is all the space and time in the world available to them. All they need to do is to stop and step back and to see a bit more clearly both inside their own minds and bodies, and then perhaps inside the minds and bodies of their students.

There is a notion in early Chinese painting that what is important in the painting is not the objects in it but the space from which the objects emerge. The painter sees and draws the space as clearly and as importantly as she draws the objects. The space is always there - it is what we walk through, it is the air we breathe, it is all that is invisible that surrounds us every moment of our waking lives.

We can learn to stop and to see the space rather than the objects, but it takes some time and it takes a strong intention to incline the mind in that new direction. But it is truly possible. Right now, wherever you are, just look at what is around you. And now, take a moment to focus your eyes on the edges of things, on the contours. See the place where the object ends and where space begins. Then move to yourself and feel your whole body sitting in whatever position it is in. Then feel the sense of the contours of the body and feel where the body ends and where the space around it begins.

When you start to look at the world from this perspective, you can see that there is infinitely more space than there are objects in it. And if you do this exercise outside, you will notice that the air and the sky go on beyond where you can even see until there is much more space, truly infinite space that surrounds our planet and is in between this planet and the next one. They measure that space in light years.

In physics, there is a principle that goes something like this: when there is more space, there is more time.

Try this:
The next time you are teaching a class, simply see what is happening from the angle of space rather than from the angle of what is going on or even the people in it. If you fix your gaze to a bigger, wider space, your mind will naturally open up to a slower and perhaps gentler responding to what is happening. From the perspective of space, there is no need for reaction, and there is much more time for compassion. Seeing the space may even open up our innate lovingkindness and compassion. Pay attention when you practice seeing the space and notice the quality of the mind. Notice what your relationship is to time and to space right then and there. Perhaps you will see love and compassion present in the here and now.

Claire M. Stanley, Ph.D.
Center for Mindful Inquiry
167 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301

Consultations

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:14:37 -0500

The Center for Mindful Inquiry (CMI) is dedicated to teaching the practices and principles of mindfulness to professionals.

CMI consults with businesses, health centers, and educational institutions to explore ways to integrate mindfulness into work with clients, students and colleagues. We also develop presentations, workshops, and ongoing seminars for organizations that are interested in the applications of mindfulness to a multitude of routine and critical situations within work environments.

All CMI workshops and seminars include the following elements:

mindful inquiry focus questions
discussion, dialogue and a high level of interaction with the instructor(s)
the development of a strong and supportive learning community
an experiential component where participants apply principles and practices to their professional and personal contexts

For further discussion or information about a consultancy at your organization, contact cstanley@mindfulinquiry.org.

Teachers at the Center

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:13:57 -0500

Claire Stanley, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont and Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, Massachusetts. She is also a founder and the Guiding Teacher of Vermont Insight Meditation Center in Brattleboro.

Her work as an educator for the last 23 years has focused on teacher development, interpersonal and intercultural communication in professional relationships, and the role of mindful awareness in the quality and effectiveness of our work in the world.

She is passionate about the far-reaching possibilities of transforming the systems of any professional context into learning communities where human beings are awake, compassionate, and responsive to their inner life and to the lives of the people they work with.

Jack Millett, MAT, is a founder and teacher at The Center for Mindful Inquiry and Vermont Insight Meditation Center. He was an Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Teaching program at the SIT Graduate Institute for 25 years and is currently adjunct faculty there.

Since 1990 Jack has been exploring ways to integrate meditation and teaching practices by exploring ways to bring mindfulness to his work in the classroom. When designing lessons and teaching classes, he is most interested in being in the moment, seeing what is, accepting what is, and responding to serve.

From his extensive teaching, teacher supervision and educational administration experience, he has developed the ability to create safe and engaging environments that allow participants in his courses and workshops to touch an appreciation of themselves and others as they engage and learn the content of the course.

At the moment, his particular interest lies in creating rich, supportive, engaging, reflective learning environments in the online courses that he teaches.

Articles

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:12:15 -0500

Claire Stanley, Ph.D., co-founder of the Center for Mindful Inquiry, is the author of the essays and articles found in the column to the left. They consist of published and unpublished material pertaining primarily to applied mindfulness inthe field of education and to the application of mindfulness, compassion, and mindful inquiry in that context. Other articles and essays by teachers at CMI will be added in the future.

About the Center

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:10:40 -0500

The Center for Mindful Inquiry is dedicated to teaching the practices and principles of mindfulness to professionals. CMI offers online and face- to- face courses, consultations, seminars, and workshops for professionals who are both new to and experienced in mindfulness practices.

Jack Millett and Claire Stanley founded the center in 2007. They have been professors in higher education for over 30 years and have offered training courses in corporate and educational contexts in the U.S. and overseas since 1986. Their work has focused on education, communication, national and international cultural understanding using an experiential and reflective approach. In the 1990's they began integrating mindful inquiry into their work as a result of their study and practice of Buddhist philosophy and meditation. They are both teachers of meditation at Vermont Insight Meditation Center.

All instructors at the Center for Mindful Inquiry have extensive experience as educators, trainers and course designers as well as many years of practice with mindfulness meditation and its applications in the world.

Mindful inquiry

Mindful inquiry is at the heart of all of our work at the center. When using the process of mindful inquiry we tap into the power of mindfulness to see clearly what is happening in the moment, to accept what is, to understand causes and conditions, and to explore wise and compassionate action.

All of our courses, workshops, and seminars include

presentation of material with the use of visual frameworks for understanding
mindful inquiry focus questions
discussion, dialogue, and a high level of interaction with the instructor
the development of a strong and supportive learning community
an experiential component where participants take theories and concepts presented in the course and test them out in the world, in both professional and personal contexts
instructions in mindfulness meditation
daily mindfulness meditation practice to establish a clear and steady mind
opportunities for questions and answers about meditation practice
readings in both the professional field and the application of applied mindfulness to that field
focus on the development of both wisdom and compassion in personal and professional contexts