Mindfulness and Mysticism

Catalog description

Practices of meditation and contemplation have emerged as "mindfulness based interventions" (MBI) in medicine, psychotherapy, education, and popular culture. This class will explore some of the core practices of MBI as well as some of the larger philosophical, historical, political, poetic, and religious aspects of mindfulness. We will also consider how mindfulness practices compare with writings on spiritual, even mystical, states of consciousness. Theorists, poets, and practitioners we study include Thich Nhat Hahn, bell hooks, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Meister Eckhart, Hui Neng, Alice Walker, William James, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Michael Pollan, Bret Davis, and Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Ryokan, Basho, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Wright, and Sonia Sanchez.