Abstract
Jon Kabat-Zinn observes that William James was not aware of the practice of mindfulness when he penned this passage but would have been delighted to discover that, in the practice of mindfulness, there was certainly an education for discovering that faculty of bringing back a wandering attention over and over again.2
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character and will. An education which should improve this faculty would be an education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical instructions for bringing it about.1
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Notes
James, William, 1890, 1918, 1950, The Principles of Psychology, Dover Publications, New York.
J. Kabat-Zinn, 2005, Coming to Our Senses, Piatkus, New York, p. 117.
J. Kabat-Zinn, 1990, Full Catastrophe Living, Delta, New York, p. 269.
Toby Hart, 2004, ‘Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom’, Journal of Transformative Education, 2, 1, 28–46.
See Padmasiri de Silva, 2007, Explorers of Inner Space: The Buddha, Krishnamurti and Kierkegaard, Sarvodaya-Vishvalekha, Ratmalana.
Maria Rainer Rilke, 2001, Letters to a Young Poet, Trans. Stephen Michael, Modern Library, New York.
Jiddu Krishnamurti, 1995, The Book of Life, Harper Collins, New York.
Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, 2008, Emotional Awareness, Henry Holt and Company, New York, p. ix.
Padmasiri De Silva, 1993, ‘Buddhist Ethics’, in Peter Singer, ed., Companion to Ethics, Basil Blackwell, Oxford
Padmasiri de Silva, 2005b, ‘Exploring Buddhist Ethics’, in Daniel Kollak and Raymond Martin, eds., Experience of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Padmasiri de Silva, 2011b, ‘Ethics for the Rough Road: Exploring New Dimensions for Inter-faith Ethics’, in Ariane Hentsch Cisneros and Shanta Premawardhana, eds., Sharing Values, Global Ethics Series, Geneva.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1953, Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, p. 127.
Iris Murdoch, 1956, ‘Vision and Choice in Morality’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 30, 30–58.
Joseph Goldstein, 1994, Transforming the Mind and Healing the World, Harvard University, Wit Lectures, Paulist Press, New York, p. 32.
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de Silva, P. (2014). Buddhism as Contemplative Philosophy, Psychology and Ethics. In: An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology and Counselling. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287557_11
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