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Dao
and Zen of Teaching:
Classroom as Enlightenment Field
Avraham Cohen
University of British Columbia
Heesoon
Bai
Simon
Fraser University
Vancouver,
British Columbia
The
Sound of Three Gongs
Buddha and Sky
(Dodge, date unknown)
Two Educators
Meet and Compare Notes
One spring
day, the two of us were sipping tea together, and comparing
notes on our experience in classrooms, first as learners
and now as teachers. We were well into another semester
of teaching, and our minds were preoccupied with classroom
experiences. The challenges and struggles we faced as classroom
teachers were being played out against the backdrop of
our own schooling experience of oppressiveness, coercion,
fear, anxiety, and boredom. There was a tragic atmosphere
surrounding the recollection of our own classroom experiences.
We thought
about the countless hours we had spent in existentially
meaningless and forced assimilation of content materials
in competition for good grades and, presumably, future
security, and happiness. So often we had wished we were
not there, but we had no choice about it and no alternative
places to be. One of us (Avraham) could indulge in daydreaming
in class without grave consequences, but Heesoon’s
school was a regime of terror, and there was no way she
could relax her vigilance and daydream in class.
When humans
are compelled to be somewhere they don’t want to
be, isn’t that incarceration? And to compel another
to do things against his or her wishes, isn’t that
oppression? Never mind the rhetoric of prudence like “they need education to survive in this society.” How many parents and even
teachers have said to children variations on the same theme: “If
you don’t go to school and study, you will end up
pushing a shopping cart on the street.”
Fear circulates in the veins of both the oppressor and
the oppressed. All done with good intentions and out
of love, but is in the end misguided and damaging.
Now that we
are educators, how shall we confront this phenomenon of
students being in the classroom, not out of the sheer joy
of learning in the company of each other, but out of the
perceived necessity of earning grades, degrees, certificates,
and so on? Is it possible to turn the classroom into a
place where students of any age will come voluntarily,
even eagerly, because they love the company and because
what they learn enriches and enlarges who they are and
their sense of life? Is it possible that the classroom
can become a space of enlightenment?
Avraham (A):
When I look back, what upsets me most about my schooling
is impersonality; really we were systematically being
taught to be alienated from human contact and experience.
There was little personal contact, connection, and content
in the conduct of classroom. My teachers did not ask
me and other students how we were and what was going
on in our lives. There was no real attempt to connect
our personal lives with what we were learning—damaging
and deadening and yet this still goes on today. And,
I suppose not surprisingly, I don’t see massive
protests in the streets by parents, educators, or concerned
citizens against these rather “inhumane” practices!
I wonder why we accept it.
Heesoon (H):
Very bizarre, isn’t it? I don’t mean to be
dramatic, but this practice of compelling our children
(and when these children become adults, they have learned
to compel themselves, and of course, others) to go to
school and learn things that do not nourish them personally,
directly, and daily is extraordinarily strange. We seem
to be in a trance and unable to see the absurdity, let
alone the damage of such practice. I mean, we would not
think of forcing people to eat food that is indigestible
or has no nourishing effect, but when it comes to “food
for the mind and heart,” we lose that instinct
or common sense. Education is so much driven by the rhetoric
of compulsion and threat like, ‘you have
to do,’
‘you need to do,’ and ‘if
you don’t do...’ that we take all this as the way it is and the
way it is supposed to be.
A: That’s right. This is why I am determined to approach the classroom
as a place of personal development and community. I start
all my classes with time devoted to personal process
(Cohen, 2004). Students and I have the opportunity to
deal with any relevant classroom issues that come up
personally for them. I frequently hear stories about
being stressed, tired, upset, etc. I know that educators
are often fearful that if they invite personal sharing
that the class will turn into a psychotherapy group,
for which they feel unprepared and unequipped. I allocate
one half hour for this in each class and we have heard
stories about pregnancy, death, illness, job success,
job loss, marriage, love, break-ups, etc. Somehow, the
atmosphere is established that we can share, we can feel,
and we can be sympathetic, empathetic, and excited. The
situation never goes “out of control,” students
are personally engaged, they feel a part of something,
and at the close of this personal time they are “emptied” of
personal experiences and ready to address curriculum
matters. This process time is helpful for the classroom
community to connect, become present, and form personal
bonds. As well, I end each class with some time for sharing
of experience about both personal and learning insights
during the class. I often hear that students feel more
relaxed and energized at the end of the class than when
they arrived.
H: That’s wonderful! If my students can leave the class more relaxed
and energized than when they enter, I sure would read
that as a sign of great success in my teaching. I approach
my teaching similarly. I tell my students that I don’t
see information transmission as my primary job. Not that
I don’t expect such to happen. In all learning
and teaching, information transmission is inevitable.
But what is the goal of my teaching? What do I want to
see happen in my class? I want to touch the hearts of
my students. I want to create an environment where their
spirit can awaken. I want to stimulate their mind. I
want to see their eyes open. I want to see them come alive. I want to see their face light up (and I want them
to see each other having this experience) when they suddenly
see the bigger picture, catch an insight, and are moved
by understanding. It does not matter what subject I (or
anyone else) is teaching.
A: Yes! Aliveness should be the most prized experience in a classroom.
Aliveness goes with awareness. Ideally, senses, hearts,
and minds are open and ready to connect with themselves,
each other classroom inhabitant, and with curriculum
material. I want educators to look around their classrooms
and notice what states of being students are in—not
in general but in the moment. A lot of teachers, when
they go into classrooms, either don’t sense—see,
hear, and feel—how students are, or they ignore
what they notice, and carry on (because they think they have
to) with the usual
business of downloading the prepared curriculum into
students. It is precisely this approach to teaching—that
is teaching as information transfer or knowledge transmission—that kills students. When we ignore and neglect the existential
being who is the student—who he or she is, their
hopes, desires, longing, pain, discomfort, anger—then
their eyes become dull with a frozen expression of indifference,
submission, or sullen defiance and subversion. The dead
feeling teachers get when they walk into classes where
students sit with flat and dull expressions is an indication
that the spirit is under duress. What appears to be the
opposite also occurs, is just as problematic, and is
indicative of the same underlying problem. Some classes
are full of boisterousness and acting up. This may look
livelier, but it is really an effort on the part of students
to avoid the feeling of deadness, and has the same effect:
no learning that impacts the existential dimension. In
my view, the real job of the teacher is to rekindle and fan the fire
of love and life in students.
H: I agree. As I lecture or conduct a seminar, I am always watching their
faces and noticing body positions and movements. I want
to be in touch with who they are and what they are experiencing
in the moment. This is how I was able to notice on the
first day of a particular class that my undergrad students
(there were 90 of them) seemed somewhat “dead.” I
was so startled by this feeling that I felt strongly
that I could not just go on, ignoring the distressed
human beings in front of me, and talking about the course
and what we would be learning. Somewhat impulsively (internally,
I had to fight the feeling that what I wanted to do was
inappropriate, invasive. . . crazy) I asked that we go around the room and each person
say in just two words what their in-the-moment experience
was. They took my suggestion, although I imagined many
thought it whacky. I was stunned to hear the persistent
and repetitious comments, “tired,” “sleepy,” and “hungry.” For
sure, there were a few saying, “curious,” “anticipating,” and “excited,” but
these amounted to no more than five or seven out of ninety!
A: Good grief! I think you did a courageous thing when you decided to
connect, even if for a few moments, with each student
in such a large class that was designed as a lecture
experience. I imagine that brought them to life, at least
temporarily. Yes?
H: Yes, it did. The energy level changed in the room. There was a sense
of people having real experiences, becoming real in the
moment, instead of just a bunch of impersonal “bodies.” For
the moment, students seemed to “wake up,”
and a bit of curiosity and interest animated the room.
They were looking around and looking at each other, wonderingly
and perhaps sympathetically. There were smiles and chuckles,
stirring of bodies, and clearing throats.
A: It is so easy for teachers to fall into the curriculum delivery trance.
We can easily get into the trance of having
to “get through” and “covering” the
apportioned content for the day. Once the compelling
idea of “have to get through” is in mind,
it is a short journey to becoming resentful of anything
that gets in the way of curriculum delivery. Such a compulsion
quickly becomes interpreted as an overpowering need.
A while ago, I was teaching a practicum class to a small
group of M.A. Counseling Psychology students. The course
includes a case presentation that demonstrates their
clinical work from their practicum site and a related
write-up that includes client background information
and treatment recommendations. A student made an unusual
request to perform a live demonstration with a classmate,
which meant that there could not be a write-up as outlined
in the original assignment, since the classmate did not
constitute a case. Her desire to work outside the curriculum
created a problem in terms of my carrying out the carefully
set-up curriculum. I said, “I like your idea, but I need
to give you feedback on your written work, as I said
I would do in the course syllabus” As I spoke these
words, I felt a slight tension in my chest. I thought
to myself, “Whose needs am I addressing here? What’s
my need to give feedback? Do I really have this need?” I
realized that what I had said to her was completely inconsistent
with my views of education and with myself as a person
and an educator. I turned to the class and said, “Actually,
I don’t have a need to give feedback. I need to
have you do what is meaningful for you. Design your own
learning. I trust that none of you is here with the intent
to do as little as possible, and even if you are, then
it is your loss. Do what matters to you. Use me as your
resource.”
H: Now, that’s enlightened! You see, I don’t believe I can
know what is meaningful to students unless and until
I make a connection with those students and find out
something about who they are and their individual needs.
In my own teaching experience I too have found that students
appreciate the opportunity to integrate the personal
and the academic. I believe strongly the notion that
the personal and the academic are separate is harmful
and needs to be dispelled. I believe we are existential
beings who are physically, emotionally, intellectually,
and spiritually alive (or not) and that honouring aliveness
ought to be the primary educational mandate.
Philosophical
Interlude
What and how
we teach is predicated upon the portrayal of who we are
and what our “business” is on this planet.
Currently the prevailing portrayal of human beings is that
of the propertied individual whose
worth or power depends on what he or she possesses in terms
of material wealth, status, and knowledge. Erick Fromm
(Fromm, 1976/1999) calls this orientation to life the having mode
in contrast to the being mode. Knowledge acquisition, which
is seen to be the primary business of education, becomes
an essential means to acquisition of wealth and status.
And what is knowledge in this having mode? The having mode is not possible unless whatever
we are to possess is seen as discrete, objectifiable, and
hence, quantifiable. Knowledge in the having mode, then,
has to be quantifiable in terms of discrete units of knowledge
whose contemporary name is ‘information.’
Having defined knowledge as discrete units of information
and what we do with the information, then we understand
schools as an organization that prepares individuals
to acquire, store, process, and apply the information.
In the having
mode, then, it makes sense to push students to acquire
and apply information. Social survival and success depend
on the acquisition of information and skills that go with
applying information. The quality and quantity of acquisition
determines the survival, success, and worth of human beings.
In this picture, what gets lost or left out is, of course,
the human being who is undertaking all this doing in the
service of having. The focus is on what he or she has, not on who he or she is. The focus on the person would take us to a very different
paradigm: the being mode
of existence and schooling. The focus is on the human being—the
living, breathing, feeling, perceiving human beings and
their existential states of consciousness. Joys, sorrows,
happiness, misery, fulfillment, and aliveness all matter
intensely and centrally as educational concerns. They matter
more than how much students know, what they have acquired
and accomplished, what their future earning potentials
will be, and so on.
Can we conceive
of an alternative educational paradigm that takes the states
of consciousness seriously and deems them to be the legitimate
and central educational concern? Yes, we can. For that,
we need to go to radically different ontological views
like the Daoist qi philosophy and the Zen philosophy. There, we can derive
an educational paradigm that honours and works with the
human consciousness as its primary educational good. Of
course, Daoist and Zen philosophy have no monopoly on the
project we are proposing. Other being-oriented and processual
philosophies may do the job. We choose to work with these
Asian philosophies because they are our own practice traditions,
and we find the theoretical tools—philosophy and
methodology—to be both precise and versatile. Daoism
and Zen offer insight about the foundation and essence
of being fully human, and have cross-cultural applications
to education today. The potential of classrooms as enlightenment
fields for cultivation of full humanity and aliveness that
indicates integration of the body-mind-heart-spirit is
limited only by our imaginations. In what follows, then,
we will explore Daoist and Zen philosophy and practice
to show their application to teacher education.
Emptying
the Mind: The Zen Methodology
Contemporary
schooling relentlessly pursues the development of the narrowly
focused rationalistic mind and its moral consequence of
instrumentalism. Our orientation in life is characterized
by: “What can I get out of this situation, this person,
this object, this life . . .?” and “What knowledge
and skills shall I acquire so that I can get and do this
or that?” This objectifying, acquisitive, calculating,
instrumentalist mindset is exploitive towards other beings
and is unable to comprehend, let alone feel, the sacred
in Life (Bai, 2001; Bai & Cohen, in press, 2007). A rationalistic mind wants
to acquire more and more knowledge and skills. It seems
our whole education system is founded, precisely, upon
this mindset. Zen training is designed to puncture and
drain the acquisitive mindset, which is grounded in the
rationalistic mind.
Here is a well-known
story in the Zen tradition:
空 A
cup of Tea
NAN-IN
a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received
a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in
served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and
then kept on pouring.
The
professor watched the overflow until he no longer could
restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will
go in!”
“Like
this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of
your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you
Zen unless you first empty your cup?” (Senzaki & Reps, 1957, 19)
The Chinese
character 空 means
empty, hollow. What does this have to do with classrooms,
teachers, learning, teaching, or wisdom? Let’s look
more deeply into this little story. Who comes to inquire?
A professor, a learned man full of knowledge! What could
be better? A professor comes to learn, but—and
it’s a very big but—the master sees that the
professor is so filled with pre-conceived and pre-digested
ideas that there is no room for fresh seeing of what
is. Now, if Nan-in didactically told the professor how stuffed and clogged up he is with
“inert ideas,” (Whitehead, 1929) chances are high that this teaching
would only go to the professor’s head once again, and would have little
potential to precipitate an awakening experience. We can only marvel at Nan-in’s crazy
wisdom. How do we as educators learn
to be like Nan-in?
Crazy wisdom, well known to Zen masters, does not and cannot spring
from accumulated information and knowledge that is so
fondly pressed on and into students within contemporary
educational contexts. Crazy wisdom, that is, the ability
to wake up to vivid and transformative insight travels
only through empty gaps and spaces in consciousness uncluttered
by discursive information and knowledge. The discursive
mind is an impediment to cultivation of crazy wisdom.
What we need, therefore, is a way to clear out or empty
(but not destroy) the discursive mind. That is what Zen
does. Martine Batchelor (2001) succinctly explains Zen
(禪): “Zen
actually means meditation. It comes from the Sanskrit
word dhyana, which means meditative state in the Buddhist tradition” (2).
More explicitly, dhyana means non-ordinary states of consciousness (Rahula 1959, 48). What
is meant by ‘trance’ here is a non-ordinary
state of consciousness in which the discursive intellectual
activity slows down or ceases temporarily. Cleared of
discursivity, the mind or consciousness rests in “pure” (meaning,
empty of discursivity) states of Being.
In the Zen
story above, the emptying of the cup illustrates the practice
of Zen. Once cleared, the mind becomes capable of seeing
past habituated patterns of thought and sees with fresh
eyes, known in the Zen literature as a beginner’s
mind. We are not suggesting that discursive materials are never offered
for our students’
mind. Teacups are there to be filled and drunk from;
human minds are there to be filled and used for discursive
thinking. But filling up must be occasionally followed
by emptying. The mind that is filled up more and more
with ideas, notions, concepts, views, like the professor’s
overflowing cup, does not conduce to fresh, creative,
and surprising insights that spring from an encounter
with what is:
the awesome, complex, and evolving reality in front of
our eyes. Meditation that facilitates “clearing
the discursive mind” is not currently a component
of teacher education. Today, in the midst of an overwhelming
information explosion, it makes eminent sense to incorporate
meditation in our practices of education. Thus we propose
an inclusion of meditation or some such practice in
teacher education.
Emptying
the Mind: The Daoist Methodology
The Zen insight
above is further corroborated by Daoist thought. The Dao
De Jing (Ames & Hall 2003), which is attributed to
a mysterious and legendary old man “Laozi,” or “The
Old Master,” speaks of emptiness:
Chapter
11
The
thirty spokes converge at one hub,
But
the utility of the cart is a function of the nothingness
(wu) inside the hub.
We
throw clay to shape a pot,
But
the utility of the clay post is a function of the nothingness
inside it.
We
bore out doors and windows to make a dwelling,
But
the utility of the dwelling is a function of the nothingness
inside it.
Thus,
it might be something (you)
that provides the value,
But
it is nothing that provides the utility. (91)
Conventionally, nothingness conveys a negative meaning, namely that something that is
positive and desired is lacking. The Zen and Daoist understanding
of nothingness is different.
It signifies the positive state of a de-cluttered mind,
a mind that is available, open, and receptive. The empty
mind is a vast field of potential creativity where creative
insights and conceptualizations can arise abundantly.
If teachers are seriously interested in creativity and
encouraging the potential in their students, they are
well advised to cultivate this vast field of emptiness
within themselves, which will have the effect of opening
the way in their students.
“Dao
(道)” is an ontological notion:
reality as a field of infinite possibilities of perception
and action. Anywhere humans reside, including our classroom,
there is a dao-field. But
in order to work in this field of possibilities, the
human consciousness has to be receptive to the dao, or, to be more precise, it has to become
part of the dao. The mind has to become, through embodied participation, a
microcosm of the dao-field. To use the well-worn but still
most expressive expression, we need to “become
one with” the
field. Two questions arise in this context: How do
we get in touch with the dao-field in the
first place? And, how do we work with it? While it
may be true that the dao-field is something that is
there whether we perceive it or not, what we are interested
in is the question of how to get in touch with it and
become one with it.
We have
in effect already alluded to the answer for the first
question when we introduced Zen. Zen as the practice
of clearing the discursive mind by the use of awareness
is the very practice we need to come in contact with
and to attune the human mind to the dao. In other words, through Zen
we contact and connect with the dao-field. As for the question
of how to work with and within the dao-field, we have to first know
what is in the field. Is not the dao-field simply empty, a place
where there is nothing? Not at all! For the Daoist practitioners,
the empty dao-field is full of qi (氣), vital energy. Qi is dynamic:
it flows, moves, increases, decreases, and so on. All
these movements are the activities of qi in the dao-field, giving
rise to human perceptions and actions. A classroom is
a perfect example of a dao-field.
A teacher
whose attention is refined through a training of awareness
like Zen continually perceives the micro (individual
students) and macro states (the collective) of moving qi manifest in the classroom and skillfully
works with it. This is an energetic work. In the next
section, we will take a closer look at the nature of
this energetic work.
Working
with qi: The Dao-Zen Approach
Let us probe
more deeply into the Zen practice of “emptying” the
mind and the daoist practice of working with the individual dao-field—our
consciousness. What is involved in this? The best known
Zen practice is sitting meditation, zazen. In just sitting, you learn to pay intense attention
to whatever occurs in your field of consciousness. But
Zen meditation can be practiced anywhere and anytime, not
just when sitting. In fact, we recommend this practice
to you. Lying down, walking, running, it does not matter.
What matters is that is simply being aware—just seeing,
hearing, tasting, smelling, touching—without adding
editorial comments on the process, or if they creep in,
then noticing the speaker of those comments. Ordinary states
of consciousness are filled with editorial comments that
make it difficult to get in touch with the vast and empty
but energy-filled background consciousness. Zen teaches
us the technique of simply witnessing what happens moment-to-moment.
Just ask this deceptively simply question, “What
is happening now, and now, and now?” No further comments,
elaboration, explanation, or justification are required.
Just watch and see, like this:
I am sitting here at the keyboard. I am aware that I feel tired. This
tiredness manifests itself as heaviness around my eyes.
I look out the window. I see the lights of the city.
I see darkness. I pause. I am in my own world. I feel
the tightness in the chest around the heart area. I feel
alone. Suddenly, I am aware of the “reader” who
would be reading these words. I feel a rush of energy
and sensation moving up my spine.
This example
of awareness and noticing the flow of feelings and associated
energy demonstrates the fluidity of consciousness that
follows the process. Energy follows awareness.
It is important
to emphasize that qi is
not something abstract and mysterious. Qi is
the felt quality of energy. When Heesoon walked into her
undergraduate classroom of 90 students and sensed deadness, she
would describe what she felt as “stagnant qi.” When the opportunity was offered for each student in the class
to express what they felt in the moment, it had the effect
of stirring up and moving the stagnant qi.
In other words, a flow began to happen. By the time everyone
said two words, Heesoon and her students felt a slightly
different configuration of qi circulating in the classroom. Students’ faces
and postures showed that they were filled with a bit more
brightness, liveliness, and engagement. This is the qi-work,
i.e., energy work. Teachers are energy workers. As well,
from the Zen discourse, we can say that teachers are awareness-workers
and modellers. Awareness and energy work go together. With
awareness, energy is detected and sensed in the experiential
field—the dao-field. Once you sense the energy, you can begin to follow
it, work with it, and nurture it. There is a whole intricate
and profound practice dimension of the qi work
that can be implemented in teacher education. Presently,
there does not seem to be anything close to this kind of
work in teacher education.
Dao-Zen
Teachers and Classrooms
Teachers as
awareness and energy workers can see classrooms as fields
of dao suffused
with qi.
The full existential spectrum of humanity is evoked and
educed in the field of dao: emotions, perceptions, desires, mental constructions,
communications, beliefs, values, actions, being bodies,
being, doing, and spiritual experience—all that existentially
constitutes being human. Education must aim at cultivating
the whole person. Anything less leads to inner and outer
oppression in a classroom no matter how well intended the
teacher and the school may be. How so?
When the wholeness
is not validated, when certain parts of a person are privileged
and validated and other parts are marginalized, as in our
present day education system, this leads to various manifestations
of internal oppression and external oppression (exploitation
and domination). Whoever is not existentially whole and
in touch with their existential matrix of being suffers
from and manifests forms of oppression, notwithstanding
avowed good intentions. Of course, whole persons are not
easy to find. The next best thing is a persistent and pervasive
commitment to becoming whole. A teacher who is intent on
covering his or her lesson for the day, and pays little
attention to the students’ in-the-moment existential
states of being is, albeit inadvertently, oppressing the
students and diminishing their spirit.
Let us call
teachers who practice Zen awareness in the dao-field of
classroom “Dao-Zen teachers. They approach the classroom
as a Daoist alchemical cooking pot, within which the raw
materials (prima materia) of the existential totality of each student along
with himself or herself “cook” for optimal
potential for transformation towards full humanity capability
for wisdom, compassion, and love. In the process, students
do learn academic content and skills, but these do not
constitute the overarching or ultimate aim of education.
The ultimate aim is to cook the raw materials, that is,
whatever is existentially present, at the right temperature,
for the right amount of time, and with the right attitude
within the alchemist-chef and
his alchemical cauldron (the
classroom) until the gold emerges from the prima
materia.
The above way
of describing the teacher’s role could give you the
wrong impression, namely that students are passive recipients
of alchemical transformation treatment conducted by the
teacher, the master alchemist. The role of alchemist-chef (leader or educator) is just that, a role, and as such
can rest within any person, including students, in the
classroom. The teacher is designated as such and does carry
specific responsibilities but the role can and does shift
amongst the human beings in the classroom. The Dao-Zen
teacher has the capacity to allow the role to be assumed
by the right person at each moment, using his or her awareness
to notice this happening and to step aside and allow the
teaching contribution of that person to the classroom community.
In such a classroom, the spirit of “deep democracy” (Mindell
1995, 2002) prevails.
This chapter
from the Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu 1991) conveys the spirit
of “deep democracy” in Daoist philosophy:
When
the Master governs, the people
are
hardly aware that he exists.
….
When his
work is done,
the people
say, “Amazing;
we did it, all by ourselves!” (Ch. 17)
Begin Here
As alluded
before, it is not likely that we will find Dao-Zen teacher
educators working in teacher education programs around
the country. How then can we educate future educators to
be like Dao-Zen teachers? Who can and will educate them?
At the risk of appearing to give out a tool, a recipe,
or a formula, we shall offer a method-less method, also
known as heuristics. This is how Moustakas (1990) defines “heuristic
research methodology,” which we find useful for our
purpose:
The
root meaning of heuristic comes
from the Greek word heuriskein, meaning to discover or to find. It refers to a process
of internal search through which one discovers the nature
and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures
for further investigation and analysis. The self of the
researcher is present throughout the process and, while
understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, the
researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and
self-knowledge. Heuristic processes incorporate creative
self-processes and self-discoveries. (9)
If we substitute
the word educator for researcher, we have a very good and
succinct rendering of how a teacher can simultaneously
teach and learn the Dao-Zen pedagogy. We are used to the
idea of being taught first and then going out to teach.
Learning and teaching are two separate processes. Let us
try the heuristic method of self-discovery here. Undertake
the experiment of being a Dao-Zen teacher in your classroom
and see what happens. You might have to get a little “crazy”
(become, at least in a small way, a crazy wisdom master)
in your classroom, not crazy as in losing yourself, but
crazy as in coming to your senses, literally coming into
your senses. You can learn to trust that you and your students
are in the midst of the infinitely creative and complex dao-field, and there, practice being in a Zen state, at any
moment. Focus now, not just now, but every now that you
are able to notice. You can notice your physical self,
your breath, your heart’s beat, your thoughts, sounds,
movements, activity, and so on. Just notice whatever you
notice. Follow your own awareness. Invite your students
do the same. Meta-communicate with them about all these
experiences as you and your students go about teaching
and learning your subject matter. Be curious about who
or what in you observes. Lose the sense of observer and
observed. Find the connection between observer and observed
and realize that there is no separation, only points along
the way that are inter-connected. You can live in the dao and breathe in qi. Dao-Zen is truly Us.
Untitled from
Collection, Designs of Faith
(McGinnis, 1992-1998)
Dao and Zen
In this very moment,
This one
This one,
There is only one thing,
And that one thing
Is
(A. Cohen)
Notes
References
Ames, R. T., & Hall, D. L. (2003). Daodejing: "Making this
life significant:" A philosophical translation (Ames & David H. Hall, Trans.). Toronto, ON: Ballantine.
Batchelor, M. (2001). Zen. London:
Thorsons.
Clarke, J. J. (2000). The Tao of the west: Western transformations
of Taoist thought.
New York: Routledge.
Bai, H. (2001). Challenge for education: Learning to value the world
intrinsically. Encounter, 14(1),
4-16.
Bai, H. (2001). “Challenge for education: Learning to value
the world intrinsically,” Encounter 14 (1): 4 - 16
Bai, H., & Cohen, A. (In Press, 2007). Relevance of ch'i philosophy
to today's violence-ridden world. In C. Eppert & H.
Wang (Eds.), Eastern thought and education Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum.
Cohen, A. (2004). A process-oriented approach to learning process-oriented
counselling skills in groups. Canadian Journal of Counselling,
38(3), 152-164. Fromm, E. (1999). To have or
to be. New York: Continuum.
(Original work published 1976)
Lao Tzu. (1991). Tao te ching: A new English version (S. Mitchell, Trans.). New York: HarperPerennial.
Mindell, Arnold. (1995). Sitting in the fire: Large group transformation.
Portland, OR: Lao Tse.
Mindell, Arnold. (2002). The deep democracy of open forums: Practical
steps to conflict prevention and resolution for the family,
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About the Authors
Heesoon
Bai is an
Associate Professor in Philosophy of Education at Simon
Fraser University. Her main research and writing interests
are in epistemology and ethics as they relate to educational
thought and practice. As well, she researches and writes
about application of Eastern thoughts to education.
She is a recipient of SFU's Excellence in Teaching
Award, has published widely, and presents regularly
at academic conferences. Heesoon is now Director of
Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Education.
Email: hbai@sfu.ca
Avraham
Cohen,
Ph.D., RCC, CCC currently conducts a private counselling
and psychotherapy practice in Vancouver, British Columbia.
He is also teaching faculty and the Internship Coordinator
for the M.A. Counselling Psychology Program at City
University of Seattle in Vancouver BC. He has published
widely and regularly presents at educational and counselling
conferences. His dissertation, Attending to the Inner Experience of
an Educator: The Human Dimension in Education was recently accepted for publication as a book by Cambria
Press, and he is currently working on a book with a
number of award winning educators on the nature and
practice of exceptional and highly skilled educators.
He is currently faculty and internship coordinator
for the MA Counselling Program at City University of
Seattle in Vancouver BC.
Email: acohen@cityu.edu
The
support for Avraham Cohen by the Social Science and Research
Council of Canada (SSHRC) in the form of a Graduate Student
Fellowship (2005-2006) is gratefully acknowledged. |
