Heesoon Bai

Simon Fraser University · Faculty of Education

The inclusion of ‘consciousness’ in Michael Bonnett’s paper signals to me that the right place for examination of the ongoing and deepening environmental disasters that humans face is human consciousness itself: the way we think, perceive, and feel, which flows into the way we relate to and act towards nature. Against the still prevailing way of th...

In the face of current turbulent times including climate emergencies, species extinction, the erosion of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism—in short, a suffering world—the authors of this paper propose that education needs to be centrally an activist effort dedicated to healing and repairing the increasingly wounded and damaged world. To th...

We are interested in the transformative potentials of intersubjectivity as it is enacted through second-person contemplative approaches. Our work here focuses on con-templative practice as a pedagogy that reveals and enacts intersubjectivity within postsecondary education. How might contemplative higher education practice as a pedagogy enable stude...

The planet Earth has become increasingly susceptible to human-induced (anthropogenic) ecological disasters. The currently raging COVID-19 pandemic adds to the vast scale of destruction and suffering that humanity and the planet are experiencing. In this paper we explicate the meaning of ‘human-induced’ destruction in the terms of the damaging and h...

This paper curates four experiential narratives and poetry by the five co-authors that illustrate epistemic and ontic shift from the Modern Western (ModWest) mindset to a holistic, embodied and animistic mindset. Coming from different cultural backgrounds, yet having been systemically influenced by the dominant ModWest views and values, each author...

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed torrents of global suffering at a devastating scale, necessitating a strong response to alleviating suffering. This paper begins with noting that the conventional approach to suffering in North America is to be positive and not to be negative. The paper summarily explores the philosophy of positive psychology und...

This paper considers the contribution of philosophy to education. First, a case is made that the fundamental goal of education is to cultivate human agency in the sense of being able to enact one’s freedom (as opposed to conditioned and habituated patterns of thinking, perception, and action) grounded in personal knowledge and ethics. This agency i...

This paper problematises the current conception and purview of environmental education (EE), seeing it as part and parcel of the modernist western worldview that normalises and valorises human domination and exploitation of nature in the name of progress. Using the COVID‐19 pandemic as a lens through which to examine and expose the modernist wester...

At a time when industrial agriculture and multi-national conglomerates dominate the foodscape in many parts of the Western world, when the ecological context of food is often excised from the act of eating, can the practice of foraging help reshape our sense of belonging within the earth community? In this chapter, we present a dialogue on our fora...

In this response paper, we continue and further expand upon Elizabeth Watts’ discussion on Buddhism and science, in the context of teachers’ searching for the pedagogical “means to increasing student receptivity to science.” While we share Watts’ concern over the detrimental consequences of creationism in schools, we also offer an extended discussi...

A rich collection of essays about the inner, shared experiences of participants engaged in second-person approaches to contemplative practice. Catalyzing the Field presents a diverse series of applied case studies about the second-person dimension of contemplative learning in higher education. As a companion volume to the editors’ previous book, T...

This paper intends to make contribution to second wave positive psychology by suggesting a post-egoic view of humanity that overcomes the positive-negative binary. This view sees all attributes and qualities of human experience as containing rich and holistic materials for ego transformation. The paper points out that the ego-based psychology that...

This paper calls for ethical responsibility to manifest a holistic, embodied, and deeply relational vision of what it means to actualise fuller human flourishing than how we, humanity as a whole, are behaving currently. A thesis is presented that humanity is experiencing an arrest within the trajectory of species’ psychological development and that...

In times of social and moral crises, sport has often been called to boost individual moral development. By the same token, outdoor activities are viewed as good educational practices to enhance environmental responsibility. However, the present paper argues that these physical activities are currently following the same technological development tr...

In this chapter, we explore the unquestioned use and killing of animals in biological education, through a mixed-methods study involving narrative inquiry, poetic inquiry, and essay composition. Based on our results, we call for a shift to a more ethical-ecological holistic framework for science pedagogy. We argue that, for this shift to occur, we...

This chapter is composed of a series of writing fragments that functions as personal meditations on various themes in Wittgenstein’s work as they find resonance in this author’s professional and personal life: as educational philosopher, educator, and psychotherapist. These themes focus on human suffering induced by being captured in reification of...

In this chapter, we the authors critically examine how mindfulness is taken up in education, and attempt to re-alibrate its use in education so as to suggest better ways to work with what mindfulness practice is truly capable of: liberating humanity from the narrow and limiting confines of reified ego consciousness and its perpetual condition of sc...

Many teacher candidates get their first taste of life as a full-time teacher in their practicums, during which they confront a host of challenges, pedagogical and ethical. Because ethics is fundamental to the connection between teachers and students, teacher candidates are often required to negotiate dilemmas in ways that keep with the ethical idea...

Radical personal and systemic social transformation is urgently needed to address world-wide violence and inequality, pervasive moral confusion and corruption, and the rapid, unprecedented global destruction of our environment. Recent years have seen an embrace of intersubjectivity within discourse on educational transformation within academia and...

Closing eyes, focusing attention on my fingers typing, hearing the little fountain trickling, now my left hand rubbing my chest that feels heavy, constricted. Breathe, breathe, my br~aths have been suspended a lot in the last few days, sadness coming up, drawing in a deep breath, now letting it out through the mouth-aahhhaa. Once more ... once more...

This paper explores the contribution of Zen storytelling to moral education. First, an understanding of Zen practice, what it is and how it is achieved, is established. Second, the connection between Zen practice and ethics is shown in terms of the former’s ability to cultivate moral emotions and actions. It is shown that Zen practice works at the...

In this paper, we propose an understanding of philosophy of education as cultural and intercultural work and philosophers of education as cultural and intercultural workers. In our view, the discipline of philosophy of education in North America is currently suffering from measures of insularity and singularity. It is vital that we justly and respe...

A wide-ranging consideration of the emerging field of contemplative education.

This chapter takes the prevailing anti-aging sentiment and cultural practice as the starting point of a critical analysis and shows that the modernist worldview of materialistic individualism is at their foundation. Exposing and critiquing the limiting deficit understanding of human aging and human development in this worldview, the authors propose...

The purpose(s) and role(s) that higher education plays in society have been contested since Plato and his Republic. In 1852, for example, Cardinal Newman, argued for ‘pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and not for the value of any of the fruits or applications, however important’ (Hutton, 1890, p. 217) in contrast to the decidedly util...

We learn all kinds of things, from the moment we pop into this plane of existence (or even before) till we pop out of it. Learning is a pervasive and expansive phenomenon for humans. But not all learning is the same. Some learning is delightful, joyful, beautiful, and animating; some insightful and mind-expanding; some downright “ wrong” some usele...

Not surprisingly, we have learned much from being members of our group. Our group has met on an ongoing basis since 2006; a rather long life for an academic group. As well, the group has emphasized the development of its culture and cohesiveness, and in particular, the sharing of the personal and human dimension of each of us has formed the contain...

In this paper I problematize the modern everyday ontology that categorically separates the animate from the inanimate, showing that such separation has ethical implications that are environmentally devastating. I propose a turn to an animistic ontology and epistemology. Acknowledging the challenge of such turn, I suggest contemplative practices as...

Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia provides descriptions, ideas, theories, advice, and solutions in regards to teaching English language in Asia. The collection has wide-ranging contributions from 31 teacher/researcher authors based in nine different Asian countries. The analyses and discussions on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in the authors’ s...

In this chapter, we the three authors take a hard look at higher education, and propose an analytic framework of the three-fold relationality by which we both account for the failure of higher education and point towards its redress. Our framework posits three-fold human relationality: self-to-self; self-to-human other; self-to-Nature.

In recent times, the economic crisis and associated meltdowns of companies have contributed to an increasingly negative perception of business and industry. Numerous corporate scandals and failures have motivated people to ask questions about the leaders at the forefront of these organizations, and about their integrity. The public is losing trust...

This paper makes the case that environmental education needs to be taken up as a moral education to the extent that we see the connection between harm and destruction in the environment and harm and destruction within human individuals and their relationship, and proceeds to show this connection by introducing the key notion of human alienation and...

There is no other task but to know your own original face. This is called independence; the spirit is clear and free. If you say there is some particular doctrine or patriarchy, you’ll be totally cheated. Just look into your heart; there is no transcendental clarity. Just have no greed and no dependency and you will immediately attain certainty. (Y...

Teaching necessarily happens in the intersection of the personal and the professional. The more integration we can achieve between these two realms, the more embodied, enactive, and alive our teaching becomes, which, in turn, can facilitate transformative learning in our students. This integration of the personal and the professional is supported b...

How would you describe your life? Someone once said I was a distraction. A distraction? Yes. That’s a bit harsh. Most people would like to be a Main Event rather than a distraction. Yes, I suppose so. So, would you like to be a Main Event? People line up for a long time, pay big money, and get dressed up for a Main Event! And? You don’t do that for...

I moved from my hometown in Melbourne, Australia, where I had been a high school teacher for 11 years, to attend the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Graduate school was only one reason for my move to Canada. I also enjoy the outdoors and Canada’s west coast is well known as an outdoor enthusiast’s playground. When not studying, I...

I found my grandmother’s notebook packed away in a cardboard box labeled ‘old photographs.’ It was worn, having been opened and closed so many times by my grandmother’s hands. Once upon a time its cover was pristine buff leather and its pages white. When I opened the frayed cover and saw the first page, I recognized the curves of my grandmother’s h...

I have long been fascinated with eastern ideas, writings and practices that others may find enigmatic. Somehow I find them quite intelligible and even profoundly so. In fact, I often have trouble understanding rational philosophical writings from the west that for others are clear and self-evident in their meaning!

I am privileged to be part of a group of educators who are exploring the place of inner work in our pedagogical practice. Different threads connect me to the members of the group—interests in the arts, creativity, and exceptional human accomplishments, dedication to students and to teaching, and longstanding respect. Our paths have converged in dif...

I fell in love in a bookstore. Psychedelic posters, Persian rugs and tie-dye curtains fashioned its eclectic, artsy aura. A thick and strangely sweet smoke in the air left an exotic taste in my mouth impossible to forget. I was barely in my twenties and looking for something to read that would justify or just explain my restlessness about pretty mu...

I have been a student of Buddha most of my adult life—for over 30 years now. And it does not look like I will graduate from this course of study. No degree, no certificate. Not only that, I am not even sure if I will ever achieve the goal of this study: enlightenment. In fact, if I understand the Buddha’s teachings correctly, enlightenment is not s...

Most of my life I have been a religious seeker. On Career Day in high school, I was the only student who attended the session with a local Christian minister. And, through all the twists and turns in my life, I have spent most Sunday mornings in buildings with communities of other religious seekers calling out to God in the name of Jesus.

After a long career in education and several periods of reflection on what makes good teaching I was at a point where, in hindsight, those reflections were kaleidoscopic. Tiny, beautiful fragments of shape and colour, emerging patterns, ideas tumbling about in a tube, constantly changing.

I have lived my life with love. (Freire, 1993, p. 88) Applicants for wisdom do what I have done: inquire within. (Heraclitus, 2001, p. 51) Love and revolution go together. (Freire, 1993, p. 87) Just as the river where I step is not the same, and is, so I am as I am not. (Heraclitus, 2001, p. 51)

Teaching is a richly multifaceted endeavor. It isn’t always easy to know just where we should focus our thinking and our dialogue. In Speaking of Teaching, six educators talk about their inner selves. They bring the inside out for their own self-exploration. And they bring the inside out for us to view and learn from. They also question the boundar...

This article is a collaborative bricolage of poetry, autobiographical fragments, essay pieces, and images assembled together as a portrait of the authors’ ongoing existential, psychological and epistemological struggles as educators and learners, parents and children. The article captures a reflective exploration and collective sharing of their own...

Professor Roger T. Ames is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. The following is a short excerpt from an interview with Professor Ames that took place on the eve of 2009 PESA Conference, December 1, 2009. Heesoon Bai, Editor of Paideusis, accompanied by Avraham Cohen, interviewed Professor Ames in his offic...

In this article we are calling for an interlayered and cross-dimensional approach to understanding and working with anxiety, especially as manifested in English as an additional language (EAL) teaching and learning environments. We aim to understand the phenomenon of anxiety from the multidimensional perspectives of physiology, psychology, and phil...

The prevailing conception and practice of education perpetuates a civilization saturated with a deep sense of ontological disconnect and axiological crisis in all dimensions of human life. We examine the disconnect from body, senses, and world in the practice of education. We explore the possibilities in the burgeoning contemplative education movem...

This paper argues that the current ecological crisis arises from our dualistic consciousness which separates mind from body and self from world. This dualistic consciousness prevents us from experiencing the value in nature, and therefore leads to instrumentalist treatment of nature. We explore the Buddhist practice of mindfulness to help cultivate...

In this article we are calling for an interlayered and cross-dimensional approach to understanding and working with anxiety, especially as manifested in English as an additional language (EAL) teaching and learning environments. We aim to understand the phenomenon of anxiety from the multidimensional perspectives of physiology, psychology, and phil...

Mindful of living in a multicultural and cross-cultural society, this article introduces and presents Buddhist and Daoist philosophy, psychology, and practice along with the potential for their application in psychotherapy within the context of the theme of the psychotherapist or counsellor accompanying the suffering person. The theoretical ground-...

Borders not only limit contact and exchange but they often connect and create ways of communication and interaction. To establish and maintain both limits and contact, power must come into play. Thus borders act as a “technology of power,” to use Foucault’s terminology. While the Foucauldian decentralization of power from institutionalized centres...

Making the case for the mutual relationship between ontology (what reality is like) and ethics (how we should conduct ourselves), this essay argues that the dualistic, linear, deterministic ontology of Modern Science that categorically separates perceiver and the perceived, knower and known is oppressive by virtue of objectification. Delineating a...

The key to breaking out of the problematic, dualistic, mechanist ontology is the recovery of our capacity to value the world intrinsically through the cultivation of aesthetic consciousness. The arts that enable a world view of co-emergence, participation, and intrinsic valuing, are suitable pedagogical tools for an education devoted to rediscoveri...

Identifies the hyperactivity of linguistic conceptual consciousness (the discursive mind) as powering instrumentalism. Explains that the practices of Zen and art can counterbalance the discursive emphasis. Explores haiku as an illustration of how this resistance may work. Recommends anchoring arts education in a foundation of intrinsic perception....