Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines

8 History as Dharma: A Contemplative Practice Model for Teaching the Middle East and Africa

8 History as Dharma A Contemplative Practice Model for Teaching the Middle East and Africa Elise G. Young A thin sheet of water forms itself as ice over Sale Lake. Wind flirts with dry stalks of grass. Fire falls gently across our faces. Clouds become melting snow filling our vision. This dharmic mix lies like Indra’s net over the mountain range. History melts in our shoes. I rise up through the soles of my fiery wet feet and take my place in the circle to journey with this contemplative exercise. Sarah starts with notes from Lama Tenpa’s class. A question in the form of a duality is not the right question to be asking . . . I awaken our Tibetan bell: The Sangha is invited to go back to our breathing so that our collective energy of mindfulness will bring us together as an organism, going as a river, with no more separation. Let the whole Sangha breathe as one body, chant as one body, listen as one body, and transcend the frontiers of a delusive self, liberating from the superiority complex, the inferiority complex, and the equality complex. (Hanh 2008) This chapter presents an approach to teaching the Middle East and Africa that utilizes concepts from Buddhist and Yogic philosophical traditions. The model also draws from African and feminist epistemologies. Although they are separate , my pedagogical approach draws on significant overlaps between particular Buddhist, Yogic, African, and feminist “worldviews.” I discuss two central and related aspects to this approach: contemplative praxis pedagogy and a contemplative practice historiographical model that I call “History as Dharma.”1 That 133 SP_SCO_Ch08_133-150.indd 133 7/29/14 1:12 PM 134 Elise G. Young is to say, concepts emerging from Buddhist and Yogic philosophical traditions and from African and feminist epistemologies not only inform instructional methodologies but also inform theories of history. Pedagogy itself is informed by historiography. The historiography shapes the pedagogy. For example, rather than asking students to take “sides” and propose resolution of conflict within dualistic analytical models, contemplative pedagogy encourages teachers and students to experience themselves as historical actors on a path to liberation where liberation is freed from its dualistic confines (victor/victim), and instead, is defined as a path (praxis) to freedom from samsara (hindrances). Central to these processes is transformation of our understanding of history itself—what is called history. “History as Dharma” is an attempt to return history to its roots in philosophical systems that consider the dyad mind/body as an insufficient and reductive way of describing human being in the world. Philosophical traditions emanating from the regions addressed in this course can open a path to freedom from suffering generated by fragmentation and attachment to dualistic typologies. I envision a model of history that illuminates the cellular, fluid, ever changing nature of history, freeing history from its confines in mechanistic historiographical models. The specific course I use to discuss this approach is a core course, “Introduction to the Middle East, Africa, Asia.” I introduce students of all disciplines to these regions through case studies. For the purposes of this article, I primarily draw examples from the Middle East and Africa. An important goal of the approach presented here is to prepare students, through transformative experience, for mindful decision making about the critical issues of our times. Given limitations of space, I briefly discuss how this approach emerged and then summarize the theory and pedagogy, concluding with samples of poetic vignettes that bring together contemplative practice principles and feminist and African epistemologies, with content introduced in this course.2 Background Writing history is a relatively recent and value-laden development (for example, the colonialist claim that Africa had no history until written by Europeans). Oral history is what history is at its roots, sung, chanted, and recited as poetry, as in the tradition of the African Griot or Arab women poets. In that context, history can be understood as a “practice” opening up the central channels of the body in order to “see” beyond conceptual mind. I saw a need for students SP_SCO_Ch08_133-150.indd 134 7/28/14 2:18 PM 135 History as Dharma to enter the domain of history as practice in order to move beyond dualistic frameworks of the fearful mind that “jumps” to conclusion. One motivation for the approach presented here evolved out of the devastating impact on my nervous system of working in a war...