Contemplative Learning and Inquiry across Disciplines

4 Contemplation: The Soul's Way of Knowing

4 Contemplation The Soul’s Way of Knowing John (Jack) P. Miller Harry Lewis (2006), former Dean of Harvard College, has written, “Harvard teaches students but does not make them wise” (p. 255). This is a sad commentary on the university which two of the wisest Americans, Emerson and Thoreau, attended almost two hundred years ago. He also writes in his book entitled, Excellence without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future? that the image of the student today is a “brain on a stick” (p. 100). This image is not only held by the universities but throughout schooling that the purpose of education is to teach “marketable skills” so students can compete in the global economy. Education has become training rather than an attempt to cultivate wisdom. With the emphasis on mechanistic approaches to teaching and evaluation there is danger that our schools will become soulless. We need to provide a rich vision of the person including body, mind and soul. In this paper I focus on the soul and how it can be nourished through contemplative learning. Soul The idea of soul is an ancient one. Hughes (2010) in her highly praised book on Socrates argues that the main mission for that philosopher was to “explore the relationship between man and his soul” (p. 179). In the nineteenth century , soul was central to the thinking of the Transcendentalists (Miller, 2011). Emerson (1982) wrote in his journal, “Education is drawing out the soul” (p. 80). Today, Thomas Moore (1992) and others (Hillman, 1997; Sardello, 1995) have brought soul back into contemporary discourse. Moore’s book, Care of the 69 70 John (Jack) P. Miller Soul, published in the early 1990s, was instrumental to this process. He writes that the soul is “not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart and personal substance” (p. 6). He also writes that the “soul is not the ego. It is the infinite depth of person and society comprising all the many mysterious aspects that go together to make up our identity” (p. 400). For Moore, the soul’s path is not to overcome life’s anxieties but to simply experience them as part of life. Through this experience one gradually gains wisdom. Soul is usually not associated with Buddhism, but John Tarrant (1998), a well-known Zen teacher, writes of soul and spirit. Here are some of his thoughts on soul: Soul is that part of us which touches and is touched by the world. Through soul we connect with each other and are made less lonely —not metaphysically, but in a tangible, human way. . . . Soul connects and loses itself in the connection. It falls and falls; it falls into beauty. . . . Soul’s true center is the journey of consciousness—otherwise it can identify no grand principles. Soul doesn’t serve other purposes —the taste of life is its own fulfillment. . . . Soul loves to include and to learn; it is always trying to embrace things, to inhabit the brokenness of the world. . . . Soul does not abolish the difficulty of our lives, but brings a music to our pains—its gift is to make us less perfect and more whole. (pp. 16–8) Like Moore, Tarrant views soul in terms of our life experience. At the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, I teach a course entitled “Spirituality in Education.” I use idea of soul as the main thread. Like Moore and Tarrant I emphasize how we experience soul in our lives, which I have written about in my book, Education and the Soul. The main ideas found in that book, which I focus on in the course, include: • Soul as Energy. One way that we experience soul is through feeling energy move through the body. Music has often been identified as helping this process as some forms have been called “soul music.” When Abe Maslow talked about peak experience I believe that these experiences could also be referred to as soul experiences where we feel this energy and sometimes a connection to something beyond ourselves. • Work and Soul. The soul seeks work that is deeply fulfilling. We hear stories of people changing careers at midlife and we could look 71 Contemplation at this behavior as the soul calling these individuals to work that is more meaningful. In one of my initial teacher education courses there was...