Summary:
A collaborative undertaking between an artist and a philosopher, this monograph attempts to deepen our understanding of "contemplative seeing" by addressing the works of Plato, Thoreau, Heidegger, and more. The authors explore what it means to "see" reality and contemplate how viewing reality philosophically and artfully is a form of spirituality. In this way, by developing a new conception of active visual engagement, the authors propose a way of seeing that unites both critical scrutiny and spiritual involvement, as opposed to simple passive reception.

Summary:
The Narrow Road to the Interior uses the journey as a metaphor for life. Basho's observations on his journey to the interior stunningly juxtapose the aesthetic with the spiritual in nature.

Comments:
"Students particularly identify with the journey motif, one they recognize from "road" films and the like. They can pick out the essence of a haiku after reading this." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary:
This collection of the Zen Master's writings introduces students to the art of the ambiguous. Its metaphors and its juxtapositions themselves are examples of contemplative practice.

Comments:
"Students love this work, but they need much contextualizing in the history and practice of Zazen." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary:
This collection of sermons and treatises by the Middle High German Dominican explores, and in a sense, defines mystical thought. His metaphors are particularly telling.

Comments:
"If used in a class, I find that it is more productive to start with an Eastern text. Starting with Meister Eckhart seems to irritate, since the presumption tends to be that Christianity can't possible have anything mystical about it. Going to Meister Eckhart after an Eastern text allows for acceptance." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary:
This is the classic Chinese manual, in 81 sections, that poetically juxtaposes vignettes and insights. This translation becomes especially interesting when read against that of Ursula Le Guin.

Comments:
"Students love this book. It enables them to work with difficult concepts by means of recognizable ambiguities and to gain in the reading of it a contemplative experience." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary:
This collection of meditations situates the reader in the practice of zazen.

Comments:
"I use this book as an introduction to our classroom meditations, which begin each class as well as mark the second half of the class. Students do not have to purchase this book, but more often than not, they do." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary:
Contemplative pedagogy is a young and growing approach in American education. It invites new possibilities for the emergence of creativity and promotes depth of understanding and a more personal relationship with course content. The path to contemplative learning is different for each educator who travels it. I relate experiences that led me to develop a personal contemplative practice and describe how, over time, my own practice affected my teaching. I focus especially on contemplative methods I’ve begun using in teaching a tenth grade mathematics course. In the process I examine the dimensions of centering, questioning, awareness, and community that are central to the contemplative element of the course. To give the reader a taste of the course, I include poetry, stories, and quotations that I share with my students.

Summary:
The award-winning book "Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel" (London, New York: RoutledgeFalmer) is based on a nine-year study that Professor Grace Feuerverger carried out as ethnographer in an extraordinary village and it is about hope in the midst of deadly conflict. This book is a reflexive ethnography focusing on the two bilingual, bicultural educational institutions in this place of peaceful coexistence -- an elementary school where Jewish and Arab children study together, and the "School for Peace" which is a conflict resolution outreach program for Israeli and Palestinian adolescents and their teachers.

Summary:
How we know is as important as what we know. However, contemporary pedagogy and curriculum generally exclude a fundamental way of knowing—the contemplative—from any viable role in education in favor of a rational and empirical approach. As a result, few mainstream teachers or curriculum planners have explicitly integrated the contemplative into the classroom. Yet, contemplative knowing has been described as fundamental to the quest for knowledge and wisdom and complementary to analytic processing. The present article offers educators a rationale for returning the contemplative to education by summarizing research on the impact of contemplation on learning and behavior. It then provides a range of specific approaches for teachers that can be easily integrated into existing curriculum from elementary to university levels. The result of such integration transforms learning and the learner while affecting the very practical concerns of mainstream education.

Summary: This article concerns why the author integrates contemplative practices into courses on art and religion in a secular state university. For readers within seminaries and other religious institutions, she also discuss briefly the relationship of religious and theological education to contemplative inquiry. What follows is focused around three major questions. First, what is contemplative practice? Second, how are these practices integrated into contemplative pedagogy? Third, what is contemplative inquiry or contemplation as a way of knowing?

Summary:
Blending philosophy, research, and three decades of practice, John P. Miller’s engaging discussion of timeless learning reminds us that wisdom as an outcome of education is more than skills mastery and high-stakes assessments. Among the benefits to students discussed here are wholeness; a sense of purpose; improved attention, alertness, perception, and memory; and reduced stress and anxiety achieved through meditation, contemplation, and reflection.

Summary: The award-winning book "Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel" (London, New York: RoutledgeFalmer) is based on a nine-year study that Professor Grace Feuerverger carried out as ethnographer in an extraordinary village and it is about hope in the midst of deadly conflict. This book is a reflexive ethnography focusing on the two bilingual, bicultural educational institutions in this place of peaceful coexistence -- an elementary school where Jewish and Arab children study together, and the "School for Peace" which is a conflict resolution outreach program for Israeli and Palestinian adolescents and their teachers.

Summary:
Composed in the 6th century, this allegorical treatise records the prisoner's acceptance of an unjust imprisonment and death sentence by working through the vagaries of mutability, characteristic of the material world, and a philosophical acceptance thereof.

Comments:
"Students tend not to be enthralled by this text, but it is pedagogically useful for introducing them to the idea that the material is insubstantial." - SunHee Gertz, Professor of English, Clark University

Summary: A collaborative undertaking between an artist and a philosopher, this monograph attempts to deepen our understanding of "contemplative seeing" by addressing the works of Plato, Thoreau, Heidegger, and more. The authors explore what it means to "see" reality and contemplate how viewing reality philosophically and artfully is a form of spirituality. In this way, by developing a new conception of active visual engagement, the authors propose a way of seeing that unites both critical scrutiny and spiritual involvement, as opposed to simple passive reception.