The root meaning for the Greek word φιλοσοφία, philosophy, is “love of wisdom.” The historian of ideas, Pierre Hadot, shows that in the ancient Greco-Roman world, the love of wisdom was not merely a theoretical endeavor, a matter of constructing abstract theories and discourses, but demanded a contemplative engagement with the root issues of life, through mind-training and spiritual exercises. Stoicism, for example, gave priority to the transformation of our minds, our judgments, perceptions and desires through cultivating the "garden" of ethics, logic and physics. Early and classical Buddhist philosophy, exhibited a similar orientation, through the use of a variety of meditative practices, pairing wisdom with compassionate insight.
When philosophical inquiry becomes contemplative practice, then, it returns to its roots. Philosophical inquiry as a contemplative practice involves more personally demanding modes of investigation than discursive philosophical inquiry, by itself, requires. Contemplative philosophical practice calls for disciplining one’s attention, promoting insight into the forms and patterns of one’s thoughts, affects and culturally-situated life orientations.
Although there are a variety of contemplative practices and exercises; I offer instruction in two: Guided contemplative reading; Mindfulness training
Guided Contemplative Reading
Together we choose an appropriate text - a book, an article, a poem, etc.. Students read through the text, slowly, tasting and savoring it. Through journaling and “meditative inquiry,” students allow aspects of the text to engage them on a deeper level than a mere informational reading. We then together explore the rich array of insights and questions that emerge.
Mindfulness Training
I am a long term daily practitioner of Vipassana meditation and have taught mindfulness to adults for a number of years in group settings. I now offer individualized mindfulness meditation instruction, for philosophical counseling clients, for the clients of psychotherapists in the St. Louis area, through referral, and for individuals who just wish to learn how to meditate, but who do not wish to sit or attend classes in a sangha or group context.
At its core, Mindfulness Meditation is a family of Buddhist meditation practices that start with stabilizing your mind, so that you can remain with an object in awareness (the breath, the body, thoughts, emotions) without the mind wandering off. Once your mind is steady and still, you are better able to observe the passing flow of sensations, feeling tones and thoughts that comprise conscious experience. You begin to notice patterns of bodily experience, thought and emotional reactivity, that give rise to and reinforce personal suffering and unhappiness. With time, you awaken to a more easeful and spacious way of being.
Mindfulness Assisted Philosophical Counseling
Mindfulness meditation can be a useful adjunct to Philosophical Counseling when clients are coping with unhelpful habitual reactive emotions, such as fear and anxiety, which they perceive as undesirable, and when such habits seem especially unresponsive to stand-alone reasoning-based and cognitive approaches to resolution. Practiced over time, mindfulness can change our relationship to our reactive emotions. It does this by first allowing practitioners to calm their minds. They are then able to see into and through the various mental formations (moods, affects, thoughts, judgments, story-lines, etc.) allowing for not only their apprehension but also their relationship to the causes and conditions that bring them about. This create an opening for more spacious and skillful modes of coping with the incessant push and pull of one's mental life. Mindfulness also allow us to see deeply into some of the most central features of mental states, such as their dependent nature, their impermanence and their fundamental impersonality.
I do not charge a set fee for Contemplative Philosophical Practice. Students reimburse me for my time as they are see fit.