Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm : Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching and Being [1 ed.] 9781681234960, 9781681234953

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Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching and Being

A volume in Transforming Education for the Future Jing Lin and Rebecca L. Oxford, Series Editors

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Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm Exploring New Ways of Knowing, Researching and Being

edited by

Jing Lin University of Maryland

Rebecca L. Oxford University of Maryland

Tom Culham University of British Columbia

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lin, Jing, 1962- editor. | Oxford, Rebecca L., editor. | Culham, Tom   E., editor. Title: Toward a spiritual research paradigm : exploring new ways of knowing,   researching and being / edited by Jing Lin, Rebecca L. Oxford, Tom  Culham. Description: Charlotte, NC : Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2016. |   Series: Transforming education for the future | Includes bibliographical  references. Identifiers: LCCN 2016012825 (print) | LCCN 2016024869 (ebook) | ISBN   9781681234946 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781681234953 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781681234960   (ebook) | ISBN 9781681234960 (EBook) Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge, Theory of. | Research--Methodology. | Ontology. |   Spiritual life. Classification: LCC BD161 .T656 2016 (print) | LCC BD161 (ebook) | DDC  001.4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016012825

Copyright © 2016 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgement..................................................... vii Introduction: The Urgent Need to Develop a Spiritual Research Paradigm............................................................................... ix Jing Lin, Rebecca Oxford, and Tom Culham 1 Knowing the Unknown: Transcending the Educational Narrative of the Kantian Paradigm Through Contemplative Inquiry................ 1 Oren Ergas 2 “Out of the Everywhere Into Here”: Rhetoricity and Transcendence as Common Ground for Spiritual Research............ 25 Anne W. Anderson 3 Using a Spiritual Research Paradigm for Research and Teaching... 55 Ramdas Lamb 4 Prolegomena to a Spiritual Research Paradigm: Importance of Attending to the Embodied and the Subtle....................................... 77 Heesoon Bai, Patricia Morgan, Charles Scott, and Avraham Cohen 5 The Enneagram: A Spiritual Perspective for Addressing Significant Problems Through Research............................................ 97 Robert London 6 The Embodied Researcher: Meditation’s Role in Spirituality Research...................................................................... 127 John (Jack) P. Miller 

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7 Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm: A Confucian Perspective.................................................................... 141 Jing Lin, Tom Culham, and Rebecca Oxford 8 Exploring the Unity of Science and Spirit: A Daoist Perspective...... 171 Tom Culham and Jing Lin 9 Creation Spirituality as a Spiritual Research Paradigm Drawing on Many Faiths.................................................................... 199 Rebecca L. Oxford 10 Paradigmatic Dialogues, Intersubjectivity, and Nonduality in Qualitative Inquiry: Considerations From Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta.................................................................................... 233 Edward J. Brantmeier and Noorie K. Brantmeier 11 Seeking Collective Wisdom: A Spiritual-Dialogic Research Approach............................................................................................. 257 Sachi Edwards About the Contributors...................................................................... 275 Index................................................................................................... 287

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Jing Lin dedicates this book to a new trend in research that is turning inward for wisdom seeking and social/ecological transformation. She is grateful to great teachers of all times, to all those people who have helped her to gain wisdom, and to Mother Nature for her boundless and selfless giving that nurtures our life. She is grateful for her family who always support her unconditionally. Rebecca Oxford dedicates this book to her husband, Harold Clifford Stocking, who is also her spiritual partner. She is grateful to her many teachers of research, spirituality, and now spiritual research. Thanks to Jing and Tom for drawing her into the depth of new spiritual worlds. Tom Culham dedicates this book to his wife, Eugenia Culham, and his family who have supported him throughout his transformation from engineer and business leader to teacher. He is grateful to his spiritual teachers who have opened his eyes to the wonders of life. This is the first book Tom has participated in editing. He is grateful that Jing and Rebecca shared this responsibility with him. It has been a deeply valued and wonderful learning experience for him. The three editors acknowledge the work of Omar Qargha in his help to conceptualize this project and the beginning effort he put into this book.

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, page vii Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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INTRODUCTION The Urgent Need to Develop a Spiritual Research Paradigm Jing Lin, Rebecca Oxford, and Tom Culham

OVERVIEW Research is a human endeavor focused on finding answers to our biggest questions. Considerable progress has been made in the breadth and depth of research paradigms that guide our efforts of knowledge creation. The field of research has expanded from a positivist and postpositivist paradigm that focuses on empirical experimentation to include interpretive and transformational paradigms that examine constructed realities and issues of social justice, human rights, and cultural complexity. However, a paradigm has been lacking that enables systematic exploration of fundamental questions related to the development of spirituality. Most conventional textbooks on research methods do not cover a spiritual research paradigm (SRP). Besides this shortcoming, students in secular institutions have spiritual experiences and questions that go unanswered. There is a hunger for meaning and answers that go beyond the usual curriculum. Developing a spiritual research paradigm will help educators respond to these pressing needs. A spiritual research paradigm requires an ontology that considers all reality to be multidimensional, interconnected, and interdependent. It requires an epistemology that integrates knowing from outer sources as well as inner Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages ix–xix Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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contemplation, acknowledging our integration of soul and spirit with the body and mind. Three additional aspects are useful to a spiritual research paradigm: axiology, methodology, and teleology. An axiology concerns what is valued, good, and ethical. A methodology is the appropriate approach to systematic inquiry. A fifth and less frequently mentioned aspect is teleology, an explanation of the goal or end (telos) to which new knowledge is applied, such as gaining wisdom and truth, touching the divine, increasing inner peace, exploring hidden dimensions, or improving society. This book takes the first step to develop such a research paradigm. We draw from world spiritual traditions as well as scholarship that has arisen from contemplative practices. Scientific discoveries also provide insights into the construction of a spiritual research paradigm. CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND OF THE BOOK Current research paradigms take into consideration human experience dealing with the material world (quantitative), and with human beings in terms of interrelations and interactions (qualitative). The former claims to be detached and views the world from a rational, objective perspective, while the latter pays some attention to the inner feeling of research participants. Qualitative methods, such as phenomenology, narrative, and autobiography, allow some possibility of exploring the spirituality of individuals embedded in sociocultural contexts, although spiritual exploration is not usually the focus of such methods. However, a large and vital part of human experience is excluded from the current research paradigms. Worldwide there are billions of people who practice religions or spiritual traditions that give their lives and society deep meaning and structure, but current research paradigms have largely neglected this aspect of human experience. Spirituality and spiritual experiences have been the bedrock of every civilization and together form one of the highest mechanisms for making sense of the world for billions of people. Current research paradigms, due to their limitation to empirical, sensory, psychologically, or culturally constructed realities, fail to provide a framework for exploring this essential area of human experience. The development of such a framework will provide researchers from the social sciences and education the tools and abilities to systematically explore fundamental questions regarding human spiritual experiences and spiritual growth. It is hoped that this framework, and its underlying dialogue amongst researchers, will help bring the worlds of social science, education, and spirituality one step closer to each other.

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DEVELOPING A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM: SOME THOUGHTS Some thoughts that propel the editors and the authors of this book to come together for the endeavor of developing a spiritual research paradigm are: • A spiritual research paradigm is especially relevant and needed for research that examines inward experience and that promotes meaning, purpose, interconnection with nature and other beings, inner peace, compassion, and tranquility of mind and heart. • Deep experiences, such as those related to the sacred and divine, intuitive knowing, profound revelations, and deep sense of interconnection and oneness, are some of the significant domains that need to be explored. Quantitative, qualitative, and spiritual research are not necessarily diametrically opposed to one another. The qualitative, subjective aspect of our experience can be incorporated with quantitative and scientific components of research such that a spiritual research paradigm functions as a bridge between science and spirituality. For example, the science of forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, hope, optimism, and empathy has been explored by positive psychologists and to some extent by neuroscientists. Similarly, additional new findings in neuroscience have provided intriguing insights regarding the role of numinous experiences in our lives. Innovative scientific theories, such as quantum physics, have provided new perspectives on religious teachings. • Spiritual knowing is personal and internally focused. New and creative ways must be available in research to encompass this type of knowing. As spiritual experiences are personal and often originate in contemplative practices, researchers need to embody what they research. This means researchers’ spiritual cultivation and growth are part of the research endeavor. Hence, an embodied approach in growing spiritual knowledge is essential. The acknowledgement of our subjective and intersubjective experiences, which often cannot be described in ordinary language, necessitates the use of metaphors and creative forms of expressions that call for an expansion of the criteria for research data and validity. • Spirituality is about our being; it is about life and its meaning. The vital force that is propelling our lives deserves great attention in research. Energy cultivation is the central tenet in Eastern spirituality. Conducting research from a spiritual paradigm requires an expansion and elevation of outlook and integration of our body, mind, soul, and spirit. This requires the elevation of our energy that often results from contemplative practices.

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In this book, our authors address these questions: • What does a spiritual research paradigm entail? What are the key questions to be explored? • Can spirituality be investigated in a systematic manner? Does this manner need to be objective? • What are the ontology, axiology, epistemology, and methodology that undergird a spiritual research paradigm? How is a spiritual research paradigm different from current research paradigms? In what way can it have similarities with current paradigms, such as phenomenology, feminist studies, or postmodern studies? • What is the ultimate goal, or telos, of the research (see teleology earlier)? Finding the truth? Exploring unexplored domains, such as the experience of the soul and spirit? Creating a new, more spiritual, more ethical world, in which all creation, not just humanity, is honored? These are the questions our authors attempt to address from diverse perspectives. The authors relate the questions to their own research and teaching and to various spiritual traditions from which they derive dynamic ideas about conducting spiritual research. The authors argue powerfully for the existence of reality requiring a spiritual research paradigm that provides legitimacy to its exploration. Addressed are also questions on: What are the  data sources, and how should we deal with trustworthiness, selfreflexivity, and ethical issues? The book touches on some aspects of the interesting domains listed below, but much is needed for further exploration: • Is spiritual knowing a process related to the innate ability of the soul? Is it a neglected process tied to our physical make-up? Finally, is it a process that integrates our souls and our bodies? • How do we understand spiritual emotions and feelings, such as a sense of interconnection, awe, wonder, love, and oneness? • Is faith a method of knowing? • Can knowledge be revealed? How do we open up the inner source of knowing? • Overall, how do we research these phenomena? ABSTRACTS OF THE CHAPTERS The authors of this book are exploring the questions we have outlined. They are attempting to enter unknown territory and their work lays the

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foundation for exploring the questions above. Here we provide a summary of the book through abstracts of the chapters. Chapter 1: Knowing the Unknown: Transcending the Educational Narrative of the Kantian Paradigm Through Contemplative Inquiry Chapter 1 by Oren Ergas presents the contours of a spiritual research paradigm as a project that dissolves boundaries between knowing and being, education and science, science/academia and life. In light of Thomas Kuhn and Neil Postman, Ergas analyzes how scientific paradigms are socially constructed “gods” into which we are educated. They live in our minds and shape our actions in the world. The chapter explores that high and above these paradigms hovers the Kantian paradigm that has confined us socially and individually to an understanding of “knowledge” as bound by reason and senses, and limited to phenomena. A spiritual research paradigm challenges such fundamentals and poses that spirit is. The chapter discusses what this implies in terms of knowledge and research methodology. Contemplative inquiry is discussed as a primary method in a spiritual research paradigm. It is located as pushing the envelope of qualitative research methods by moving beyond a mind that is confined to reason and senses to witness consciousness, such as cultivated by contemplative practices. Examples of the current contemplative turn in science are provided to show that academia is moving in these directions. However, the chapter proposes that a spiritual research paradigm ought to remain a nonparadigm that resists becoming “normal science.” Chapter 2: Out of the Everywhere Into Here: Rhetoricity and Transcendence as Common Ground for Spiritual Research People throughout time and across cultures have sought to know and to articulate answers to the questions of origins, behavior, and meaning. Modern research paradigms, however, posit reality as constructed or interpreted and only allow methods involving empiric, sensory, or mathematical information; none admit to centuries-old metaphysical means of knowing such as the use of intuition, meditation, prayer, or logical reasoning. In Chapter 2, Anne Anderson develops a foundation for inquiry into humanity’s common quest for meaning by framing this quest in terms not particular to any faith tradition, but underlying each, i.e., in the conceptual terms of rhetoricity. Rhetoricity goes beyond our ability to use spoken or written

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language to persuade (argue) and sees existence as a rhetorical state of being. In the first part of this chapter, Anderson discusses historic shifts in ontologies and epistemologies of spirituality, reviews current studies of spiritual development, and argues the need for a different paradigm. In the second part, she explores rhetoricity as a more expansive framework for research and proposes a research paradigm based in transcendent realism, which is conducive to the study of spiritual development. Chapter 3: Using a Spiritual Research Paradigm for Research and Teaching Ramdas Lamb in Chapter 3 posits that the quantitative scientific research paradigm as used today to understand the material world is both a powerful and useful tool. However, the approach is limited to the physical, perceptible realms, and thus falls short of being able to reveal anything of substance of the nonphysical realms or of an in-depth understanding of the nonphysical aspects of human existence. For these, other paradigms have evolved that are more suited to the task. This chapter begins with a brief look at the evolution of the scientific paradigm, followed by a critique of the contemporary approach. It then discusses the concept of a spiritual paradigm and its usefulness in qualitative research. The chapter then presents a description of a method of teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses that uses India-based practices for consciousness expansion drawn from elements of ancient Indian and yogic philosophies as tools for helping students to both understand and experience something about themselves as integral to the learning process. Chapter 4: Prolegomena to Spiritual Research Paradigm: Importance of Attending to the Embodied and the Subtle Chapter 4 by Heesoon Bai, Patricia Morgan, Charles Scott, and Avraham Cohen is framed by two primary concerns: first, the historical invalidation of the subjective, which has resulted in the paucity of spiritual research paradigms (SRP); and second, the authors’ belief that research in spirituality is grounded in research in human subjectivity. In addition, the authors introduce a psychologically-nuanced understanding of the spiritual and propose a working definition that is (a) based on phenomenologicallyobserved subjective experience, and (b) derived from an ecological model of human experience. These two aspects of our conceptualization of the spiritual are fundamental, as the former acknowledges first-person experience, while the latter grounds our approach in the intersubjective or

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second-person experience, which is, the authors suggest, frequently sensed in intensely-felt, first-person and second-person, or subjective and intersubjective, states. Fundamentally this chapter aims to validate the importance of research into the subjective and legitimate the subjectivist and intersubjectivist research methods of an SRP. Further, this chapter explicates vital elements of an SRP, sketching a preliminary model along the lines of various arguments for intersubjectivist research methods. The authors believe their contribution through this chapter to the project of establishing an SRP is modest at this stage, given the nascence of this work. Its establishment of a ground for the SPR is thus more of an introduction, a prolegomenon to a more fully developed SRP. The authors offer it to support spiritual researchers currently working without such models and to return a metaphysics of subjectivity and intersubjectivity to the research domain. Chapter 5: The Enneagram: A Spiritual Perspective for Addressing Significant Problems Through Research Chapter 5 by Bob London focuses on the process of transformation from a spiritual perspective, primarily based on the work of J. G. Bennett, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff, concerning a cosmic symbol, the enneagram. The enneagram process is explored primarily in the context of solving or resolving a significant problem (defined as a problem that requires a change in being to be resolved) through research. This chapter explores the workings of three interdependent processes that allow a transformative resolution of a significant problem. The three processes are distinct yet interdependent and are a combination of what is happening (functional or temporal process), to whom it is happening (the process of transformation or change of being), and how it is happening (the role of spirit). The process involving spirit represents the nonlinear, unconditioned sequence versus the linear, temporal sequence (the functional cycle); then the two processes are reconciled by the third process involving being (or soul). The enneagram process is particularly useful in clarifying the need for the entrance of spirit at particular points in the process of transformation, and the dynamics of how our inner work creates the conditions that facilitate the entrance of spirit into the process. The author concludes by discussing the implications of the enneagram for the construction of a spiritual research paradigm. Chapter 6: The Embodied Researcher: Meditation’s Role in Spirituality Research John Miller in Chapter 6 presents a case for embodied research and explains how it can be achieved through contemplative practice, and more

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specifically, mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation includes a number of factors that are relevant to inquiry and research. Some of these factors include nonjudgmental observation, impartial watchfulness, nonceptual awareness, awareness of change, present time awareness, nonegotistic alertness, and participatory observation. Some of these qualities are also found in phenomenology, an approach that is used in research in the area of spirituality. Mindfulness meditation, then, can provide one means of allowing the researcher to fully engage body and mind during a phenomenological inquiry. Specifically, it allows the researcher to embody the fundamental principles of phenomenology inquiry. By doing mindfulness as a sustained practice, the person deepens the ability to see things as they are. Doing meditative practice, there is also a possibility that the researcher will be bringing wisdom, compassion, and insight in conducting the research, drawing conclusions, and applying the findings. Chapter 7: Constructing a Spiritual Research Paradigm Through a Confucian Perspective In Chapter 7, Jing Lin, Tom Culham, and Rebecca Oxford attempt to delineate a spiritual research paradigm outlining the ontology, axiology, and epistemology of Confucianism. The chapter discusses the concepts of qi in Chinese culture, and the interconnection and interdependence of individuals, society, and the cosmos through the life force, qi. Human-nature oneness is deemed to be sustained by virtues such as compassion and lovingkindness, which are treated as energy cultivation principles. Cultivating the expansive qi through meditation and through virtue cultivation comprises the essence of Confucian ways of knowing and being. The authors outline Confucian approaches to knowledge acquisition and discuss the incorporation of current research methods into Confucian spiritual research. The chapter points out that all endeavors in research are linked to virtue cultivation and the construction of a harmonious global community. Chapter 8: Exploring the Unity of Science and Spirit: A Daoist Perspective Chapter 8 by Tom Culham and Jing Lin explores an integration of science and spirit as a means of developing a spiritual research paradigm. To achieve this the authors consider what each of the paradigms of Western science and the practices of Daoist philosophy, such as traditional Chinese medicine in the form of qigong, can contribute to such a holistic approach. While this might seem unusual, the authors’ justification is based on a branch of philosophy

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that draws insights for contemporary life from comparing and contrasting ancient Greek and Chinese philosophies and practices. The authors turn to neuroanatomist Jill Bolte-Taylor’s story. Bolte-Taylor had a stroke that shut down the left side of her brain. She held that this shifted her awareness from the doing consciousness of the left brain to the spiritual being consciousness of the right brain. This awareness altered her understanding of herself and her role in the world. Culham and Lin argue that this process provided BolteTaylor with experiences, insights, and knowledge similar to those achieved by Daoist masters in a high level state of awareness. Based on the analysis and knowledge of Daoist practices, the chapter proposes activities in which individuals can partake, thus laying the foundation of a spiritual research paradigm. Chapter 9: Creation Spirituality as a Spiritual Research Paradigm Drawing on Many Faiths In Chapter 9, Rebecca Oxford describes Creation Spirituality as a postmodern spiritual phenomenon that has been called transgressive (breaking expectations or rules) and revolutionary. Deeply ecumenical, Creation Spirituality honors its original Judeo-Christian roots while incorporating themes, figures, images, art, and scriptures from major world religions, such as Buddhism, Daoism, Sufism, and Hinduism, and from ancient goddess religions and Native American spirituality. Creation Spirituality is also tied to social, environmental, and gender justice. These and other qualities cause Creation Spirituality to be called a new paradigm or a paradigm shift, but Oxford goes further, portraying it as an innovative, spiritual research paradigm with an ontology, an epistemology, and an axiology. In her analysis, the ontology of Creation Spirituality centers on the existence of the following: a cosmology that involves advanced science, art, and mysticism; the Cosmic Christ; panentheism (all in God and God in all); the divine feminine; and original blessing. The epistemology has two main elements. One of these elements is mysticism (entering the mysteries), which is characterized by playfulness, radical amazement, prayer, heart-felt study, ritual, and meditation. The second epistemological element is deep, transformative, holistic education, which involves both sides of the brain, calls upon intuition and engagement, and honors values not just information. Both aspects of the epistemology are wisdom oriented and involve visioning (imagination) and paradox. Creation Spirituality’s axiology focuses on the values of creativity, beauty, compassion, deep ecology, deep ecumenism (described earlier), and deep economics.

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Chapter 10: Paradigmatic Dialogues, Intersubjectivity, and Nonduality in Qualitative Inquiry: Considerations From Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta Chapter 10 by Edward J. Brantmeier and Noorie K. Brantmeier provides a concise overview of the dialogue on research paradigms, exploring the ontology, epistemology, methodology, axiology, and teleology of several inquiry paradigms: positivist, postpositivist, constructivist/interpretive, critical, and participatory action research. Whether or not a spiritual paradigm is a stand-alone or commensurable approach with existing paradigms is examined. With this foundation, intersubjectivity and nondaily in qualitative inquiry are explored. Truth claims, advaita vedanta or nonduality, intersubjectivity, and hermeneutics are considered in relationship to discussing methods in qualitative inquiry. The authors maintain that the nature of knowing and the types of truth explored in research are connected to assumptions researchers hold about subject-to-object and subject-to-subject relationships in the research process. Practical questions about paradigms, the unique features of a spiritual paradigm, assumptions in the research process, truth claims, the subject-to-object relationship, position taking and empathy, boundaries and separateness in qualitative interviewing, and ethical considerations are considered. The chapter affirms the pursuit of multiple ways of knowing and the corresponding methods used to validate those ways of knowing. Chapter 11: Seeking Collective Wisdom: A SpiritualDialogic Research Approach In Chapter 11, Sachi Edwards offers a perspective on the ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology of a spiritual research paradigm that highlights the use of community as both a topic and a method of inquiry. Drawing on her own experience researching spiritual group dialogues on a college campus, while simultaneously participating in a separate spiritual group dialogue as a strategy to strengthen her data analysis, Edwards shares an example of the type of research that a spiritual research paradigm could encompass. In doing so, she describes the ways in which attention (to spiritual matters) and intention (to genuinely and accurately understand the spiritual development process) lie at the heart of the spiritual research paradigm, as the author envisions it. While the bulk of the chapter is spent discussing research design, implementation, and data analysis, Edwards presents a portion of her research findings as a way to illustrate the kind of knowledge that spiritual research may uncover.

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CONCLUSION We see our endeavor as taking the first step toward the construction of a spiritual research paradigm, or, perhaps more accurately, the creation of diverse spiritual research paradigms. Research is a fundamental and yet grand endeavor humans carry out for specific goals, such as but not limited to gaining knowledge and wisdom, developing inner peace, and transforming society. The chapters in this volume present many different ontologies, epistemologies, axiologies, and methodologies, thus opening up new worlds of spiritual understanding. With current global challenges such as conflicts and environmental breakdown, moral decay, and ignorance, it is high time we explore new ways of knowing, researching, and being. We invite readers to join us in this exploration.

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CHAPTER 1

KNOWING THE UNKNOWN Transcending the Educational Narrative of the Kantian Paradigm Through Contemplative Inquiry Oren Ergas

There is more than we know, can know, will ever know. It is a “moreness” that takes us by surprise when we are at the edge and end of our knowing. There is a comfort in that “moreness” that takes over in our weakness, our ignorance, at our limits or end. . . . One knows of that presence, that “moreness,”when known resources fail and somehow we go beyond what we were and are and become something different, somehow new. There is also judgment in that “moreness,” particularly when we smugly assume that we know what “it” is all about and end up in the dark or on our behinds. It is this very “moreness,” that can be identified with the “spirit” and the “spiritual.” —Dwayne Huebner, 1999, p. 403

This chapter interprets what a spiritual research paradigm is, based on broadening Thomas Kuhn’s (1996) conception of scientific paradigms and considering them as educational narratives in light of Neil Postman’s (1995) ideas. Paradigms are interpreted here not merely as intrinsic scientific injunctions that guide scientific inquiry, they are rather worldviews

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 1–23 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(Tauber, 1997). They reflect how our epistemology exercises its educative power by transforming into our ethics (Palmer, 1983). In other words, they reflect how the epistemology underlying science that determines the status of valid knowledge is by no means a mere prescription for detached scientific research, but rather a way of being that permeates our ways of living as ethical beings. Based on this analysis, I suggest that we can view Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as a historical point in which a broad Kantian paradigm has become both the meta-paradigm undergirding scientific inquiry, and concomitantly the makings of our educational narrative. Kant’s paradigm, and its interpretation, have been confining our ways of being to our ways of knowing, based on the conception of knowing as grounded in reason and senses alone. This deemed spirit as unknowable, and therefore outside the map charted by derivatives of Kant’s paradigm such as positivism and postpositivism. This chapter challenges this progression and suggests that any human endeavor can be seen as nested within a quest for meaning (Frankl, 1959). Scientific inquiry is no different, and therefore its knowledge claims and its governing paradigms are ways of meaning-making. Yet, the Kantian paradigm resulted in confining meaning to a locus that is aloof to life. It thus conceals its grip on our life and its understanding. A spiritual research paradigm rests on the axiom that spirit is, and views the inner-knowing of this fact of life as the place from which this paradigm emerges, and the place to which it gazes to search for meaning. It is a boundary crosser that sees no point in separating science/academia from life, knowing from belief. However, this chapter proposes that we make paradigms into transcendent gods (Postman, 1995), thus the project of establishing a spiritual research paradigm requires a social and individual de-education of ourselves from old paradigms to substantially extend our understanding of knowledge. Such de-education is already underway in some forms of inquiry in contemporary academy, and is emerging from the recent contemplative turn (Ergas, 2014; Gunnlaugson, Sarath, Scott, & Bai, 2014; Lin, Oxford, &, Brantmeier; Roth 2008). This chapter includes four parts. The first part will describe Kuhn’s conception of a paradigm. The second part will extend Kuhn’s ideas and describe the Kantian paradigm and the challenge that a spiritual paradigm poses to it. The third part explores the relations between paradigms and educational narratives, and in the fourth part I reflect on the ways in which contemporary academic research has begun to manifest the makings of a spiritual research paradigm. Here I will also briefly consider the foundations of practices representative of a spiritual research paradigm, such that allow us to establish a scientific community that engages in the research of spirit as a socially shared endeavor.

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KUHN’S CONCEPTION OF A PARADIGM Thomas Kuhn (1996) conceptualized the term paradigm as a “commitment to the same rules and standards for scientific practice” (p. 11). Paradigms “define the legitimate problems and methods of a research field for succeeding generations of practitioners” (p. 10). They can thus be viewed as a set of broad principles, premises, and practices that underlie the way in which we approach the methodical study of a phenomenon. Concomitantly Kuhn’s work demonstrated that paradigms are, by all means, a socially constructed phenomenon that reflect ways of human engagement with inquiry, and define a consensus around the concept of knowledge and the legitimate ways of its pursuit. The dramatic contribution of Kuhn’s work (among others) has been to show that these ways of human engagement are no more and no less than human, implying that they reflect human interests, culture, politics, history; and that they are subject to change. One needs to grasp such an idea as a response to far more naïve views of how science was conceived as it emerged from Western Enlightenment. In this latter view, science was seen as a new beginning; a start from “a clean slate” (Toulmin, 1990) in which knowledge can be established objectively and independently from the knower within a decontextualized act of perception. Seventeenth and 18th century rationalists (e.g., Descartes, Spinoza) and empiricists (e.g., Bacon, Locke) thus expressed the idea that the scientific method will provide the tools for what Dewey (1929) called the human “quest for certainty.” Kuhn, as well as other 20th (and 19th) century critics, not only refuted this naiveté in regards to the possibility of knowing final truths, but also demonstrated that science is not at all the neat cumulative and linear process of discovery that modern thinkers envisioned. A paradigm can be viewed as a “framework” (Philips & Burbules, 2000) that defines what we come to accept as knowledge. This framework becomes no less than an injunction—a protocol that researchers are required to follow if they want to participate “in the game” and have their work accepted as worthy of the term knowledge (Kuhn, 1996, p. 11). This leads to Kuhn’s suggestion of two levels of scientific progress: (a) normal science, reflected by scientists’ compliance with the injunctions of the paradigm, the “framework”; and (b) scientific revolutions, in which the framework itself is challenged for findings cannot be explained, or research cannot be conducted appropriately by adherence to the framework. As Kuhn proposed, scientific revolutions are “those noncumulative developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one” (1996, p. 92). Such paradigm shifts are far less common, yet they are the makings of what we tend to conceive of as dramatic leaps in our understanding.

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I interpret the implications of Kuhn’s theory as entailing a great paradox inherent in science, and as I will show later—a paradox that reflects our very individual psychology: The most dramatic progress occurs through challenges to the framework itself, but these challenges are the hardest to accept. Kuhn’s book is replete with examples of this claim. The fate of Galileo Galilei is one example, as he was coerced to refute his empirical findings in the face of the hegemony of the church’s paradigm. While these days scientific knowledge claims are not usually validated by the authority of the church, we must not think that we have outgrown dogmatism. Examples of a scientific community’s resistance to findings that substantially challenge a field’s conception are still quite common. Dan Shechtman, the 2011 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, was asked to leave his research team after being accused of bringing disgrace to it in his claim of the existence of quasi-crystals that are now widely applied. Paradigms certainly have a positive side to them. They are frameworks for defining progress, and they establish criteria that allow us to conduct inquiry and build our knowledge by standing on the shoulders of our predecessors. At the same time, however, they also bear the risk of reducing the full span of human inquiry as a quest for meaning and transcendence. As soon to be claimed, that risk is only realized if we allow ourselves to be educated by the paradigms that we ourselves create, as we forget that paradigms and the knowledge claims they undergird are made of the same fabric. They ought not to become the transcendent gods that we make of them, for they are only constructed by humans. In order to make these claims, I will apply Kuhn’s division of normal science versus scientific revolutions to suggest that, a meta-paradigm has been hovering above academia leading to our succumbing to a delimiting conception of knowledge and meaning. Pointing to this meta-paradigm will allow me to conceive of moving beyond it as I interpret the task of a spiritual research paradigm. THE KANTIAN PARADIGM AND ITS CHALLENGE Extending Kuhn’s conception of a paradigm, I propose that high and above the paradigms of positivism, postpositivism, and constructivism reflecting much of academic practice broadly conceived, hovers what I refer to as the Kantian paradigm. This paradigm originates in Immanuel Kant’s (1787) Critique of Pure Reason, clearly emerging as a response to his predecessors Plato, Descartes, Hume, and other philosophers. The brilliance of this work is not questioned here; however, it is also paradoxically the place from which science and academia have taken a decided turn that I later construe as leading toward a delimiting educational narrative. I will begin by briefly

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elaborating this Kantian paradigm and then propose the power of its grip that constitutes a stumbling block for a spiritual research paradigm. Human knowledge, as Kant proposed, is bound by perception through reason and senses, for “there are two sources of human knowledge . . . senses and understanding” (Kant, 1787, p. 49). Perception is limited, thus knowledge is limited. Given that reason and senses can only perceive a phenomenal world, knowledge is confined to phenomena. That which lies beyond phenomena, that Kant referred to as the “thing in itself,” the Noumenon, God, remains beyond the grasp of reason, and therefore beyond empirical science. It remains for metaphysics that Kant viewed as “a science which is at the very outset dogmatical” for it, “confidently takes upon itself” to explore such questions, “without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such undertaking” (Kant, 1787, p. 35). The broad paradigm that emerged from Kant thus followed this injunction: Leave the realm of God for belief, for reason and senses are insufficient cognitive apparatuses that cannot accommodate for its knowing. Instead, focus our scientific knowing over that which can be known, which leaves us solely with reason and senses. According to Ken Wilber (1999), however, Kant’s paradigm suggested that “science was not allowed to do two things: (a)  it could not say that Spirit existed; but (b) it most certainly could not say that Spirit did not exist!” (p. 86). Kant simply suggested differentiating between the objects of scientific inquiry, and those “non-objects” that cannot be perceived that concern human belief (e.g., God, spirit). Following this injunction, which is the meta-paradigm that undergirds Auguste Comte’s positivism and Karl Popper’s postpositivism, has proven incredibly effective as manifested in the advancement of a host of academic disciplines. At the same time, a spiritual research paradigm as I conceive of it, works exactly against the grain of such a Kantian injunction given some interpretations of what spirit is. According to Huebner (1999), “Spirit is that which transcends the known, the expected, even the ego and the self” (p. 403). Such transcendent things cannot become an object of research for science, if science is conceptualized as an inquiry of a world that is known solely based on the faculties of reason and senses. Huebner’s conception of spirit similarly suggests that it is beyond knowing. The question is then, what are a group of “respectable academics” (if we are allowed to be called that) doing, attempting to establish a research paradigm that implies the knowing of an unknowable (non) entity? What are we doing in this attempt to insert spirit into academia as a place that followed Kant’s conception of knowledge and deemed it as something that should be left for metaphysics? Are we proposing that spirit can be known? Clearly, I can only speak for myself. I suggest that spirit can be known and in fact is known constantly, and not merely “believed” to exist. I soon elaborate, but first I want to briefly explain the understanding of

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the absence of spirit from academic discourse. This will enable more clarity in the understanding of what is at stake here when depicting a spiritual research paradigm. When claiming that spirit has been absent from academic discourse, I do not mean that religion scholars, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, and others have completely ignored the subject. However, as Harold Roth (2008) described, the ways through which it has been studied have been decidedly shaped by a European, positivist, and in his words, “imperialist,” conception of knowing. Spirit has been studied based on a predisposition that it is necessarily a culturally and historically grounded phenomenon. This nonmaterial “non-thing” has been reified to allow for its rendering based on the ethos of objectivity heralded by the Comtean positivist paradigm. The research of spirit or spirituality could thus be conducted based on a survey that explores how many Americans believe in a higher order of things, or how many Europeans claim to have undergone what they define as a spiritual experience, or how people identify themselves as spiritual, “spiritual but not religious” etc. (Huss, 2014). These findings may have their merit, yet they hardly amount to a spiritual research paradigm. They follow the pattern of normal science within positivist or postpositivist assumptions and probe spirit as an object, from without. A new paradigm concerned with spirituality must have something to do with pushing the envelope so that science covers domains that are beyond existing research paradigms. The novelty of a spiritual research paradigm is in my eyes the explicit insertion of spirit as source by which we can know and be known, into our epistemological arsenal. A spiritual research paradigm is not about knowing spirit from without, as an object—that, as stated, is already present within current research paradigms. A spiritual research paradigm is rather about looking at the world from the vantage point of spirit itself. It implies accepting a knower who is not confined to reason and senses, but is rather an impregnated being who is also (or fundamentally) spiritual. This proposes a clear challenge to the Kantian paradigm’s delimiting conception of knowledge. Rather than following Kant’s injunction that tells us that knowledge is only that which is grounded in senses and reason, a spiritual research paradigm follows Parker Palmer (1983) in claiming that, “any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge” (p. xi), and as his book title indicates, we know as we are known. This implies that such a novel paradigm is a direct “assault” on the subject-object dualism that governs much scientific research. This in itself does not disclose the full novelty here, for such ideas are also present in qualitative research, some of which strongly emphasizes constructivism (i.e., the codependence of knowledge and knower). A spiritual research paradigm reverses our idea of inquiry. Knowing here is not considered as an act of observing natural or social phenomena for their own sake.

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It is an experience of being that can bring forth a transformative effect on the be-er, and in fact this transformation is the end of such research. The transformation of the researcher (be-er) by which the object researched is seen in other eyes is the theme of the research. Objectivity here is explicitly eschewed as such research is about the researcher that seeks to unfold her self based on her engagement with her object of research as reflected in the idea of “contemplative inquiry” (Zajonc, 2009), which will be described in the final section. This violation of subject-object dualism further dissolves boundaries between inquiry and life, belief and knowledge, spirit and science, and nests them all within a human quest for meaning. I follow Viktor Frankl’s (1959) conception of meaning in this sense. “Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual” (p. 98). I interpret these tasks with which each of us struggles as a calling to seek meaning. A spiritual research paradigm will thus constitute the ways of inquiry that engage with spirit and through spirit as the locus from which to answer such calling. By means of tuning in to spirit, this knower can know more than reason and senses can tell, and such knowing is decidedly transformative and ethical in nature. A spiritual research paradigm turns to inquire about its own origin—to infer, evoke, invoke, intuit, practice, and finally to realize our own spirit, not as an object, but in its own terms—as spirit from within ourselves. To explain this cyclical paradox and what this means, I ask again: Why would the writers of the chapters in this book engage in such an endeavor of constituting a paradigm that so boldly flies in the face of the Kantian dictum that to a great extent runs the institutions in which we work? My own answer is stated boldly and uncritically: that a deep knowing, perhaps far deeper than any scientific fact, resides within me, that spirit is—I know it is but not what it is. I know that I happen to be clad in this body and mind that I am, which means that there’s an “I” that’s clad, and my business in life is to get to the bottom of this “I” asking “who am I”? And as a Zen master would add, “who’s asking”? How do I know that spirit is? My only answer to this is unscientific: I just do. Yet, if you will find yourself trying to prove to an alien that 1+1=2, and he will ask you: “How do you know that?” You may time and again demonstrate to him how you place one item by another and refer to them as two. Yet the alien might not get it and keep asking: “Yet, but how do you know that?” You may end up eventually making the same statement I just made in regards to knowing that spirit is: I just do, that’s how it is. Similarly, how can we prove the existence of reason? Reason cannot be touched, seen, or even empirically said to be experienced, and yet we have come to rely on it as if it is a physical entity that the brain scientist can actually see in an fMRI scan.

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What I am suggesting is more about defining a starting point—an axiom—than about making a scientific claim that lends itself to refutation. This is very much in tune with what David Chalmers (1995) proposed in his attempt to advance the study of consciousness. Chalmers contended that cognitive scientists have been busy attempting to find an explanation to how conscious experience arises from matter (the brain), a theme he established as the “hard problem.” Reviewing how such attempts fail to pass muster, he proposed consciousness as a fundamental. It ought to be added as the bedrock of our theories similar to the way in which research in physics has been introducing such fundamentals throughout its development when existing fundamentals resulted as insufficient for explaining reality. To me, the deep knowing (not simply belief) that spirit is, which is certainly clouded within the day-to-day frenzy of life, nevertheless lurks behind everything I do. It lurks as a constant quest that fuels my life toward its knowing. I go about this quest, fumbling and falling, seeing and not seeing. This quest is also reflected in awakening others to join in, in this impossible quest of knowing/realizing this thing that cannot be touched or known, according to Kant. This quest is to awaken toward realizing, as Huebner’s (1999) opening quote of this chapter suggests, that there is a moreness constantly there lurking, and tuning into that moreness is what I know this to be about: that “the human being dwells in the transcendent, or more appropriately the transcendent dwells in the human being” (1999, p. 404). It is the very core of life-meaning, as I understand the term. Harboring such knowing, paradoxical as it might be, why would I ever want to confine my conception of knowledge to Kant’s paradigm, that is, to reason and senses? Why separate my understanding of knowing from life, and from the very spring from which meaning flows in to my life—why separate from spirit? I agree with Kant that there is no point in attempting to prove that spirit is, based on reason and senses. Just as we go about our quantitative researches hardly doubting our reason and senses, it appears that a spiritual research paradigm will have to rely on a similar axiomatic attitude toward spirit. Concomitantly we need to change our understanding of what is to be gained by the knowledge brought forth by such a research paradigm. The function of a spiritual research paradigm is to evoke and invoke meaning in a most direct way; it is a decidedly transformative engagement in which the scientist willingly submits herself to the act of knowing and to the personal change that might follow. It is a rigorous search for self-knowledge in which the ultimate question is, “who am I, and who are you,” and thus it asks whether you, the reader, are moved by the claims it makes—and mostly “who or what is it that’s moving or being moved ‘in there’” or equally, “who is it that is not?” It is also worthwhile to understand what a spiritual research paradigm is not. It is not a search for findings in the medium of factual knowledge, but rather in the medium of the experience of knowing, and the nature of the knower as

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it unfolds through knowing. That experience can then be communicated and must be assumed to be communicable in order to comply as the makings of a research paradigm as elaborated more in the final part of this chapter. It might well be the case that some would not accept spirit as fundamental as they wittingly or unwittingly assume the assumptions of the Kantian paradigm. They might not accept my assertion that aligns spirit and its seeking with meaning. Some might nevertheless agree with the conception of life as a quest for meaning without necessitating spiritual terminology. I shortly propose three points to address these concerns. These, however, are proposed as “food for thought” and not as fully developed arguments, for they are not the focus of the chapter. Thus to answer those who reject spirit as fundamental I suggest: 1. I do not see a point in arguing over the acceptance of spirit as a fundamental. Those who do not accept such fundamental might not be the candidates for engagement in a spiritual research paradigm as I conceive of it. That, by no means, deprives their lives of meaning. I would, however, seek to engage with them in an exploration of the concept and experience of meaning, not as some “missionary” act of converting them, but rather as a way of further deepening both sides’ understandings. It is quite legitimate that “representatives” of different paradigms would have disagreements and seek reconciliation or further understandings. Alexander (2006), Philips and Burbules (2000), and others, explain how quantitative and qualitative research paradigms can coexist. Perhaps this current book attempts to do the same as it locates a spiritual research paradigm alongside others. 2. I want to stress that knowing that spirit is, should not be viewed as a binary in which either you know or you don’t. It is a “spectrum of conviction” the probing of which is part and parcel of an engagement with a spiritual research paradigm. Doubt is itself a foundation of scientific research, and a spiritual research paradigm in this sense is no different in allowing for its own foundations to be constantly questioned. Such probing, however, is not concerned with presenting factual proofs that spirit is; it is rather a reflection of what I described as an incessant inner quest to reaffirm life meaning and at the same time of our very humanness, and the instability of our own world views. This instability is manifested in the shakiness of encountering ourselves one day knowing “just the right thing to do,” and in the next feeling lost in this big thing called life. It is this instability itself that becomes fertile grounds for further probing the unknown and perhaps working our way into experiences that will strengthen the bedrock of spirit as a fundamental.

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3. Following an idea proposed by Wilber (1999), the meaning of accepting spirit as a fundamental might be clear to me but not to a physics professor. At the same time, I certainly do not understand the introduction of electromagnetic forces introduced as a fundamental by Maxwell to physics. Would my own standpoint count as worthy of much attention in this respect? There are different audiences to different types of research, with different degrees of understanding and interest. I do not expect that research under a spiritual paradigm would draw everyone either. It might be saved for a smaller community that accepts that spirit is and build from there. The foregoing begins to articulate a crucial point that I propose here and develop in the next part. A spiritual research paradigm is an ultimate boundary crosser, for it emanates from a place that academia traditionally resists: spirit. It clearly blends one’s deepest personal motivations with academic life, and requires a very different conception of the purpose of academia, asking: What is science, why engage in inquiry? These questions seem extrinsic to scientific paradigms themselves and to the business of the scientists engaged in research and attempting to present replicable claims. I am proposing that a spiritual research paradigm must dissolve such a boundary if we are serious about it, for otherwise it will always collapse back to existing paradigms. It ought to be seen as explicitly infusing academic life with meaning, and making that its essence. It thus nests all other paradigms in a broader, universal, and concomitantly, utterly personal context. Human action cannot but be grounded in meaning-making. Even the most hard-core positivist objectivist stance that supposedly applies strictly to scientific matters is by all means a conception of meaning, a narrative—an educational agenda as I now show. As Palmer (1983) wrote, “The way we interact with the world in knowing it becomes the way we interact with the world as we live in it. . . . Our epistemology is quietly transformed into our ethic” (p. 21). A spiritual research paradigm embraces the relation between epistemology and ethics in the fullest sense and thus realizes that if something resonates within us, it is true at least for now, even if it is not supported by sophisticated equations and numbers. HOW PARADIGMS BECOME EDUCATIONAL NARRATIVES While we have been accustomed to conceive of science as a descriptive and neutral endeavor that does not provide prescriptions of how to live, I suggest that such a view is a misconception. We may have initially intended to edify science as such a sterile endeavor, yet it has become an educational narrative that to a great extent permeates our ways of knowing and being and defines

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our conception of meaning. I want to exemplify this by turning to Neil Postman (1995) to show how science can become an educational narrative. Postman claimed that education is always grounded in a narrative that “tells of origins and envisions a future . . . constructs ideals, prescribes rules of conduct, provides a source of authority, and above all, gives a sense of continuity and purpose” (p. 5). A great narrative is “one that has sufficient credibility, complexity, and symbolic power to enable one to organize one’s life around it” (p. 6). Postman used the term god (lowercase g) as synonymous to these narratives, for the latter are no other than structures of meaning that guide our behaviors, allow us to plan our lives ahead, and make sense of what we do now (or do not) in order to get there. I interpret Postman’s concept of an educational narrative as lending itself to an extended view of Kuhn’s conception of a paradigm. In fact Kuhn opens his book by suggesting that his inquiry into the history of science is “persuasive and pedagogic” (1996, p. 1). I thus think that I will not be straying too far in interpreting paradigms as educational narratives that come to shape our meaning-making. In order to view how this occurs, we need to distinguish between an intrinsic view, which is confined to the practices in which a scientist engages when following a strict protocol that seeks to comply with the ideal of objectivity, for example, and an extrinsic view, which looks at how these supposedly intrinsic prescriptions of how to conduct research become an ethical education in how to live life. When viewed intrinsically, scientists’ work within an existing paradigm allows the rendering of their claims as socially or intersubjectively meaningful. Not knowing their field well enough, or the legitimate methodological procedures involved in its inquiry, will lead them to ask “wrong” questions and make nonsensical or implausible claims. I do not suggest that work that strays from the framework (or perhaps introduces a revolution not acknowledged) is nonmeaningful by definition, nor that the questions asked are indeed wrong, rather, if they are meaningful for someone other than the scientist herself, their rendering as meaningful will require a different framework than the existing one. Scientists working within the paradigm that constitutes normal science can be thus viewed as working within a certain narrative, a certain structure that allows for their endeavor to be conceived as socially meaningful. Concomitantly it should be claimed that within one and the same disciplinary field (e.g., education, physics) different research paradigms coexist. Thus in physics one finds Newtonian physics applied towards explanations of day-to-day sense-perception phenomena while quantum physics applies to sub-atomic phenomena. Similarly, in educational research we find applications of both quantitative and qualitative methods that propose different frameworks and yield different kinds of knowledge. My claim is that a researcher must locate herself within the specific paradigm to which his or her research applies within the discipline itself. Failing to do so bears the

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risk of proposing wrong questions and/or inappropriate and poor methodological procedures. Thus for example answering quantitative questions (e.g., how many children in the district are underachieving in math?) by qualitative data (e.g., presenting children’s conceptions of underachieving in math), would be considered a wrong methodology for the previous question and a procedure that is meaningless in scientific terms. The aforementioned might seem as a strictly intrinsic matter that remains within the researcher’s academic vocation. Yet, we need to broaden our vantage point and assume an extrinsic perspective. In such way, if we think of education very broadly, as a social practice in which young and old are initiated into the norms, ways of life, knowledge, beliefs, history, and culture of a certain society, then the educative power of a paradigm is unraveled. We can see the effect of the paradigm on the ethical conduct in academia as an institution. For example, the Geist of “publish or perish” works to reinforce the dominant paradigm. Rather than risk academic exclusion, a scientist might prefer to publish what works within the paradigm than to challenge the paradigm itself. Legitimate considerations such as tenure may have researchers sacrifice an ethos of “pure” inquiry, in favor of survival, status, and other. For example, Harold Roth disclosed in a 2012 ACMHE (Association of Contemplative Mind in Higher Education) conference that it was only when he became full professor at Brown University that he proposed the Brown Contemplative Initiative as a way of studying contemplative practices not merely through an objectivist stance but rather through actual practice. Similarly, Richard Davidson (2012), perhaps the most influential neuroscientist studying the effects of contemplative practice on the brain, described how his PhD advisors in the 1970s expressed clear reservations about these interests, then considered esoteric to say the least. The framework certainly took its toll on him, considering that it took two decades until he became full professor, and could revisit his heart interest and substantially influence the field of neuroscience. In these cases we also find the educative effect in the wisdom that pioneering scholars have when working from within a paradigm to lead the way to its collapsing. Yet, even far more dramatic than these inner-scientific community examples, we need to look at the way in which quantitative research and the ethos of objectivity, for example, literally become the metacurriculum of public education. Educational systems in Western industrialized countries are substantially shaped by economic thinking that is based on scientific measurements of profit and productivity, as Tal Gilead (2012) shows. A No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001)1 policy, which may be well-intentioned but ultimately misinformed, is an example of a very deep-seated practice of making educational and curricular decisions that are deduced from a belief in quantitative methods of assessment. Even when principals consider

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the incorporation of curricular programs that seek to foster well-being and social-emotional learning that emerge from beyond these quantitative methods, they seek quantitative evidence that these programs work, before implementing them in their schools (Zins, Bloodworth, Weissberg, & Walberg, 2007). Consider as well that some of these extra-curricular programs are referred to as “interventions,” and that scientists studying the possibility of incorporating contemplative-based curriculum interventions, for example, speak of finding the right “dosage” when implementing them (Davidson et al., 2012). Setting aside the possibility that there is clear logic to all this and that incorporating such practice in education is surely worthy, I mostly want to point to the fact that the terms “interventions” and “dosage” reveal how the language of the scientific paradigm (in this case medical language) undergirds educational decision making and practice. Thus, when seen from the intrinsic point of view, the act of scientific inquiry itself might seem ethically neutral, as if it is strictly science that is at stake. However, from the extrinsic point of view a paradigm that proves effective becomes a monolithic construct that cyclically reflects and determines human actions. If these human actions are carried on throughout extensive periods of time, they can certainly be viewed as an educational narrative in Postman’s sense. We create them, we reassert them through practice, and they begin to take charge as they gain a life of their own. We can argue with the scientific paradigm as an educational narrative and suggest that it is too narrow, yet eventually our children are sent to schools that follow the paradigm on a daily basis. These schools are budgeted based on economic thinking underpinned by quantitative methods. Children cannot but conclude that the knowledge, skills, and their practices of assessment and measurement reflect an ethos of social meaning. If that ethos has to do with practices that are concerned mostly with raising standards—increasing achievement, and improving accountability, performativity, and instrumentality—all grounded in the language of quantitative research nested within positivist (and somewhat more mildly postpositivist) premises, then these are not simply premises, they are educational ideals by which children organize and understand their lives. It should be stated that rigorous work has been dedicated to showing the merits of qualitative methods in educational research (Alexander, 2006; Philips & Burbules, 2000). Yet, despite these important strides, policy making as it is grounded in economics tends to opt for the decisiveness of numbers. Perhaps the fact that such valuable work does exist becomes testimony to the hegemony of the objectivist approach. A paradigm can thus permeate human interests and ways of living to a point in which we can view it as earning a transcendent status, becoming the god to which Postman referred. This god is worshiped as long as we

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work constantly within its framework and ethical decorum. In this process, however, the fact that a paradigm is a human-made god is eclipsed. Rather than viewed as a pragmatic framework that lends itself to further human knowledge, it becomes a taken-for-granted way of living. One of the reasons for this is that some of these human-made constructs seem to work so well, especially when considering the positivistic (and postpositivistic) paradigms that were based substantially on the ethos of objectivity. Based on these paradigms, science has constantly been furnishing our lives with new technologies, medicine, and other. As Huston Smith (1992) claims, “Through technology science effects miracles” (p. 7). Skyscrapers, airplanes, medicine, or iPhones are enabled (perhaps created) by scientific discoveries that serve to enchant the methodology that brings them about, to the point of meriting science its transcendent Geist, and making it into an educational narrative. As Tauber wrote, We live in a world dominated by scientific consciousness, not only in the practicalities of our everyday lives, but with respect to our most basic notions of reality and objectivity. . . . Science has no less than created a world view. (Tauber, 1997, p. 1)

Yet, consider that the power of paradigms as they become worldviews and transcendent entities that govern academia and education, and their tendency to create a resistance to change is no other than the mirror image of our very personal nature. As many psychologists have observed, we ourselves resist change at the very personal level as we encounter the walls of our monolithic habits of being who we are. Allowing a new scientific paradigm to emerge is allowing for a new social identity, a new way of making meaning. Similarly, personally we find it extremely difficult to allow something novel to unfold, to let deep-seated premises and opinions dissolve to inform new ways of being, knowing, and acting. We ourselves, as complexes of bodies, minds, hearts, souls, and spirits can be considered personal paradigms or living frameworks, through which we perceive our lives and wittingly or unwittingly try to make sense of them. Much of our life is lived within our personal normal science mode. It is to a great extent, a replication of a framework created by our past, and constantly reaffirmed through our present actions. In William James’s words, Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us, below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. (James, 1907, p. 322)

Paradigms can thus be seen as emanating from a scientific discourse and influencing our personal lives, yet they can also be seen as emerging from our

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very personal clinging to meaning-making frameworks. The commitment we express to our personal frameworks of meaning-making within a social existence is at least as strong as the commitment that a researcher expresses when following the rules of the game played in a community of his peers. Thus, society is constituted of individual human beings who by nature find personal change difficult to bring about. The introduction of new paradigms into social consciousness runs through changes introduced in individuals. It is no other than a project of de-educating ourselves from the old, and initiating ourselves into the new. The difficulty encountered in changing ourselves as individuals will reflect directly in the resistance that this big body constituted of many individuals, called society, has against change. This is the place where a spiritual research paradigm comes into play, for it itself reflects an ethos of constant freshness, and a spirit of willingness to change, unfold, and constantly cut the branches over which we sit. Its ethos is one of constant reawakening as, “we smugly assume that we know what ‘it’ is all about and end up in the dark or on our behinds” (Huebner, 1999, p. 403). Such paradigm turns to the heart of matter as it seeks our liberation from that which confines our change. We are confined both by society and by our personal makings through the replication of the paradigms themselves through normal science. A spiritual research paradigm turns to our very motivations and nests all our endeavors in a deeper quest for meaning, one that is different for each and every one of us (Frankl, 1959, p. 98). Indeed, this is what this is about: a search for our core that begins with a bold reclaiming of subjectivity within academic inquiry. In the final section of this chapter I want to suggest that academia has begun to probe these realms and a spiritual research paradigm is already underway. Nevertheless, it must remain a nonparadigm if it is to remain loyal to its paradoxical creed. WHERE WE STAND, WHERE WE MAY BE GOING, AND HOW WE MIGHT BE GOING THERE For long decades Comtean positivism established the objective stance separating knower from known. Yet in recent decades we are witnessing a clear trajectory that reflects researchers’ bold violation of this paradigm. As Roth (2008) claimed, human subjectivity is the source for all the conceptual models we develop to explain the underlying structures of the world in the physical sciences and the underlying structures of consciousness in the cognitive sciences. . . . Thus, despite all the principles of experimental science that attempt to establish objective standards for research, they all, in the last analysis, are derived by human beings, and therefore they are grounded in human subjectivity. (p. 11)

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Thus Roth suggested that it is time for academia to move beyond the objectivist stance and explore this source by gazing right into it. Academics have indeed been doing so. In the following, I suggest that a spiritual research paradigm has been emerging both from the passing decades’ fuller embrace of more radical forms of qualitative research, as well as from the recent contemplative turn in education. The former is responsible for reconfiguring our notions of academic/valid/replicable knowledge and its communication towards the creation of a scientific community. The latter presents us with novel procedures for conducting research. I briefly chart these two domains that answer to more practical aspects concerned with the makings of a spiritual research paradigm. According to Guba and Lincoln (2005), qualitative research has been, “increasingly concerned with the single experience, the individual crisis, the epiphany or moment of discovery, with that most powerful of all threats to conventional objectivity, feeling and emotion” (p. 205). Thus methodologically, “Social scientists concerned with the expansion of what counts as social data rely increasingly on the experiential, the embodied, the emotive qualities of human experience that contribute the narrative quality to a life” (p. 205). The auto-ethnographical strand of anthropology found in Elis and Bouchner (2000), Denzin (2006), and others is one more radical example of this orientation. In this genre, we find intimate life stories described in first person grounding one’s autobiography in a cultural context. The distance between what is conventionally referred to as literature and academic research in this case becomes substantially blurred. Here the emphasis shifts to a clear expression of one’s particular individual and idiosyncratic story that speaks to the heart and views this evocation as a worthy domain of academic inquiry. This strand suggests an alternative to the postpositivist agenda of proposing scientific theories that lend themselves for refutation based on an objective stance. One’s personal story is not judged by replicability, but rather by verisimilitude and what I soon call resonance. Michael Dyson (2007) expresses this idea eloquently: Rather than be a seeker of “the truth” the auto ethnographer reveals “the voice of the insider” who has sought new knowledge and understandings of the world and found what was unknown to them when they began the journey. The credibility of such research is established through the verisimilitude revealed and the “ringing true” of the qualitative story related. (p. 46)

Academia in such conception is not a place in which knowledge is manufactured and facts are acquired as objects. It is rather a place to which people come in order to join in, in the act of awakening to ourselves, to finding ourselves, embedding ourselves in moreness, becoming inspired, and inspirited. The standards by which the quality and rigorousness of this strand of research are assessed, are not the replication of an experiment, as

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is customary within objectivity-based natural sciences, but rather resonance and emotional evocation. Anthropologist Ruth Behar (1997) expresses this in proposing a science based on a “vulnerable observer.” She calls this an anthropology that “breaks your heart.” The relevance of this to the establishment of a spiritual research paradigm has to do both with the status of truth and knowledge and with the issue of communicability of findings that stem from spirit to which I turn as I describe the contemplative turn. Science under this described qualitative research strand and within the proposed spiritual research paradigm provides subjective knowledge by definition. It has no pretense of suggesting otherwise. Nevertheless, the value of these descriptions is not viewed by any means as inferior to objective replicable facts produced by quantitative methods. Its value lies not in its providing factual knowledge that is proposed to correspond with the world, but rather in evoking meaning within the researcher and within the reader of the research. This qualitative knowledge is an expression of the complexity of life that is always open for interpretation. Good science representative of such qualitative research, and as I suggest of a spiritual research paradigm as well, will be measured by the extent to which it inspirits the reader/ listener; that is, by the extent to which it touches the individual’s own spirit and compels him or her to commit to the further unfolding of spirit and life-meaning. Research thus becomes an aesthetic experience that touches a chord, as the spirit of the scientist resonates with the spirit of the reader, with both sharing a moment of meaning that will hopefully linger to the next. Truth in this case remains intersubjective as it is in quantitative research under the postpositivist paradigm. However, its assessment is not based on reason but rather on an attunement with heart and spirit while reading such research. If the research evokes sobs or laughter, touches life, or reflects meaning, then it can be assessed as valuable or good research. This begins to chart the kind of social community and communicability involved in such science. The question is whether autoethnography and other qualitative research modes bring us fully to a spiritual research paradigm. My answer is no. I suggest that there’s one more leap that is to be taken concerning methodology. I do not mind much the names by which we shall call this, but a spiritual research paradigm must rely on a knowing apparatus that is beyond reason and senses and must declare this explicitly, for otherwise this does not amount to the establishment of a novel paradigm. It would make sense to call this apparatus spirit, however, one can certainly propose terms such as “witness consciousness” or “no-person perception.”2 These terms are indicative of contemplative inquiry (Zajonc, 2009) as the kind of research that I view representing a spiritual research paradigm (See Zajonc and Roth in Oxford’s chapter in this volume, which involves contemplative inquiry). Again we are speaking of an emerging academic interest that I referred to elsewhere as the contemplative turn

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(Ergas, 2014). In the following I briefly elaborate on this turn that is expressed in the embracing of methods of inquiry that emerge perhaps paradoxically from the very locus from which modern science has attempted to depart—religion, spirituality, wisdom-traditions. With this the dissolving of boundaries of which I wrote earlier is further proposed. It is here in which we can see a spiritual research paradigm in the makings. Contemplative practices include, “the many ways human beings have found, across cultures and across time, to concentrate, broaden and deepen conscious awareness” (Roth, 2008, p. 19). East Asian wisdom traditions and Western monotheistic religions have been among the richest sources for these practices that include diverse forms of meditation and yoga, philosophical practices rendered in Hadot’s (1995) terms as “spiritual exercises” and many others. These practices are now being applied within academia as methods of inquiry. There are many aspects that should be discussed in order to present any meaningful account of what they can offer science as proposed in increasingly growing academic research (Ergas, 2015; Ergas & Todd, 2016; Gunnlaugson, Sarath, Scott, & Bai, 2014; Lin, Oxford, & Brantmeier, 2013). Here I only elaborate on some aspects, and I treat this elaboration itself as a form of contemplative inquiry. I then apply this description to reflect on the issue of communicability within a spiritual research paradigm, and how research might advance based on the previously mentioned conception of the status of its knowledge and discourse. Firstly, the site of inquiry of a spiritual research paradigm and its end is inwardness. That is, I engage in contemplation primarily to know something about my self and I do so by turning my attention in to my first-person experience. I acknowledge that this knowing might later transform how I see the world, live in it, and connect with you, yet practically speaking during research my attention is turned to self (or perhaps, no-self). This is a reversal of a conventional approach to academic research, which has its end in interpreting the world in qualitative research or suggesting theories about the world as postpostivist quantitative research would propose. Scientists working under the latter conception may acknowledge that their self-conception might change, but that is not usually the reason why they engage in inquiry. Secondly, contemplative inquiry is initiated by creating the disposition I associate with spirit—openness, receptivity, kindness, and moreness in light of Huebner (1999), Palmer (1983), and Zajonc (2009). It is primarily about experience. That experience might later render itself as discursive knowledge, yet I do not approach this research with an instrumental state of mind that is in constant search for relevant data. This has to do with a clear noninstrumental disposition of detachment over which such inquiry is established. While I did state that I seek an experience within, I am bound to find one no matter what I do. That is, I maintain that if we attend, we experience. If we attend inward (e.g., sensations, thoughts), we

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experience inwardness as an experience. This does not yet mean that our experience should necessarily interest others; it simply establishes attending as the premise for experience (Ergas, 1015). When engaged in contemplative inquiry, I acknowledge a lack of control of the kind of experience that will unfold. The only factor I can seek to control is a disposition of the spirit. I work to create a disposition that is not reason-based, by setting aside day-to-day habitual assumptions about how things ought to be, that tend to confine my perspective to seeing them as I believe they should be. I set aside even the idea that phenomena need to be referred to by their lingual labels. I do not assume that spirit is necessarily opposed to reason; I rather suggest that only if I cleanse my act of inquiry from a habitual reason-based engagement can spirit unfold in the act of knowing. Setting aside my preconceptions and habitual ways of seeing, I create the conditions that allow me to see from a different vantage point. I suspect that when I am successful in reaching such a clear state of mind, I am conducting a research of experience from the vantage point of spirit or witness consciousness. Eventually the experience that arises by this disposition might not amount to a very elaborate understanding. The disposition of not-expecting revolutionary findings is crucial here. I engage in contemplative inquiry because the act of research itself bears an intrinsic meaning whether the experience results as novel, insightful, dull, or habitual. That intrinsic meaning lies in the fact that I am engaging in an act in which I seek attunement with what I find to be a formidable source of life-meaning that undergirds life: spirit. The aforementioned may certainly sound somewhat “out there” to those unfamiliar with meditative practice. I view this description itself as a scientific rendition of knowledge of my own engagement with a spiritual research paradigm as I conceive of it. What I am suggesting is that I view such science as communicable and thus allowing such a paradigm to comply with Kuhn’s understanding of science as a socially-shared endeavor. In other words, this tries to communicate the sense of spirit I find in contemplative inquiry. In addition, judged by the standards I proposed earlier, if something in the above short description “rings true” or “touches a chord” in the reader, then it may be considered as having verisimilitude, creating resonance, and inspiriting. It might then be considered good science. If it does not have these characteristics, it might be poor science. In that case, the community of my peers should alert me to this, so that my inquiry will deepen, and my ways of communicating this research will improve. That is how research within a spiritual research paradigm will advance just as research under other paradigms has been advancing throughout the history of science— through the intersubjective sharing of knowledge. Such sharing and mutual support are crucial. The buds of a spiritual research paradigm are found in quite a number of educational initiatives in leading universities. At Brown University students

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are electing the contemplative concentration courses that combine meditation labs and studies of the origins of these practices within East Asian as well as other traditions. Concomitantly they study how neuroscience is investigating meditation by seeking correlations between fMRI scans and meditators’ phenomenological experiences. At the University of Michigan, Ed Sarath (2006) has initiated the bachelor of fine arts in jazz and contemplative studies (BFAJCS) in which students combine musical instrument practice with contemplative practice and explore their interaction throughout their studies. Many other initiatives are reviewed in Lin, Oxford, and Brantmeier (2013), revealing that in recent years universities have been following in the footsteps of these pioneering examples. This does not seem to me to be some transient fashion. It seems more like a broader phenomenon that is nested within what Charles Taylor (2006) referred to as a postsecular age (p. 534) that is characterized by a reclaiming of ancient wisdom through a social movement toward the mystical, the spirtual, or perhaps, the post-secular (Lewin, in print; Wexler & Hotam, 2015). The academic manifestations of this phenomenon reflect a changing epistemology that as Palmer (1983) proposed cannot but reflect a changing ethic—a changing educational narrative. Such an ethic in which “we know as we are known” cannot but bring us closer to an education toward “interbeing” (Bai, Scott, & Donald, 2009) that heals the splits of body/mind, self/other, and self/ environment. If we commit to knowing as we are known, as our ethics, we cannot but begin to fuse knowing and being, science and ethics. We cannot but turn to the other in front of us, and see his or her reflection within, whether with agreeableness or with discontent. Our commitment to a spiritual research paradigm is to treat any of these inner manifestations as valid knowledge unfolding to the spirit that is known through it, informing our actions and grounding our inquiry in life meaning. All these examples point to a trajectory that I view as the contours of a spiritual research paradigm in the making. However, we are not quite there fully, and that is not just because contemplative inquiry can hardly be referred to as normal science at this point. We ought to question whether a spiritual research paradigm ought to ever become normal science. As Huebner (1999) states this, “To speak of the ‘spirit’ and the ‘spiritual’ is not to speak of something ‘other’ than humankind, merely ‘more’ than humankind as it is lived and known” (p. 343). There is a constant moreness that is sought in this paradoxical endeavor that is never consumed. Nesting this claim back in Kuhnian language the assumption of moreness can apply in two ways. One kind revolves within normal science in that there is always more to know even based on positivistic assumptions and working within conventional qualitative methods. The other kind is the moreness involved in revolutions. That to me seems the unstable locus in which a spiritual research paradigm might reside. While I believe we should

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embrace contemplative inquiry as a mode of inquiry, thinking that we can smugly rest there might be presumptuous. A spiritual research paradigm must forever remind us that paradigms are made of the same fabric as the scientific claims they undergird. They are simply higher-order, humanmade refutable hypotheses, claims, words organized into sentences, and highly effective ones as such. They are however, not the transcendent gods that we crown over ourselves and our societies. The Kantian paradigm is no exception, and my own words likewise. I interpret the fabric of a spiritual research paradigm as made of attempts, such as the current one, that pull the rug from underneath such human-made absolutisms that become the dogmas that dictate the paths in which we make and search for meaning. Perhaps this kind of approach proposes to us that this new paradigm is more of a nonparadigm: a Zen koan that resists our efforts to grasp at our own nature through grasping at stable ways of doing research. We can begin this endeavor by asking, why should we agree with Kant’s ruling reason and senses in, and spirit out, so as to deprive ourselves of the possibility of a serious academic engagement with what seems to many of us as the core and the source of meaning and life? NOTES 1. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf 2. This is an idea I heard from Harold Roth in the above mentioned ACMHE 2012 conference. I do not know whether it has already been developed in a paper.

REFERENCES Alexander, H. (2006). A view from somewhere: Explaining the paradigms of educational research. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40(2), 205–221. Bai, H., Scott, C., & Donald, B. (2009). Contemplative pedagogy and revitalization of teacher education. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(3), 319–334. Behar, R. (1997). The vulnerable observer. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Chalmers, D. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3), 200–219. Davidson, R. J. (2012). The emotional life of your brain. New York, NY: Penguin. Davidson, R. J., Dunne, J., Eccles, J. S., Engle, A., Greenberg, M., Jennings, P., . . . Vago, D. (2012). Contemplative practices and mental training: Prospects for American education. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 146–153 Denzin, N. K. (2006). Analytic autoethnography or déjà vu all over again. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 419–428. Dewey, J. (1929). The quest for certainty. London, England: Allen & Unwin.

22    O. ERGAS Dyson, M. (2007). My story in a profession of stories: Auto ethnography: An empowering methodology for educators. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 32(1), 35–48. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Auto-ethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The handbook of qualitative research (pp. 733–767). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ergas, O. (2014). Mindfulness in education at the intersection of science, religion and healing. Critical Studies in Education, 55(1), 58–72. Ergas, O. (2015). The deeper teachings of mindfulness-based curricular interventions as a reconstruction of “education.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 49(2), 203–220. Ergas, O., & Todd, S. (Eds.). (2016). Philosophy east/west: Exploring intersections between educational and contemplative practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Frankl, V. E. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Gilead, T. (2012). Education and the logic of economic progress. The Journal of Philosophy of Education, 46(1), 113–131. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). London, England: Sage. Gunnlaugson, O., Sarath, E. W., Scott, C., & Bai, H. (2014). Contemplative learning and inquiry across disciplines. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hadot, P. (1995) Philosophy as a way of life (M. Case, Trans.). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Huebner, D. E.; Hillis, V., & Pinar, W. F. (Eds.) (1999). The lure of the transcendent: Collected works by Dwayne E. Huebner. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Huss, B. (2014). Spirituality: The emergence of a new cultural category and its challenge to the religious and the secular. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 29(1), 47–60. James, W. (1907). The energies of men. Science, 25(635), 321–332. Kant, E. (1787). Critique of pure reason (J. M. D. Meiklejohn, Trans.). Retrieved from http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/kant/Critique-Pure-Reason.pdf Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions. London, England: University of Chicago Press. Lewin, D. (in print). Educational philosophy for a post secular age. New York, NY: Routledge. Lin, J., Oxford, R., & Brantmeier, S. (Eds.). (2013). Re-envisioning higher education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Oxford, R. L. (2016). Creation Spirituality as a spiritual research paradigm drawing on many faiths. In J. Lin, R.L. Oxford, & T. Culham (Eds.). Toward a spiritual research paradigm: Exploring new ways of knowing, researching, and being (pp. 199–232). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Palmer, P. (1983). To know as we are known. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Philips, D. C., & Burbules, N. C. (2000). Postpositivism and educational research. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Postman, N. (1995). The end of education: Redefining the value of school. New York, NY: Knopf. Roth, H. D. (2008). Against cognitive imperialism, Religion East & West, 8, 1–26

Knowing the Unknown    23 Sarath, E. (2006). Meditation, creativity, and consciousness: Charting future terrain within higher education. Teachers College Record, 108(9), 1816–1841. Smith, H. (1992). Forgotten truth. New York, NY: Harper. Tauber, A. I. (1997). Introduction. In A. I. Tauber (Ed.), Science and the quest for reality (pp. 1–37). London, England: Macmillan. Taylor, C. (2006). A secular age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Toulmin, S. E. (1990). Cosmopolis. New York, NY: The Free Press. Wexler, P. (2000). The mystical society. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wexler, P. & Hotam, Y. (2015). New sociological foundations: Education in post-secular society. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Wilber, K. (1999). The marriage of sense and soul. New York, NY: Broadway. Zajonc, A. (2009). Meditation as contemplative inquiry: When knowing becomes love. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne. Zins, J. E., Bloodworth, M. R., Weissberg, R. P., & Walberg, H. J. (2007). The scientific base linking social and emotional learning to school success. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 17(2/3), 191–210.

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CHAPTER 2

“OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO HERE” Rhetoricity and Transcendence as Common Ground for Spiritual Research Anne W. Anderson

None of us chooses the hour or the place or the circumstances of our birth. We do not choose our parents, our ethnicity, our native language, our physical features, or our nonphysical characteristics. We come from, as 19th century Scottish writer George MacDonald (1871/1963) mused, “out of the everywhere, into here” (p. 236), but that here—not the here—is different for each one of us, and this difference is what we have in common. We belong to a humanity that is perpetually in media res—each of us is born into the middle of others’ stories and others are born into ours—into Kenneth Burke’s (1974) “unending conversation,” so to speak (pp. 110–111). Many, if not most of us, also sense we also are born into a larger story, the origins of which lie beyond. Beyond what we can’t quite say, but humanity has expended much effort in seeking to know and to articulate answers to the questions of where we come from, why we are here, how we should

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 25–53 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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live, and what it all means. Little effort has been expended in developing a systematic method of exploring how individuals become aware of these questions for themselves, of how individuals seek to find answers to these transcendent questions, of how and by what means individuals grow in their understanding of that which seems to be beyond knowing, and of how individuals respond to their own growth. Some people term this process of becoming aware, of seeking, of growing, and of responding as spiritual development. To do so assumes the existence of something called spirit that can develop and assumes a common understanding of spirit and of spiritual development. The word spirit, in particular, may be understood differently depending on the semantic (alcoholic beverages sometimes are termed spirits), contextual (spirit as interchangeable with ghost), and religious (Holy Spirit versus Great Spirit) connotations. Some people explain the term spirit as the unconscious or subconscious part of the mind—not always in positive terms—and as interchangeable with the term soul, while other people see spirit as a separate part or function of a human being. In addition to containing ambiguous terms, the statement must be justified in other ways, as well. Will, for instance, more effort on our part yield more of what we recognize as results, and is a systematic method the best means of exploration? An epistemological stance holding that knowledge is discovered and/or constructed might answer yes to both questions. But what if knowledge is revealed by whatever is beyond? Or what if the acquiring of knowledge is a cooperative venture of discovery, revelation, and construction or coconstruction? Do our current understandings of research allow for these possibilities? It would appear, then, that we are trying to develop a research paradigm to help us study that for which we have few words and which may or may not yield what typically is thought of as useful information when studied within the parameters of our current understanding of research. Additionally, discussions of spirituality easily become conflated with discussions of religion and politics, both of which have long histories of divisiveness, thwarting attempts to study and to discuss our common quest for meaning. Other confusion occurs because each faith tradition uses words and terms that have meanings that are both sacred, in particular contexts, and secular, in others. Save, for instance, is used in very different ways by fundamentalist Christians, baseball pitchers, environmental activists, and financial advisors. But if the sense of beyond and some seeking after meaning truly is common to humanity, we ought to be able to peel away the religious terminology until we arrive at some common elements we can discuss in terms that are not specific to any particular faith tradition. This chapter, then, attempts to develop a foundation for systematic inquiry into and of humanity’s common quest for meaning by framing this quest in terms not particular to any faith

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tradition but underlying each, i.e., the terms used to discuss the concept of rhetoricity. Rhetoricity goes beyond our ability to use the spoken or written word to persuade (argue) and sees existence itself as a rhetorical state of being. Corder (1958) discussed rhetoricity, without using the specific term, as the self as a “narrative” that is making, being made into, and becoming “arguments” (p. 18). Argument here is used in the sense of the Oxford English Dictionary’s (2014) third definition of argue as “to afford good ground for inferring, show weighty reasons for supposing.” For example, we might say a road’s existence—its rhetoricity—argues the existence of rhetors, people who decided—who weighed or argued—whether and how to build the road. The building of the road also involves a rhetoricity of place in the sense that Santos and Browning (2014) explained “space and place as agentive entities rather than . . . mere backdrops for human interaction” (para. 2). In the case of the road’s existence, the geography of the land, at some point, exerted its agency simply by being and influenced (persuaded) deer to create trails from point to point, which later were widened into paths by people and which eventually became roads. Similarly, the fact that we exist implies a state of rhetoricity in which we exist. Corder (1985) went on to argue—infer, suppose—that we live surrounded by and subsumed within argument, that is to say, rhetoricity: The choosing we do to make our narratives (whether or not we are aware of the nature of our choosing) also makes our narratives into arguments. . . . Argument is not something we make outside ourselves; argument is what we are. Each of us is an argument. We always live in, through, around, over, and under argument. (p. 18)

Just by virtue of being, therefore, we make rhetorical statements and we find ways to persuade others to accept our statements. But we also, by virtue of being, are open to being persuaded. Nor is this rhetorical state dependent on our conscious awareness of our narrative or of our persuasive methods or of our persuadability. A newborn infant, for example, is persuaded by abdominal discomfort to wail, but it has not yet learned that such wailing serves as a rhetorical argument based on logos (the mother knows a wailing baby usually is hungry), pathos (the mother feels sorry for the baby’s discomfort), and ethos (the mother believes her duty is to feed the baby). Extending the example further, our ability to be persuaded can be both voluntary and involuntary. The mother can voluntarily choose not to respond to the baby’s persuasive methods, but her breasts may respond and involuntarily, in terms of the mother making an active choice, begin excreting milk. Extending this even further, if we not only, as Corder (1985) noted, are an argument but we also “always live in, through, around, over, and under argument” (p. 18), then we must consider all of existence

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as rhetorical. Both the impetus to behavior and the behavior itself become an argument, an evidence by which we infer the existence of the other. An object tossed into the air is persuaded by the principles of force and motion to ascend and by the argument of gravity to descend. At issue is the source of principles and persuasions, including the possibility of a creator or of a creative force, to be discussed later in this chapter. Rickert (2013) discussed an ambient rhetoricity in which we are immersed, and Davis (2010) suggested that “an originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity—an affectability or persuadability” (p. 2)—is at work. And, while Davis claimed not to be speaking in metaphysical terms, her use of the words originary, connoting, perhaps, an inherent or intrinsic characteristic, and preoriginary, suggesting the possibility of something extrinsic, in conjunction with rhetoricity, implies otherwise. In this chapter, I first discuss historical paradigmatic shifts, review modern paradigms and current studies of spiritual development, and explain the need for a different paradigm. In the second part of this chapter, I explore how an understanding of rhetoricity, the predisposition to being rhetorical beings, can provide a more expansive framework for research than current research paradigms imagine and can do so using language that avoids terms charged with historical and cultural connotations. Finally, I propose a research paradigm conducive to the study of spiritual development. CHANGING PARADIGMS AFFECTING THE STUDY OF SPIRITUALITY Historical Paradigmatic Shifts in Ontology and Epistemology By paradigm, I mean the modern, scientific usage of the word as introduced barely half a century ago by Kuhn (1962). For most of its 2,000-year history, according to the etymology of the word as traced in the Oxford English Dictionary (2014) and as reflected in the first definition listed, paradigm meant “a pattern,” a “typical instance,” or an “exemplar,” particularly as used in grammar tables. Up until very recently, for instance, a chart giving examples of nouns and verbs might list as a paradigm or typical instance of a noun a word, such as dog or table. Today, the Oxford English Dictionary (2014) lists, as the fourth definition of paradigm, “A conceptual or methodological model underlying the theories and practices of a science or discipline at a particular time; (hence) a generally accepted worldview” and dates both this meaning and that of the phrase paradigm shift to Kuhn’s work. In effect, Kuhn (1962) inverted the understanding and usage of the

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word paradigm. No longer is a paradigm a typical instance of a conceptual idea; now the conceptual idea is itself the paradigm. A similar, if more gradual, inversion also has occurred in the term generally accepted view of reality and of how we come to know and understand reality. Prior to the mid 1800s or so, most, if not all, cultures based their official belief systems in some concept of the mystical, the spiritual, the essential, the primordial, i.e., of something beyond human experience and understanding. From the Lao Tzu’s “oldest mystery of darkest mysteries” (1998, Ch. 1) to Jesus’ mention of “the mysteries of kingdom of heaven” (Holy Bible, Matthew 13:11) to the Lakota’s Wakan Tanka, which is “translated generally to mean ‘the Great Mysterious’” (Marks, 2007, p. 33), the conceptual model of most cultures included that which was beyond human and Beyond this existence. Most cultures also accepted knowledge being transmitted from Beyond through dreams, intuition, revelation, and similar means. The legal, economic, and political systems derived much, if not all, of their authority from this concept of Beyond. Changes in the focus from Beyond to Here-and-Now occurred gradually over time and were both conceptual and epistemological (see Table 2.1). This change in focus brought corresponding changes in governance and economics, changes often wrought through violent revolution and coming, ironically, near the end of the Enlightenment period. Long-established religious institutions and governments seemed powerless to meet people’s needs in this new world; anything which had to be reasoned out and was more concerned with, as Crotty (1998/2010) put it, “the quest for first causes and last ends” (p. 22), or metaphysics, became suspect. Challenges to and changes in conceptual models came more frequently and brought corresponding changes in epistemologies. By the end of the 19th century, Auguste Comte’s popularization of Bacon’s term positivism had wedded itself to science (Crotty, 1998/2010, p. 19); logical positivism and postpositivism would follow in the early 20th century. What had once been studied under the broad umbrella of theological philosophy had split into three separate camps: theology, philosophy, and science. Where religious beliefs once provided an overarching reason for studying all other subjects, religious studies became merely one subject among many to be considered. Comte’s purpose, wrote Simpson (1982), was to “achieve social conditions under which metaphysical propositions give way to positivistic ones” (as quoted in Crotty, 1998/2010, p. 22) with the goal of finding natural laws that held the keys to an orderly, tumultfree world. The ironies, Crotty noted, are that Comte’s “dedication . . . led him to promulgate an utterly secular Religion of Humanity, incorporating a priesthood and liturgical practice all its own” and that Comte’s work and writings contained “metaphysical and quasi-religious assumptions aplenty” (p. 21). Nevertheless, the premise of the paradigm of positivism, and of its

30    A. W. ANDERSON TABLE 2.1  Changes in Western Conceptual Models From the Classical Period to Present Day Time Period/Influences

Structure of Western Conceptual Models Emphasis on Beyond

BCE to end of 13th c. CE (1300-plus years) Patristic & Medieval Periods Classical Greek–Roman; Judaism–Christianity– Islam

Patristic & Medieval Periods: • Conceptual models based on existence of and connection to a real Beyond • Knowledge transmitted from Beyond and discerned through dreams, intuition, revelation, divination, etc., and/or discovered through observation, and/or reasoned through logic, i.e., the mystical vs. the rational • Study spiritual texts and rituals to prepare for Beyond and to explain Here-and-Now • Tensions: Eternal versus temporal and faith versus reason; emphasis on eternal and faith

Early 1300s to early 1600s (about 300 years) Renaissance & Reformation: Humanism

Renaissance & Reformation: • Conceptual model includes existence of a real Beyond • Knowledge discovered through observation and/ or reasoned through logic, the faculties for which presupposed Beyond • Study spiritual texts and the observable world to better human society • Tensions: Eternal versus temporal and faith versus reason; emphasis on temporal and reason

Late 1500s to mid-1800s (about 250 years) Enlightenment: Utopianism, Empiricism, Rationalism

Enlightenment: • Conceptual model limits Beyond to origins; real here-andnow • Knowledge discovered through observation and/or reasoned through logic • Ignore spiritual texts as a source of knowledge • Human reason can create heaven on earth Here and Now; spirituality irrelevant

Mid-1800s to Present (about 200 years) Modern Era: Positivism to present philosophical boutique

Modern Era: • Conceptual model based on subjective Here-and-Now; Beyond a figment • Knowledge discovered and/or constructed and interpreted • Spiritual texts discredited as counter to true knowledge • Spirituality pathologized as detrimental to humanity Emphasis on Here-and-Now

Source: Anderson (2013) and Elias (2002)

progeny, logical positivism and postpositivism, is this: one—and only one— real, orderly world exists, and it can be discovered only through “observation, experiment, and comparison” (Crotty, 1998/2010, p. 22). The knowledge/research balance shift complete, the weight settled firmly on the Here-and-Now end. Any remaining metaphysical assumptions

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about the sources of this existence or of an existence outside of this one were removed from the scientific conceptual model, and the spiritual beliefs of researchers and the subjects of research were discounted or discredited. Today the predominant conceptual model of the academic world and of many governmental and other official spheres that often control funding of research is that knowledge can be discovered and/or constructed only through what can be experienced with the five senses and/or extrapolated through mathematical means. Modern quantitative and qualitative methods all depend on empiric, sensory, or mathematical information; none admit to metaphysical means of knowing such as the use of intuition, meditation, prayer, or logical reasoning, even though such means of knowing and of learning have been acknowledged across cultures for thousands of years. Changes in how we conduct research are not merely questions of whether we use quantitative or qualitative methods, but reflect a deeper rift. As Crotty (1998/2010) pointed out, both quantitative and qualitative methods can and are used in both positivist and nonpositivist research. Rather, Crotty argued, “the Great Divide . . . [is] . . . a distinction between objectivist/positivist research, on the one hand, and constructionist or subjectivist research on the other” (pp. 14–15). The real problem, Crotty noted, is that most of us cannot be consistently one or the other, which is contradictory. In education, for example, we teach that learning is subjectively constructed, then presume to define learning objectively so we can measure it in positivist (post or otherwise) terms. Crotty (1998/2010) acknowledged that postmodernist theories allow for such contradictions and “call all our cherished antimonies into question” inviting us “today to embrace ‘fuzzy logic’ rather than the logic we have known in the past with its principle of contradiction” (p. 15), but he maintained that it is impossible to consistently hold both objectivist and constructionist theories at the same time. I will argue a third possibility exists, but first I examine the idea of paradigm more closely and of currently accepted paradigms in more detail. Modern Paradigmatic Shifts and Current Spiritual Research In examining the idea of paradigm more closely, I first note that a generally accepted worldview is not the same as an exclusively accepted worldview nor is it even the same as a widely accepted worldview. Dissenters likely have muttered under their breaths in every era and in every culture; how much credence and press time they have been given affects how their arguments have survived the centuries. Additionally, presenting changes in paradigms chronologically subtly implies the idea of progress, i.e., that one paradigm is somehow better or more developed than another simply because it

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appeared or became prevalent at a later time. We cannot fully enter into the thinking of different historical periods any more than we can enter fully into the thinking of cultures different from our own, and we run the risk of, as Wineburg (2001) put it, “contort[ing] the past to fit the predetermined meanings we have already assigned it” (p. 6). For instance, modern thinkers sometimes scorn the works and beliefs of other times and places, labeling them dark, primitive, or pagan, not considering that the people who produced those works likely saw them as enlightened and contemporary, as conveying truth, and as contributing to the betterment of humanity. As the emphasis shifted in the West from an eternal to a temporal perspective, the power of the church diminished, and it seemed more reasonable for individuals to observe carefully the temporal world and to rationalize its workings than to accept statements about an unseen something by faith. Today, we operate from competing understandings of the world—paradigms, official or not—that someday may seem equally strange or irrational to people of a future time. With those thoughts in mind, I turn to Kuhn’s (1962) inversion of the understanding of paradigm from, as the Oxford English Dictionary (2014) noted, “typical instance” (def. 1, dating to the ancient Greeks) to “generally accepted worldview” (def. 4, dating from Kuhn’s 1962 work), or more completely, “A conceptual or methodological model underlying the theories and practices of a science or discipline at a particular time; (hence) a generally accepted worldview.” But generally accepted by whom? How much acceptance and what kind of acceptance constitutes generally? How reliable is a generally accepted worldview that only is accepted by one discipline or only by scholars of one era or place? If research is conducted under an unreliable paradigm, how reliable are the findings? On the other hand, what is there to prevent another paradigm from being proposed and from being adopted by researchers wanting to expand the parameters of the worldview to include the possibility of Beyond?1 When experience didn’t quite line up with postpositivist research— human behavior being notoriously difficult to quantify—Kuhn’s (1962) paradigm shift provided an authenticating label for developing and, more important, for funding research based on alternative definitions of reality. The engine of research didn’t just have the neutral gear of philosophical debate and the forward gear of empirical, positivist research. Now some research could grind on in a low postpositive gear while other research could zip forward in constructive, interpretive, and transformative gears or move into overdrive with a critical approach, still based on one reality. Before adding a new and different paradigm to the research mix, let us first note that spiritual research—as opposed to spiritually-based research— can be conducted from within each of the existing paradigms. Even within a paradigm that sees Beyond as a construct of Here-and-Now, research on

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spirituality can be conducted from a positivist and/or postpositivist perspective. The Association of Religion Data Archives’ (ARDA) Measurement Wizard webpage (n.d.), for instance, contains links to numerous studies that statistically correlate the number of people who claim to believe a particular tenet of faith to particular actions those people take. Whether those tenets are true or not are irrelevant; that the objectified subjects believe in them is all that counts. Other scholars have conducted spiritual research within constructivist parameters, usually through historical, phenomenological, or psychological approaches. Psychologists Fowler (1981), Coles (1990), and Hart (2003), for instance, interviewed hundreds of people, mostly children, of various faiths and of no faith, to learn how people approach such questions as where we come from, why we are here, how we should live, and what it all means. Fowler (1981) identified stages of spiritual development, Coles (1990) came to recognize spirituality as contributing to resilience, and Hart (2003) came to see spirituality as systemic, i.e., as necessary to a person’s complete maturation and development. Writing more specifically from within a particular spiritual tradition, doctor of Hebrew studies and teacher of the Roman Catholic catechism Cavaletti (1979/1983) also studied children’s spirituality, often through their artwork, concluding, as Hart (2003) did decades later, that spirituality is systemic to the human experience. Editors Yust, Johnson, Sasso, and Roehlkepartain (2006) solicited essays from religious scholars and others representing several of the world’s faiths and asked them to respond to such questions as how, within their faith tradition, spiritual development was identified and nurtured, what their sacred texts said about spiritual development, and how various practices such as prayer, meditation, contemplation, and service contributed to spiritual development. Other Paths, Other Possibilities Each of these works informed and suggested more than proved or drew conclusions, but each systematically investigated a question or questions using generally accepted research methods and analytic processes. None of these works sought to redefine a paradigm, although both Coles (1990) and Hart (2003) spoke of their work as contradicting their scientific and medical training and noted how spirituality was viewed as abnormal—even pathologized—by some practitioners in their field. Coles (1990), for instance, wrote of his coming to understand that for years he had largely ignored the spiritual element in his work because he had been trained “medically and psychiatrically” in such a way that his patients “were all too often turned into a reductive putty by my mind, which had become quite tamely subservient to an intensely hierarchical structure of authority” (p. 10).

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Because his profession tended to discount children’s musings about God, the meaning of life, and the inevitability of death “as evidence of a disturbed mind” (p. 19), Coles wrote that he and his colleagues would “treat” a child expecting that “all this religious talk [would] go away” because the child “at some moment in therapy [would] be ready . . . to look at things as we did” (p. 11). Hart (2003) also suggested the possibility that until recently—a debatable optimism—children who spoke of spiritual experiences “would have been subject[ed] to . . . prescriptions as they would have been diagnosed as mentally ill. . . . Or perhaps just as painfully, a child might have been . . . turned into a showpiece, a spiritual novelty” (p. 15). One other area where work is being done to understand spirituality is in medicine, particularly in terms of patient care, and I will bring one study, in particular, into the discussion of a rhetoric of spirituality. At this point, however, the questions to consider are not whether spirituality is abnormal or whether the assumptions about spirituality are wrong, but whether the assumptions about this existence have caused the research vehicle to reach a dead end or whether the vehicle itself is appropriate to the task at hand. Typically, for instance, cars don’t fly. If the research vehicle hit a dead end, it may be because what was missed in the shifting of gears and in the splitting of gear ratios was that the vehicle had taken a wrong turn off of the road named Objective Reality and followed a path named Nominal/Representational Reality that was based on a misunderstanding of relativism. Latour (1999) noted that, prior to the 1600s, the understanding that “we [scientists and philosophers] are relatively sure of many of the things with which we are daily engaged through the practice of our laboratories” (p. 4) was based “on the number of relations established with the world” (p. 4) and not, as we tend to interpret it today, as an argument against objective reality. The more in-the-world relations or connections a scientist established with an object in studying it (p. 4), the more certainly he/she could make statements about the reality of the object. If the scientist couldn’t establish relations between an object or an idea with the world, it didn’t necessarily mean the object or idea wasn’t real. It may have meant the methods weren’t appropriate or sufficient. Empiricists, Latour (1999) wrote, “abandoned even the claim to absolute certainty” (p. 5) and wandered down the road named Constructivism. Ultimately, they arrived at a destination that said reality is all in one’s mind. To think otherwise, Latour concluded, is today to risk being subjected to “an even more ancient threat, the fear of mob rule, [i.e.,] whatever the mob thinks is right at any given time” (p. 7, emphasis in the original), a threat not merely academic when it comes to discussions of spiritual reality, as Coles (1990) and Hart (2003) discovered. Latour (1999) suggested that the wrong path has never been abandoned or retraced to the point of error so scholars can resume a correct path. Instead, we have found ourselves hopelessly entangled in the thicket of

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conflicting perceptions of reality, of the means by which we understand reality, and of the methods we can use to accomplish the means—conflicting paradigms, so to speak. Likewise, Gray (1968), who translated Heidegger’s later work, commented on Heidegger’s “contributions to philosophy [being] that of an initiator of new approaches and perspectives on our common inheritance, rather than any new content or doctrine” (p. xiv) and noted Heidegger’s belief that “the only way to go forward is to return to the origins and seek a new beginning” (p. xiv). In defining the world on Here-and-Now terms, perhaps what was missed when the wrong turn was taken was a definition that already existed.2 Perhaps it was the correct path all along, but someone had changed the signage and description of what it should look like. The questions then become whether we can or should recover the lost path and whether absolute certainty is a prerequisite for conducting spiritually-based research. In this scenario, spiritually-based research would assume that spiritual elements and methods are as yet undiscovered or are heretofore unexplored aspects of this existence. In the same way that new species of insects are discovered and are added to the store of knowledge, modern researchers returning to the path of rationalism or to the even older path of mysticism might read old texts with new eyes and discover ways to justify the inclusion of intuition, prayer, meditation, and similar metaphysical acts as fuels for empowering the research vehicle and might also discover that those fuels can operate within any of the current paradigms. Another possibility to consider is that the current research vehicle is inadequate for the task of conducting spiritually-based research in the same sense that a car, adequate for navigating surface roads, cannot navigate the airways and fly over the roads. Instead of retracing a path to find the turnoff to certainty within one system, perhaps we need a vehicle capable of exploring the possibility that another system or systems exist completely apart from, but is/are capable of making some connection with, the system in which we find ourselves. Discussions of systems vary depending on the field and can become quite complex. For the purposes of this chapter, I am grateful to Yokoyama-Hatch, Purewal, Oberoi, and Suresh (n.d.) for the definitions and examples of the terms as used in thermodynamics: • An open system is one in which both energy and matter can freely be transferred from the surroundings to the system and vice versa, e.g., ingredients and heat into and out of an open saucepan sitting on a burner. • A closed system is one in which energy, but not matter, can be freely transferred from the surroundings to the system and vice versa, e.g., heat, but not ingredients, transfers into and out of a lidded saucepan sitting on a burner.

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• An isolated system is one in which neither energy nor matter can be transferred from the surroundings to the system and vice versa, e.g., a closed thermos. As Yokoyama-Hatch et al., (n.d.) noted, a truly isolated system is mostly theoretical; the contents of the thermos must have been introduced from the surroundings at some point and no insulating material completely prevents energy from escaping. Working from a physics stance, Choi (2003) parsed through causation and conservation issues in regard to closed/isolated systems but only in respect to systems operating within the surroundings of this existence. But is this existence all there is? All current research paradigms or perspectives—a word sometimes used interchangeably with paradigm (Paul, 2005)—operate within parameters that allow for only one closed-system or isolated-system existence. According to the assumptions of objectivism, reality exists within the objects of this existence; according to constructivist perspectives, we each construct, using ingredients found solely within this existence, our own versions of reality. Those versions of reality may be based on our privileged or not-so-privileged positions in society (by whose definitions and standards?), but the materials from which we construct our separate versions are indigenous to this existence, to this system. Johnson (2007/2010) reflected this view thus, “The only truly closed [isolated] system is the Universe as a whole” (p. 14). But is it? Can we imagine a universe that encompasses all surroundings that, at the same time, is affected by a completely separate system outside of all surroundings? If we cannot imagine it—to be able to do so would bring it within the constructs of the system—does that mean it doesn’t exist? Can we at least allow for the possibility of its existence? What kind of research vehicle could explore this possibility, the possibility of Beyond? My purposes in this chapter are neither to argue whether a particular path is right or wrong nor to argue the merits of particular research methods. I seek only to offer a possible other path and/or vehicle, ones that may or may not be the correct path and/or vehicle, but ones that offer different sets of parameters conducive to conducting spiritual research. So far, I have established the following: First, a different paradigm, one that accepted the idea of Beyond-this-existence, operated in the Euro-centric world from antiquity until about the mid 1800s. Second, modern research by social scientists in the area of spiritual development has been conducted under the constraints of both postpositivist and interpretivist perspectives that assume a closed or isolated system. Third, modern research by theologians has been conducted within the constraints of individual religious traditions. Fourth, because studying spiritual development in an isolated system limits the basic assumptions underlying research, a new/old paradigm can and ought to take its place alongside other paradigms. Additionally, in order for such a

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paradigm to be accepted by the academic research community, its assumptions cannot be confined to one religious tradition or to adherents of no religious tradition but must be broad enough to applicable to all humanity. In the next section, I discuss rhetoricity as a frame for understanding human spirituality, and I propose a paradigm based on such rhetoricity that would expand the possibilities for systemic research of universal spirituality and spiritual development. TRANSCENDED RHETORICITY AS A PARADIGM FOR RESEARCH As I suggested in the beginning of this essay, humanity has expended much collective effort in seeking to know and to articulate answers to the questions of where we come from, why we are here, how we should live, and what it all means. But why? If, as the materialists and humanists claim, this world is the only existence and its study is the only worthwhile purpose of research, then how is it that we are even aware of larger questions, the answers to which do not seem to fit into the current closed/isolated albeit universe-al system paradigms? If, as Kuhn’s (1962) thesis stated, paradigms change when reality doesn’t match what scientists think they know, then perhaps, instead of following a strictly empiricist or strictly rationalist path, researchers ought to return—boldly and without apology—to more open, more metaphysically based paths. Or, instead of positing only a closed/ isolated system, we need to imagine a more expansive paradigm that allows for the possibility of this universe not being a closed/isolated system or of there being other systems apart from and independent of this one. In this section, I examine the current rhetoric of spirituality, evidences of an underlying rhetoric, and the rhetoricity behind/beyond the underlying rhetoric that supports this more expansive paradigm. Finally, I consider an epistemology, methods, and ethical considerations of such rhetoricity. The Current Underlying Rhetoric of Spirituality Scholars in the fields of nursing and psychology have considered questions of spirituality, particularly as part of patient care. Tanyi (2002) examined a rhetoric of spirituality, recognizing that, largely because “scientificbased approaches are not fully able to address many human problems” (p. 500), discussion in the medical professions about spirituality had increased, but scholars were stymied by a lack of “consensus on a definition of this concept” and by “ambiguity on how this concept is incorporated into nursing practice, research, and education” (p. 500). After compiling

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a list of the various definitions and constructions of spirituality found in the literature, Tanyi conducted a concept analysis, an iterative tool devised, she explained, by “Walker and Avant (1995) . . . to describe and examine a word and its usage in language and nursing literature; that is, to determine what the concept is, and what it is not [and] . . . to clarify ambiguity . . . when multiple definitions are present” (p. 501). In conducting the concept analysis, Tanyi (2002) compared dictionary definitions of spirit and spiritual with the definitions and constructions found in the literature, and she discussed studies that found connections between spirituality and physical and/or mental health. Next, Tanyi constructed from the literature a model case that included all the “defining attributes of the case and absolutely exemplif[ies] it” (p. 504), a borderline case that included some of the attributes but not all, and a contrary case— one Tanyi constructed involving a robot—where none of the attributes were present at all. Tanyi then described antecedents to spirituality—“events that must be present before the occurrence of a concept,” which she listed as physical life and spirit (“an inherent aspect of human beings, and . . . the core of human existence” [p. 505])—and consequences of spirituality. Tanyi (2002) found mostly positive consequences of spirituality mentioned in the literature—“a sense of hope and peace, love and joy, meaning and purpose in life, self transcendence, and a sense of spiritual, psychological, physical health and well-being” (p. 505), but she also noted some findings that spirituality could involve “guilt and inner conflict about one’s values and beliefs” (p. 505). I will return to this idea of negative spirituality in my discussion of an epistemology of spirituality. Finally, Tanyi discussed empirical referents, mostly assessment and analytic tools such as scales and pictorial charts, which seek to provide “external measures of a concept grounded in the real world” (p. 505)—real, of course, being defined within the constructs of a closed/isolated system and external measures being derived from self-referential tools. Her analysis confirmed the definitions and constructions of the concept of spirituality as used by scholars referenced in the previous section. Each of the researchers discussed—Cavaletti (1979/1983), Coles (1990), Hart (2003), Fowler (1981), Yust et al. (2006), and Tanyi (2002)—recognized spirituality as innate and/or intrinsic to human beings and, while recognizing the two could be related, distinguished individual/personal spirituality from its expression within a religious system or tradition. Tanyi (2002) proposed a definition of spirituality as “a personal search for meaning and purpose in life, which may or may not be related to religion” and the results of which include an “ability to transcend beyond the infirmities of existence” (p. 506). Yust et al. (2006) offered a working definition of spirituality as being “the intrinsic capacity for self-transcendence in which the individual participates in the sacred—something greater than the self”3 (p. 8). Cavalletti (1979/1983) distinguished “religious [spiritual]

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potential” from the “religious language” of a particular faith tradition and distinguished between such language and “the language of science [which] functions in a very different framework of knowledge” (p. 9). This distinction between frameworks of knowledge and languages affirms the need for an articulated paradigm and a language that accepts the possibility of Beyond and also suggests that behind/beyond/surrounding/within the rhetoric of particular faith traditions is a more universal rhetoric of spirituality, i.e., a rhetoricity, at work. As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, if the sense of Beyond and of some seeking after meaning truly is common to humanity, we ought to be able to peel away the religious terminology until we arrive at some common elements we can discuss in terms that are not specific to any particular faith tradition. Rhetoricians have done much of the work for us. From Rhetoric to Rhetoricity The classical understanding of rhetoric, based on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (4th c. BCE/1984), described three main purposes of rhetoric: to persuade as to the best course of future action; to persuade as to the most just application of law to a past action; and to persuade, in the present moment, as to the praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of someone or something. Most applications of Aristotle’s work have been confined to spoken and written communication and function largely in the areas of politics and law. Modern critical theorists such as Foucault (1982), however, have demonstrated that almost every situation is political, thus expanding the rhetorical sphere. A parent persuading a child to do his/her homework, for instance, appeals to reason, duty, or the fear of punishment. The modern understanding of rhetoric has grown not only in terms of who uses it and is influenced by it, but also in its acknowledging modes of persuasion that are based on the rhetorical messages implicit in visual images, music and sound effects, tactile stimuli, and by other sensory means. Soft colors and lighting combined with gentle music persuade us to sympathize, while symbolic colors and patriotic music call us to duty. Such explicit examples presuppose one or more active persuaders, such as a lighting designer, a composer, and/or a director who combines sight and sound. One or more human rhetors instigate the rhetorical message. But in a different sense, the union of two or more modes—visual and aural stimuli, for instance—becomes a new rhetorical creation, takes on a rhetorical life of its own that is distinct from its two parents, and acts on or affects every environment in which it subsequently is activated. Latour (1992/2008) spoke of objects such as door hinges, automatic door openers, traffic control devices, and the artificial intelligence of computer programs, as acting on the

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people who come into contact with them. Nonhuman objects, animate and inanimate, operate rhetorically as they persuade us to behave and in terms of the behaviors we ascribe to them. The red traffic light, by the combination of its symbolic color and its location, appeals to reason, to our ethical sense of duty, and to our emotions. The artificial intelligence of computer programs acts on us similarly. Beyond/underlying/around the rhetoricity of human-produced objects is that of nature and the persuasion exerted by place and by its living, nonhuman inhabitants. Rickert (2013) noted that rhetoric “can no longer be understood solely as a subjective, verbal, visual, or even performative art. . . . Rhetoric is an emergent result of environmentally situated and interactive engagements, redolent of a world that affects us, that persuades us prior to symbolicity” (pp. 33–34). Reminiscent of Corder’s (1985) claim that we “live in, through, around, over, and under argument [rhetoric/persuasion]” (p. 18), Rickert (2013) called rhetoric ambient and said that, in so doing, he was “claiming that rhetoricity is the always ongoing disclosure of the world shifting our manner of being in that world so as to call for some response or action” (p. xii). Rickert termed this ambience, using Heidegger’s understanding of dasein, as “the background of intelligibility and practical coping from which we work . . . [and which] invites us to understand the complex giveand-take we have with our material surroundings” (p. 5). Invites suggests persuasion and surroundings recalls the discussion of systems in the first section. Ambient intelligibility and practical coping, according to Rickert, do not just emanate from us. Rather, Rickert (2013) wrote, “The conjectures we call identification, commonality, and community work from and have their spaces of possibility hollowed in advance by, this a priori affectability” (p. 161). The phrase a priori affectability returns us to the question of how it is that we can be persuaded at all. Depending on which of the several shades of meaning we attach to a priori (Russell, 2014), Rickert (2013) seems to be suggesting this ability to be affected by, to be persuaded by, is self-evident, logically deduced, or intuited—metaphysical terms each. Davis (2010), drawing on Burke’s (1974) thought, noted that “belonging is fundamentally rhetorical” (p. 1), claimed a similar innate affectability or persuadability, and suggested “a more originary rhetoricity must already be operating” based on “a fundamental structure of exposure” and an “always prior openness to the other’s affection [as] its first requirement” (p. 3), affection being used here in the sense of being affected by in a way that invites response. And we are, fundamentally and from our earliest moments, exposed. Before either is aware of the other’s presence, our mothers’ bodies are open, exposed to being affected by our presences and our bodies are open to be affected by theirs. Rhetoricity provides a term to describe how a mother’s body is persuaded—by biochemical functions, at the least, and influenced or not by the workings of forces from Beyond—to respond to the attaching of

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a fertilized ovum to the uterine wall by forming a network of blood vessels. Rhetoricity also provides a term to describe how the ovum is persuaded—by “the other’s affection” (Davis, 2010, p. 3)—to divide and divide, to live, to be. Even down to our individual cells, we are predisposed to exposure and response. Each of us experiences this “commonality oblivious to borders,” as Davis put it, “that precedes and exceeds symbolic identification and therefore any prerequisite for belonging” (p. 2). We come into the world physically naked, emotionally vulnerable, intellectually susceptible, and immersed in an “originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity—an affectability or persuadability—that is the condition for symbolic action” later on (Davis, 2010, p. 2). Along these same lines, Rickert (2013) suggested ambient rhetoric appears as a “rich sense of background as a cradle to human interaction” (p. 161). But whence comes this cradle? What is the source of this innate affectability or persuad-ability? And what about agency and volition? Not all persuasive measures result in, as Corder (1985) put it, “emergence toward the other” (p. 26). In her 1973 science fiction novel A Wind in the Door, L’Engle posited that volition occurs even on the intracellular level, in the mitochondria, and that a response counter to an emergence toward—a retreat from?— causes illness in the body, a position supported in some respects by science. McBride, Neuspiel, and Wasiak (2006), for instance, called mitochondria “the energy powerhouse of the cell” (p. 551) and noted “newer approaches have allowed the examination of dynamic mitochondrial function and behavior in response to cellular signals” (p. 551, emphasis added). McBride, et al., identified “a novel, low-energy cell-cycle checkpoint that monitors the metabolic activity of the mitochondria before committing to another round of cell division” (p. 554, emphasis added). Both signal and commit suggest rhetorical call-and-response intentionality on the part of the cell and/or on the part of intracellular structures. Lane (2005) used equally volitional terms in describing this lack of commitment to divide and to live: “When cells in the body become worn out or damaged, they die by enforced suicide, or apoptosis. . . . Apoptosis seems necessary . . . but how did once-independent cells come to accept death for the greater good?” (p. 189, emphasis added). Answers to Lane’s (2005) questions are beyond the scope of this paper and may, indeed, be beyond the scope of complete human understanding. But the language in which these questions of origins, of innateness, of call-and-response, and of volition and meaning are couched, the language of rhetoric, offers a more universal way to discuss and to study such questions apart from the current languages of the various belief systems. For example, while Davis’s (2010) term “originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity” (p. 2) appears to describe a universal human condition, people from different faith traditions and/or belief systems may explain it in different ways, ranging from a creator as the original persuader who designs us with

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the ability to be persuaded to a primordial, innate blueprint containing a persuadability inherent within each of us, a blueprint that evolved without the influence of a single creator. Regardless, the term originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity carries none of the contentious connotations of an existing belief system yet is flexible enough to accommodate multiple interpretations, allowing for discussions across and beyond faith traditions and/or belief systems. Such a neutral language would enable scholars with varying understandings of spirituality to traverse the metaphysical path of research. But the language of rhetoricity also suggests the existence of another paradigm altogether. From Rhetoricity to a Paradigm of Beyond A closed/isolated system, the basis of objectivist-based positivist and postpositivist paradigms as well as of constructivist and allied paradigms, all of which are based on an existence that considers only Here-andNow, cannot even consider questions of preoriginary anything. Because the possibility exists that the questions and the answers lie outside the origins of—Beyond—the system itself, current research paradigms are not expansive enough to consider the possibility of a truly open system and, therefore, also cannot conceive of response to Beyond—spirituality—as in other than constructed terms. Existing epistemologies do not consider revealed or intuited knowledge, and the parameters of existing research paradigms do not include methodologies involving prayer, fasting, contemplation, and similar direct or indirect means of the researcher’s preparing to receive, emerging toward, or aligning with a source of knowledge. I argue that discussions of originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity and of a background as a cradle suggest the possible working of a reality beyond/outside of our closed/isolated system. This transcendent reality both causes rhetoricity and the cradle in which it and we are rocked and enables our response to it. Indeed, this transcendent reality may be the realm of what we term the spiritual. Whether our finite minds can discuss, much less fully comprehend, such an arrangement, is fodder for another discussion. A paradigm based on preoriginary rhetoricity, in particular (as originary rhetoricity could be construed as belonging to the realm of this existence), and on transcendence allows for the possibility of such a what—a system? a realm? a reality?—being factored into research. To this point, I have limited my use of transcend/transcendence and, for simplicity’s sake have substituted Beyond in its place. The Oxford English Dictionary (2015), however, indicates that beyond is neither an inaccurate nor inappropriate synonym for transcend/transcendence, but it may be

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limiting—with or without the uppercase B. The prefix trans, as noted in definition 1, conveys “the sense ‘across, through, over, to or on the other side of, beyond, outside of, from one place, person, thing, or state to another’”; definition 3 includes the sense of a border crossing. Affixing the prefix trans to form transcend carries more of a connotation of passing over, implying a spatial frame of reference, but only definition 6—noted as an obscure usage—conveys the idea of above exclusively. Definitions 1–5 include these words along with a sense of above or over: beyond, extend, exceed, independent of, farther, surpass, excel, ascend, or mount into. Transcendent should not, for this purposes of this discussion, be confused with the Transcendentalism of the late 19th century nor with transcendental meditation, both terms being specific to particular faith traditions and/or belief systems. But there is a catch. If I define the language of rhetoricity too closely, it ceases to be useful as a living language. If I succeed in defining the paradigm so precisely that it is immediately clear— or even clear with some thought—then it may be just another paradigm rooted in this existence and not one that actually considers the possibility of mystery and of Beyond. As I noted at this chapter’s beginning, we are considering a research paradigm to help us study that for which we have few words and which may or may not yield what typically is thought of as useful information. If we want to develop a new paradigm for spiritual research that allows for the possibility of Beyond, we also must be willing to accept the possibility that the format of our discussions may not fit the current academic mold and will be emergent in nature. It is not the purpose of this chapter to determine or even to discuss how Beyond might have happened, why, for what purposes, or to what consequences. My only purpose is to propose a paradigm that allows and opens the way for scholarly discussions about the possibility. Likewise, while I could trace Davis’s (2010) and Rickert’s (2013) thinking through their respective works, agree or disagree with their interpretations of various philosophical concepts, and argue for my interpretation over theirs, doing so would be extraneous to my purpose, which is merely to appropriate the ideas of originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity and ambient rhetoric and the terms exposed/exposure and affectability/persuadability for the purposes of proposing a pattern/paradigm of reality that allows for a possible reality different from the current research paradigms. Additionally, as Shapere (1971) noted, paradigms are “generally incapable of complete formation” (p. 706), partly because words are only symbols for the reality of the ideas and, therefore, cannot convey the fullness of the idea of itself and partly because conceptions of a transcendent Beyond requires transcendent language native to Beyond to adequately describe it. As a limited-by-its-origin-in-a-finite-world example, consider a fish in a fishbowl asked to describe its world. Being immersed in water, the fish may

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be able to describe the idea of water, but its words alone cannot make the listener wet. Additionally, while the fish may have the language to describe the water inside the bowl, it likely does not have the language to describe the air beyond the bowl. Two fish of different (faith) species in the same bowl might compare thoughts experiences about the water, if they can find a common language in which to do so. Further, if both accept the possibility of a Beyond-the-bowl, they also can compare thoughts and, perhaps, experiences, about/with Beyond that transcend life in the fishbowl. A Transcendent Paradigm To recapitulate: Coles (1990), Cavaletti (1979/1983), Hart (2003), and others have shown that many people experience some form of transcendence or Beyond not accounted for within current ontologies. At least one problem appears to exist for which current research paradigms cannot account: the problem of preoriginary rhetoricity. This problem appears to be allied with questions of spirituality, both in terms of preorigins and in terms of transcendence, creating the need for a new research paradigm that allows for any or all of the following: (a) the paradoxical possibility that we exist in a closed/isolated system that is open to being acted upon by, but is unable to act upon, an independent Beyond; (b) the possibility of the existence of other systems completely separate from and independent of our system that may or may not interact with ours4; (c) the possibility of a transcendent something or someone persuading us to expose ourselves to be affected by its exposure to us; (d) the possibility of an objective reality that transcends our discovered, constructed, interpreted, and/or transformed understanding(s) of reality; and (e) the possibility that, in the sense that our essential being exists and continues to exist apart from this system’s reality, we ourselves are transcendent. Table 2.2 offers an abbreviated comparison of a transcendent paradigm with other current research-oriented paradigms. This proposed paradigm avoids using historical, political, and religious terms with their various connotations; the word possibility makes this paradigm able to be adapted to studies of existing religious beliefs, to studies of the claimed absence of a spiritual belief, and to studies of hostility to spiritual belief. The phrase a transcendent something or someone, for instance, could be defined in terms suggesting spirit or energy. Epistemologies of a Transcendent Paradigm Current research paradigms claim knowledge is discovered, constructed, and/or interpreted. A paradigm based on the possibility of transcendence allows for the possibility that knowledge is revealed. Because the language of the paradigm is adaptable to many, varied belief systems and traditions, revealed knowledge could be explored by, for instance, Christian researchers

“Out of the Everywhere Into Here”    45 TABLE 2.2  A Comparison of Major Philosophical Approaches With the Proposed Paradigm Transcendent Realism

Ontology (What is real?)

Epistemology (How do we know?)

Methodology (How do we find out?)

Axiology (What does it mean and ethical limits?)

Objectivist Realism/ Postpositivism

One inherent reality; knowable through empirical means and math

Discovered by researcher manipulation, observation

Impartial/ Objective researcher observes, measures, extrapolates

Decontextualized, objectified subjects, privacy, consent, minimize harm

Constructivist/ Transformativist

Multiple, equally valid socially and/ or temporally constructed realities

Cocreation between researcher and researched

Interactive researcher probes and explicates (power structures)

Contextualized balance; subjects benefit by knowing (social justice)

Interpretivist/ Pragmatism

One inherent reality, interpreted individually

Goal-oriented as determined by researcher

Best fit for research, as determined by researcher

Researcher’s values determine purpose and ends

Transcendent Realism

Possibility of an objective reality Beyond that transcends our discovered, constructed, interpreted, and/or transformed understandings of this reality

Revealed as well as discovered and constructed; acceptance of seemingly irrational and mysterious as indicative of transcendence

Researcher practice that transcends cognitive activity; willingness to receive revealed knowledge; co-constructed with with peers and with transcendent Beyond

Researcher used as a tool for immediate and apparent ends as well as for hidden ends that transcend this time and space

Source: Portions of this table were adapted from Mertens (2010) and Paul (2005)

considering whether/how acceding to human pride or speaking in tongues enables or disables knowing, particularly the knowing of Beyond (Counelis, 1979; Solberg, 1997). Researchers of other faith traditions/belief systems might consider how various forms of meditation, prayer, acts of service, fasting, and other practices enable or disable knowing; they might also consider what Hart (2003) spoke of as opening one’s mind to “infinite possibility” and of learning “to believe in the possibility of all things—to believe [in order to] see” (pp. 117–118). Another question to consider is whether such practices can stand alone as methods of research or whether, combined with existing

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quantitative and qualitative methods, they become means of knowing. Still other questions involve the second and third relative comparisons I made at the beginning of this chapter: first, whether more effort on our part will yield more results and, second whether a systematic method is the best means of exploration. Such presumptions may not hold true in the knowing of Beyond. Methodologies of a Transcendent Paradigm Cavaletti (1979/1983) noted “the language of science . . . functions in a very different framework of knowledge [from that of religion/spirituality]” (p. 9), and it may be helpful to consider how the framework of transcendence compares with the methods of the scientific approach described by Crotty (1998), i.e., “observation, experiment, and comparison” (p. 22). Observation.  Scientific observation uses the five physical senses—alone or enhanced through such means as microscopes, telescopes, sonar, and so forth—to empirically experience the object of study. Observation may be quantitatively measured or qualitatively described, but all observations are subject to the researcher’s biases, physical limitations, and design of the study. Basic to all scientific observations in a closed/isolated system are the assumptions that the act of observing takes place within a defined locus of time and place, is dependent solely on the observer’s skill, and, in and of itself, will yield useful information. Transcendent observation allows for the possibility that the observer’s skill is only one factor in obtaining information. Intuition or insight, for instance, may inform the observer during the process; observing a period of contemplation and/or similar practices before beginning to collect information also may play a role in the study. And, while observations may yield useful information about the object of the study, the possibility also exists that the effectiveness of the act of observing depends on first perceiving it as an act of service to a larger purpose, of recognizing the object itself as transcendent, or of transcending self to identify with the object. As the researcher becomes open to being guided by other than the intellect, his/ her physical senses may become more open to receiving information in unexpected and transcendent ways. Experiment.  Scientific experiments generally begin by developing a hypothesis about the object, identifying variables, designing an experiment to control for the variables, introducing or applying an intervention, and observing and analyzing the results. Experiments are limited, however, by the time and space constraints of this Here-and-Now existence, meaning they may not be representative of actual experience. Our scientific experiments, even longitudinal studies that last two or three generations, may be shortsighted or limited in other ways. Positing the possibility of an open system Beyond our closed/isolated system allows us to transcend such limitations

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through means such as those discussed in the section on observation. For example, a transcendent other, viewing our time from above/below/ around/within has greater perspective and might see minute changes occurring over very long periods of time. One example of such seeing beyond may occur in children, who may be more open to Beyond than are adults. Pearce (2003), who wrote the foreword to Hart’s (2003) studies of children’s spirituality, discussed Blurton Jones’s noticing a universal response among toddlers (including infant nonhuman mammals) who, when encountering something unknown, will “stop and point toward the novelty, looking back to check out the caretaker’s or parent’s response . . . to see if the parent cognizes and so gives sanction to that event” (p. xi). Typically, the adult names the object or event or nods, thus encouraging the toddler to make contact with the object. However, Jones also discovered parents, regardless of culture, reported their children often pointed to something the parents could not see. Pearce (2003) wondered if the children were seeing something the parents had lost the ability to see. Because the parents did not respond and did not sanction the child’s experience, however, the child soon ignored it, resulting, Pearce (2003) wrote, eventually in “a child’s spiritual life being ‘usurped,’ as English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, impoverished until finally made void” (p. xiii). P. L. Travers posited something similar when she suggested, in Mary Poppins (1934/1997a) and Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935/1997b), that babies come into this world knowing the language of Everywhere—perhaps not a universal language but rather a universal awareness of preoriginary rhetoricity. Travers depicted infants as losing the awareness and the language of Everywhere as they learn the language—the rhetoric—of Here, a seemingly irrational idea that implies an epistemology of revelation as a remembering of what we once knew and that carries a reminder of Rickert’s (2013) “ambient rhetoric” as a “background” or “cradle” (p. 161). Seemingly irrational ideas may be the ones that transcend human experience and allow us to explore preoriginary rhetoricity or spiritual development. Comparison.  Scientific comparison, conducted according to rules of methodologies using human reasoning, is rationally based, considers similarities or differences, and may calculate probabilities of correlation and, perhaps, causation. Transcendent comparison includes possibility of the irrational, a term fraught with negative connotation in science but an integral part of mathematics. Rational, as defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary (1984), means “of, based on, or derived from reasoning” (p. 1179), but it is derived from the word ration, in turn derived from the word ratio, meaning “a fixed relation in degree, number, etc., between two similar things” (p. 1179). A rational number in mathematics is one that can be expressed as a ratio of two integers, e.g., 1/1, 2/3, or 195/364. When divided, the quotient might be another integer—1/1 equals 1 and 14/7 equals 2—or

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the quotient might be expressed in a decimal—5/10 equals 0.5 and 2/3 equals .66666 which repeats into infinity. Some ratios when divided repeat as a pattern into infinity: 1/7 equals 0.142857142857142857 . . . . Irrational ought simply to mean not fixed in degree, relation, or number, but it has come to connote something far more negative except, primarily, in mathematics. Irrational numbers are those numbers that cannot be expressed as a fixed ratio. They cannot be pinned down into a simple decimal or into a repeating pattern. One of the most frequently used irrational numbers is pi, i.e., the irrational ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (C/d). Regardless of how large or how small the circle is, when the measure of the circumference is divided by the measure of its diameter, the number—to the best of human knowledge—never repeats: 3.14159265359 and on and on and on. Pi and other irrational numbers suggest that irrational comparisons may offer additional possibilities for knowing, ones that may be related to what Burke (1964) called “perspective by incongruity” (pp. 69–70). Morris (1989) noted that medieval fools often used a form of incongruous speech through which they often “gave evidence of superior insight or talents which defied normal social or physical restrictions. . . . Through practicing folly, they seemed to draw on alternative sources of power” (p. 9). In addition to including the possibility of valid but irrational comparisons, we also must consider the often nonverbal languages of art, music, and poetry as methods of expressing comparisons. Physicist Nels Bohr (1954/2010), in considering the unity of knowledge, said: Taking up the argument of the relation between our means of expression and the field of experience with which we are concerned, we are indeed directly confronted with the relationship of science and art. The enrichment which art can give us originates in its power to remind us of harmonies beyond the grasp of systematic analysis. Literary, pictorial, and musical art may be said to form a sequence of modes of expression, where the ever more extensive renunciation of definition, characteristic of scientific communication, leaves fantasy a freer display. In particular, in poetry this purpose is achieved by the juxtaposition of words related to shifting observational situations, thereby emotionally uniting manifold aspects of human knowledge. (p. 79)

Presenting transcendent research through the arts-based methodologies of song, drama, visual art film, and other similar means may seem irrational, but, as Paul (2005) noted, such research “raises questions that have been hidden by the answers” (p. 45). Axiologies of Transcendence This, perhaps, is the area where a paradigm of transcendence differs most sharply from other existing paradigms. All other paradigms consider

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the researcher as controlling and determining the shape and purpose of the research. A transcendent paradigm considers the possibility that the researcher is a tool used in service of both immediate and apparent ends and for reasons that make sense in and can be understood fully only from the perspective of Beyond. CONCLUSIONS Humans across time and across cultures have invested much time and energy in exploring the ideas of Beyond, of wondering why they are here, what it all means, and what happens after they no longer are part of Here-andNow. Regardless of how or why paradigmatic shifts have occurred over time, those basic wonderings seem to be part of the human condition. Over the last several centuries, however, scholars in the academic world wanting to study those wonderings and the concept of Beyond increasingly have been shut out of the discussion. As scientists abandoned the ideas of certainty and the metaphysical means of exploring both Here-and-Now and Beyond, the research vehicle left an established road that included Beyond and traveled a path that narrowed into a dead end of relativity and subjectivity. The research vehicle became earth bound and weighted with paradigms suited only to studying a Here-and-Now existence. While some spiritual research has been conducted, they are presumed to be phenomenological studies based on a construct derived from elements indigenous to Here-and-Now. Developments in microbiology, quantum physics, and astrophysics this past century have revealed that even Here-and-Now is much vaster and much more complex than the scientists of the positivist period ever imagined. And much in Here-and-Now, including recent developments in the study of rhetoric, points to Beyond. It makes sense to return to a paradigm that includes the possibility of a very real Beyond, and I have proposed a research paradigm based on transcendent realism—the possibility that this existence, however closed and/or isolated, is not the only existence. Such a paradigm allows for the possibility of revealed knowledge, in addition to discovered, constructed, and interpreted knowledge, and it is based on the concept that the researcher is a tool in the service of a greater knowledge. Opening a discussion based on such a paradigm and conducted in the more neutral language of rhetoricity, i.e., of exposure and affectability/ persuadability, of call and response, could allow researchers to explore a different paradigm of reality, one not associated with the language of any particular belief system, one based on possibilities rather than certainties, and one flexible enough to explore principles of spirituality from multiple perspectives, using spiritually-based research methods not currently accepted in the academic world.

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We may not choose the hour, or the place, or the circumstances of our birth, coming as MacDonald (1871/1963) put it, “Out of the everywhere into here,” but we can choose whether to acknowledge the possibility of Everywhere/Beyond. Especially for researchers, whose work hinges on considering all possible factors and scenarios, acknowledging and exploring all possibilities, not just those limited to the Here-and-Now, seems the right and sensible choice. NOTES 1. Shapere (1971) and Berthon, Nairn, and Money (2003) both noted that Kuhn’s work forced objectivist scientists to face the reality of the relativism and subjectivity inherent in scientific research. Instead of arguing results, researchers argue methods and assumptions of reality. 2. As an example of this, our then 5-year-old grandchild once drew a picture of a colorful, cheerful snail for us. As a literacy researcher, I noted the visual information conveyed in his use of space, choice of media (outlined in marker, colored in crayon), choice of colors, and the context in which he set the snail. I also noted the speech bubble that said “Meow” and the double-headed arrow connecting a label reading “Gary” with the snail below. I was all set to discuss the incongruity of a snail named Gary saying anything, much less “Meow” as evidence of a developing sense of imaginative humor—until I happened to catch an episode of Sponge Bob Squarepants and realized the drawing was a representation of a character, Gary the Snail, that says “Meow.” Regardless of how I defined the drawing, a definition already existed. 3. The definition went on to say, “It [spirituality] propels the search for connectedness, meaning, purpose, and ethical responsibility. It is experienced, formed, shaped, and expressed through a wide range of religious narratives, beliefs, and practices, and is shaped by many influences in family, community, society, culture, and nature” (p. 8). 4. Such systems should not be thought of as part of other planets, solar systems, galaxies, or even universes within this existence, nor does this involve timetravel. Both options still would involve extensions of this existence, this system in which we already are immersed. C. S. Lewis explored the idea of visiting separate systems in The Magician’s Nephew (1955); travel between systems occurred only under extraordinary circumstances and required fully exiting one system before being immersed in another.

REFERENCES Anderson, A. W. (2013). Straddling boundaries: Gutta-percha Willie and the 1870 education act. North Wind: A Journal of George MacDonald Studies, 32, 1–20.

“Out of the Everywhere Into Here”    51 Aristotle. (1984). The rhetoric and the poetics of Aristotle. (W. R. Roberts & I. Bywater, Trans.). New York, NY: Modern Library. (Original work published 1954, 4th c. B.C.E.) Association of Religion Data Archives, (n.d.). Measurement wizard. Retrieved from http://www.thearda.com/MAWizard/ Berthon, P., Nairn, A., & Money, A. (2003). Through the paradigm funnel: A conceptual tool for literature analysis. Marketing Education Review, 13(2), 55–66. Bohr, N. (2010). Atomic physics and human knowledge. Mineola, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1954) Burke, K. (1964). Perspectives by incongruity. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Burke, K. (1974). The philosophy of literary form. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Cavalletti, S. (1983). The religious potential of the child: The description of an experience with children from age three to six. (P. Coulter & J. Coulter, Trans.). New York, NY: Paulist Press. (Original work published 1979) Choi, S. (2003). The conserved quantity theory of causation and closed systems. Philosophy of Science, 70, 510–530. Coles, R. (1990). The spiritual life of children. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Corder, J. W. (1985). Argument as emergence, rhetoric as love. Rhetoric Review, 4(1), 16–32. Counelis, J. S. (1979). Contemporary epistemology, formative theology and the forthcoming Great and Holy Council. Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 24(23), 248–255. Crotty, M. (2010). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1998) Davis, D. (2010). Inessential solidarity: Rhetoric and foreigner relations. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Elias, J. L. (2002). A history of Christian education: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox perspectives. Malabar, FL: Krieger. Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8, 777–795. Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Gray, J. G. (1968). Introduction. In M. Heidegger, What is called thinking? (J. G. Gray, Trans.). New York, NY: Harper. Hart, T. (2003). The secret spiritual world of children. Novato, CA: New World Library. Holy Bible: The new King James version. (1982). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Johnson, N. (2010). Simply complexity: A clear guide to complexity theory. Oxford, England: Oneworld. (Original published in 2007) Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lane, N. (2005). Power, sex, and suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lao Tzu. (1998). Lao Tzu: The tao te ching / An English translation (E. Shimomissé, Trans.). Retrieved from http://www.csudh.edu/phenom_studies/laotzu/taoteching.htm

52    A. W. ANDERSON Latour, B. (1999). Pandora’s hope: Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2008). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In D. J. Johnson & J. M. Wetmore (Eds.), Technology and society: Building our sociotechnical future (pp. 151–180). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1992) L’Engle, M. (1973). A wind in the door. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Lewis, C. S. (1955). The magician’s nephew. London, England: The Bodley Head. MacDonald, G. (1963). At the back of the north wind. New York, NY: Schocken Books. (Original published in 1871) Marks, L. F. M. (2007). Great mysteries: Native North American religions and participatory visions. ReVision, 29(3), 29–36. McBride, H. M., Neuspiel, M., & Wasiak, S. (2006). Mitochondria: More than just a powerhouse. Current Biology, 16(14), 551–560. doi 10.1016/j.cub.2006.06.054 Mertens, D. (2010). Research and evaluation in education and psychology. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Morris, R. N. (1989). Behind the jester’s mask: Canadian editorial cartoons about dominant and minority groups 1960–1979. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Paradigm/paradigm shift. (2014). Oxford English dictionary online. Retrieved from http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/view/Entry/137329?redirectedFro m=paradigm#eid Paul, J. L. (2005). Introduction to the philosophies of research and criticism in education and the social sciences. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Pearce, J. C. (2003). Foreword. In T. Hart, The secret spiritual world of children. Novato, CA: New World Library. Ratio/ration/rational. (1984). Webster’s new world dictionary of the American language (2nd college ed.). D. B. Guralnik, (Ed.). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Rickert, T. (2013). Ambient rhetoric: The attunements of rhetorical being. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Russell, B. (2014, Summer). A priori justification and knowledge. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/apriori/ Santos, M. C., & Browning, E. R. (2014). Maira Kalman and/as choric invention. Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. Retrieved from http:// enculturation.net/kalman-choric-invention Shapere, D. (1971). The paradigm concept. Science, 172, 706–709. Solberg, M. M. (1997). Notes toward an epistemology of the cross. Currents in Theology and Mission, 24(1), 14–22. Tanyi, R. A. (2002). Towards clarification of the meaning of spirituality. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 39(5), 500–509. Trans/transcendent. (2015). Oxford English dictionary online. Retrieved from http:// www.oed.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/search?searchType=dictionary&q=tra ns&_searchBtn=Search Travers, P. L. (1997a). Mary Poppins. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. (Original work published 1934.) Travers, P. L. (1997b). Mary Poppins comes back. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. (Original work published 1935.)

“Out of the Everywhere Into Here”    53 Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Yokoyama-Hatch, H., Purewal, R., Oberoi, A., & Suresh, M. (n.d.). A system and its surroundings. UCDavis ChemWiki. Retrieved from http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Thermodynamics/A_System_ And_Its_Surroundings#Isolated_System Yust, K. M., Johnson, A. N., Sasso, S. E., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (Eds.). (2006). Nurturing child and adolescent spirituality: Perspectives from the world’s religious traditions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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CHAPTER 3

USING A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING Ramdas Lamb

Why do we exist? What is truth? What are its parameters? How can it be known? Do gods and spirits exist? These are some of the most essential questions that have puzzled philosophers and other thinkers since ancient times. Over the millennia, various approaches have evolved in attempting to answer these and other questions about the world and the place of humans in it. For much of the last two centuries, evolving investigative paradigms utilizing quantitative analysis and various theoretical approaches to research drawn largely from the natural and empirical sciences have come to dominate much the scholarly quest for understanding life. Consequently, today most people in the educated segments of Western and Westerninfluenced societies defer to a quantitative scientific approach as the most accurate method to answer fundamental questions about life. Even many who are in the fields of social science and humanities utilize aspects of the dominant quantitative paradigms as yardsticks against which they assess the validity of much of their own disciplines’ research findings (Given, 2008). Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 55–75 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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However, in addition to the natural and other scientific approaches using quantitative analysis, additional scholarly paradigms have been developed that use more qualitative, narrative, and phenomenological approaches. In addition, there have evolved some alternative paradigms that seek to gain an understanding of the nonphysical and nonmaterial aspects of reality, although these are generally less well-known and tend to be less accepted in academia. Such paradigms utilize a variety of diverse sources in an attempt to gain insight into and understanding of traditional knowledge systems. They include long-held religious and cultural traditions, practices believed to expand consciousness and awareness, and philosophical approaches that have been broadened to include the nonphysical and the nonquantitative as well. Most of these have a common goal, which is to try to interpret and explain reality in a more holistic manner than what a strictly positivist or postpositivist approach can provide. The approach to understanding reality as found in some of these alternate paradigms will be referred to herein as the spiritual approach, in juxtaposition to a quantitative scientific approach. In the areas of scholarly research, then, focus in this chapter will be on two broad approaches. The first to be discussed is based on the current quantitative scientific paradigm, be it positivist or postpositivist. The second one moves beyond the limits of current “scientific” parameters in seeking a more qualitative, comprehensive, holistic, and spiritual understanding. It should be noted that while quantitative approaches typically reject nonpositivist and postpositivist research methods, those whose study encompass the spiritual and the nonquantitative are generally open to also including quantitative scientific methods in their methodological toolboxes. For examples of this, one can look at the research conducted on mindfulness at various medical research institutes, such as those at the University of Massachusetts, Harvard, University of Minnesota, and University of Pennsylvania, to name a few (see Davidson et al., 2003; Jha, Krompinger, & Baime, 2007). The first part of this chapter will briefly describe and consider the benefits and shortcomings of a strictly quantitative scientific research paradigm, both as a method of data collection as well as a belief system with its own presumptions and ideologies. This will be followed by a look at the development of a spiritual research paradigm and how it can be used to shed light on traditional India-based practices that have long been undertaken to facilitate expanded and heightened awareness of both the inner and outer worlds. Lastly, there will be a discussion on how aspects of this approach can be integrated into higher education today to aid students in learning as well as in consciousness expansion and awareness development. Before beginning a discussion of the various paradigms, the definitions of several terms as used in this chapter are provided for clarification purposes. The first of these is “quantitative science research paradigm.” Here, reference is to an approach to research that limits knowledge to what can

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be objectively observed, measured, and replicated. The goal is an objective understanding of truth and reality. In one form or another, this broad approach has had a great deal of influence in setting currently accepted parameters of what is generally considered to be scientific reasoning and research. The domain in which this approach is conducted is limited to the material world as can be conceived using quantitative tools available within the paradigm. “Qualitative research paradigm,” on the other hand, generally refers to the model most commonly found in the social sciences and humanities. Here, both quantitative and qualitative methods can be utilized, while the goals focus on enhanced understanding of the diverse aspects of human nature, both as individuals and in societies. “Spiritual research paradigm” is used herein in reference to a holistic model and set of approaches to conducting humanities research and in interpreting reality that also typically include both quantitative and qualitative methods. These are closely connected with phenomenology (as understood in the field of religious studies) and the evolving field of consciousness studies. A spiritual paradigm is also open to include individual experience and perception as tools for cognizing and interpreting the world. The term “inner awareness” refers herein to knowledge about oneself that is not limited to one’s physical, mental, or emotional dimensions, but comes about as one’s inner consciousness awakens. It involves a more holistic concept and approach that incorporates conscious awareness of oneself as a unique individual, but also as a being in relationship with all other forms of existence. Inner awareness is often one of the fundamental goals of various practices that combine body and mind, like those found in or inspired by the traditional yoga systems that have their origins in India. The last term to be defined here is fundamentalism. It gained popularity in America in the early part of the 20th century as referring to a religious ideology that gave a narrow and succinct definition of the belief system of “true” Christians. Its function was to promote the views of conservative and literalist evangelical Protestant Christians over other Christians in addition to all non-Christians. In recent decades, “fundamentalism” has been broadened to include a wide variety of forms of religious and secular thinking. Consequently, the term can be used as a label for almost any approach to understanding and/or living that is grounded in an irreducible set of beliefs about the world and reality, that presents itself and its adherents as having exclusive access to and knowledge of truth, and that characterizes those who disagree or have alternate understandings as wrong, foolish, naive, or in some cases even evil. Further, its adherents believe it is their task to convince others that their truth is the only truth. In this way, all true believers consider their own way of thinking as ratiocinative, and thus superior to any and all other ways (Nagata, 2001).

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In attempting to answer the questions posed in the opening paragraph, a broad continuum of views and approaches has evolved. On one end is a strictly quantitative scientific approach that essentially ignores or denies that which cannot be experienced with the senses or measured by the tools of natural science, that which lies outside the parameters of scientific understanding and reasoning, and that which cannot be replicated. That which is rejected includes anything considered supernatural. Karl Popper is one of the more significant among the countless philosophers and thinkers who have developed their own understandings of the scientific approach, and his views and theories are central here (more on Popper will follow). On the other end of the continuum are those who see much or all of what happens in life as being caused by a supernatural power or powers. To them, their own ideological understanding of this supernatural power is where ultimate truth lies. Near this end but at varying distances from the extreme one can find a large diversity of views, especially the religious and theological beliefs and belief systems originating in the Middle East, i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Those philosophical approaches and beliefs found at both extreme ends of the continuum are more fundamentalist in their views, since they tend to be based, in part at least, on certain foundational concepts and assumptions that can neither be proved nor disproved. Examples include the Big Bang Theory and the concept of dark matter and energy at the scientific end and the existence of an absolute divinity or divinities at the religious end. As one moves away from the extremities, one encounters a diversity of more flexible and open minded individuals and approaches. These latter tend to accept a large variety of forms of knowledge as having validity and usefulness in providing understanding about the world and reality. Included here are personal experiences, as well as approaches typically generated in humanities and social science research. All research paradigms are, to an extent at least, influenced by ideological prisms that bend and limit the way things are seen and understood, and no method of investigation is inherently consciousness expanding or without limitations. Educational approaches that simply facilitate an increase in data accumulation along preconceived ideological lines are very different from those that are undertaken to awaken consciousness, enhance awareness, broaden perception, and lead to wisdom. Both approaches can be found in the sciences as well as in the humanities and in the study of religion. The way the individual addresses and uses the various methods greatly influence the results. Ultimately, the more preconceptions one carries into the investigative process, the less one is likely to actually expand one’s overall awareness or awaken one’s consciousness of the more essential aspects of reality.

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THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH AND ITS LIMITS For a significant percentage of the world’s population today, the term “science” and the quantitative approach to understanding the world have overshadowed traditional belief systems and have become synonymous with “truth.” Dating back to the ancient Greeks and even the building of the pyramids, one can see the roots of the development of what has come to be called science. Various medieval philosophers, theologians, and monks in Europe and the Middle East were key to the evolution of the discipline in the West. For many of them, the physical and the spiritual were both important areas about which knowledge could be gained, although the scientific approach was designed specifically with the physical in mind. One of the early European contributors to the field was Roger Bacon, the 13th century English Franciscan friar whose attempts to understand the world helped lay the foundation for modern scientific thinking. He is said to have been the person to coin the term “experiment” (Westacott, 1955). He considered lack of observation as a major shortcoming for the education of his day and encouraged the use of reason, empirical scientific experimentation, and the experience gained thereby as a primary means for obtaining knowledge. At the same time, he believed in the importance of inner experience and illumination and also divine inspiration as equally valid means of gaining knowledge and insight. To him, science and spirituality, knowledge and morality, should all go hand in hand (Westacott, 1955). The positivist approach to knowledge accumulation started becoming more prevalent by the 17th century, especially among those who sought to reject narrow beliefs being promoted by the more extreme religious fundamentalists. Since that time, various fields of natural science have increasingly established themselves as the standard and ultimate source for those seeking a scholarly understanding of the natural world. The primary methods used in this approach include systematic observation, the development of rational or logical hypotheses, experimentation, measurement, repeatability, etc. In the mid-19th century, what might be called modern science began with individuals like Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, and others. During that time, the Englishman William Whewell coined the term “scientist” to describe those who use empiricism and systematic experimentation to understand nature and the physical world. Although Church affiliated philosophers played a significant role over the centuries, the emerging quantitative scientific approach was strongly influenced by those who sought to break free of the constraints of orthodox religious doctrine and beliefs. Consequently, the rejection of religious beliefs has paralleled the rise of and become intermingled with the belief in science, and this continues to influence the way many understand the approach today.

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During the 20th century, arguably none has done more than Popper to influence and expand the field of quantitative science. While his theories have greatly benefitted the field, they have also been used to justify for many the denigration of those forms of knowledge that exist outside his narrow paradigm. While the discounting of alternate approaches is commonly found among adherents to any research paradigm, it is more problematic here because of the largely accepted contemporary popular view among educated persons that quantitative science is the most, if not the only, legitimate and reliable source of understanding of the world. Popper contends that for a theory, assumption, or belief to be considered scientific, it must follow a valid scientific method, and it must be reliably tested in a way in which it can conceivably be falsified. If not, then it cannot be called scientific. Those forms of knowledge that exist outside this category become labeled as “pseudoscience” (Thurs & Numbers, 2013). While the following comments of Popper are directed to and reflect his views on the belief system of adherents to the theories of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Alfred Adler, they also reflect what many who are wedded to the quantitative scientific paradigm currently think about those who have faith in alternate approaches to knowledge: Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still “un-analyzed” and crying aloud for treatment. . . . The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which “verified” the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasize [sic] by their adherents. (Popper, 1963)

In making a distinction between science and pseudoscience, Popper equates the latter with “ideology” and has little regard for such thinkers or believers, precisely because they do not use a scientific paradigm of investigation as he understood it. He also writes that integral to “scientific progress” is the “the elimination of contradictions wherever we find them” (Popper, 1945). He is correct in seeing that true believers in a particular ideology can use it to explain everything that exists or happens, but this can be said of scientists as well. For example, he and most scientists never question the validity of the scientific paradigm itself. For them, the scientific approach is the correct way to gain knowledge and ascertain the truth. Because he is convinced that the concepts upon which scientific theory is based are the truth and the only possible means for gaining accurate knowledge, Popper considers them irrefutable, in other words, unfalsifiable.

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Do not those wedded to the scientific paradigm believe it to be the only correct way? Do they not believe that their eyes have been “opened” to a world that is “full of verifications of the theory?” Do they not see those who deny the supposed irrefutability of the scientific paradigm as people who do “not want to see the truth manifest; who refuse to see it?” Are they not adamant that the scientific approach is the only true one for gaining a valid understanding of the world? If we use Popper’s own definition, then this suggests that an unquestioned belief in and use of the scientific method can itself be called “pseudoscience.” In this way, one can see an ideological adherence much like that found in narrow religious belief systems. In both, fundamentalism is clearly apparent. The scientific approach uses both theories and experiments, the latter to prove or disprove the former. Scientists allow that as new discoveries are made, theories and experiments will change, possibly rendering current theories invalid. However, rare is the scientist who will envision the possibility that the scientific approach itself may be rendered invalid, or at least insufficient, at some point. Yet, there are those aspects of life for which it clearly does not work. From time to time in the fields of science, there are fundamental shifts of assumptions and hypotheses, and new theories and assumptions take over as being authoritative. In the 1960s, Thomas Kuhn, a physicist and philosopher of science, introduced the terms “paradigm” and “paradigm shift” in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1966) to describe a phenomena in science when a significant shift in thinking occurs and is established. He notes that this is followed by a narrow ideological push in the academic science community for everyone to adhere to the new “truth.” Kuhn juxtaposes this with scholars in the humanities who have a variety of paradigms with which they can understand and interpret the world. In this way, the latter are much freer to seek and formulate knowledge relative to their subject of study than are scientists. He also discusses the situation in science in which adherents to different paradigms typically live in different worlds of understanding, and one must pick one’s side and support it to the exclusion of any other. In this way, one must be fundamentalistically devoted to one paradigm as the only real approach to the truth (Kuhn, 1996). As Kuhn noted, humanities scholars tend to have far great leeway and ability to combine aspects of various theoretical paradigms, such as those of Marx and of Freud in developing one’s research methodology. This is not to suggest that the scientific paradigm is not useful and legitimate. Within the realms in which the various scientific methodologies work, i.e., the measurable material world, it is clearly an important and valid approach to research and knowledge acquisition and has served humanity well in many respects. It has helped us to understand the empirical aspects of how life happens, how we can avoid or minimize the affects of a myriad of problems from diseases to natural disasters, and how we can create things to increase our physical sensations of pleasure, the latter of

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which is clearly the ultimate focus of the bulk of science and technology. Yet, its focus remains primarily on those aspects of material existence that can be observed, measured, and replicated, and its adherents claim it to be the most accurate, that it lacks subjectivity, and that it actually seeks to disprove its own theories. Those not disproven are then considered true. However, as mentioned previously, while various scientific questions and theories proposed are challenged and even discounted by adherents, the scientific paradigm itself is never challenged. One of the difficulties faced by believers in the paradigm is that most tend to hold two opposite beliefs or presuppositions. The first is that science is a nonbiased, objective search for knowledge without preconceptions. The second is that anyone who does not believe science is the correct means of gaining knowledge, or who believes in a divinity, spirits or other nonphysical beings, UFOs, life after death, reincarnation, etc. is obviously wrong. The first belief denies the validity of preconceptions, while the second is a list of some of the many preconceptions common to the paradigm. In reality, many aspects of existence lie outside the grasp of quantitative science, even though those who devotedly adhere to the method find this hard to acknowledge. Popper’s rejection of any form of research that exists outside the “accepted” scientific parameters is a good example. There are actually many questions that can be posed yet rarely if ever arise in using the scientific paradigm. What is logic or reason? Is there only one form? Can one be truly objective when the way in which one perceives and approaches the world inevitably influence what one chooses to accept or reject without question? Do empirical perception, measurability, and repeatability always determine the validity of a hypothesis or a belief? Does not the refusal to entertain such questions suggest a fundamentalist approach? Is this not a fundamentalist approach? Among the limitations of scientific paradigms is the assumption that logic and reason are necessary requirement for gaining true knowledge, while intuition, inner awareness, and the resulting insights are illegitimate sources of attaining truth. The prejudices that lead to such views have long hampered most who use the quantitative scientific method from understanding what people who undertake religious or spiritual practices actually do or what they gain from their practices. While Popper’s science falls short in addressing those realms of human existence that deal with emotions, perceptions, and the nonphysical, other methodologies have been developed and are better adapted to gain knowledge. He and the countless adherents to his approach to science believe all theories must be testable and possibly falsifiable using their own criteria for such theories to be considered scientific (Fuller, 1996). Since a belief in a divinity, in spirits, etc. cannot be disproved, they cannot be scientifically correct. Yet, theories such as parallel universes, the Big Bang, dark energy and dark matter, black

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holes, and string theory all have their scientific believers, although none of these can be truly empirically tested, measured, or proved and all are based on assumptions and beliefs. Such theories are created by theoretical physicists and other scientists to help explain phenomena for which they have no other explanation. Since ancient times, others have believed in reincarnation, divine realms and worlds, and spirit beings for similar reasons. USING THE SPIRITUAL PARADIGM FOR RESEARCH The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence. —Nikola Tesla (Saad & Medeiros, 2015)

Beliefs about divinity, spirituality, and the sacred have been integral parts of human existence and culture since ancient times. Considering the role they have played in our lives, understanding them is fundamental to our understanding pivotal aspects of our past as well as our present. A spiritual paradigm helps facilitate this by moving beyond normal boundaries of thinking inherent in most paradigmatic approaches. Practices that inspire alterations in the way we think about and envision reality have long been used as aids in consciousness expansion in the quest to develop inner awareness and wisdom. Such practices have the potential to play an important role in scholarly research as well and can be utilized in a variety of ways. Because the focus of study typically involves an in-depth analysis of human beliefs, practices, and aspirations, researchers have both the ability and need to approach such research far more intimately than those whose research is limited to the material physical world. In most forms of qualitative research focused on humans, three elements exist in a close relationship. The three are the researcher, the research process, and the subject or subjects of research. Altering any one of these can and will alter the product. Therefore, who we are, how we feel physically and emotionally when we conducting research, and the various preconceptions and assumptions we bring with us into our research will influence what the results will be. This is why practices that develop self-awareness and help us understand our feelings, desires, fears, and prejudices are important, and these can be found and utilized within a spiritual research paradigm. Generally speaking, the term spirituality today has to do with an inner experience of something sacred that is disconnected with, or at least unbounded by, sectarian religious dogma or identity. Its roots are in the early Christian era and the experiences of those who felt inspired and aroused by God or the Holy Spirit. Over the millennia, meanings and connotations have changed, although most have continued to associate the term with

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some form of inner religious experience. In the early 20th century, spirituality first appears in the writings of Catholic theologians of asceticism, such as Arthur Devine’s A Manual of Ascetical Theology (1902), in reference to inner experiences of the divine. This paved the way for its subsequent usage in the countercultural movement of the 1960s and the New Age movement in the 1970s (Houtman & Aupers, 2007). “Spirituality” became a common label used by individuals to describe what they believed to be transcendental experiences connected with something divine or sacred but separate from organized religion. These movements paralleled and were influenced to a degree by a growing exposure of Americans and western Europeans to Indian yogic, mystical, and ascetic philosophies and practices. This, in turn, led to Hindu and Buddhist teachers visiting the West, drawing large crowds of interested youth and others seeking spiritual experiences. Many westerners began to do some of the various practices that were being taught, as well as experiment with a variety of other methods that were said to facilitate states of joy and happiness. At first, little, if any, of these efforts had an academic aspect to them nor did they inspire scholarly interest. Instead, they coincided with and became a part of the counterculture movement that combined a growing disenfranchisement with Western sectarian religion and academic learning with a search for something more personally gratifying. The experimentation often included a letting go of traditional views on sexuality and drug use as well. Psychedelic substances such LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and mescaline became popular in the movement since they were seen to facilitate transcendental experiences associated with the realm of the sacred or spiritual. While more conservative members of societies in the West tended to blast such undertakings as examples of moral degradation and attempts to justify free sex and drug use, a number of academics gradually began to have a scholarly interest in the phenomena. Emerging research topics included yoga, ascetic practices, and psychoactive drug experiences. Spirituality soon entered the academic lexicon as researchers recorded participants’ descriptions and interpretations of their experiences. The term also served as an alternate to “religion” for academics, since any mention of the latter might well run afoul with the issue of the separation of church and state. Humanities and social science researchers were among the first scholars to initiate investigation into the phenomena. Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, academia saw the rise of what came to be known as “consciousness studies,” and the connotations of spirituality were again broadened. This new approach, which was a genuine paradigm shift for many who undertook it, drew upon traditional elements from their own academic disciplines like anthropology, philosophy, religion, and psychology, and combined these, in varying ways, with neuroscience, quantum physics, metaphysics, and other similar approaches. Books by psychedelic drug

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use proponents like Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience (1964), and theoretical physicists like David Bohm’s Changing Consciousness (Bohm & Edwards, 1991) were being read along with translations of ancient Sanskrit texts on yoga and Indian philosophy. A common theme in all of these was a search for a deeper and more holistic understanding of consciousness, universal connectedness, and consciousness expansion, along with research that often included personal experimentation. The approach moved research into realms most academics did not initially consider scholarly or legitimate. Consequently, those using this new broadened and relatively amorphic paradigm were not only looked down upon by most quantitative researchers, but also by some of the more conservative scholars in their own academic fields as well. During the last two decades, however, consciousness studies and spiritual research have continued to grow as they seek a deeper understanding of the core reality of human existence. Discoveries have led to innovations in a variety of academic fields. The collection of studies contained in this volume represent some examples. Over time, although scholarly use of spirituality has become rather varied, it still remains largely connected with the study of inner and nonmaterial aspects of reality. Although there is a wide diversity and ways in which a spiritual paradigm can be and is utilized in traditional fields of study, it has become especially useful in relatively new academic fields such as mysticism, metaphysics and the occult, transpersonal psychology, quantum physics, education and peace studies, ecology, and environmentalism. Spiritual research paradigms today typically draw upon and integrate aspects of a variety of academic disciplines, but are not limited by the standard parameters of these disciplines. Instead, they include an openness to utilizing and integrating additional methods of learning and experience found within diverse subjects of study as well as approaches that inspire conscious expansion of the researcher as a part of the process. The latter is of great significance, because, unlike in the sciences, those using a spiritual research paradigm are typically open to, or even seeking, personal inner growth as integral to the process. In those fields in which the focus is either on an inner reality or on those who seek knowledge of or connection with an inner reality, a spiritual research paradigm is useful, pragmatic, and relevant. There are multiple ways in which such paradigms can be constructed, depending both upon the topic of investigations and the goals of the researchers. The specific one utilized in this chapter is designed to understand and gain experiential insight into the practices, knowledge, and strived for experiences of the various liberation seekers in the Indian religious traditions, especially renunciants and others who devotedly undertake ascetic practices. Such practices found in many of the India-based religious traditions comprise a broad and diverse landscape in which a spiritual paradigm can be utilized for study.

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In pursuing such research, personal and inner experience is not only possible but often necessary for those who seek to gain a deeper insight into why these practices are undertaken, what some of their short and longer term affects are, and what can be experienced and realized through them. RESEARCHING INDIA-BASED PRACTICES FOR CONSCIOUSNESS EXPANSION One of the primary areas of focus of my own scholarly research encompasses practices undertaken for consciousness expansion and liberation by renunciants, yogis, and ascetics in the Indian religious traditions. My study of these traditions began in the 1960s, when I was given a copy of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi (1946). Like so many others who read the book in those days, I was deeply moved by it and soon took to reading whatever I could find on the study and practice of yoga. In the process, I found the writings of Mahatma Gandhi equally inspiring, and the words and teachings in the various texts did much to inform and influence my subsequent approach to life. Not long thereafter, I traveled to India, took initiation in a Hindu monastic order that focused on a contemplative and ascetic lifestyle, and remained there studying for nearly 10 years. During that time, I was able to learn about and experience aspects of the practices about which Yogananda and Gandhi had written. After returning to the United States, I began an academic study of the Indian religious and ascetic traditions, which I have continued to do both as a student and as a research scholar since that time. The research paradigm I have developed as a consequence naturally combines both scholarly study and direct experience. Once I entered higher education as a student, what soon became apparent to me was that much of the academic study dating back to the 19th century that has been conducted on my areas of interest and experience in India has been done by researchers who had little or no personal experience or understanding of the practices that were central to the people being studied. Their efforts typically appear to have involved distanced observations, minimal personal contact for the purpose of conducting interviews, and the collection of various forms of data, some quite misunderstood. While their writings usually provide some useful material, they tend to focus only on the apparent and superficial and rarely suggest any attempt by researchers to become involved in or experience anything that might provide access to the inner lives of those studied. Form clearly took precedence over content, and the obvious often is presented as the essential. In discussing the limits inherent in using such a narrow and nonholistic approach to understanding others, Paul Harrison notes, “The study of noses, however hotly pursued, will never yield an accurate understanding

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of the entire face” (Harrison, 1978). That said, in recent decades, there have been an increasing number of qualitative research scholars who have “gone native” enough to gain a deeper insight into the subject matter, and the approaches typically used resonate with some extent with the spiritual paradigm proposed and to be discussed here. As previously mentioned, several theories comprising the foundation of the paradigm I currently use, both in my study of yoga and asceticism as well as in my teachings of these subjects, are grounded in past research, experiences, and insight. The first theory is that all forms of study, whether they be on the sensory or nonsensory level, have the potential to teach us about our inner selves and that this should be one of the reasons for learning. Most educators acknowledge that a central characteristic common to both successful scholars and teachers is the ability and willingness to ever be open to learning something new or expand on what one already knows. Here, one of the most important aspects of research is, ultimately, an understanding of the self and of one’s own abilities and possibilities, for how one understands these goes a long way to determining how successful one can be in understanding others, in researching and teaching, and in living. Therefore, integral in the spiritual approach to research is the concept of self-discovery. Far more than knowledge and data accumulation, experience is the greatest teacher. Any paradigm that inspires students to discover, both within and without, can help facilitate the process. John Dewey believed that knowledge is a tool used by humans in adapting ourselves to the environment in which we exist (Dewey, 1938, 1958). Thus, knowledge and personal experience go hand in hand, and each system of knowledge needs to be seen and understood in its own context. What is relevant is that the researcher seeks to move beyond passively observing the world being studied and instead seeks to experientially cognize it and grow from the process. The second theory accepts that individual experience of an inner sacredness and/or divinity can be as legitimate to the experiencer as scientific discoveries and beliefs are to scientists or other foundational experiences and beliefs are to their respective adherents. Additionally, such experiences can lead to enhanced self-understanding and emotional maturation, and they have the potential to be valid sources of knowledge of the empirical material world. Regarding this second theory, the case of Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar, considered one of the greatest mathematical minds of the 20th century, provides an important example of the possibility of blending of scientific theorization with a connection with the spiritual realm in gaining knowledge about both. Ramanujan (1887–1920) was born to a poor family in a small town in southern India. As an adolescent, he became deeply interested in mathematics, teaching himself trigonometry at the age of 12. Although he was able

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to attend college for a few years, his financial situation forced him to drop out. However, he continued to study whatever old books on mathematics he could find. He also began writing down and sharing theories and formulas he created with others that, unbeknownst to him, solved many problems prevalent at the time in the field of theoretical mathematics. After learning of his work, the preeminent Cambridge University mathematician George Hardy arranged for Ramanujan’s travel to England. There, the depth of his mathematical understanding and perception were quickly recognized, and Ramanujan was soon made a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society, which boasted a membership of the greatest English scientific minds of the day. When pressed to reveal the source of his amazing knowledge, he attributed all of it to his family deity, the goddess Namagiri, to whom he regularly prayed. He openly stated that she would write formulas on his tongue so they would come out in his speech and that she would tell him other equations and formulas in his dreams or give him visions in which they were already written. His mother and grandmother were also said to have had a similarly close connection with Namagiri, believed by many in South India to be a powerful protective deity (Kanigel, 1991). While countless mathematicians of his day and up to present have extensively praised, thoroughly studied, and frequently put to use Ramanujan’s theories and discoveries, they have, for the most part, dismissed and even denigrated his claims regarding his purported source. In his biography of Ramanujan, Robert Kanigel notes that his “mystical streak” was commonly viewed by mathematicians as “an unfortunate eccentricity peripheral to his mathematical inventiveness but which has somehow to be stomached for the sake of it” (Kanigel, 1991). The third of my theories is that individuals who undertake practices to gain self-control and to increase awareness of both themselves and the world can accomplish these goals if they approach them with proper attitude and training from qualified teachers and guidance. This has been validated by a variety of scholarly studies of the mind and of consciousness that have been conducted at various Western institutions of higher education starting the late 1970s and continuing up to present. Universities such as NYU, Princeton, Brown, JFK, Australian National, Sofia, and others all have centers or programs specifically designed for research into the development of consciousness. For more than 20 years, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, based at the University of Arizona, has been publishing research on the topic. The fourth theory is that the nonsensory aspects of reality are far greater in number and influence than the sensory. This last theory coincides with what physicists and astronomers concluded nearly two decades ago with the “discovery” of dark matter and dark energy. According to the theory that was developed, dark energy and dark matter comprise nearly 95% of all

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reality, about which scientists know next to nothing. At the same time, all the matter, energy, and radiation that scientists have thus far studied only account for the remaining 5%. As mentioned previously, when conducting qualitative research on individuals who undertake practices with the belief that these will aid in the expansion of their consciousness or inner awareness, a pivotal element in the process should be an attempt to gain a more direct insight into the kinds of inner experiences of the research subjects. One valuable way to accomplish this is by making oneself the field for experimentation. This research can indeed be scientific, for the variables can be controlled, one can “test” oneself under varying conditions, and one can analyze the effects on oneself as a consequence of various experiments. For example, in seeking to understand what the physical, mental, and/or emotional affects of keeping silence, limiting food intake, living in solitude, etc., researchers can undertake these practices themselves for a day, a week, a month, or longer. In this way, they can begin to gain insight into what kind of self-awareness, if any, such practices have the potential to inspire, what learning self-control can accomplish, or what forms of inner strength and abilities one might be able to access. Researchers willing and able to use themselves as test subjects for such experiments and experiences have the potential for far greater understanding of what they are studying and the mental and emotional states that result than do those who merely observe, ask questions, and collect data. USING A SPIRITUAL PARADIGM FOR INSTRUCTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION In academia, students are typically expected to accept as correct the currently adhered to paradigms, methods, and beliefs that are presented by their instructors. This is clearly the case in most of the natural sciences as well as many of the social sciences. By contrast, since the comparative study of religion and related topics allows for the inclusion of a diverse set of beliefs, be they theistic, nontheistic, or atheistic, students tend to be exposed to a greater variety of methods and approaches, some new and some old, with which to study the multiple beliefs and practices that exist. Ideally, students are freer to utilize a wide diversity of these in understanding the individuals and traditions being studied. In this environment, a spiritual paradigm can be integrated into the teaching process in seeking to promote an open-minded approach that allows for a variety of understandings and experiences, depending upon the subject matter of the particular course. While it is hoped that all forms of learning help students to self-reflect as they ready themselves for their future careers and lives, they should not be forced to self-reflect as an academic requirement unless the process is

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foundational to the course and students are forewarned ahead of time. As they study the ways of others, giving students the opportunity and freedom to practice self-reflection can be a valuable part of the learning process. In several of the courses I teach, students learn various methods of practice found in a variety of spiritual traditions that they can, if they so choose, integrate into their study and research using an experiential approach. Of the two courses that will be discussed here are, one is an undergraduate course entitled Mysticism, East and West, and the other is a graduate seminar on Indian religions focusing on asceticism and yoga. In both, the subject matter centers around the lives and undertakings of individuals devoted to the awakening of consciousness, the development of self-awareness, the search for enlightenment, and/or the development of a close personal relationship with some form or concept of the divine. Irrespective of the persons or the religious traditions being studied, there are a variety of practices common to most of these traditions. Nearly all individuals studied in the two courses have undergone self-imposed restrictions or modifications on sense input in one form or another. Among these activities, limitations on food intake, sexual activity, and communication with others are the most common. The mysticism course focuses on the lives of individuals and groups in various religious traditions and cultures who have sought direct experience with their understanding of the ultimate reality. This could be a personalized divinity (God, Allah, YHWH, Ram, Krishna, etc.), an ineffable concept (Tao, Brahman, and En Sof), or a state of total freedom from all limitations and boundaries (liberation, nirvana, moksha, kaivalya, etc.). Practitioners have come to be referred to as mystics, and they share much in common with each other in their aspirations, practices, and goals. Self-imposed limitations on sexual activities and other sensual pleasures, flesh foods or food in general, intoxicants, verbal communication, possessions, sleep, clothing, etc. are frequently undertaken. Individuals may renounce one or several of these completely for various periods of time, from a few days or months, or even for the remainder of one’s life. Such practices are seen as fundamental to developing the mindset and lifestyle of self-control that is believed to be necessary for one to progress on the path to his or her chosen goal. Students are informed on the first day of class that in order to be able to have some sense of why mystics undertake such austerity practices and how they are affected by them, students are expected to individually undertake a one day (24 hour) “field trip” into solitude sometime during the semester. After doing so, they are then to write a reflection paper on what they experienced and learned. On their chosen day, they are to maintain silence for the entire time. This includes abstaining from participation in all external forms of communication, including conversation, television, movies, computer and telephone usage, music, reading, etc. In short, they are expected to abstain from as much external sensory input as possible and spend the

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bulk of the day alone observing themselves, their thoughts, and their emotions. They are also told to try to limit their oral consumption to water and/ or tea (unless they have a physical or other condition that does not allow it). Although I suggest they do this project in their home, provided it is feasible, they are allowed to do it anywhere they think such an undertaking can be carried out successfully. The main criteria is that it be a place where they can avoid or minimize distractions and interaction with others as they focus on themselves. Most students find the food restriction the least problematic, but even then some are not able, for a variety of reasons, to accomplish this portion of the task. The practice of silence and its allied components are, by far, the most difficult for the students in general. So habituated are most in our society today to talking on cell phones, reading and sending text messages and emails, browsing the Internet, and listening to music that this restriction prohibits activities that many have come to see as essential aspects of life. While most students are capable of completing the physical portions of the project, some are not, usually because of emotions and even fears that arise in the process. If/when any students tell me they were not able to successfully complete the assignment, I make it clear to them that even an attempt is sufficient for that part of the project (I generally do not tell them this beforehand). Once the students have completed or at least attempted the physical portion, they are then to write a paper about what they experienced, both externally and internally. They are to discuss what aspects of the day were easy and which were difficult (I leave the degree of specificity up to them). They are also asked to speculate in writing why they think practitioners of such undertakings perform them, especially those who take lifelong restrictive vows, some involving extreme forms of austerity. In the graduate course on Indian asceticism and yoga, students often come in with preconceptions of what yoga is, either having attended contemporary Western yoga classes themselves or having friends who have done so. In recent years, there have also been at least one teacher of Western yoga as a student each time I have taught the course. Once students start learning about the roots of yoga within the ancient Indian ascetic system of practice and about its traditional methods and goals, they begin to see it in a very different light and context than what they had previously imagined. Most students are able to let go of their westernized understanding of yoga as being focused on the body once they are exposed to the central role that control of the mind, body, and senses all play as tools for mind control and self-discovery, two essential goals of tradition yoga. For this course, I have the students do the same project as in the Mysticism course mentioned above, but also have them take a semester-long vow of their own choosing. It can involve a commitment to either stop doing something they know is not helpful for them at this time in their lives, such as too much partying or intoxicant use, wasting their monetary resources, eating too much

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junk food, or spending too much time at the beach (I teach in Hawaii). On the other hand, it could entail doing something they should be doing but are not, like eating healthier, exercising regularly, placing more focus on school and study, or getting enough rest. I make it clear to them for the outset that they are free to choose the vow and do not even have to reveal to me what it is. Students are not asked or expected to believe or not believe anything, only to do the practice and observe how they perceive the affects of such undertakings on their bodies, minds, and emotions. I emphasize to the students that whatever they choose to undertake, it should be difficult enough to cause some degree of struggle, for this is what will make them grow. At the same time, it should not be so difficult or intense that they will be unable to complete the process or will be harmed by it in any way. At the end of the semester, students have to submit a paper on the experience. In it, they are to discuss how the commitment to and the process of adhering to their vows affected them and what they learned about themselves and their abilities in doing so. They are also to speculate and discuss how such practices, when done more intensely and for longer periods of time, might have an affect on the consciousness of practitioners and thus why they believe the various practices are so integral to accomplishing the goals of the ascetic life. Over the years, most students have openly discussed their vows in class. The more common vows have included stopping legal and/or illegal drug use, reinitiating communication with an estranged parent or close friend, following a healthier diet, exercising more regularly, doing mindfulness practices, or making a commitment to study more consistently. The one thing nearly all students reveal in their papers is that they discover an ability to focus and an inner power that they did not previously know they have. The purpose of these experience projects is twofold. The first is to help students find some point of connection with those about whom they are studying rather than seeing them simply as individuals from a different time, culture, and world with whom they have little or nothing in common. The second is to inspire self-discovery. Often, the students who have the greatest difficulty with the assignments are the ones who learn the most about themselves in the process. The more students are able to see the people they are studying as individuals much like themselves but who have committed their lives to the search for spiritual self-awareness and a meaningful life, the more the students are inspired by them and can learn about their own inner reality and nonmaterial self. This takes the learning process beyond one of seeking data and knowledge acquisition within the historical and external aspects of life to one of an inner spiritual self-discovery. Students often bring fresh, raw visions, uninformed by past experiences of, understandings of, or approaches to the material presented to them. Although many of these are superficial and lack substance, some are unique, refreshing, and even revealing. When students are allowed to explore without hard borders or limits, they have the potential to uncover much and

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learn much. After all, each of us is unique and thus has access to experiences and understandings that are similarly unique. Every semester, students provide me some form of new insight into the subject matter and the learning process. When conducting research, we are able to learn a great deal about our chosen subjects of study. When we teach, however, we are in a unique situation of being able to learn from our students as we teach them. Their untrained eyes can sometimes see things that our focused visions tend to block out or neglect. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Research paradigms typically originate using particular perspectives of understanding and beliefs about the world and are thus imbedded with preconceived notions about what should be studied and the framework in which it should occur. Some methodologies and assumptions are broader than others, but all of them place limits on the approach. As scholars, it should be our task to question every boundary, since each confines what can be perceived, learned, analyzed, and understood. There are no doubt limitations that are useful and necessary within any area of study, but there is the possibility that letting go of some of the others can be revealing and enlightening. If researchers, teachers, and students accept that the multiple analytical approaches at their finger tips are both potentially eye opening but also imperfect, then the doors and windows of the mind are more likely to be left open enough for unexpected insight. We should realize that our understanding tomorrow may well be different from what it is today and should therefore not be too bound by whatever it is we think we know. In their The Undivided Universe, David Bohm and B. J. Hiley write, Nature in its total reality is unlimited, not merely quantitatively, but also qualitatively in its depth and subtlety of laws and processes. Our knowledge at any stage is an abstraction from this total reality and therefore cannot be expected to hold indefinitely when extended into new domains. . . . In any case it is evident that there is no way to prove that any particular aspect of our knowledge is absolutely correct. Indeed no matter how long it may have demonstrated its validity, it is always possible that later it may be found to have limits. (Bohm & Hiley, 1993)

Quantitative scientific methods have opened up the vastness of knowledge about the material empirical world. They have also done much to help us understand and manipulate the physical reality for our own personal temporal benefit. Some of the discoveries have also helped us wreak great harm and destruction. The social sciences have facilitated great strides in understanding ourselves in relationship to others, but they too have inadvertently

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provided tools to manipulate and hurt others. Spirituality, as opposed to narrow religious dogma, has helped us find meaning in our lives, beauty in moments and beings that on the surface appear empty of it. It has also inspired self-discovery and has allowed us to appreciate much that our rush to know and possess the external realm have led us to overlook. Scientific research into DNA and related studies has also revealed how closely we are connected with other living beings. Bohm’s research and writings in quantum mechanics point to a connectedness of all aspects of reality, including consciousness. When life is approached with the view that the consciousness within each being is connected to the consciousness of all beings, then the way one chooses to live and relate to others is very different than if one sees no connection beyond the temporal and empirical. Doors of perception get opened, and like the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch or the discoveries of the Hubble telescope that suggest a reality well beyond borders currently imagined and accepted, the limits of learning should be seen for what they are: preconceived walls that imprison knowledge and experience to the predictable . . . with the vast majority remaining in the dark. It is time for us to look beyond and seek out approaches that may well bring light to that darkness. REFERENCES Bohm, D. & Edwards, M. (1991). Changing consciousness: Exploring the hidden source of the social, political, and environmental crises facing our world. San Francisco, CA: Harper. Bohm, D., & Hiley, B. J. (1993). The undivided universe: An ontological interpretation of quantum theory. Abingdon, England: Routledge. Davidson, R. J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S. . . . Sheridan, J. (2003, July). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(4), 564–570. Devine, A. (1902). A manual of ascetical theology. London, England: R & T Washbourne. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Dewey, J. (1958). Experience and nature. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Fuller. M. (1996, Spring/Summer). Is science an ideology? Philosophy Now, 15, 9–12. Given, L. M. (2008). The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Harrison, P. M. (1978) Buddhanusmrti in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-sammukhavasthita- samadhi-sutra. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 6(1), 35–57. Houtman, D., & Aupers, S. (2007, September). The spiritual turn and the decline of tradition: The spread of post-Christian spirituality in 14 Western countries, 1981–2000. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 46(3), 305–320. Jha, A. P., Krompinger, J., & Baime, M. J. (2007, June). Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7(2), 109–119.

Using a Spiritual Research Paradigm for Research and Teaching    75 Kanigel, R. (1991). The man who knew infinity: A life of the genius Ramanujan. New York, NY: Scribner’s. Kuhn, T. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Leary, T. (1964). The psychedelic experience: A manual based on the Tibetan book of the dead. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books. Nagata, J. (2001, June). Beyond theology: Toward an anthropology of “fundamentalism.” American Anthropologist, 103(2), 481–498. Popper, K. (1945). The open society and its enemies. London, England: Routledge. Popper, K. (1963). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks. Saad, M., & de Medeiros, R. (2015). Distant healing techniques and distant intercessory prayer—A tentative scientific conciliation. In Marcelo Saad (Ed.), Complementary therapies for the body, mind, and soul (pp.  219–242). InTech, DOI: 10.5772/60722. Thurs, D. L., & Numbers, R. L. (2013). Science, pseudoscience, and science falsely so-called. In M. Pigliucci & M. Boudry, Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Westacott, E. (1955). Roger Bacon: In life and legend. New York, NY: Philosophical Library. Yogananda, P. (1946). Autobiography of a yogi. New York, NY: Philosophical Library.

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CHAPTER 4

PROLEGOMENA TO A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM Importance of Attending to the Embodied and the Subtle Heesoon Bai, Patricia Morgan, Charles Scott, and Avraham Cohen

MEANING OF THE SPIRITUAL It is important for us to inquire into the meaning of the spiritual from the outset. We need to know what we are talking about—our subject matter—before we can talk about establishing a SRP (spiritual research paradigm). We the authors acknowledge that there are, as to be expected, multiple meanings of the spiritual (Sheldrake, 2013). In fact, we could create a spectrum of meaning with one end connoting the transcendental reality more or less separate from human reality, lying beyond ordinary human cognition. The spiritual here could be external to humanity in origin and function. This is the transcendental conception of the spiritual. The other end of this spectrum

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would point to the spiritual as being immanent in human reality and experience. We locate our own work on SRP closer to this second end of the spectrum, although we acknowledge that human reality, and what is possible for humans to experience, is an open-ended or emergent phenomenon, and thus, in that sense it can be understood as transcendental. The spiritual is as constitutive of human reality as ordinary human color perception is. But then, we may rightly ask, how is spiritual experience different from other human experiences, be they perceptual, cognitive, somatic, or affective? What distinguishes the former from the latter? Taking the perspective of the contemplative arts and sciences (Brady, 2007; Burggraf & Grossenbacher, 2007; Grace, 2011; Haight, 2010; Morgan, 2012, 2013; Plante, 2010; Sellers-Young, 2013; Solloway, 2000), in which we the authors are deeply grounded as researchers and practitioners, we say that the spiritual experience is registered in, manifests in, and is informed by perceptual, sensory, cognitive, somatic, affective, and volitional modes or channels of experience. In other words, spiritual experience when sensed in or enhanced by contemplation enables experience of the extra- or more-than-ordinary states of consciousness in multidimensionality of human experience. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. More meaning or meaningfulness, greater insight, more wisdom and compassion, more vividness, acuity, vitality, connectivity and so on, are added to all our ordinary experience. Moreover, what is usually experienced as single-dimension of experience, such as in our ordinary experience of five senses, is of an ecological nature in spiritual experience in that the ordinarily separate dimensions of experiences are interconnected, and they interpenetrate. Patricia: I have been blessed to experience brief periods of spiritual interrelationality in meditation and yoga groups, though it is a solitary moment of spiritual interconnection that I am reminded of as I reflect on this aspect of spiritual experience. It came on an ordinary morning some years ago as I stood in the Warrior II yoga pose (Virabhadrasana II), legs wide, feet planted on the floor, toes curling into the cream carpet of a bedroom in my mother’s house. Lifting my arms into the full posture, looking down the middle finger of my right hand, my right arm reaching towards the window, I experienced something extraordinary. I am still not sure how long it lasted but I felt as though the shape of my body somehow locked directly into a universal template of interconnecting energy. The interweaving lines underpinning all creation, flowing through me and beyond, infinitely.

While there is a role for reflection in contemplative practice and spiritual research, it does not replace or stand in the way of the centrality of the subjectively felt experience and pure awareness in that experience. A paradigmatic example of such interconnectivity and interpenetration is Zen experience. Zen literature speaks of the enlightenment experience

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as being sensorially cross-channelled: for example, during kensho (momentary enlightenment experience) moments, one hears color and sees sound (Bai, 2003). To recap and elaborate further: spiritual experience is phenomenologically rooted in human subjectivity. Spiritual here signals that the experience: (a) is sensorially and perceptually extraordinary or nonordinary, including experience of enchantment;1 (b) could include peak experience or heightened performance;2 (c) comes with a sense of wholeness, integration, and even cosmic harmony;3 (d) is imbued with abundant heart-qualities such as compassion, love, kindness, joy, etc.;4 (e) registers a sense of sacredness and ecstasy;5 (f) could be endowed with extraordinary clarity and insight into things;6 (g) and/or is charged with creativity and vitality.7 The list we authors created here is certainly neither exclusive or exhaustive nor authoritative. We have encountered these attributes associated with spiritual experience in the literature on spirituality we read and consult. We are also working with them ourselves in our spiritual practices. While we acknowledge that there may be a dimension of spiritual experience that goes into the truly extraordinary, such as clairvoyance, certain unusual physical abilities, extrasensory perceptions, and the like, for our present work with the SRP, we will focus on the spiritual roots in ordinary, everyday, human subjectivity. But then herein lies the problem. Historically, the spiritual roots in human subjectivity have been shaken. The subjective has been invalidated or marginalized in modern and postmodern history. Thus, our first step in creating this SRP is to re-establish the roots, that is, the subjective roots of spirituality. We the authors take the first step by acknowledging the importance of the subjective in human experience, followed by our engagement with inter/subjective phenomena. INVALIDATION OF THE SUBJECTIVE We offer a philosophical, historical, and cultural perspective that the invalidation of what is subjectively—and, relatedly, intersubjectively—experienced has its foremost roots in the ascent of the modern philosophy and partially of postmodern and poststructuralist philosophies. The rise of materialist empiricism, which is the foundation of modern science, concomitantly precipitated marginalization of the subjective—the domain of the experiential (Laing, 1967, 1980). The objective and reasoned truths of the modernist focus, which have emerged out of historical and cultural experience and biases, are dominant as research methodologies in Western (especially academic) culture. Intuitive, somatic, and contemplative ways of knowing have been marginalized until recently (Wilber, 1999). Marginalization and invalidation of the subjective is not confined to the modern worldview, however. Postmodernity, the reaction against modernity,

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has, ironically, also in many ways not been helpful to reclaiming the subjective with its focus on exterior, sociocultural and historical contexts and dynamics. While postmodern and poststructural perspectives have indeed been welcome in the phenomenological study of human experience insofar as they demonstrated that inner experience can have sociocultural, historical, or environmental determinants—a significant point that previously was not recognized—these perspectives, at their extremes, have tended toward overemphasizing the sociocultural and environmental construction and determinacy of human subjectivity, thus, again, ironically end up marginalizing and even denying the subjective, phenomenological realities (McIntosh, 2007; Wilber, 2006). At the academic level, this has manifested in a marginalization of phenomenology, existentialism, and study of spiritual experience from any perspective other than a poststructuralist one, where the focus is not on subjective interiors but on objective exteriors and the influence they have on shaping human experience (Taylor, 1991, 2007; Wilber 2006). In popular culture, the ascent of postmodernism has translated into values relativism and the acceptance of multiple perspectives (Huyssen, 1986; Jameson, 1991; Lash, 1990). Again, these shifts have been beneficial in legitimating previously marginalized cultural perspectives, but there has also been an associated trivialization and flattening of values (all values are equal, all values are socioculturally determined) and a resultant focus on external, and often superficial, cultural memes that ignore interior depth (see, for example, Wilber’s (2001) exploration of “flatland”). By the same token, everyday psychological engagement often grossly marginalizes the subjective. This happens almost from the beginning of human life. By not fully attending to the subjectivity of infants and maturing human beings, we minimize, marginalize, and disqualify the core of humanity. Often we are all too busy convincing each other, by tone, gesture, attitude, as well as in words, that what we experience subjectively is not too important, not legitimate, or not worth having. Most often we are well-meaning and attempt to understand what our children, friends, family or students are trying to explain to us, but don’t have the time or are unable to understand their idiosyncratic attempts to describe what they are feeling. The subtle or not-so-subtle pressure not to feel what we feel can result, and is, we contend, the origin of losing connection with who we are (Cohen, 2013; Cohen et al., 2014). In psychotherapeutic terms, this loss of connection is known as alienation or rupture, which has serious and potentially lifelong implications. The foremost challenge with the rupture is that it represents something invisible. It is not about what is done to the infant or child. It is about what the infant or child did not experience. What was not experienced was the sheer warmth and electricity of unbridled attention, affection, and connection (Liedloff, 1977; Bowlby, 1988; Karen, 2003; Miller, 2004; Schellenbaum, 1990). The effects of this are available to be noticed everywhere, including in those who

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end up researching spiritual experience, such as the authors of this chapter our selves. However, the signs of the omissions are so prevalent that they have become almost completely normalized, the consequence of which being that all the evidence is beneath the waves of consciousness of most. Hence, if spiritual research is to be done “expertly,” then the researchers will need to be deeply involved in their own inner work (Cohen, 2015) to discover and recover from the glaring effects of the wounds of omission. Avraham: A distinction is commonly made between the spiritual and psychological dimensions. I am in agreement with Professor Reggie Ray (c. 2005, Personal Communication, Vancouver BC, Canada) who said, “The psychological is spiritual.” My view and my experience is that a person forms egoic structures that are in the service of living as well as possible within the context of circumstances that exist. The following vignette describes an inner work process that demonstrates how the psychological dimension is spiritual, a way to work with this, and the transformational possibility: I am an undergraduate. I am driving to school early one morning. I am filled with worries about myself, my schoolwork, my relationship with my girlfriend, and my future. I feel tied up in knots and a little sick in my stomach. I get to the parking lot, find a spot, and turn off the engine. I am quite early for class. I sit in the car. It is a sunny day. I do not feel any sunniness within me. I feel very lonely, frightened, and sad. I allow the feelings to emerge. I have a memory of being a small child. I am four years old. I am standing in my bedroom of our house in Toronto. There is no furniture. A few of my toys are on the floor in the middle of the room, including my favourite, my toy gas station, including the little cars that go with it. I know we are moving to somewhere called Vancouver. I am concerned that my gas station will not be packed up by the moving people. I tell my Dad that I am worried about my gas station. He assures me that the men will not forget it and that it will be delivered to Vancouver. Flash forward. We are in our new house in Vancouver. Everything is unpacked. My gas station is not here! I am bereft. The little child that I am is alone. I am helpless. I feel the same way sitting now in my car in the back end of C Lot at UBC. I feel great sympathy and compassion arising in me. The little child that I am is the recipient. The relationship between the small me and the caring me is growing. I feel calmer. My life energy is more available. I look out at the morning sky. I feel an amazing sense of connection to the sun’s light, the autumn air, and the whole world. I ‘know’ that my life energy is flowing freely and that it is connected to the infinite whole of the universe. At that moment I awaken to a truth that cannot be explained, only lived.

Another reason for the neglect of attending to subjectivity may have to do with the widely held belief about the ineffability of subjective experience and its idiosyncratic nature. While we authors confirm that subjective experience is difficult to talk about, we do not subscribe to this ineffability thesis

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(Morgan, 2013). We recognize that “the map is not the territory,” that is, talking about and representing something is not the same as experiencing that something. However, this does not mean that we cannot talk about the subjective experience. In fact, we do this all the time, though when attempting to describe this foundational aspect of our experience, we frequently use metaphorical language imbued with personal meaning. This can be what makes it hard to codify, replicate and translate. Without a common language these feeling languages have languished in a world that requires the apparent “firmness” of replicability (Morgan, 2013). In this chapter, we are addressing a politics of subjectivity8 that is framed by the difficulty of wording internal experience. This “politics” entitles a position that critiques the marginalisation of subjective contemplative practice and states of consciousness (Bai & Scott, 2011), which Gillian Ruch (2010) describes as objectivity being “privileged over subjectivity, ‘hard’ facts and reason over ‘soft’, experiential, intuitive knowledge” (p. 202). While we need commonality in the ways we engage with our communities, Merleau Ponty’s (1968) observation, “Everything is cultural in us,” and “everything is natural in us (even the cultural rests on the polymorphism of the wild Being)” (p. 253), signals to us the need to address the outcomes of the divisions initiated in the Enlightenment and carried on through the Industrial Revolution. For example, the splitting of the church and state, the mind and body, human and nature, has meant the loss of a significant aspect of who we are. In his study of environmentalism and the politics of subjectivity, David Kidner (2001) warns of an “ontological insecurity” that has resulted from the division of the human and natural worlds (p. 12). The growing awareness of the negative impacts of these divisions means there is now a rising dissatisfaction with the legacy of the Cartesian mien (Bai, 2009). This can be seen in the development of approaches in education such as transformative and contemplative education. They, and similar endeavors in research methods, business, medicine, law, and psychology to mention a few, have emerged because of a desire for holism that was lost through Cartesian efforts to “[c]ut man off from his deeper embodied perplexities as a whole knower” (Holbrook, 1987, p. 46). Although Cartesian reason produced an exponential growth in the natural sciences, it obscured the passage back to a locus of meaning, knowledge and sense of wholeness, which lies within the individual’s subjective consciousness (Schiro, 1978). RECLAIMING THE SUBJECTIVE THROUGH “INSIDER” SPIRITUAL RESEARCH As shown previously, then, the task of establishing a spiritual research paradigm faces deep challenges in a modernist and postmodernist culture that

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has marginalized, even denied, the spiritual and privileged the material. Scientific research deals with the material—that which can be quantified, measured, and replicated. Therefore, these approaches and their quantitative methods are considered to produce accurate, valid, and supposedly “true” findings that become the metanarratives of modernism. By the same token, the subjective, hence, immaterial, is disqualified and de-privileged as a proper subject of research, not by those who represent the scientific method but those who embrace scientism and adopt a scientistic epistemology: that science is the means to the only valid form of knowledge and understanding about ourselves and the world. The same is true in postmodern circles, where ethnographic and critical research methods are privileged; again, the subjective is considered irrelevant or passé. From the perspective of the empirical research, the spiritual is doubly suspect and marginalized as a proper research matter, for, allegedly, the spiritual even goes beyond the domain of the subjective. In the face of the prevalence of these kinds of understandings and assumptions, we the authors propose to establish the meaning of the spiritual in the terms of subjective experience (although we later broaden our horizon to include intersubjective and objective experience). In other words, we squarely posit that the spiritual is an integral part of human subjective experience. Hence, to the degree that human subjective experience is marginalized as a research subject matter, even to a greater degree is spiritual experience. It is our contention, therefore, that establishing a SRP must begin with reclaiming subjectivity as a proper and legitimate subject matter of research; and moreover, we must establish clear and rich ways of working with the subjective. In view of the above discussion on how subjectivity has been marginalized and invalidated, both philosophically and as everyday practice, researching SRP must start with ways of recovering, reclaiming, and reinhabiting human subjectivity. Without this, spirituality has no epistemic ground to stand on, and is thus liable to be dismissed as something we cannot know, learn, teach, and research. Fundamental to our own approach to a SRP is the concept of the contemplative practitioner-researcher, who undertakes this “insider research” (Athanasiou, Darzi, & Debas, 2009; Van Heugten, 2004). By adopting a reflective, contemplative or spiritual practice, these researchers can develop an awareness of their subjectivities, including processes of the subtle senses, so as to enable a more refined understanding of individual participants’ embodied subjective awareness. While we emphasize the idiosyncratic nature of immersion in the subjective prepredictive realm of the subtle senses, we also contend that we are able to understand this experience because it is not always ineffable. Importantly, the spiritual researchers’ contemplative awareness is the starting point for the translation of their participants’ varied attempts to word the inner realms. To put this another way, the participant, in legitimating her or his own subjectivity and its possibilities and

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in developing subjective literacy, transforms the ineffable into the understandable, approachable, and expressible. This may imply bias on the part of the practitioner-researcher and raise questions about objectivity and reliability. However, it is necessary to remember that the spiritual methodology developed here is unequivocally qualitative and phenomenological. It is framed by developments in qualitative research that no longer find the positivistic aim of objectivity desirable. Rather, the focus is on less quantifiable experience, metaphor and narrative (Van Heugten, 2004), which produces the highly textured material sought from this spiritual methodology. This is because of the highly subjective nature of the phenomenon that might generally be the focus of spiritual researchers, such as an examination of the contemplative state of consciousness. The more textured the data, the more detail it provides for the underresearched area of subjective experience. The focus here reclaims the intuitive, the prereflective, the artistic, the effable, and the sublime. However, some degree of reliability can be established through the intersubjective sharing of experience; at the same time, however, subjective experience has an inherent validity. In this form of qualitative research there is a deliberate attempt to collect phenomenologically sensitive data, “honouring the experiential component of all knowledge, participation and observation” (Hiles, 1999, p. 8). This is framed by an understanding of phenomenology as the study of the life-world that is “the world . . . as we immediately experience it prereflectively rather than as we conceptualize, categorize, or reflect on it.” (van Manen, 1990, p. 9). In addition, knowledge is thought to arise in “the sense of verstehen (understanding), which cannot be attained by the strict or empirical-analytic sciences” (van Manen, 1990, p. 214). Theorists such as Max van Manen (1977), Clark Moustakas (1994) and Donald Polkinghorne (1988) provide useful phenomenological approaches for spiritual researchers. Their emphasis on first-person experience is important in the development of a spiritual method, for as Polkinghorn asserts: the phenomenological map refocuses inquiry, concentrating not on descriptions of worldly objects but on descriptions of experience. . . . The form and continuity of experience are products of an intrinsic relationship between human beings and the world. . . . Experience, as it is directly given, occurs at the meeting of person and world. (Polkinghorn in Hiles, 1999, p. 14) Charles: In my newly adopted yoga teaching, an open mind towards contemplative practice was encouraged. One was not expected to accept the teachings at face value, but rather to test them through practice; direct, personal experience and the knowledge developed through experience were privileged. As part of my regular, daily routine, I am watching the breath, letting all else come, pass by, and go; return to the breath. After about 15 minutes, I sigh

Prolegomena to a Spiritual Research Paradigm    85 deeply, as I have been informed is a natural result of steady practice. The breathing slows perceptibly. My focus deepens. Within a few minutes of this sigh, gently but with a definite, perceptible shift, there is a simultaneous profound deepening of silence and stillness and an expansion of both awareness and presence. The peace that “passeth all understanding”? Now I get it. An intimate connection with others and the world? Oh, yeah. “Center everywhere, circumference nowhere.” Yeah, I get that, too. And in all of this there is an inherent meaning: meaning through the possibility of peace and serenity, meaning through the expansion of awareness and the deepening of connection to others and the world and the sense of love that emerges out of the connection. But there is in addition to the peace, the awareness, the connection, and the meaning an unexpected meta awareness of watching all this unfold. This awareness was not what we usually conceive of as a reflective practice; rather, it was just awareness. I not only was a voyager, but also was someone watching himself as a voyager. There was also the possibility of a later reflection on the journey. I had embarked on a form of what I have come to see as a rigorous form of subjective research. For me, the meaningfulness of a deepened connection became spiritually central and has become my focus: the subjective voyages are now irreducibly intersubjective.

The significance of contemplative practice is that it can provide the practitioner and the researcher a vehicle with which to navigate the subjective interiors with greater clarity. Calming the restless oscillations of the mind through breath work and focused but dispassionate attention allows for a greater sense of awareness and a concomitant witnessing of consciousness. Emerging from a calmed, more centered awareness comes a deeper sense of presence that is felt to be more intimately connected to others and surrounding ecologies and contexts. Being more sensitively attuned to our own interiors allows for the increased possibility of empathic connections to the interiors of others and, further, to a mutual, intersubjective engagement about those interiors and their many mansions. When studying subjective experience of the contemplative and spiritual, it is important to remember that such experience is embodied, and at times ambiguous and “messy,” meaning the opposite of the Cartesian desire for the clear and distinct. Rather than attempting to regulate this messiness by defining the conditions, controlling variables and using statistically determined methods, the spiritual researchers need to remain open to, and be led by, their participants’ emergent experience. To understand this further, we briefly outline here the key ways that qualitative and quantitative research differs, to highlight significant aspects of the approach we are proposing. Unlike quantitative approaches, the spiritual method does not “assert a physical and social reality independent of those who experience it, a reality that can be tested and defined objectively” (Rossman & Rallis, 2011, p. 8). It is interpretive, not predictive, emergent rather

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than prefigured, and in that sense follows a grounded approach where theory follows data collection rather than it framing this stage of research. Qualitative approaches replace the drive for validity and reliability by acknowledging the presence of the researcher through reflexive practices. Insider research is often critiqued for its lack of objectivity, or “insider bias”; nonetheless, the strength of the insider researchers lies in their insight and informed perspective (Athanasiou, Darzi, & Debas, 2009). As we have asserted, this research of subjectivity has an inherent validity. The benefits of insider research do not necessarily override criticisms of the lack of objectivity and validity; however, the quantitative positivist ideal of objectivity is not always desirable in human research. As Kate Van Heugten (2004) concludes, “[s]ubjectivity is no longer eschewed to the extent it once was. With this, the exploration of less quantifiable experiences and of metaphor and narrative has been reintroduced into social sciences” (p. 207). Like many qualitative researchers, the spiritual practitioner-researchers accept the inevitability of bias, for they are less concerned with replicating findings but with the authenticity of insider research. These researchers focus on their ability to monitor personal values and beliefs in the research process by reflecting on and signaling their position. Finally, their focus is “on the context of the speaker and the account, and on the account’s ‘textuality’ and internal construction” (Opie in Van Heugten, 2004, p. 207). Although we make these distinctions between the quantitative and qualitative, or scientistic and spiritual, to offer insight into aspects of this spiritual method, we do not understand them as the inverse of the other. While distinctions between the two can be drawn along the subjective-objective divide, it is more useful to understand that they are part of a research continuum. In the scientific method, knowledge is acquired empirically through the “external” or five senses, while spiritual researchers obtain it through proprioception, inner awareness, or “feeling” of the phenomena as it arises in deep focus. This can then lead to the knowledge that arises from the subtle senses as they are defined in practices such as Ayurveda and Chinese medicine. ATTENDING TO THE SUBTLE AND THE EMBODIED AS KEY TO RESEARCHING THE SPIRITUAL Much good work has been done drawing schemas of embodiment with which to understand or “grasp” this felt-sense; however, we propose an extension to this work based on the SRP that examines prepredicative experience, where prepredicative points to the prearticulate, prepropositional nature of experience, and its entanglement with the affective, somatic, cognitive and spiritual. Significantly, this approach is different from the

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currently prevailing emotional intelligence discourse and social-emotional discourse in general (see, for example, Denham & Brown, 2010; Druskat, Mount, & Sala, 2013; Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2013; Merrell & Gueldner, 2010; Ryback, 2012; Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2012). It is founded on an understanding of the ecological as outlined earlier, in which the affective, somatic, spiritual, cognitive, and intersubjective are understood to be interwoven. From this position it acknowledges the importance and usefulness of contemplative or reflective experience as the entry point to examining these ecologies. It acknowledges the need for practitioner-researchers and their focus on subjective awareness of the prepredicative. It encourages the development of a contemplative or reflective orientation in all stages of the research, validating contemplative approaches that integrate affective, somatic, spiritual, cognitive, and intersubjective dimensions. It encourages the introduction of creative processes in the data collection stage as an alternate means for participants to express the “inexpressible.” Contemporary scholarly and practice discourses have given significant attention to human emotions. Given the traditional marginalization of human emotions in the arenas of what’s conventionally deemed as most important human achievements (e.g., sciences, mathematics, social sciences, technology, etc.), this recent interest and advocacy for human emotions are to be validated and supported. There is, however, the next step we need to take, and that is into the domain of felt sense and feelings. Feelings, as they are understood here are not the same as emotions (Levine, 2010). In terms of depth or strata of consciousness, sensations and feelings are at layers below emotion and cognition, combining the affective with other modes of being in a realm that can be understood to ground meaning making and cognition. The humanist and transpersonal psychologist John Heron provides insight into this understanding of feelings as the “capacity of psyche to participate in wider unities of being, to become at one with the different content of a whole field of experience” (Heron, 1992, p. 16). Typically, in the din and clamour of thoughts and emotions, the subtle, ever-flowing and shifting, therefore elusive presence of feelings and sensations is most often lost. But this is the region of subtle subjectivity that we would need to foray into, if we wish to reclaim and recover our spiritual core. It is the domain of the spiritual researcher. Contemplative theory and practice offers a means to turning down the volume on fragmented thoughts and fractured attention so that we can experience and examine these feelings. Centering and balancing ourselves by engaging deep focus allows us to feel the “wider unities of being,” which provides a starting point for the development of a comprehensive spiritual methodology.

88    H. BAI et al. Heesoon: Still a vivid memory, as if from yesterday, although more than 20 years ago! Our little group of university Zen meditators gathered during the lunch hour in the Japanese Tea Gallery at University of British Columbia and conducted our ritualized Zen sitting (zazen) for an hour. We lighted incense, bowed and chanted to the sound of gongs and bells. We sat in deep silence, in the classic zazen pose, sitting upright, eyes half-closed, softly distilling breaths, calming the nervous energy, and watching thoughts settle down like the dust on the road when light rain falls. I rested in awareness, forgetting the passage of time. The bell rang. Emerging from my zazen, I gazed out to the Japanese garden. Everything my gaze rested on showed up intensely fresh and alive: the cedar tree branches, dappled sunlight playing across the tree branches, berry bushes nearby. . . . I turned my gaze and looked at our meditation leader: his slightly wrinkled scholar’s face and balding head, too, looked exquisite and beautiful unlike what I usually saw in his face. “Purified” through the contemplative lens, the ordinary became extraordinary: radiant and poignantly beautiful.

Let us further explore this region of subtle subjectivity. Beneath the layers of the affective and sensate is the layer of the energetic (I. Macnaughton, personal communication, June 3, 2011). Within each human being there is a lifeforce, an energy that “wants” expression. Our view is that this original or primordial self of humanity, charged with primordial lifeforce, has been constrained and covered by layers of egoic structure that are outcomes of socialization and cultural conditioning (Cohen, 2013). These egoic structures have come into place often as a reaction to family of origin experience, culture, institutional oppression, peer pressures, school experience, and all manner of pressures that suggest to us all in our childhood that if we want to survive and be loved we had better put ourselves into a contorted and distorted shape that meets the demands that are imposed from without. Researching the spiritual therefore involves inner work and self-cultivation that both nurtures the original, primordial self directly and works on becoming deeply aware and in touch with the egoic structures that helped us to survive. That is, researching the spiritual involves working directly with the egoic structures in the service of understanding the subidentities that exist within us and that need to become integrated into a wholeness that is increasingly and deeply human and humane. This deep self emerges first as a struggling child and eventually as a sage. THE PLURALISTIC AND ECOLOGICAL FRAMING OF THE SPIRITUAL In further considering how best to establish a spiritual research paradigm, we suggest that the spiritual researcher takes a pluralist stance, while

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acknowledging the importance of context and the ecologies of their participants immersed in their contexts. Our framing of the spiritual researcher in these terms relates to the understanding that there is no final consensus on a conceptualization of spirituality (Gunnlaugson & Vokey, 2014); in a sense, it remains an elusive concept to pin down precisely. But from another perspective, a contemporary conceptualization of spirituality may have and indeed require many possible elements, reflecting our increasingly pluralistic and dynamic social structures (Beck, 1991; Miller & Thoresen, 2003; Rodger, 1996). With this in mind, the spiritual researchers are essentially pluralists engaging part or all of the definitions outlined earlier as they structure their approach to the phenomenon they are studying. Further, as Griffiths (1988) and Hill and Pargament (2003) point out, postmodern conceptions of spirituality are necessarily socioculturally rooted and determined, suggesting that conceptualizations are likely going to remain fluid and ecologically contextual. Griffiths adds that contemporary spirituality reflects the modern (and one might add, premodern and postmodern) ethos of the present, some of it negative—a perspective McIntosh (2007) shares. Holland (1988) adds that spirituality in a contemporary world itself serves as a foundation for economic, political, and cultural energies; that is, spirituality both shapes and reflects sociocultural institutions and contexts. McIntosh (2007) suggests that an integral (Wilber, 2001, 2006) conception of spirituality would not confine itself to one “univocal definition of spirit” (p. 118). Gunnlaugson and Vokey (2014) further argue that an integral conception of spirituality allows “for the differentiation and (where possible) integration of the various meanings of spirituality current in the literature, thereby incorporating the different insights that characterize distinct spiritual traditions and discourses” (pp. 2–3). Thus, the varied conceptualizations of spirituality and in turn spiritual research that are reflective of the dynamics of the inner and outer realities and contexts are not only not problematic, but are essential in fleshing out a holistically integrated and ecological framing of spirituality and approaches to researching it. It might be said that spirituality today could be seen, through an integral lens, as a force which helps integrate and render meaningful the other, inner dimensions of our lives—the physical and somatic, emotional, aesthetic—as well as the outer contexts and ecologies that contain us—the material and economic, historical, sociocultural, political, and environmental. That is, an integral conception considers both the four quadrants of the individual interior and exterior and the collective interior and exterior (Wilber, 2001, 2006). Sheldrake (2013) maintains that in our pluralist contexts “a broad, nebulous and diffuse term such as spirituality is ideal” (p. 353); such an idea is initially bewildering to those who are epistemologically wedded to

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the still-prevalent, modernist ethos of our time, but is more appealing to those who feel more attuned to postmodern, poststructuralist, or integral perspectives. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCHING THE SPIRITUAL The significance of how we frame and conceptualize spirituality has to do not only with our awareness of what it is or might be(come), but also in considering the methods we use in exploring and working in and with our spiritual dimensions. Out of these various conceptualizations of spirituality, we find a few “takeaway” messages that might be of value in considering how best to establish a SRP: • When using spiritual methods we should remain open to considering the multiple dimensions of spirituality. This would impact all stages of the research starting with the initial planning and choice of research tools through to fieldwork and data analysis. • We might consider that there is no single definition or conceptualization of spirituality that will be useful for all people or, given the dynamic nature of the self and its spiritual dimensions, for any one person over time. In short, spirituality is developmentally dynamic and developed in and through relationships. As such it is important for the spiritual researcher to identify and define their understanding of spirituality and clarify this in the excogitation of the project’s methods. • We might understand that our spirituality and that of our participants is not individually produced but is also significantly shaped from without by sociocultural, historical, political, and environmental forces. Again this is important in the design and delivery of methods as the spiritual researcher emphasizes context in their approach. • The varied, dynamic, contextually-fluid, and emergent nature of spirituality has implications for a methodology of inquiry. It will depend on our conceptualizations of spirituality and those of our participants. We might consider, then, that we could employ multiple methodological approaches in our spiritual explorations and that different methods might be suitable at different times and contexts through the course of our ongoing development. These methods will of necessity need to access and work through our somatic, aesthetic, moral, emotional, and intellectual dimensions, though this will be framed by the particular phenomenon one is studying. One consideration here, for example, is that some might consider spiritual experiences or beliefs to serve in lieu of psycho-

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therapeutic or emotional work, a phenomenon described in the literature as “spiritual bypass” (Cashwell, Myers, & Shurts, 2004). The significance for those undertaking a SRP is that the dimensions of spiritual research include psycho-therapeutic and emotional realms and considerations. Spirituality does not exist in a vacuum, but is integrally a part of our whole beings: our physical and somatic, emotional and psychological, aesthetic, moral, and intellectual dimensions. These, too, are each contextually connected to the aforementioned outer contexts. Thus it is possible that our methodological approaches will need to consider and relate to our multidimensional natures. Put another way, the methodologies of outer work—consideration of these outer contexts and forces—need to be considered alongside inner work. The challenge for the spiritual researcher, then, relates to reflexivity. They will need to identify how their inner and outer realities coalesce in their approach, and at least name or possibly focus on this aspect of their participants’ experience. THE NEW BEGINNING: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS In an era where modernist and postmodernist perspectives marginalize the subjective, it is time to reclaim it as a legitimate dimension for spiritual inquiry. Such a reclaiming simply reasserts an important dimension of a more pluralistically sensitive, ecologically sound, and integrally grounded spirituality and SRP. Spiritual researchers will be entering domains that were once the province of well-established religious and philosophical institutions (for an example of the latter, consider the departments of philosophy housed in most universities). If they are members of these organizations, they may possibly use the theory and practices that underpin their traditions. And if they are not members of these institutions, they may find the resources and research findings of these long-established institutions of value. Then along with researchers who don’t come from these backgrounds, they will be diving into their own and their participants’ internal landscapes. These are domains that in the modern age and secular settings have for the most part been assigned to the psychological and neurosciences. Therefore an important question that we as spiritual researchers, who are possibly not psychologists, neuroscientists or clergy, have to ask is: How do we create our own maps of the interior? This starts, we believe, with contemplative practice, which provides the entry, firstly, to our interiorities and then to those of our participants. And the field of contemplative inquiry is richly informed by sources historical and contemporary, spanning the aforementioned institutions of religion, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, literature, and the

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arts. Drawing from Thoreau (who cites William Habbington), we advise prospective spiritual researchers to: Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be Expert in home-cosmography. (1962, p. 341)

NOTES 1. A sense of enchantment is noted by MacKian (2012). 2. Spirituality as embodied is mentioned by Abram (1996), Holland (1988), and Ray, (2008). Also see Murphy (1993). 3. Transcendence and identification/connection with larger collectives, a greater whole appears in a number of conceptualizations (Fedele & Knibbe, 2013; Gardner, 2011; Griffiths, 1988; Hodges, 2002; Johnson, 2013; Macquarrie, 1972; Miller & Thoresen, 2003; O’Shea, Torosyan, Robert, Haug, Wills, & Bowen, 2011; Walach, 2011; Wright, 1996). 4. Damasio (2003) considers that spirituality embodies a feeling state. In a larger sense, Wilber (2006) suggests that spirituality can represent a state or states of consciousness. 5. There is connection to something ‘sacred’ and of ineffable value (Beauregard, 2011; Griffiths, 1988; Koenig, 2008; Miller & Thoresen, 2003; Newby, 1996; Hill & Pargament, 2003; Sperry, 2012; Barnum, 2010; Wilber, 2001). 6. Spirituality as a dimension that integrates other dimensions of our lives into a more meaningful whole is noted by a few scholars (Sperry, 2012; McIntosh, 2007; Wilber, 2006). Emmons (2000) and Vaughn (2002) consider spirituality as an intelligence or set of connected intelligences. Similarly, Fenwick & English (2004) suggest spirituality contains an epistemological framing of what is true or real or how knowledge itself is acquired. They also contend that spirituality contains a cosmology about the nature of the cosmos and our place in it. 7. A few scholars frame spirituality as an animating force or propulsion to creativity, meaning, love, and wholeness; and not just as a static dimension (Clark, 2011; Keen, 1995; Miller, 1999). 8. This term references the work of B. Alan Wallace, which is detailed in his: Wallace, B. A. (2004). The taboo of subjectivity: Toward a new science of consciousness.

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Prolegomena to a Spiritual Research Paradigm    93 Bai, H. (2009). Re-animating the universe: Environmental education and philosophical animism. In M. McKenzie, H. Bai, P. Hart, & B. Jickling (Eds.), Fields of green: Restorying culture, environment, education (pp. 135–151). New York, NY: Hampton Press. Bai, H. & Scott, C. (2011). The primacy of consciousness in education: A role for contemplative practices in education. The Korean Journal of Philosophy of Education, 33(4), 129–145. Barnum, B. (2010). Spirituality in nursing: The challenges of complexity (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer. Beauregard, M. (2011). Neuroscience and spirituality: Findings. In H. Walach, S. Schmidt, & W. Jonas (Eds.), Neuroscience, consciousness and spirituality (pp. 57– 73). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Beck, C. (1991). Better schools. London, England: Falmer Press. Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Clinical applications of attachment theory. London, England: Routledge. Brady, R. (2007). Learning to stop, stopping to learn: Discovering the contemplative dimension in education. Journal of Transformative Education, 5(4), 372–394. Burggraf, S., & Grossenbacher, P. (2007). Contemplative modes of inquiry in liberal arts education. Liberal Arts Online. Retrieved March 11, 2010, from http:// www.wabash.edu/news/docs/Jun07ContemplativeModes1.pdf Cashwell, C. S., Myers, J. E., & Shurts, W. M. (2004). Using the developmental counseling and therapy model to work with a client in spiritual bypass: Some preliminary considerations. Journal of Counseling & Development, 82(4), 403–409. Clark, M. (2011). Understanding religion and spirituality in clinical practice. London, England: Karnac Books. Cohen, A. (2013, May). Out of site and in the atmosphere in classrooms. Paper presented at Symposium on Embodiment, Mindfulness: Contemplative Perspectives and Approaches to Education, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Cohen, A., Bai, H., Leggo, C., Porath, M., Meyer, K., & Clarke, A. (2014). Speaking of learning: Recollections, revelations, and realizations. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense. Cohen, A. (2015). Becoming fully human within education environments: Inner life, relationship, and learning. In A. Cohen, Gateway to the Dao-field: Essays for the awakening educator. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Writeroom Press. Damasio, A. (2003). Looking for spinoza: Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Denham, S. A., & Brown, C. (2010). “Plays nice with others”: Social–emotional learning and academic success. Early Education and Development, 21(5), 652–680. Druskat, V. U., Mount, G., & Sala, F. (Eds.). (2013). Linking emotional intelligence and performance at work: Current research evidence with individuals and groups. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Emmons, R. (2000). Is spirituality an intelligence? Motivation, cognition, and the psychology of ultimate concern. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 3–26. Fedele, A., & Knibble, K. (2013). Gender and power in contemporary spirituality: Ethnographic approaches. New York, NY: Routledge.

94    H. BAI et al. Fenwick, T., & English, L. (2004). Dimensions of spirituality: A framework for adult educators. Journal of Adult Theological Education, 1(1), 49–64. Gardner, F. (2011). Critical spirituality: A holistic approach to contemporary practice. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Grace, F. (2011). Learning as a path, not a goal: Contemplative pedagogy— its principles and practices. Teaching Theology & Religion, 14(2), 99–124. Griffiths, D. (1988). Introduction. In D. Griffiths (Ed.), Spirituality and society: Postmodern visions (pp. 1–32). Albany: State University of New York Press. Gunnlaugson, O., & Vokey, D. (2014). Evolving a public language of spirituality for transforming academic and campus life. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(4), 436–445. Haight, R. (2010). The classroom is a Sangha: Contemplative education in the community college. New Directions for Community Colleges, 2010(151), 29–38. Heron, J., (1992). Feeling and personhood: Psychology in another key. London, England: Sage. Hiles, D. (1999, July). Paradigms lost—paradigms regained. Paper presented at the 18th International Human Science Research Conference. Sheffield, England. Hill, P. & Pargament, K. (2003). Advances in the conceptualization and measurement of religion and spirituality: Implications for physical and mental health research. American Psychologist, 58(1), 64–74. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.58.1.64 Hodges, S. (2002). Mental health, depression, and dimensions of spirituality and religion. Journal of Adult Development, 9, 109–115. Holbrook, D. (1987). Education and philosophical anthropology: Toward a new view of man for the humanities and English. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Holland, J. (1988). A postmodern vision of spirituality and society. In D. Griffiths (Ed.), Spirituality and society: Postmodern visions (pp. 41–61). Albany: State University of New York Press. Huyssen, A. (1986). After the great divide: Modernism, mass culture, postmodernism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Johnson, R. (2013). Spirituality in counseling and psychotherapy: An integrative approach that empowers clients. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley. Karen, R. (2003). Becoming attached: First relationships and how they shape our capacity to love. Oxford, England: Oxford. Keen, S. (2005). Hymns to an unknown God: Awakening the spirit in everyday life. New York, NY: Bantam. Kidner, D. (2001). Nature and psyche: Radical environmentalism and the politics of subjectivity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Koenig, H. (2008). Overview of research and findings in spirituality and health. Retrieved from http://www.dukespiritualityandhealth.org Laing, R. D. (1967). The politics of experience and the bird of paradise. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books. Laing, R .D. (1980). What is the matter with mind? In S. Kumar (Ed.), The Schumacher lectures (pp. 1–27). London, England: Sphere Books. Lash, S. (1990). Sociology of postmodernism. New York, NY: Routledge.

Prolegomena to a Spiritual Research Paradigm    95 Levine, P. (2010). In an unspoken voice: How the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Liedloff, J. (1977). The continuum concept: In search of happiness lost. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley. (Original work published 1975.) Mackian, S. (2012). Everyday spirituality: Social and spatial worlds of enchantment. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Macquarrie, J. (1972). Paths in spirituality. London, England: Harper & Row. McIntosh, S. (2007). Integral consciousness and the future of evolution: How the integral worldview is transforming politics, culture, and spirituality. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House. Merleau Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible: Followed by working notes (A. Lingis, Trans.). Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Merrell, K. W., & Gueldner, B. A. (2012). Social and emotional learning in the classroom: Promoting mental health and academic success. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Miller, A. (2004). The drama of being a child: The search for the true self. London, England: Virago Press. Miller, W. (Ed.). (1999). Integrating spirituality into treatment: Resources for practitioners. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Miller, W., & Thoresen, C. (2003). Spirituality, religion, and health: An emerging research field. American Psychologist, 58(1), 24–35. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.58.1.24 Morgan, P. (2012). Following contemplative education students’ transformation through their ‘ground-of-being’ experiences. Journal of Transformative Education, 1(1), 23–42. Morgan, P. (2013). Learning feelings: Foundations of contemplative education. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Murphy, M. (1993). The future of the body: Explorations into the further evolution of human nature. New York, NY: Putnam. Newby, M. (1996). Towards a secular concept of spiritual maturity. In R. Best (Ed.), Education, spirituality, and the whole child (pp. 93–107). London, England: Cassell. O’Shea, E., Torosyan, R., Robert, T., Haug, I., Wills, M., & Bowen, B. (2011). Spirituality and professional collegiality: Esprit de “core.” In H. Chang & D. Boyd (Eds.), Spirituality in higher education: Autoethnographies (pp. 87–108). Walnut, CA: Left Coast Press. Plante, T. (Ed.). (2010). Contemplative practices in action: Spirituality, meditation, and health. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press. Ray, R. (2008). Touching enlightenment: Finding realization in the body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. Rodger, A. (1996). Human spirituality: Towards an educational rationale. In R. Best (Ed.), Education, spirituality, and the whole child (pp. 45–63). London, England: Cassell. Rossman, G., & Rallis, S. (2011). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ruch, G., 2010, From triangle to spiral: Reflective practice in social work education, practice and research. Social work education: The International Journal, 21(2), 199–216.

96    H. BAI et al. Ryback, D. (2012). Putting emotional intelligence to work. London, England: Routledge. Schellenbaum, P. (1990). The wound of the unloved: Releasing the life energy (T. Nevill, Trans.). Dorset, England: Element Books. Schiro, M. (1978). Curriculum for better schools: the great ideological debate. Danvers, MA: Educational Technology. Sellers-Young, B. (2013). Motions in stillness—stillness in motion: Contemplative practice in performing arts. In J. McCutcheon & B. Sellers-Young (Eds.), Embodied consciousness: Performance technologies (Vols. 75–90). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Sheldrake, P. (2013). Spirituality: A brief history (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Solloway, S. (2000). Contemplative practitioners: Presence or the project of thinking gaze differently. Encounter: Education for meaning and social justice, 13(3), 30–42. Sperry, L. (2012). Spirituality in clinical practice: Theory and practice of spiritually oriented psychotherapy (2nd ed.). London, England: Routledge. Taylor, C. (1991). The malaise of modernity. Toronto, Canada: House of Anansi. Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Thoreau, H. (1962). Thoreau: Walden and other writings. New York, NY: Bantam. Van Heugten, K. (2004). Managing insider research: Learning from experience. Qualitative Social Work, 3(2), 203–219. Van Manen, M. (1977). Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry, 6(3), 205–228. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Vaughn, F. (2002). What is spiritual intelligence? Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 42(2), 16–33. Walach, H. (2011). Neuroscience, consciousness, spirituality: Questions, problems and potential solutions. In H. Walach, S. Schmidt, & W. Jonas (Eds.), Neuroscience, consciousness and spirituality (pp. 1–22). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Wallace, B. A. (2004). The taboo of subjectivity: Toward a new science of consciousness. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Wilber, K. (1999). Eye to eye: The quest for the new paradigm. In K. Wilber, The collected works of Ken Wilber (Vol. 3; pp. 137–444). Boston, MA: Shambhala. Wilber, K. (2001) Sex, ecology, and spirituality (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Shambhala. Wilber, K. (2006). Integral spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Wright, A. (1996). The child in relationship: Towards a communal model of spirituality. In R. Best (Ed.), Education, spirituality, and the whole child (pp. 139–149). London, England: Cassell. Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., & Roberts, R. D. (2012). What we know about emotional intelligence: How it affects learning, work, relationships, and our mental health. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

CHAPTER 5

THE ENNEAGRAM A Spiritual Perspective for Addressing Significant Problems Through Research Robert London

This chapter will focus on the process of transformation from a spiritual perspective, primarily based on the work of J. G. Bennett, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff, concerning a cosmic symbol, the Enneagram (Figure 5.1, discussed later in detail). The enneagram process will be explored primarily in the context of solving or resolving a significant problem (defined as a problem that requires a change in being to be solved or resolved) through research, especially in contexts relevant to education. This chapter will explore the workings of three interdependent processes that allow a transformative resolution of a significant problem. The three processes are distinct yet interdependent and are a combination of what is happening (functional or temporal process), to whom it is happening (the process of transformation or change of being), and how it is happening (the role of spirit). The process involving spirit represents the nonlinear, unconditioned sequence versus the linear, temporal sequence (the functional cycle); the two processes are reconciled by the third process involving being (or soul). The

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 97–125 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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enneagram process is particularly useful in clarifying the need for the entrance of spirit at particular points in the process of transformation, and the dynamics of how our inner work (soul work) creates the conditions that “allow” for the entrance of spirit into the process. This chapter does not take a position on whether the enneagram is a cosmic symbol introduced into the process of evolution by higher intelligence, as hypothesized by some of the sources for this chapter (e.g., Gurdjieff, 1973), given that there is not empirical data to support that claim and given that it is the position of this chapter that the validity of the process needs to be judged by each individual based on their experience, etc. It is challenging to convincingly argue for the power of the enneagram process of transformation described in this chapter, given that it is based on a cosmic symbol and requires an experiential basis to be properly understood and applied in life. On the other hand, in my opinion, the principles that will be outlined are part of everyone’s life, independent of whether they label them as spiritual or consciously notice them. I intend to present the enneagram in a way that the reader hopefully can connect with his or her experience, thereby seeing the potential power of the process, even if you disagree with my interpretation of the dynamics as spiritual. My hope is that this will produce the desire to experiment with the enneagram and gain the experiential basis that is necessary to apply it in a meaningful way. Specifically, I will first discuss some necessary terminology and some introductory remarks concerning the theoretical framework needed to understand the processes of the enneagram, and then discuss the process in detail, clarifying with an example from my experience. Finally, I will discuss the significance, implications and limitations of the process, including an in-depth exploration of the issues concerning validity. TERMINOLOGY AND INTRODUCTORY FRAMEWORK When we discuss spirituality, many times we are discussing experiences that are either incomprehensible to us or not easily discussed given the subjective nature of the experiences. Even when we see commonalties in the “what and how” of our experiences, there may be fundamental differences in our explanations of the why of the experiences. Therefore, I will limit the terminology involving spirituality to the concepts necessary to understand the dynamics of the process of transformation described and omit a discussion of certain philosophical issues. For this chapter, three distinct yet interdependent components of our experience as humans will be defined, spirit, soul or being, and body or function. I am not denying the possibility that at some level of being the

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three can be experienced as one. In fact, Bennett (1961) is clear that we are capable of experiencing a basic unity of the three components. However, for understanding our ordinary experience the division into three components seems useful. The first component of our experience, the world of function, is associated with the functioning of the material or conditioned world; that is, the processes that are predictable, observable and objective. Function includes the ordinary workings of thinking, feeling and bodily movements—not what a person is, but rather what we do. It should be noted that this definition of the world of function is meant to be consistent with the use of the word body in the sense of body, spirit, and soul. Second, we need to recognize that there is a component of our experience that cannot be reduced to the functioning of the conditioned material world and that is a nonmaterial source of meaning and value for our lives. We will label this source as spirit. spirit, as we are defining it, does not do things; it is that which impels or is the impetus for the action. The action itself is a functional process. It needs to be clear that we understand that spirit is not something that can be observed in the same way as the functional world. We see thoughts like, “I will do this thing” but that is just a function, something happening, and more often than not the thought fails to be actualized. The fact that spirit is connected with the unconditioned world makes it difficult, if not impossible, to clearly define spirit. Bennett (1983) states this difficulty well: With . . . [spirit] there is the great difficulty which we are always up against that makes it so hard to know what to say. Whether there is [spirit] or not [spirit] is impossible to say. Even such simple questions as, “Does [spirit] exist or does it not exist?” or “Does it change or remain the same?” or “Is it one or many?” turn out to be meaningless because we are looking at a thing to which that type of distinction is not applicable. . . . Unity and multiplicity are only in our being, not in [spirit]. (p. 14)

For the third component of our experience, we recognize the need for an instrument or a process to reconcile two otherwise incompatible worlds, the world of function and the world of spirit. We will label this component of our experience as being or soul. Being is connected to both worlds; being can be understood as the instrument that allows our material body to receive and cooperate with impulses whose source is the world of spirit. One interpretation of being is that spirit requires an instrument to be able to manifest (at least in certain ways) in the material world and that being is that instrument. Being is the component of our experiences that enables or undergoes transformation, awakening or unfolding; therefore, level of being will be defined as a measure of our general ability to reconcile the world of function and the world of spirit. Level of being can be seen as a measure of our

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level of consciousness as reflected by the state of concentration, or the state of availability, of energy. But energies are of different qualities (Bennett, 1964) and there are different levels of being corresponding to the quality of the energies that are concentrated (Bennett, 1961). In many traditions, the highest level of being would indicate a way of being in which there is no duality between the world of function and the world of spirit, a world in which we consistently cooperate with spirit. Similarly, many traditions would define a lower level of being as a way of being in which we are driven mostly by impulses from the world of function (e.g., our desires, personality). To clarify the difference between function and spirit, Bennett (1961) discriminated between two types of impulses: an impulse that has its source in spirit and an impulse that has its source in existence (i.e., all that can be conceived as material, and is therefore fact). The use of the term impulse can be limiting in that it can suggest the injection of force into a system versus an awakening to what is already there. However, it seems to be the most appropriate term for this chapter with the understanding that the actual impulse to act may be a reaction (or interpretation) of our functional self to an awakening of our essence, rather than a characteristic of what we actually experience in the moment of awakening. In other words, sometimes we experience an awakening in a moment (impulse from spirit) and then interpret that impulse (a functional activity) to imply a certain action—the actual moment of awakening is from the world of spirit, but the interpretation and action taken (or not taken) is typically in the world of function. The term “cooperating with spirit” is meant to imply sensitivity and cooperation with impulses whose source is spirit, and to be consistent with terminology from a variety of spiritual traditions, for example, “cooperating with the Tao,” “consenting to the Dharma,” “being sensitive to the reconciling force,” “listening to higher intuition,” and “being an instrument of God’s will” (see London, 1998, August). It should be noted that our actions many times are motivated by a combination of the two types of impulses. Finally, when the term help is used, it will indicate an impulse from spirit that is experienced as providing what is needed in a particular situation, typically experienced as an unexpected source of help. The process of transformation discussed in this chapter is concerned primarily with solving what I will label as a “significant problem.” I believe the sense of what is meant by a significant problem is well captured in the following quote of Einstein: “The world we have made as a result of [our present] . . . creates problems that we cannot solve at the same [our present] level at which we created them. . . . We shall require a substantially new manner [or level] of thinking” (Sharma, 2007, p. 31). For this chapter, a significant problem is one that requires a change in our level of understanding (level of being) to be solved. It needs to be noted that my use of “solving a significant problem” does not necessarily imply a final solution,

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but rather that minimally there is a qualitative change in our level of understanding concerning the problem or question. What I mean by a significant problem is further clarified by a quote from J. G. Bennett: “We should not spend our time trying to cure symptoms. The whole is what is important” (personal communication, Rise Richardson, 2007). From a spiritual viewpoint, a significant problem is one that connects us to the whole. One difficulty in writing this chapter is that much of what will be described is not an integral part of what we might label as the academic discussion concerning research methodology, but rather is based on material connected with one spiritual tradition that has been applied primarily to the process of spiritual transformation, and therefore, will not be familiar to most readers. In addition, the primary sources for this chapter (e.g., Gurdjieff, 1973; Bennett, 1983; Kuchinsky, 1985; Blake, 1996) see the enneagram as a cosmic symbol introduced into the process of evolution of human beings and the universe versus a process logically developed by research and professional activity through a peer review process—hardly a position typically well received in the academic community! Most of my own work has been part of ongoing professional discussions and the peer review process; however, I have spent over 35 years studying the enneagram process in terms of spiritual transformation both as a student and a teacher in spiritual growth groups, and I am convinced that the process is a powerful tool for conducting research on significant problems. In this chapter, I have attempted to describe the process so that the reader sees the process as relating well to their actual experience, and can understand the basic workings of the enneagram, without necessarily accepting the enneagram as a cosmic symbol or agreeing with the definitions or interpretations in this chapter concerning spirituality. Many of the chapters in this book focus on research approaches for exploring “fundamental questions related to the development of spirituality.” While this chapter certainly can apply to that type of research, the focus is more on conducting research on significant problems that require a transformation and openness to the role of spirit to complete effectively. In addition, I need to be cautious in describing a framework for the process of research described in this chapter, given the assumption that the enneagram is a cosmic symbol introduced into the process of evolution of human beings and the universe, implying that my description may add a layer of interpretation to the actual symbol that might, in fact, hinder our understanding. The labels that I introduce for the nine points on the enneagram are my informed interpretation versus the actual meaning of the points. For example, the enneagram symbolizes the process of transformation in general, and my labels represent an interpretation of the meaning of the points specifically in the process of research. Another person well acquainted with the enneagram may label the points for the process of research

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differently, and their labels may be as “accurate” as my labels. One implication of this position is that, given our present level of being, we cannot fully understand this symbol: “Human thought can only make contact with [spirit] . . . , and then only by way of signs and symbols, the full meaning of which must always transcend the limit of our power of understanding” (Bennett, 1961, p. 69). Further, The principle of the Enneagram is a great secret. . . . It is the way through which true value is added or realized. . . . To study the enneagram is rather like trying to read the void. What is really there vanishes at every point into nothingness; yet out of it comes the power to create universes. The explanations and examples [of the Enneagram] given here are merely food to be transformed. One needs a strong stomach and the right digestive juices. (Bennett, 1983)

Perhaps an appropriate label for this framework would be spiritual pragmatism, “A practical way of solving problems” (DeVinne, p. 973) without a fixation on views and theories, and with an understanding of the dynamics of the relationship among spirit, inner work and our functional activities in the process of transformation. This is consistent with a Buddhist perspective, The Buddha does not demand that we begin our spiritual quest by placing faith in doctrines that lie beyond the range of our immediate experience. Rather than ask us to wrestle with issues that, for us in our present condition, no amount of experience can decide, he instead asks us to consider a few simple questions pertaining to our immediate welfare and happiness, questions that we can answer on the basis of personal experience. (Bodhi, 2005, p. 83)

For this chapter, spiritual pragmatism includes the assumption that the issue of whether the enneagram is a “cosmic symbol introduced into the process of evolutions of human beings and the universe” or not is not a particularly important issue to resolve, rather, the important question is whether the process described is reasonably consistent with our actual experience. Personally, I do not believe in the effectiveness of the enneagram process based on an acceptance of the enneagram as a cosmic symbol, an assertion I have no empirical basis to accept (as well as no empirical basis not to accept). Rather, my in-depth experience investigating the workings of the enneagram in my life and others’ lives has convinced me that it is a powerful tool for addressing significant problems. THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION In this section I will discuss a specific process, based on work primarily described by Gurdjieff (1973), Bennett (1983), Kuchinsky (1985) and Blake

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(1996), in applying a spiritual symbol, the enneagram, to understanding any process that maintains itself by self-renewal (transformation). It needs to be noted that the enneagram has broad application; for example, it has been used to study the process of transformation in cooking a meal for a group, training to be a singer, conducting scientific research, producing a product commercially, conducting therapy, and facilitating spiritual transformation (e.g., Bennett, 1983). The focus of this chapter is to investigate how the enneagram gives us insight into the structure of the process of transformation involving significant problems as defined earlier. Two comments are needed to clarify that focus. Firstly, even though the enneagram is a powerful tool in analyzing the dynamics and causes of ineffective problem solving or research, the focus of this chapter will be the implications for effective problem solving. Secondly, as noted previously the focus of this chapter is solving significant problems, which by definition require a transformation of our level of understanding—in my opinion, most of what we label as problem solving does not require such a transformation and can typically be solved effectively by a competent problem solver with the appropriate tools and strategies, including professionally accepted quantitative and qualitative methods. In contrast, the implication of this chapter is that problem solving involving significant problems (as defined) cannot be effectively conducted unless it is consistent with the model (either consciously or unconsciously). Figure 5.1 is a diagram of the enneagram. For purposes of explanation it can be observed that the symbol consists of three parts: 1. The outer circle numbered 1 to 9. This represents the temporal sequence of the enneagram and the functional aspect of a process (what happens). 2. The inner triangle connecting points 3, 6 and 0/9. The points on the triangle represent places in the process where something from the outside (spirit) must enter to permit the process to proceed properly. These three points also represent the beginning of the three interdependent processes that make up the enneagram. “The triangle is not a process but a structure of intention or will. It is what is informing the process and giving it meaning” (Blake, 1996, p. 23). 3. The inner lines connecting 1–4–2–8–5–7 (and back to 1) which concern how the process operates. These lines indicate “the way in which the processes correct and reinforce one another to obtain self-renewal [transformation]. . . . The [order of the points] 1–4– 2–8–5–7 indicate the direction of the flow of influences within the structure” (Bennett, 1983, p. 21), basically describing our inner or soul work during the process of transformation.

104    R. LONDON Problem Enters/Process Completed 0/9 Present the Results 8

1 Clarify the Problem

2 Plan Initial Strategy and Gather Resources

Work out the Details 7

Vision of Solution Enters 6

3 Value of the Problem Enters

5 Find a Way to Solve the Problem

4 Conduct Initial Work to Solve the Problem

Figure 5.1  Enneagram.

I will attempt to clarify the significance of the enneagram by first explaining the three components of the symbol separately, primarily in terms of one concrete example. I will start with the outer circle or functional aspect of the process, which will seem most consistent with traditional methods of problem solving and research. Next, I will discuss the inner triangle, which indicates the role of spirit, the component that most distinguishes this approach to transformation from other approaches. Finally, I will discuss the inner connections that clarify how a transformation of our level of understanding (level of being) occurs in the enneagram. I will supplement the theoretical explanation with a concrete example— my experience exploring the problem of teaching in a way consistent with the implications of a spiritual perspective and postmodernist theory, in the context of teaching the fifth course in a required six course sequence for a cohort of teachers in the MA in holistic and integrative education at California State University, San Bernardino, a program for innovative teachers. If teaching is approached from the point of view of resolving the conflict between our vision of teaching and the actual conditions, skills and students with which we work, then teaching can certainly be a significant problem. I will note that most examples of teaching courses, while perhaps challenging and innovative, are not typically transformative for the instructor. For simplicity I will refer to this experiment in what follows as “the teaching experiment.”

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The Outer Circle The outer circle symbolizes the functional aspect of the process; that is, “what goes on” (Bennett, 1983, p. 25) which we experience as a temporal sequence around the outside of the circle. The descriptions of the source points (Points 0, 3, 6 and 9) in describing the outer circle will be limited, and will be taken up in more detail in the next section. I will note that Point 9 (process completed) of one enneagram can act as the initial input (Point 0) for a second enneagram, Point 9 serves two different roles that we will label as Point 0 (problem enters) and Point 9 (process completed). In describing the points, I will use brief labels to indicate the typical significance of each point for the process of transformation in solving a significant problem with the understanding that the real significance of each point is not so limited. Point 0: The problem enters. We feel attracted or compelled to pursue or study a particular problem. In the teaching experiment, Point 0 was connected to another enneagram that involved the process in which I became the program director of an experimental master’s program in holistic education (Point 9 of one enneagram can be Point 0 of another enneagram). What became clear at this point was that there was a need for me to teach one of the courses (curriculum theory) in the program. I will discuss further the nature of this point in the next section. Point 1: Clarify the problem. What exactly is the problem that we are going to study? Many times this part of the process includes narrowing the focus to one that we judge that we have the resources and understanding to pursue effectively. In the teaching experiment, in the context of this cohort of students, the specific problem was how to teach a curriculum course consistent with a postmodernist approach as outlined by William Doll (1993) and consistent with my understanding of the principles of a spiritual perspective in education (e.g., London, 2001). Point 2: Plan the initial strategy and gather resources. What is the plan for solving the problem? Many times in research this step will include writing a grant to fund the project. In the teaching experiment, at this point I talked to colleagues, read carefully Doll’s book (1993) on a postmodern approach to teaching, and planned my general approach to teaching the course. It was clear at this point that certainly the details of how I would teach the course and even some of the basic elements of the course would have to be worked out in the context of actually working with the group directly. Also, I made tentative plans for gathering data to evaluate the effectiveness of the experiment. Point 3: What enters at 3 can be labeled as the value of the problem. At some Point we need to weigh whether the problem is worth the effort to try to solve it. What enters results in a circumstance or attitude change that

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makes us willing to take on the problem. While it is somewhat accurate to label what enters here as the value of the problem, what actually enters is typically much more concrete. For example, in the teaching experiment, what entered were the students for the first class. This represents the value of the problem in the sense that the entrance of the students means that we have committed to the experiment; the experiment is no longer theoretical. Point 4: Conduct initial work on the problem. Compared to Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem), this part of the work on the problem is fairly straightforward. It may involve a long period of time and much effort, but our sense of what is needed at this point is fairly clear and, in that sense, straightforward. We may not be clear about how this initial work will lead to a solution, but we know what we need to try or do at this point to become clearer about the problem. In the teaching experiment, Point 4 refers particularly to the first two classes of the course (two of five 8-hour Saturdays). Even though this part of the course was very open-ended and involved us together establishing what, how and why we would study, I used a variation of a teaching approach that I had used in different contexts involving similar processes. I felt comfortable with the process and, in that sense, this portion of the teaching experiment was straightforward. Point 5: Find a way to solve the problem. “It is the stage of maximum distress. The fifth point is always that of greatest tension” (Bennett, 1983, p. 55). Perhaps the analogy of cooking a meal for a group of people provides clarification of Point 5. On that enneagram, Point 4 is the chopping and so on of the food and Point 5 is the actual cooking. Once fire is added to the process of cooking, the intensity of the process increases. It is at Point 5 that dissonance is necessary to allow a transformation of understanding to occur. For solving a significant problem, the dissonance at Point 5 is typically connected with the feeling that we will never find an adequate solution, that we are incapable of solving the problem, or that we took on more than we could handle. In the teaching experiment, Point 5 represents approximately classes three and four. We had established certain questions that we felt were significant to consider in the process of developing curriculum, defined the nature of the assignments for the class, and established how we would explore the curriculum questions in and outside of class. We felt it was important to relate the ideas primarily to our actual experiences and observations in our classrooms, rather than outside readings or presentations by me or other “experts.” For example, there were no required readings and, in the entire course, I presented material (usually experientially), versus facilitating a discussion and exploration, for only about 4 hours of the 40 hours of class. At Point 4 (classes one and two) I felt relatively comfortable with this approach. By classes three and four, to put it mildly, I felt dissonance. Even though, from the students’ point of view, the class was going well, I began to have serious doubts. When I read students’ reflections

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on the class and progress reports on their projects, I became concerned (understatement!)—I did not see evidence that the outcome of this class would be consistent with my vision. I did not see evidence that students understood some of the most fundamental principles of the topics that we were exploring. I felt worried that the experiment was a gigantic error of judgment and could not be salvaged. I will mention that I taught this course in the second year in my tenure process, adding to the dissonance. Point 6: A vision of the solution of the problem enters to allow us to complete the process of solving the problem. Typically, we either see the final solution and need to figure out how to get there (e.g., a mathematician sees that a theorem is true, then needs to prove it), or we see how to work it out and need to carry that out to find or reach the solution. In the teaching experiment, what entered at Point 6 were presentations by the students and their reflection papers for that class. What happened as a result of what entered at Point 6 was a transformation of my understanding of the process of the course. It is difficult to translate this understanding into words, but I can say that part of the realization was that they were “getting it,” even though not quite in the way that I envisioned, and that we were just starting the process of learning how to develop curriculum differently and that process would continue beyond the temporal end of the course. The change in my feeling concerning the course was dramatic and immediate—a change from seeing the experiment as a disaster to seeing the experiment as significant. Point 7: Work out the details of the solution. What is needed to complete the vision of the solution at Point 6? Typically, it is only at Point 7 that the significance of the problem or research becomes reasonably clear. In the teaching experiment, at this point it was clear how to complete the course. In addition, I began the process of gathering additional data to evaluate the effectiveness of the experiment and started planning a presentation for a professional conference on the experiment. Point 8: Present the results or put the solution in a form that is accessible to others and connects with the significance of the process. For example, give a presentation or submit an article to a journal. In the teaching experiment, at Point 8, I prepared a presentation for a professional conference on the experiment. Point 9: Something from the outside enters that makes it clear that the cycle (enneagram) is completed. Many times what enters will also make clear Point 0 (problem enters) of a new related enneagram. What entered here was a colleague. We discussed the experiment and it became clear that the two of us wanted to continue the experiment in the context of coteaching the first two courses of the program for the next cohort of students, a collaboration that has continued for 10 more cohorts. It should be noted that this conversation could not have occurred at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem).

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The Inner Triangle The points 0, 3, 6, and 9 “are the places where the process must receive ‘help from the outside’” (Bennett, 1983, p. 5). What enters at these points allows the process to move toward proper completion and marks the entrance into the enneagram of one of the three distinct yet interdependent processes necessary for successful completion. We will call these points source points, and the space between the point to the left and the point to the right of a source point we will label as an interval that needs to be filled by something from the outside. For example in Figure 5.1, the interval between Point 2 (plan the initial strategy) and Point 4 (conduct initial work on solving the problem) needs to be filled at Point 3 (value of the problem enters) by something from the outside. The intervals “give a satisfactory account of the way things go right or wrong in a self-regulating process” (Bennett, 1983, p. 5); that is, the quality of our outcomes are most effected by our sensitivity to and cooperation with what enters the process at these source points. Four comments: Firstly, in my experience the existence and nature of the source points is much more concrete than theoretical; that is, the experience of help from spirit is a common, undeniable experience in my life. Undeniable in the sense that the experience has been consistent over a long period of time and not adequately explainable without the assumption of spirit in the Universe participating in our evolution (or a similar assumption). At the same time, it needs to be clear that for me the exact nature of these impulses and the long-term significance of what enters at the source points is many times a mystery (a concept consistent with the writings of a variety of spiritual teachers). In contrast, before I became sensitive to this experience of help I would certainly have been skeptical of such an explanation. Therefore, I am suggesting not a blind acceptance of this explanation of the source points, but rather that you accept the explanation as a hypothesis to be tested against your own experience. Secondly, I want to make it clear that what enters at the source points, even in solving a significant problem, is not typically “dramatic.” Many times what enters at these points is very ordinary but “feels” different or significant—something in us is able to see or feel this significance. Thirdly, the source points indicate the role of spirit in the process of the enneagram: “The inner triangle stands for the presence of higher elements” (Blake, 1996, p. 27). According to the model being presented here, a significant problem cannot be solved adequately without the entrance of spirit at the source points. “The triangle is not a process but a structure of intention or will. It is what is informing the process and giving it meaning” (Blake, 1996, p. 25). At the same time, it is clear that the process cannot be completed without our cooperation, which is represented by the outer

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sequence, but more significantly, by the inner connections that will be discussed in the next section. Finally, even though I have limited the discussion here to the effective use of the enneagram, it should be noted that an understanding of the enneagram suggests that the most common cause of a lack of significance in (or not completing) problem solving or research is a lack of sensitivity to, or cooperation with, the impulses from spirit at the source points, particularly our tendency to move from Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) to Point 7 (work out the details) before needed help enters at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters). Before discussing the process that enters at each source point we will discuss the significance of each Point separately. Point 0: The problem enters at Point 0. Perhaps a fairly accurate way to label what happens at this Point is, “We do not choose the problem; the problem chooses us.” Typically, of all the potential problems that we could study, one seems to attract our attention in an insistent, sometimes nonrational way. help enters that allows us to see the nature of the problem that we are meant to investigate; this can allow us to connect with the problem that is significant in the larger context that we are not capable of rationally seeing. Consistent with the assumptions concerning the existence and nature of impulses from spirit, we can see that we are not capable of rationally “figuring out” this larger context. However, with experience we are able to discriminate between what our personality and functional aspect tells us is our interest, and a true entrance of spirit at Point 0. What makes it difficult to describe a source point is that there is a certain type of feeling connected with the experience that cannot be easily described. For example, in the case of the teaching experiment, if I provided an outsider with the relevant information concerning the course and the possibilities of who could teach the course, it certainly would not be surprising if the person logically concluded that I was the appropriate person. However, what I actually experienced in the situation I would describe as connecting with an impulse from spirit that made it clear to me that what was needed was that I teach that particular course. It should be noted that my involvement with the program was not part of my original interests at the university, and consistently had the flavor of cooperating with spirit. The “instrument” for that impulse was certain information from the outside concerning the context of the decision that “entered” the enneagram (or our consciousness) as this point of time—typically I experience this entrance as a feeling, sometimes a recurring feeling, that I need to address the perceived problem. Logically, there is no reason to accept this explanation over the simple explanation that this decision made rational sense. Why is it that I am convinced that my explanation is more consistent with what actually happened? A short answer is that over the last 35 years or so I have had a large number of experiences

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of connecting with this type of what I am labeling as an impulse from spirit that consistently indicate connecting with something larger, and clearly do not seem consistent with an explanation that the experience is simply a logical outcome of what preceded the situation. Though not describing the enneagram, Loori (2006) well describes Point 0, It (Point 0) usually begins when our attention is captured by a subject, either a feeling or a physical entity. This attention draws us into the subject and we “feel inspired” by it. . . . I have personified that sense of inspiration as the muse . . . What I am most concerned with here is . . . with developing the ability to recognize inspiration when it arises and learning how to nurture it so that it results in artistic expression. (p. 48)

Point 3: What enters at Point 3 can be labeled as the value of the problem. At some point we need to weigh whether the problem is worth the effort to try to solve it. What allows you to move from 2 to 4 is something that enters that “allows” a change that makes us willing to attempt to resolve the problem. As I mentioned previously, although what enters here can be labeled the value of the problem, it is normally much more concrete. In research, sometimes what enters here is an unexpected grant, event, or resource that allows us to take on the research. In the case of the teaching experiment, the students enter marking the transition from preparing for the experiment to actually conducting the experiment. What makes this an impulse from spirit? “Logically” it seems reasonable to label this step of the process as simply a matter of whom I targeted for this experiment or who signed up for the course. However, from the point of view described in this chapter, what enters here suggests that the students in the class were in some way attracted to this program by impulses from spirit, whether they were aware of these impulses or not. Of the four source points, this one is the most difficult to demonstrate a connection with spirit. What I will say is that how I sometimes experience this point, including in the case of the teaching experiment, is that it feels as if exactly the right students enter to allow the experiment to continue in a way consistent with my vision of the outcome (see the section to follow on the inner lines). Point 6: A vision of the solution of the problem enters allowing us to complete the process of solving the problem. Generally, there are two different ways we experience Point 6: We see the final solution and need to figure out how to get there (e.g., a mathematician “sees” a theorem then needs to prove it), or we see how to work it out (what will lead us to the solution) and need to carry that out to “find” or reach the solution. In the case of the teaching experiment, as described previously, what entered (a new understanding or “aha” experience connected with student presentations and reflection papers) allowed a transformation of understanding that cannot be adequately explained in terms of a rational, logical outcome

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of points 1 to 5. As previously stated, “The change in my feeling (at Point 6) concerning the course was dramatic and immediate—a change from seeing the experiment as a disaster to seeing the experiment as significant.” From the point of view of the enneagram, this transformation is necessary for a successful completion of the process. Many people in a variety of fields who have solved significant problems have, in their own words, described Point 6 quite clearly and described what entered at this point in a way consistent with the definition of an impulse from spirit (London, 1998, April). Point 9: What enters at Point 9 results in us seeing or feeling clearly that the process of the enneagram is complete. We either feel we have completed the process or we see a new question or problem that acts as the Point 0 (problem enters) for a new enneagram. So far, my explanation of the enneagram has been confined to one cycle (Point 0 to Point 9), but a particularly important aspect of the theory is that each Point 9 can “feed” another enneagram process (or more than one other enneagram); that is, Point 9 on one enneagram can act as Point 0, 3, or 6 of another enneagram. In the case of the teaching experiment, one clear example of this is the observation that Point 9 of this enneagram was Point 0 for a teaching experiment the following year—again, a possibility I could not conceive of at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem). So far my description of the source points relates primarily to the outer circle or temporal portion of the enneagram. However, there is a deeper significance to what enters at these source points. The source points correspond to the introduction of three interdependent processes that allow successful completion of the enneagram. The three processes are distinct yet interdependent and are a “combination of what is happening, to whom it is happening, and how it is happening. These three components, which we call the function, the being and [spirit] . . . , enter into everything. They are not reducible to one another” (Bennett, 1983, p. 13). “In general, there is something that you can call the circumstances, conditions or place, something which undergoes transformation and something which brings about that transformation or which uses that which is transformed” (Bennett, 1983, p. 15). The inner triangle represents the nonlinear, unconditioned sequence (the spirit cycle) of the enneagram versus the linear, temporal sequence (the functional cycle) represented by the outer circle. “So that structure [three interdependent processes] is inherent in a process of that kind, but the structure is not linear. There are cross-connections and an inner coherence that must be seen and allowed for” (Bennett, 1983, p. 24). Bennett (1983, pp. 20–21) well describes the role of these three processes in this description of the formal systematics of the enneagram: 1. Every process, leading from an initial state A (Point 0, problem enters) toward a final state B (Point 9, process completed), must undergo deviation and distortion due to environmental disturbances.

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2. Only with an artificially constructed system of compensation can a process be made to continue in a predetermined course. 3. A point of hazard (Point 3, value of the problem enters) can be identified at which a process can be corrected for deviation by the impact of a second independent, yet related, process CD initiated at that point. 4. The second process itself requires adjustment in the same manner as the first. When this second adjustment EF is correctly applied (at Point 6, vision of the solution enters), the system is brought into a state of dynamic harmony that can continue indefinitely so long as the construction holds together. 5. The three processes must be such as to blend and reinforce one another after each point of mutual impact. 6. The construction must be such that there is an interplay of adjustments (the inner connections described in the next section) apart from the processes themselves. The latter produce the result and the former help the construction from collapsing or degenerating. Process 1: This process begins at Point 0 (problem enters) and continues through Point 9 (process completed), and refers to the functional part of the enneagram. This process involves using our functional tools (e.g., problem solving strategies, research methods, commitment to research) in the linear, temporal component of the enneagram represented by the outer circle. From Point 0 to Point 3 (before the entrance of the other two processes at Point 3 and 6), we get the clearest picture of this process. We can label the steps between Point 0 (problem enters) and Point 3 (value of the problem enters) as preparation. In the case of the teaching experiment, Point 0 to Point 3 represent the planning of the course. Notice that this process is initiated by Point 0 when we feel attracted to pursue the problem. Process 2: This process begins at Point 3 (value of the problem enters) and continues through Point 9 (process completed), and refers to the being component of the enneagram; that is, the process of transformation that takes place in completing the enneagram. If we look at our experience we can note that unless something enters at Point 3, we do not complete the enneagram; that is, we prepare for solving the problem but never actually commit to solving the problem. In the case of the teaching experiment, we should notice that the students entering were absolutely necessary for the process to continue. In contrast, I can certainly identify many cases in my teaching experience in which I never made it to Point 4; that is, I considered an approach to teaching that seemed significant, but never translated the idea into an actual experiment, either informally or formally. The entrance of this second process changes the whole focus and nature of the experiment—the experiment now enters the phase of transformation of our

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understanding. This process is strongest from Point 3 (value of the problem enters) to Point 6 (vision of the solution enters), which part of the enneagram can be labeled as the “cooking” part of the process, especially well represented by Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) at which we feel the most distress or dissonance—it seems as if our level of understanding is inadequate to allow us to complete the process. Notice that a type of effort is required at Point 5 that is not required at Point 1 (clarify the problem) or 2 (plan initial strategy and gather resources); reaching Point 4 (conduct initial work) indicates that you have committed to this effort. Process 3: This process begins at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) and continues through Point 9 (process completed), and refers to the spirit component of the enneagram. At this critical point “[the action] is made an integral part of the purposeful world in which it ends” (Blake, 1996, p. 57). We get a glimpse of how our work connects with spirit or the larger picture. Notice that the first and second processes cannot be completed unless something enters at Point 6. No matter what types of efforts we make at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem), our present level of understanding is unable to make the “jump” necessary to see the solution to the problem. Doll (1993, pp. 66–69), in reviewing the work of Piaget, points out that no one, including Piaget, is able to explain why a transformation in our level of understanding occurs logically (e.g., a child’s understanding of the conservation of volume). The position of this chapter is that what enters here is a gift in the form of help that allows us to see the solution or the path to resolution of the problem, and that there is a mysterious noncasual relationship between our efforts (e.g., at Point 5) and the help we receive at Point 6. In the teaching experiment, what entered at Point 6 allowed me to understand the significance of the experience and see how to complete the process. It should be clear that even though I had a vision of what I considered to be the significance of the problem at Point 1 (clarify the problem), that vision in a real sense was inaccurate and only became clear at Point 6. It is the entrance of the third process at Point 6 that allows us to “cooperate” with the real significance of the process. Concretely, it was only after Point 6 in this process that I was able to consider deepening my involvement in the MA program. The third process is strongest from Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) to Point 9 (process completed), and can be labeled as the significance of the problem. It should be noted that successfully completing the enneagram requires the interaction and interdependence of all three processes. “The Enneagram is an instrument to help us to achieve triadic perception and mentation. Whereas our ordinary mental processes are linear and sequential, the world in which we live is threefold” (Bennett, 1983, p. 6).

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The Inner Lines The outer circle represents the logical, temporal sequence of the process and the source points represent the influence of spirit on the process. What is the significance of the inner lines connecting 1–4–2–8–5–7(–1)? The inner lines correspond to what we may call the being of the process. For us to solve a significant problem a transformation of our level of understanding (level of being) must occur; neither the source points nor the temporal sequence explain how that transformation takes place. The inner lines bring interconnection to the process and explain “how it operates . . . How it operates requires sometimes a look forward and sometimes backwards” (Bennett, 1983, p. 25). The inner lines indicate “the way in which the processes correct and reinforce one another to obtain self-renewal. . . . [The order of the points] 1–4–2–8–5–7 indicate the direction of the flow of influences within the structure” (Bennett, 1983, p. 21). To clarify the significance of the inner connections, I will discuss the significance of the connections to each of the points that are not source points. Point 1 (clarify the problem) is connected to Point 4 (conduct initial work) and Point 7 (work out the details); notice that all three Points are preparatory. For the process to be successful at Point 1 (clarify the problem) we need to have an awareness or sense of what the outcome might look like and the nature of the obstacles to that outcome (inner line connecting Points 1–7) and what is needed in terms of an initial strategy to get there (inner line connecting Points 1–4). In the research process, to select the right problem to focus on we need to have some connection with what the solution will look like and what we have in the way of resources to tackle the problem. In the teaching experiment at Point 1 (clarify the problem), I needed to have some connection with a vision of what a good outcome of the experiment might look like and some connection with the resources that would be available to me. For example, what was the nature of the students’ experience in the first four courses of the program? Without these connections, I would probably pick an inappropriate problem to pursue. The question arises: Why is it necessary for this connection between Point 1 (clarify the problem) and Point 7 (work out the details) if the actual significance of the problem does not become clear until Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) and comes from spirit rather than from our limited understanding at Point 1 (clarify the problem)? There is an interdependence of the processes of the enneagram that can be approximately described in this situation by stating that the quality and nature of what enters at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) is somewhat determined by the quality of the inner connections (e.g., our efforts); that is, there is a relationship between the quality of our efforts (represented by the inner connections), and the nature of what we are able to receive at the source points—the nature of

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this relationship is certainly not casual or logical (in the sense that what enters at a source point logically follows from our efforts). What is essential at Point 1 (clarify the problem) is that, within the limits of our understanding, we establish a connection with Point 7. This connection, as well as the connection between Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) and 7 (work out the details), are important components to our inner work that facilitate us “reaching” Point 7 in the process, where the actual (versus perceived) significance of the process is more clearly understood. At Point 2 (plan the initial strategy), you need to be connected to the resources you have to work with (Point 4, conduct initial work) and the significance of the problem (Point 8, present the results); if these connections are strong it allows you (with what enters at Point 3) to move to Point 4 (conduct initial work); that is, to make the commitment to make the necessary efforts to complete the process. Many times if we do not, in particular, have a connection with Point 8 (the significance of the problem) we are unable to move to Point 4 and the project is never completed. In the teaching experiment, without a connection with the possible significance of the problem, I would never had taken the risk involved in trying to implement such an experimental approach to teaching. Similarly, if I did not believe the students had the experiences necessary to benefit from the approach I would not have attempted the experiment. These inner lines help clarify the role of being or our inner work to reconcile the world of function and the world of spirit. Specifically, at Point 2 our inner work (connections to Point 4 and 8) facilitate us being aware of and sensitive to the entrance of spirit at Point 3 and cooperating with the “message” from spirit that allows us to move to Point 4. For me, what enters at Point 3 is many times experienced as a fortuitous event, except I feel like the event was a gift urging me to move in a certain direction. The difference between Point 4 (conduct initial work) and Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) is clarified when we look at the inner lines. Point 4 is connected to Points 1 (clarify the problem) and 2 (plan initial strategy and gather resources)—what has already occurred temporally in the process. Point 4 can be viewed as the straightforward component of the transformation of our understanding of the problem. At Point 4 we have committed to make the necessary effort to solve the problem and we start by making the initial efforts that were clear to us at Points 1 and 2. On the other hand, Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) is connected to Points 7 (work out the details) and 8 (present the results)—the part of the process that has not yet occurred temporally. At Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) what has occurred temporally does not allow us to reach Point 7 (work out the details)—something must enter at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters). Our connection with Point 7 and Point 8 help us to live with the dissonance of Point 5 and persist in our efforts (which may seem fruitless at this Point) until the entrance of spirit at Point 6. This explains somewhat why Point 5

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many times feels like the point of most dissonance. “What is it that makes this [feeling of dissonance at Point 5] possible [to bear]? It is the glimpse of the end, the first understanding of what it is we are working for, that is the connection between 8 and 5” (Bennett, 1983, p. 63). In the teaching experiment, I can state clearly that without my understanding of the enneagram and my connection particularly with Point 8 at Point 5, I would not have been able to allow the discomfort of Point 5 and would have retreated from my experimental approach to a more traditional approach, eliminating the possibility of transformation for the problem/research. Again, the inner lines at Point 5 clarify the role of being or our inner work to reconcile the world of function and the world of spirit. It is our being or inner work that facilitates us being able to bear the dissonance at Point 5 until the entrance of spirit at Point 6. Many times I experience Point 6 as an undeserved insight that “reveals” the solution or the path to a solution. The significance of the inner lines at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem), and the mysterious connection between our vision as experienced at Point 5 and the actual needed outcome are well captured in the following two quotes from respected authors not writing about the enneagram. First, Eisner (2005) states, “New goals may emerge during the process of implementing goals. As we go through a process, we often discover opportunities that we could not or did not anticipate before we took action” (p. 15), in my opinion an excellent description of how our original vision in the enneagram process many times is judged in hindsight to not be logically connected to the actual needed outcome understood at Point 7 after the entrance of help at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters). Second, Senge (2009) well captures the dynamics of the inner work concerning our relationship with our “deeper intention” (vision) in the process of transformation: the heart of the dynamic of being truly committed and nonattached is to anchor in your deeper intention and focus your energies on realizing your vision [e.g., as experienced at Point 1, clarify the problem], while at the same time knowing that the vision is, at best, a reflection of your deeper intention [e.g., your connection to spirit at Point 0, problem enters]. (p. 80)

He further clarifies the significance of our connection with our vision, even though we may be aware of the “inadequacy” of our vision or our efforts to achieve that vision by adding, “It’s not what the vision is, it’s what the vision does.” In other words, rather than obsess about realizing my vision, consider it as a force for change, a way of aligning my action with nature’s unfolding [e.g., spirit]. When you operate this way, what happens may not be exactly as you imagined in your vision [at Point 1 (clarify the problem)], but what happens would otherwise not have happened. . . . It is not what the vision is, it’s what the vision does . . . . when

The Enneagram    117 we obsess about whether or not our vision is being achieved, we confuse the animating force behind our being [e.g., spirit as experienced at the source points] with an idea created by our mind. (p. 80)

Finally, Senge (2009) suggests that understanding this way of relating to our vision (e.g., the inner work he implies) can help us, move through this confusion [i.e., dissonance experienced at Point 5]. You can be committed and nonattached—fully engaged in realizing your vision, yet at peace with whatever happens. It is a paradoxical [i.e., mysterious] state, but one that arises from a deep inner alignment [e.g., connection with the source points]. (p. 80)

From my experience, I would add that even with the understanding that we can be “at peace with whatever happens,” perhaps intellectually, at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) it is quite common to strongly feel the dissonance connected with this point; that is, the understanding that Senge recommends can help us live with the dissonance of Point 5 and remain at that point until help enters at Point 6. These remarks clarify the mysterious relationship between our efforts (e.g., the inner lines representing being) and spirit (e.g., the source points), and the role of being in reconciling the world of function and the world of spirit. For example, we could say that our understanding of our vision at Points 1,2, 4 and 5 is the work of being trying to interpret through our limited functional understanding the meaning of the entrance of spirit at Points 0 and 3. In some noncasual mysterious way this inner work “facilitates” the entrance of spirit at Point 6 that connects us more closely with the actual vision. In other words, our inner work, particularly at Point 5, reconciles the essential significance or vision of our work (represented by the source points) with our functional conception of the significance (e.g., the outer circle). I will share one personal experience that I believe particularly illustrates the mysterious nature of this process. I was facilitating a spiritual growth group and we were meeting in a wooded area on a 200-plus-acre property to which we had access. One day I showed up at the property and experienced a clear Point 0—I “saw” a potential path in the area that I felt we needed to create. The imperative was clear and strong, yet I had no “vision” of the purpose of the path, just that it needed to be created! Specifically, the potential path was a short circuit and not a hiking path. My interpretation of the significance of the path at this point was that it gave our group a focus for our work together that could be useful. The significance of the path only became clearer at Point 6 in the process when the caretaker for the property asked if I could lead a short walk on the path for a group of potential buyers of the property that would preserve the woods (versus clearing the land and building houses). Prior to that point (i.e., Point 5), I felt dissonance concerning why were we

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spending so much time on this project that seemingly had no lasting significance. After this Point 6, it was relatively clear what needed to happen to prepare the path for this event. I will add that while it was clear to me that the significance of this project was connected to this coming event, the essential significance was still mysterious to me; that is, there was no outcome of the event apparent to me that had essential significance. The connection from 7 to 1 indicates that it is at Point 7 (work out the details) where we connect with returning to Point 1 (clarify the problem); that is, we begin to connect with the start of the next enneagram. Using the analogy of cooking a meal, As soon as the meal is served [Point 7], the attention of the people working in the kitchen goes back to the kitchen itself. Everything is put back in order ready for the next cycle to begin. . . . It is after the meal is served at Point 7 that the kitchen returns to Point 1. (Bennett, 1983, p. 28)

If you reflect on your experience, you might notice that you begin to think about the next step in your research not at Point 5 where you are concerned with whether you will even reach completion of the present enneagram, but rather at Point 7 when you are working out the details of what will be necessary to finish this enneagram. In the teaching experiment, it was at Point 7 that I had the first inklings of expanding the experiment to the next phase. In contrast, at Point 5, I questioned whether my decision to attempt this first experiment was wise. My experience applying the enneagram convinces me that if one has sensitivity to the source points and a general understanding of the structure of the enneagram, what most influences the quality of the outcome of a specific enneagram is the quality of the connections represented by the inner lines. IMPLICATIONS ON RESEARCH In this section I will (a) clarify the description of the enneagram process with remarks concerning the theoretical framework and the issues of validity, the mysterious relationship between our efforts and receiving help, including discussing the similarity to other approaches to “spiritual inquiry”; (b) discuss the significance of this approach to research; and (c) identify some of the limitations of the process. Efforts and Help From Within: Necessity in Research One assumption of the process is that we cannot effectively address significant problems without recognizing the need for help from spirit for a

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change in level of being (understanding) to occur. The research process does not suggest specific procedures, but rather indicates the dynamics of how the specific procedures for addressing a given problem naturally evolve from the process itself, including the inner (soul) work of the researcher and the role of spirit. Since the process involving spirit represents the nonlinear, unconditioned sequence of the enneagram, there is a mysterious relationship between our efforts in solving a significant problem and the entrance of spirit into the enneagram process. Specifically there does not seem to be a casual relationship in that the outcome of the entrance of help in the process does not seem to logically follow from our efforts. For example, my own experience as well as many written accounts of the “aha experience” (Point 6) in which there is an insight that allows a solution (or the path to a solution) to a seemingly unsolvable problem, indicates that the person that has the insight sees it as a gift that does not logically follow from their previous work. In fact, I can recall several instances in which only after help entered the process did I understand the “obvious” ineffectiveness of my strategies before that point. Smith (1977) well captures the mystery of the seemingly noncasual relationship between our efforts and receiving help that occur at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) with the etiological concept of emergence, If simpler, antecedent principles cannot account for them [e.g., an insight at Point 6], is “nothing”—thin air—a more plausible source? . . . “nothing” and “thin air” are what emergence come to. “All we can say is that at one moment there is nothing and at the next something,” said Hoyle in answer to the question of where hydrogen in his steady-state theory derived from. As etiology, emergence says no more than this. (p. 128)

Smith (1977) adds that this assumption of emergence “does not counter the fact that in the temporal order (e.g., the outer circle temporal process) simple precedes complex” (p. 128); that is, except at the source points, our efforts in the outer circle are governed by the laws of casuality. Hart (2000, p. 158) captures the paradox of this relationship between efforts and receiving help in discussing grace in the Christian context by quoting Ignatius Loyola, “We must pray as if all depends on Divine Action [e.g., help], but labor as if all depended on our own effort” (from May, 1982, p. 208). Hart (2000) comments, “How do we balance these directives to both surrender [cooperate with help at the source points]  . . .  and labor [inner lines], and how do we cultivate each in the service of transformation?” (p. 158). Further, the paradox of this mysterious relationship between our efforts and receiving help is captured in this quote from Oda Sesso Roshi and comments by Snyder (2004),

120    R. LONDON “The perfect way is without difficulty. Strive hard!” This is the fundamental paradox of the way. One can be called on not to spare one’s very bones in the intensity of effort, but at the same time we must be reminded that the path itself offers no hindrance. (pp. 2–28)

In summary, one of the mysteries of spirit is that even when our efforts in attempting to solve a significant problem, in hindsight, seem “logically” inappropriate, our inner work can create the conditions (not in a casual way) for the solution to enter the process (e.g., an unexpected insight at Point 6). Therefore, the enneagram process is not restricted to what we usually consider research (e.g., quantitative and qualitative methodologies; the scientific method), but rather to all discoveries requiring a transformation of our level of being going back thousands of years. In other words, our methodology may be “scientifically flawed” yet “result” (not necessarily casually) in a seemingly undeserved insight. I am not suggesting that we use “scientifically flawed” methodologies in our studies. In fact, my position is that whenever possible we should restrict our methodology to approaches deemed valid in quantitative, qualitative and/or mixed methods research. However, in research involving significant problems requiring transformation I am suggesting that the quality of our inner work is the most important factor in determining the significance of our research. I will give two examples of the importance of the quality of the inner work. First, one corollary of the enneagram process is that significant research (as defined) must start with Point 0 (problem enters); that is, an impulse from spirit that in a sense connects us with meaning and value. It requires a certain quality of being and inner work to recognize a Point 0 and to “cooperate” with spirit by respecting the need to respond to the call. Second, the inner work described at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) that allows us to remain at Point 5 (versus giving up or settling for less than a qualitatively better solution) and “wait” for the insight at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters) requires a certain level of being. In other words, a quality resolution to the problem (e.g., a transformative understanding) depends much more on the quality of these two examples of inner work than the specific methodology we select and implement. In my understanding of the enneagram process, our methodology needs to represent our best understanding of what is needed, and be connected to an authentic inspiration (at Point 0 (problem enters)) and the value of the problem (at Point 3). However, in practice I suggest that unless there is a strong rationale, we should limit our methodology steps to those practices recognized as valid in either quantitative or qualitative research.

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Validity: Toward an Expanded Understanding and Inquiry Based on the discussion of the relationship between efforts and help, one test of the validity of the enneagram process for an individual (versus the professional community) is if the Point 0 (or another source point) for your research or study was a source point (versus a functional decision), and if you were able to remain at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem) until help entered at Point 6 (vision of the solution enters). There are at least two questions concerning validity that naturally arise from this approach: How do I evaluate or know that an insight or understanding I have from this process is valid, and, how do I know that another person’s (e.g., researcher) insight from this process is valid for me? Given that the source points are from the unconditioned world, there is no objective measure of validity. However, in discussing whether a child’s reported experience with an angel is real, delusional, fantasy compensation, attention getting, etc., Hart (2004) provides some guidance, An objective measure is really quite impossible. . . . Ultimately, it is the quality of the encounter and the information or perspective provided and the impact this has [on] one’s life that is most salient for evaluating its significance. In the eyes of Michael’s teacher, these visitations seemed as powerfully spiritual and as healing as anything this young boy had ever encountered. (p. 47)

Others have provided guidance; for example, Liester (1996) well summarizes research relevant to this issue and identifies criteria for determining the difference between transcendent inner voices (Leister’s terminology) and pathological inner voices. In my own experience and others with whom I have worked, Hart’s position is one that I have found effective and useful as a guideline in evaluating the validity of our experience of source points; that is, with experience, one can reasonably well evaluate the validity of source points. Of course, this “solution” does not deal with the issue of evaluating research of others that are not source points for us. The issue of validity in research requiring a spiritual approach has been extensively discussed, but it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss in detail. However, I will summarize some relevant discussion from Rothberg’s work concerning spiritual inquiry (1995) that includes a thorough review of related literature. Rothberg (1995) hypothesizes that there are general qualities of inquiry and science shared by both the contemporary sciences and forms of spiritual inquiry. That is, these spiritual approaches seem in many ways relatively open and nondogmatic, rooted in rigorous observation, methodical, systematic, critical and/or intersubjective. Yet these inquiries also seem to go considerable beyond the contemporary

122    R. LONDON sciences, in that they have to do with ways of knowing, access to domains of reality, and transformative practices not currently understood as scientific. They suggest the possibility of a significantly expanded understanding of inquiry and knowledge. (p. 4)

I would suggest that approximately the outer circle of the enneagram (the temporal sequence) represents the common features that Rothberg identifies between contemporary science and spiritual inquiry, while the source points (the necessary entrance of spirit in the process) represent a way of knowing “not currently understood as scientific.” The inner lines (soul work) represent the process of reconciling the worlds of function and spirit. Rothberg (1995) argues well for the validity of spiritual inquiry, including (a) Pointing out that from “the points of view of many theorists of spiritual inquiry . . . rational competences are among several basic competences, and not the endpoints of development; spiritual ‘competences’ are similarly ‘given’ . . . and may in fact provide a more comprehensive horizon of knowledge than communicative rationality” (p. 10), suggesting that some of the criteria we use to evaluate “scientific” research are not appropriate for spiritual inquiry; and (b) that while there are issues of validity concerning spiritual inquiry, through the use of systematic methods, many of the claims of spiritual inquiry can be replicated by others and generalized. The claims seem in a number of cases to be intersubjectively confirmed by a teacher or within a community. Furthermore, there are often “critical” standards, internal to the methods of spiritual inquiry that help to discriminate insight from pseudo-insight or confusion. (p. 8)

Rudolph (2014) supports Rothberg’s conclusions and argues that there is a diversity of research communities with different sets of standards and methods, and these methods of inquiry are highly contextual, contingent, and emergent over time. . . . It should be obvious that many of these methods fall outside the narrow band of those [methods] recognized as experimental. This however, makes them no less scientific. (p. 16)

Currently I am investigating other approaches to help establish validity of such research, including the concept of a council of elders in many indigenous cultures to help establish the validity of certain insights. Limitations and Promises The limitations of this process include:

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1. The process is limited to significant problems; that is, problems that require a transformation in our level of understanding to solve. Much research, especially quantitative research, is concerned with problems that we have a good understanding of and are reasonably confident that implementing our methodology will provide reasonably clear results—normally, the process described here is not appropriate or needed for that type of research. Many times research consistent with this enneagram model requires additional research to verify the results in a way acceptable to the scientific or professional community. There are many examples of scientists that have had the experience of insight at Point 6 (e.g., the “aha” experience) and spent much time scientifically supporting the understanding from the process in a scientifically acceptable way (see Bennett, 1983).   Of course, much research that is useful does not require a transformation to effectively complete, including some examples of research on “fundamental questions related to the development of spirituality.” For example, if we have good reason to believe a specific approach will be an effective treatment, based on our review of the literature and the outcomes of previous research, a well-constructed methodology can be used to test that hypothesis. While this type of research is certainly important and requires a variety of skills as well as time to complete effectively, it typically does not require a transformation of level of being. I will add that in my opinion, most excellent qualitative research is consistent with this model and does involve transformation. 2. The process is not easy to put effectively into practice. However, it is my belief that if a person can tentatively accept the assumptions of the process and has had some experience that resonates with parts of the process (e.g., the experience of one or more of the source points), then one can begin to apply it, and hopefully experience transformative results. In addition, typically a person does not decide to start an enneagram process; rather, one may not realize that they are in the enneagram process until Point 5, already having “responded” to the source points at 0 and 3. 3. The model implies the necessity of cooperating with spirit. This is certainly a valid concern for evaluating research based on this model, especially given the subjective nature of the experience of cooperating with spirit and the real issue of whether the researcher was sensitive to and cooperated with the help that entered at the source points. This presents issues of validity discussed previously that suggest that while there are methods to address validity, there cannot be an objective measure of the validity of a person’s insight without additional methods (e.g., follow-up true experimental quantitative research).

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4. As discussed previously, the quality of the results of the enneagram depends on the level of being of the researcher. For example, it requires a certain level of being (or at least a certain quality of one’s state, even if a temporary state) to be sensitive to the source points of a specific enneagram and to be able to stand the “cooking” at Point 5 (find a way to solve the problem). Without that level of being, one cannot complete the process of the enneagram successfully. As was mentioned earlier, it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss in detail how a process requiring transformation can be unsuccessful. Suffice it to mention that we see the results of such enneagrams commonly when we see a process that seems to result in the opposite of the original vision. For example, a project with a vision to have a positive effect that ends up deepening the problem. SIGNIFICANCE The significance of the process presented in this chapter is that it is based on the implications of a body of understanding, labeled a spiritual perspective, developed, tested and refined over thousands of years, which has not been adequately applied to the field of Western problem solving. Specifically, the process is significant because the model: (a) is based on the assumption that to solve significant problems (as previously defined) there is a need to cooperate with spirit and the model specifies the dynamics of how that cooperation can occur, (b) when correctly applied insures that we pick significant problems to study and that our level of understanding of the problem will be transformed, (c) specifies the dynamics and necessity for uncertainty and dissonance in the process of solving significant problems, (d) is argued to be consistent with the actual experience of effectively solving significant problems, and (e) allows for a quality of results not normally achievable with other procedures for problem solving or research. Finally, in my experience, the theory describes well how we experience reality and, even though in some ways the “workings” of the enneagram are impossible for us to fully comprehend, if we work with our limited understanding in our actual experience, we will experience many seemingly undeserved transformations. REFERENCES Bennett, J. G. (1961). The dramatic universe (Vol. 2). Sherborne, England: Coombe Springs Press. Bennett, J. G. (1964). Energies. Sherborne, England: Coombe Springs Press.

The Enneagram    125 Bennett, J. G. (1983). Enneagram studies. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser. Blake, A. G. E. (1996). The intelligent enneagram. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Bodhi, B. (2005). In the Buddha’s words: An anthology of discourses from the Pali canon. Somerville, MA: Wisdom. DeVinne, P. B. (1985, Ed.). The American heritage dictionary (2nd college ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Doll, W. Jr. (1993). A post-modern perspective on curriculum. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Eisner, E. (2005, September). Back to whole. Educational Leadership, 14–18. Gurdjieff, G. I. (1973). All and everything (Series 1). New York, NY: E. P. Dutton. Hart, T. (2000). Transformation as process and paradox. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 32(2), 157–164. Hart, T. (2004). The mythical child: Glimpsing the spiritual world of children. Encounter, 17(2), 38–49. Kuchinsky, S. (1985). Systematics. Charles Town, WV: Claymont Communications. Liester, M. (1996). Inner voices: Distinguishing transcendent and pathological characteristics. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 28(1), 1–30. London, R. (1998, April). A post-modern research model that takes into account the implications of spiritual psychology. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association National Convention, San Diego, CA. London, R. (1998, August). The implications of spiritual psychology for education. Paper presentation at the Silver Anniversary International Whitehead Conference, Center for Process Studies, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA. London, R. (2001). A spiritual perspective in education: The implications of the work of J. G. Bennett. In J. Miller & Y. Nakagawa (Eds.), Nurturing our wholeness: Perspectives on spirituality in education. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press. Loori, J. (2006). The creative process. Mountain Record, 25(2), 47–57. May, G. G. (1982). Will and spirit: A contemplative psychology. New York, NY: Harper. Rudolph, J. (2014). Why understanding science matters: The IES research guidelines as a case in Point. Educational Researcher, 43(1), 15–18. Rothberg, D. (1995). Spiritual inquiry. ReVision, 17(2), 2–12. Senge, P. (2009, Fall/Winter). The nature of deeper intention. Kosmos, 80. Sharma, M. (2007, Fall/Winter). Personal to planetary transformation. Kosmos, 31–33. Smith, H. (1977). Forgotten truth: The primordial tradition. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Snyder, G. (2004). The practice of the wild. Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard.

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CHAPTER 6

THE EMBODIED RESEARCHER Meditation’s Role in Spirituality Research John (Jack) P. Miller

Harry Lewis (2007), former dean of Harvard College, has written about how the university has become “soulless” and the student is seen as “a brain on a stick” (p. 100). He argues that the university has forgotten how to “help students understand what it means to be human” (p. 3). Edmundson (2013) has also written about how universities focus only on the head. He writes: “schools now educate the mind and not the heart. The curriculum has become arid and abstract. What Keats memorably called ‘soul-making’ is absent from current education. It needs to be restored” (p. xiii). Many forms of research within academia also suffer from this same problem; it too has become disconnected from the body, and soul of the researcher. Morris Berman (1990) has written about an embodied approach to historical research. “[W]e do not have methodologies of feeling, only of analyzing” and he calls for “a visceral approach to history,” which would “create bodily and emotional echoes in the person who reads historical studies” (pp. 131, 134). In this chapter, I present the case for embodied research and how it can be achieved through contemplative practice, more specifically, meditation.

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 127–139 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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First, I discuss meditation and how its characteristics are relevant to inquiry and research. This is followed by a brief discussion of phenomenology and its similarities to meditation. There is then a discussion of how meditation practice facilitates embodiment, which is important to research in spirituality. Finally, there is discussion of epistemology in embodied research. MEDITATION Meditation practice is an investigation of who we are. It is the investigation of our bodies, our breath, of the sensations of subtle energies, of movement. It is the investigation of our minds: thought, emotion, the nature of awareness of consciousness itself. It is the investigation of silence. In meditation practice we explore all these aspects of ourselves. —Joseph Goldstein (1999, p. 118)

One of the oldest forms of research is meditation. As Goldstein (1999) states, it is an inquiry into many aspects of our lives. For over 2,000 years practitioners have pursued this inquiry and today research has shown the positive benefits of meditative practice. Smalley and Winston (2010) define mindfulness as a “state of consciousness, characterized by attention to present experience with a stance of open curiosity” (p. xvi). They summarize the positive benefits of mindfulness practice: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Reducing stress Reducing chronic physical pain Boosting the body’s immune system to fight disease Coping with painful life events, such as the death of a loved one or major illness Dealing with negative emotions like anger, fear and greed Increasing self-awareness to detect harmful reactive patterns of thought, feeling and action Improving attention or concentration Enhancing positive emotions, including happiness and compassion Increasing interpersonal relationships Reducing addictive behaviors, such as easting disorders, alcoholism and smoking Enhancing performance, whether in work, sports, or academics Stimulating and releasing creativity Changing positively the actual structure of our brains (p. xvii)

Bhante Gunaratana (1999) discusses the main characteristics of mindfulness meditation which I believe can be applied to research in spirituality. Before discussing these characteristics, I outline the basic process of

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mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation has its roots in vispassana, or insight meditation. Insight Meditation Insight, or vipassana meditation focuses on being aware of what happens in each moment. This meditation starts with an awareness of the flow of the breath. One simply follows either the breath coming in and out of the nostrils or the arising and falling of the chest or the abdomen. The eyes are usually closed and the flow of the breath can be labeled “in and out” for the nostrils, or “rising and falling” for the abdomen. Insight meditation however, does not stay with the breath as the sole focus. Although it is the anchor to which the meditator can always return, the awareness gradually moves to other phenomena. For example, the awareness can also focus on the sensations that may arise in the body. If the knee starts to hurt, or the arm itches, the attention can shift to these sensations. The mind simply notices these sensations as they arise and stays focused on them and then notices them passing away. The term insight is based, to a large extent, on witnessing the arising and passing away of phenomena. Wisdom can develop through this witnessing. Another area that can be an area of focus is feelings. One can notice whether there are pleasant or unpleasant feelings connected with various body sensations or mind states. One mind state that is unpleasant is anger. By coming back to the breath the person gains balance and gains an awareness of the passing nature of anger. Insight can come from witnessing anger arising and passing away. So meditation is witnessing what is happening in a nonjudgmental manner and this witnessing facilitates the inquiry into our experience. CHARACTERISTICS OF MINDFULNESS MEDITATION Bhante Gunaratana (1999), a Buddhist monk, has described the basic characteristics of insight or mindfulness meditation. These are helpful in identifying how meditative inquiry can assist spiritual research and inquiry. Nonjudgmental observation is the first characteristic. Gunaratana (1999) writes: “One simply takes a balanced interest in things exactly as they are in their natural states” (p. 135). He goes on to say that there is no deciding or judging. He then writes, “The meditator observes experiences very much like a scientist observing an object under a microscope without any preconceived notions, only to see the object exactly as it is” (p. 135). It is important to note the connection Gunaratana makes to scientific observation as Buddhism has

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been referred to as a science of the mind. He also suggests that it can be difficult to see objectively if the person is not aware of his or her own state of mind. For example, if the person is depressed, mindfulness can bring an awareness of the depression and its effect on the observation process. Impartial watchfulness is a second characteristic. Gunaratana states that there is not taking sides in the process. The practitioner does not cling to positive mental or bodily experiences or reject unpleasant experiences. As much as possible the person treats all experience equally. Through this effort the practitioner builds a steadiness of mind. Nonconceptual awareness is another characteristic and means “bare attention.” There is no thinking about or conceptualizing experience. Gunaratana writes: “It just observes everything as if it were occurring for the first time. It is not analysis, which is based on reflection and memory. . . . It comes before thought in the perceptual process” (pp. 135–136). This is similar to Suzuki Roshi’s (1970) “beginner’s mind.” For Zen students the most important thing is not to be dualistic. Our “original mind” includes everything within itself. It is always rich and sufficient within itself. You should not lose your self-sufficient mind. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few. . . . The beginner’s mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. (pp. 21–22)

Suzuki Roshi makes an important point that impartial watchfulness and nonceptual awareness are not indifferent to suffering but give rise to compassion. A fourth characteristic is present-time awareness that focuses on the here and now. This is at the core of meditative inquiry and requires what is called “right effort” in the Buddhist tradition. The mind easily begins to make associations and comparisons rather than staying in the moment. Gunaratana (1999) writes, “If you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is memory. When you then become aware that you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is mindfulness” (p. 136). Nonegotistic alertness is another characteristic. This means the practitioner does not identify with what is happening. Gunaratana states, “With mindfulness one sees all phenomena without references to concepts like ‘me,’ ‘my,’ or ‘mine’” (p. 136). He gives the example that when the person feels pain in the knee, the sensation is noted rather than saying “I have a pain.” As much as possible, the practitioner observes without distortion. Gunaratana (1999) states that awareness of change is also a characteristic of meditative inquiry. “Mindfulness is the observance of the basic nature of each passing phenomenon” (p.136). It is watching things as they arise

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and pass away and also noticing how we react to change. This seeing the “basic nature of phenomenon” is similar to phenomenology, which is discussed later in this paper. The final characteristic identified by Gunaratana is participatory observation. He writes that “the meditator is both participant and observer at the same time. . . . It is wakeful experience of life, an alert participation in the ongoing process of living” (p. 137). This idea of participant-observer is also found in qualitative research. The researcher has the dual role of inquiring and participating in the study. Gunaratana (1999) believes that mindfulness meditation is a holistic process. It occurs as a unit: You notice your own lack of mindfulness, and that noticing itself is a result of mindfulness is bare attention; and bare attention is noticing things exactly as they are without distortion; and the way they are is impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and selfless (anatta). It all takes place in the space of a few mind moments. (p. 140)

Gunaratana also argues that mindfulness meditation deals with the inner world. This is a crucial point in that spirituality also deals with inner world. However, this inner world is not separate from the outer world but is deeply connected to it. It is has been argued that our inner world is a microcosm of the universe itself, and that inquiring into the inner world we also discover our relationship to others and the universe. As we witness the arising and passing of phenomena, we can see the difficulty of holding on and grasping at things. We can begin to understand suffering not only for ourselves, but for others and as a result compassion can arise. Mindfulness meditation through the characteristics just identified can also be applied to spirituality research. Research in spirituality can also involve • • • • • •

nonjudgmental observation impartial watchfulness nonconceptual awareness present-time awareness nonegotistic alertness awareness of changeparticipatory observation

However, I would argue spiritual inquiry should also include reflection on experience. Mindfulness meditation allows us to see phenomena clearly as much as possible without distortion. Still there is need for reflection. As Boud, Keough, and Walker (1985) state, “Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning” (p. 19). The problem is that in most cases there is a move

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to analysis before the experience of nondualistic knowing. Without fully experiencing what Gunaratana calls the holistic experience of mindfulness then the analysis will usually be inadequate. In other contexts, I have made the case for the contemplative practitioner (Miller, 2014), which includes both contemplative, or mindful, knowing and reflection. We need both reflection and contemplation; the two processes complement each other. Contemplation opens us to direct, unmediated experience, while reflection allows for analysis and understanding of experience. The contemplative practitioner engages in both reflection and contemplation and moves from one to the other where appropriate. Phenomenology Phenomenology is a form of qualitative research that contains many of the same principles of mindfulness meditation. Moustakas (1994) has written about transcendental phenomenology, which is particularly relevant to this discussion. He outlines the main features of this method that are summarized below. • Phenomenology focuses on seeing things as they are. Phenomenology is “committed to descriptions of experiences, not explanations or analyses” (pp. 58–59). Descriptions in phenomenology should as much as possible reflect “direct seeing.” In descriptions one seeks to present in vivid and accurate terms, in complete terms, what appears in consciousness and in direct seeing-images, impressions, verbal pictures, features of heaviness, lightness, sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness, openness, constrictedness, coldness, warmth, roughness, smoothness, sense qualities of sound, touch, sight and taste, and aesthetic properties. This is similar to “bare attention” in mindfulness practice, which does not embellish perception with concepts or analysis. • The second feature for Moustakas is wholeness, or “examining entities from many sides, angles and perspectives unified vision is achieved” (p. 58). This is similar to Gunaratana’s idea of holistic perception described previously. • The integration of subject and object is another feature of phenomenology—“what I see is interwoven . . . with who I am” (p. 59). This means that the person’s own awareness and experience are seen as “primary evidences of scientific investigation.” This is similar to the principle of participant observation in mindfulness where the practitioner holds the awareness of mind states as they arise.

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Phenomenology differs from mindfulness meditation in that is begins with a research question that guides the inquiry. In mindfulness meditation there is no question, just observing what is happening and developing insights from this process. THE EMBODIED RESEARCHER Robert Sardello (1995) has written about the body as a source of wisdom. He writes, “Sophia is Wisdom, and wisdom lives deep in the body and flows into the senses. . . . It is not knowing at a distance, but intimate knowledge” (p. 176). There is research that demonstrates the connection between mind and body (Bert, 1986). Canadace Bert, a neuroscience researcher, found that neuropeptides and neural receptions are not only found in the brain, but also in the rest of the body. She found that she could make a distinction between knowing in the brain and in the rest of the body. In reviewing the research in the area of mind-body connection, Tobin Hart (2014) writes: Staying “in” our bodies gives us a profound source of information about the world. Listening to those gut feelings, incorporating our hunches, feeling our way into the question, and thinking through combine to enrich our knowing. Our thinking is actually a more sensory, body-infused, and integrated process than it has been made out to be. (p. 19)

If we accept these ideas, then the connection to the body becomes an important aspect of any research endeavor, even more so when the area is spirituality. Mindfulness meditation, then, can provide one means of allowing the researcher to fully engage body and mind during an inquiry. Specifically, it allows the researcher to embody the fundamental principles of phenomenological inquiry. By doing mindfulness as a sustained practice, the person deepens the ability to see things as they are. Gunaratana (1999) believes that “mindfulness makes possible the growth of wisdom and compassion” (p. 141). The development of wisdom and compassion is a goal of many contemplative practices including meditation. The practitioner, who has acquired these qualities to some degree, will be able to bring them to research in the area of spirituality which requires this deeper level of understanding. Doing meditative practice, there is a greater possibility that the researcher will embody wisdom, compassion and insight in conducting the research, drawing conclusions, and applying the findings. Braud and Anderson (1998) write about the importance of mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion in research. They identify five areas that are relevant to “research, practical applications and self-transformation” (p. 242). The first is mindfulness, which includes “an abiding awareness, an integral awareness, an expansive awareness. It also is a compassionate awareness—a

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compassionate awareness of actions, motives and thoughts” (p. 243). The second factor is discernment, a seeing to the heart of things, a seeing and knowing of what is not immediately evident” (p. 244). Appreciation and understanding are the next qualities. Braud and Anderson suggest that the Greek term aisthesis is relevant here and involves a “taking in or breathing in (inspiring) of the world—a taking in taking to heart, internalizing, becoming intimate with. . . . Aisthesis suggests the intaking of the breath in wonder, in appreciation” (p. 244). Transformation of self is a fourth factor. “One’s being changes; there is transformation of the self, of the seeker, of the researcher, and of the practitioner” (p. 244). Romanayshyn (2007) believes that what he calls re-search involves transformation. It is a letting go of the ego’s hold and connecting with soul. In his words, “re-search is a journey of transformation. What the knower comes to know changes who the knower is” (p. 117). The final aspect involves transformation of others. Through sharing, generosity, magnanimity, service to others, and compassionate abiding, this facet helps us create and sustain a benign and friendly world we can enjoy inhabiting. Not only may other individuals change, but smaller and larger groups, organizations, institutions, societies, and cultures—even the planet as a whole—may change, as well, in this fifth facet of the process. This is the social action component—the political component of the process. (Braud & Anderson, 1998, p. 245)

This is similar to what Parker Palmer (1998) refers to as communities of congruence as people come together to create change. This grassroots change is similar to what Paul Hawken (2007) who suggests that this change is “organic, if not biologic” in its growth. Based on his travels around the world and meeting with many grassroots organizations, Hawken argues that there is a “movement without a name” that involves one or two million groups working for “ecological sustainability and social justice.” There are two unstated principles at the core of this movement: “first is the Golden Rule; second is the sacredness of all life, whether it be a creature, child, or culture” (p. 186). Hawken’s “movement without a name” could be seen a form of spiritual awakening on the planet. EPISTEMOLOGY OF EMBODIED RESEARCH: CARDIOGNOSIS The ancients saw the person as a whole and did not distinguish between heart and mind. Hart (2014) notes that the Chinese word xin is often translated as mind, but it actually means both mind and heart. This is also true in Pali, the language of the Buddha, where the heart and mind were seen as one and not divisible. Hart writes:

The Embodied Researcher    135 The great souls have shown us what the wisdom of an integrated heart can look like. Jesus’ love and Buddha’s compassion, for example, speak of radical, relational, and sometimes seemingly irrational intelligence—the logic of the heart. As a way of knowing, love opens the world only through a corresponding opening within us. (p. 83)

This “logic of the heart” has been called cardiognosis by Romanyshyn (2007). For Romanyshyn, cardiognosis includes a number of factors, such as “remembering the ancestors which linger in the work” (p. 287). It also includes compassion. He writes: [C]ompassion situates the research as a companion to the work, a friend of the work. Since the stem “pan” in the word “companion” derives from the Latin word for bread, we should add the methodological cultivation of compassion, as a way of applying the feeling function in research, indicates that a researcher does indeed feed the work with his or her own substance. The ink that flows on the page and the blood that flows in one’s heart are in this sense com-panions in the process and along the path of research. (p. 288)

Romanyshyn also notes that the research feeds the researcher as well. He also refers to the potential dark side of research that it can sometimes drain the researcher of energy. For Romanyshyn, cardiognosis is an act of love. He believes love is the “great teacher” who draws the researcher fully into the work. Romanyshyn writes there is shift in the researcher to where, one understands knowledge as an exercise of power to one that understands it as an exercise of love. In this shift, method is not so much as a procedure as way doing the work: doing it with love . . . in order to learn something we must fall in love. (p. 289)

A classic example of cardiognosis is the work of Barbara McClintock who won a Nobel Prize in biology. The object of her inquiry was genetics as found in corn; she believed that one must have a feeling for the organism one is investigating along with an openness that allows that organism to reveal itself to the researcher (Keller, 1983). Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic, called the experience of holistic knowing where we become one with another, “oneing.” The embodied researcher then can be said to engage in the process of oneing (Starr, 2013, p. xv). Again, meditation has a potential role in facilitating cardiognosis in the form of metta, or loving-kindness practice. Sharon Salzberg (1995) is one of the most respected teachers of metta. She writes: Metta—the sense of love that is not bound to desire, that does not have to pretend that things are other than the way they are—overcomes the illusion

136    J. P. MILLER of separateness, of not being part of a whole. Thereby metta overcomes all the states that accompany this fundamental error of separateness—fear, alienation, loneliness, and despair—all of the feelings of fragmentation. In place of these, the genuine realization of connectedness brings unification, confidence, and safety. (p. 21)

Metta can be seen in a steady attitude of friendliness. “The culmination of metta is to become a friend to oneself and all of life” (Salzberg, p. 25). Metta then is ultimately a meditation on how we are connected to people, animals, life, and all creation. The essence of this meditation is to center in the heart area and to contact a basic warmth there. After connecting with the heart then there is the attempt to share this warmth and energy with others. There are various forms of loving-kindness and the one below was taught to me by a Burmese monk, U Silananda. I have made some minor changes in the wording. May I be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this room be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this building be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this neighborhood be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this town or city be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this region be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this hemisphere be well, happy, and peaceful. May all beings in this planet be well, happy and peaceful. May all beings in this universe be well, happy and peaceful.

Here the practitioner can include all sentient beings. One can also work with people starting with family then moving to friends, colleagues, and possibly people that are challenging in one’s life. Another approach to loving-kindness practice is to focus first on one person who is close to you. The practitioner imagines the person and sends thoughts such as: May you be free from suffering. May you be healthy. May you be free from danger. May you dwell in wisdom. May you dwell in compassion. May you rejoice in the happiness of others.

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Any words can be chosen. The practice then involves imagining a person where there is not strong feeling or connection. This can then be followed by sending thoughts to someone that presents difficulty in one’s life. Research is now beginning on loving-kindness practice. It was found in one study that university students who were taught this practice, that their kindness increased among them compared to a control group where their imagery was neutral. (Hutcherson, Seppala, & Gross, 2008) Metta has been employed in the most difficult circumstances in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi has made it central to her work for democratic change in Burma. Suu Kyi (1997) talks about the importance of compassion in her work: We put a great emphasis on metta. It is the same idea as in the biblical quotation: “Perfect love casts out fear.” While I cannot claim to have discovered “perfect love,” I think it’s a fact that you are not frightened of people whom you do not hate. Of course, I did get angry occasionally with some of the things they did, but anger as passing emotion is quite different from the feeling of sustained hatred or hostility. (p. 163)

Metta is also the founding principle of her party, the National League for Democracy. When asked about the founding principle she said: It is metta. Rest assured that if we should lose this metta, the whole democratic party would disintegrate. Metta is not only to be applied to those that connected with you. It should be applied to those who are against you. Metta means sympathy for others. Not doing unto others what one does not want done to oneself. . . . So our league does not wish to harm anyone. . . . We are an organization that is free from grudge and puts metta to the fore. (Popham, p. 312)

Students in my class who have practiced metta have commented on its impact. One woman on the subway practiced loving-kindness meditation. She said: “When I see each person in the subway, I look at them and pray for them. And I see a brother and a sister, and a family everywhere.” CONCLUSION This chapter is based on critiques that argue that much of the work that goes on in academia is not embodied (Edmundson, 2013; Lewis, 2006). This critique also applies to research. As a counter to this problem, this paper presents a case for meditation as one means of embodiment. Many aspects of meditative practice, such as nonjudgmental observation and nonconeptual awareness, are relevant to research particularly as it relates to spirituality. There are also parallels between meditative practice and phenomenology,

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which is often used as a method in spirituality research. The concept of cardiognosis was discussed as a way of knowing in spirituality research, and loving-kindness practice was shown as supporting the embodiment of this epistemology. Earlier in this chapter I cited Robert Sardello, who also writes about a long line of “perpetual researchers” who are not encumbered by dogma and who can connect with Sophia and the wisdom of the body (p. 49). Mostly these have been spiritual seekers and practitioners working outside of the academy. Thoreau is a good example of a perpetual seeker (Miller, 2011). The embodied researcher then can be seen as a perpetual researcher who avoids dogma and seeks wisdom in a deeply holistic manner. REFERENCES Berman, M. (1990). Coming to our senses. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Bert, C. D. (1986). The wisdom of receptors: Neuropeptides, the emotions and body mind. Advances 3, 8–16. Boud D., Keogh R., & Walker D. (1985). Reflection: Turning experience into learning. New York, NY: Routledge. Braud, W. & Anderson, R. (1998). Transpersonal research methods for the social sciences: Honoring human experience. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Edmundson, M. (2013). Why teach: In defense of real education. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Goldstein, J. (1999). The science and art of meditation. In S. Salzberg (Ed.), Voices of insight (pp. 118–132). Boston, MA: Shambhala. Gunaratana, B. (1999). Mindfulness. In S. Salzberg (Ed.), Voices of insight (pp. 133– 142). Boston, MA: Shambhala. Hart, T. (2014). The four virtues. New York, NY: Atria Hawken, P. (2007). Blessed unrest: How the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming. New York, NY: Viking. Hutcherson, C. A., Seppala, E. M., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion, 720–724. Keller, E. F. (1983). A feeling for the organism: The life and work of Barbara McClintock. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman. Lewis, H. R. (2006). Excellence without a soul: Does liberal education have a future? New York, NY: Public Affairs. Miller, J. (2011). Transcendental learning: The educational legacy of Alcott, Emerson, Fuller, Peabody and Thoreau. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Miller, J. (2014). The contemplative practitioner: Meditation in education and the workplace. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Popham, P. (2011). The lady and the peacock: The life of Aung San Suu Kyi. New York, NY: Experiment.

The Embodied Researcher    139 Romanyshyn, R. D. (2007). The wounded researcher: Research with soul in mind. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books. Roshi, S. (1970). Zen mind, beginner’s mind: Informal talks on zen meditation and practice. New York, NY: Weatherhill. Salzberg, S. (1995). Loving-kindness: The revolutionary art of happiness. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Sardello, R. (1995). Love and the soul: Creating a future for earth. New York, NY: Harper Collins. Smalley, S. L., & Winston, D. (2010). Fully present: The science, art and practice of mindfulness. Boston, MA: DeCapo. Starr, M. (2013). The showings of Julian of Norwich. Charlottesville, NC: Hampton Roads. Suu Kyi, A. S. (1997). The voice of hope: Conversations with Alan Clements. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.

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CHAPTER 7

DEVELOPING A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM A Confucian Perspective Jing Lin, Tom Culham, and Rebecca Oxford

This chapter endeavors the construction of a spiritual research paradigm through the lens of Confucianism.1 The Confucianism we reference might be thought of as a way of life rather than as abstract philosophy to be studied and debated.2 We believe the living version of Confucianism is a valuable perspective because Confucius saw human knowledge and enlightenment as a process of acquiring wisdom through living a virtuous life in the world. In this view, research and the development of knowledge is an endeavor that is a way of life and part of moral cultivation and service to the world rather than separate, objective, and independent as is assumed in Western science. The notions of “human-heaven unity” and “humanheaven correspondence” is the ontological belief of Confucianism, and it forms the view of a spiritual research paradigm from a Confucian perspective. The concepts of human-heaven unity and correspondence assume that virtue or the Good is a normative force in the universe and cultivation involves putting oneself in attunement with the underlying goodness of Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 141–169 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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the universe (Wong, 2001). The outcome of attunement is humans who: live long healthy lives, have access to the knowledge and wisdom of the universe, and contribute to society (flourish in the Greek sense of eudemonia). Elaborating further, Mencius, one of the most famous Confucians after Confucius himself, held that humans were given an “impersonal ordering force from heaven” that he conceived of as sprouts of goodness (Wong, 2001). Confucian cultivation of these sprouts involves attuning or aligning oneself with the ordering patterns of the universe. It is through the attunement that one engages in spiritual research that provides one with practical and spiritual knowledge. In simple terms attunement with the great patterns of the universe is the means by which one conducts spiritual research. On the other hand, modern science is not interested or focused on attunement with the underlying forces of the universe, rather, prediction and control are foremost among its interests (Fleischacker, 1992). Taylor (1982) held that the West once had an interest in attunement for the purpose of developing knowledge, but modern science lost this concern. The approach it has taken has served it well in terms of exploring the physical world (Taylor, 1982), however, it perhaps has left it bereft of the means to explore and research spirituality. An underlying assumption throughout this chapter is that Confucian cultivation is a process of aligning with or attuning with the underlying ordering patterns of the universe and that these patterns include the physical (material), emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of the universe. Western science has not always focused on understanding the material world through objective inquiry. Jahn and Dunne (2007) of Princeton Engineering observed that: Over the greater portion of its long scholarly history, the particular form of human observation, reasoning, and technical development we properly term “science” has relied at least as much on subjective experience and inspiration as it has on objective experiments and theories. Only over the past few centuries has subjectivity been progressively excluded from the practice of science leaving an essentially secular analytical paradigm. (p. 295)

Recently there has been a shift in science with attention directed to emotions and matters of consciousness. Jahn and Dunne (2007) note that a paradigm needs to be developed to incorporate the subjective in the scientific paradigm. Give the emphasis on the objective and inquiry into matter, the spiritual realm remains to a large extent scientifically unexplored. Making this shift will not be without difficulties. Philosophers speak of the incommensurability of Western and Chinese philosophy (Wong, 2001). Incommensurable in philosophical terms means that “the questions and answers in one tradition cannot sustain meaningful statement in the other

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tradition,” that is the “traditions rely on the recognition of radical difference in basic concepts and modes of inquiry” (Wong, 2001). This concern matters in everyday life and with respect to discussing a spiritual research paradigm. For example, one who lives in the Western tradition and believes that the universe at its heart is matter will feel uneasy and perhaps hold a derisive attitude when considering the views of someone who lives in the Chinese tradition where it is assumed that the universe is made of energy and information (spirit, or qi), which manifests as matter. This perhaps is the experience of many westerners when they first encounter ancient Confucian and Daoist thinking. To entertain a spiritual research paradigm from a Confucian perspective it is necessary to consider Confucian (and Daoist) cosmology as much as it may appear to be inconsistent with Western scientific perspectives which perhaps are dominated by the view that the universe is comprised of matter and energy. We feel it is a useful exercise to encounter this perspective because the form of Confucianism that we consider here by its very ontology and axiology places a priority on investigating the world subjectively through a very personal process of cultivating virtue.3 Significant points about Confucianism that support this assertion are: • Confucianism is an integrated world view, based on the unity of the cosmos, society; and individuals, all of whom are linked by a primordial energy, qi or ch’i, therefore we are not fundamentally separate beings. • Dao and the primordial qi are one, and qi gives rise to and encompasses the material and spiritual quality of all that exist, including human beings. • Dao’s working principles are virtues based, which means qi (energy) and virtues are interrelated and mutually enhancing. • Confucianism assumes that human virtue is an expression of the Dao in human life and therefore the primary and most important action humans can take is to cultivate virtue as it enables an alignment or attunement with the Dao, the origin of life, exemplified in the statement human-heaven unity. • Confucianism is a cultivation system that links individuals with the world and the universe, and aims at transformation of one’s body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit for the common good and peace and harmony of the world. One of the outcomes of the cultivation of virtue is that one gains access to knowledge.4 While our present day science might be characterized as a discipline that relies on objective inquiry as a means of gaining knowledge, Confucianism on the other hand could be characterized as a discipline that

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relies on subjective inquiry for much broader purposes one of which is to gain knowledge. The following elaborates on our understanding of Confucianism and how it might inform the subjective aspects of a spiritual research paradigm. The world in Confucianism is one that is similar with the African notion of ubuntu, “I am because we are” (Tutu, 2000). What underlies this similarity is the concept of the primordial energy that Chinese philosophy emphasizes, qi, which is the physical, informational, bio-energy, and spiritual element that creates and connects all people and existence in a web of relationship (Lin, 2006). In this concept, there is no separation of the physical from the spiritual, individual from the group, and human beings from the cosmos. In other words, the personal affects the world and the cosmos and vice versa. We are not single, independent entities, but are perpetually in interrelations and interconnections. Confucianism emphasizes our striving to serve the world through virtues cultivation and to align our qi, mind, heart, and soul for the betterment of the world, and in the process we fulfill our life’s larger purpose. In Tu Weiming’s (2001) words: Confucian learning starts from the self, and in a circular form expands outward to the family, the community, the country, the world and even the cosmos. It has the feature of a circle expanding outward but also it contains the layers of deepening inward, touching our own body, mind, spirit and soul. (Tu, 2001, p. 4)

Current research is mostly based on the positivist paradigm where reality is composed of the material world and subjective human beings. Human beings are independent from the physical world and the purpose of research is to understand the physical world while we try to eliminate our subjective interference (Mertens, 2014). Qualitative research paradigms, although recognizing subjectivity in research, largely neglect the role of research as a process of moral cultivation, and neglect the specific steps for one to expand one’s consciousness horizons in order for research to be an act of cultivating wisdom and enlightenment. We often ignore or are not aware of the fundamental forces that propel human life and all other existence. Physical sciences neglect human will, intention and emotions as forces in the world; social sciences neglect the deep-seated informational, ecological, energy-based reality that exist as a propelling force of life. We believe that we need to link knowledge to our awareness level, energy level and virtue level (Lin, 2013, 2006). Tu Weiming (1978) said: The exclusive dichotomy of matter/spirit, body/mind, sacred/profane, human/nature, or creator/creature must be transcended to allow supreme values, such as the sanctity of the earth, the continuity of being, the beneficiary interaction between the human community and nature, and the mutuality

Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm    145 between humankind and Heaven, to receive the saliency they deserve in philosophy, religion, and theology. (p. 6)

We believe that in research methodology there should also be this kind of transcendence. In this chapter, we decipher what a Confucian spiritual research paradigm entails. We attempt to explore these questions: What are the ontological, axiological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions and how might this inform spiritual research paradigm? Is research to be an endeavor for the expansion of our moral landscape, the expansion of our relational connectivity, and for linking the inner self to the larger world and even the universe? We draw out the Confucian core values of the individual’s responsibility for self-cultivation, improvement and being a force for social change from Confucian classics such as the Analects, Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Mencius and the Book of Changes. We also draw from other sources that extrapolate the traditional Chinese philosophy of human-nature or human-heaven oneness and correspondence, and the idea of qi and the universal Dao. THE ONTOLOGY OF CONFUCIANISM In Chinese traditional philosophy, as articulated by Zhou Dunyu (Li & Feng, 1996), the universe is first formed of the void, wuji, which is full of the primordial qi energy, then something comes out of the void, called taiji, (translated as the one, or maybe the spirit, the Dao), and then taiji transforms into two, the yin and yang vital forces, and yin and yang continue to interact and transform into five elements with various forms of qi (metal, wood, water, fire and earth), and these elements create the myriad of things with different features and dispositions. In this process, the qi energy transforms into matter/objects/forms imbued with spirit consciousness, and as time moves on, the energy dissipates and the myriads of existence disintegrate and transform back to qi, the formless existence of the spirit realm. The whole universe is formed of qi energy, which moves the stars in the universe, regulates the destiny of the human societies and affects the health and well-being of the human beings. Our human body and various organs are powered by qi energy, dividing into various forms and comprising the organs of our bodies, which perform their respective function. Qi is invisible to the naked eye as it is similar to electricity. Our thoughts can regulate the energy as our emotions can tremendously impact the functioning of qi. The meridians in our body are like the circulating channels of the qi energy within the body and they further function as channels connecting the body with the outside world, namely the society, nature, and the cosmos. With qi, the individual being is hence connected to the larger world and to the cosmos.

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Both Confucian and Daoist philosophy hold that the world and the universe are structured and based on the following fundamental principles: (a) There is a relationship and correspondence between the cosmos, nature/Earth/solar system, and the human beings; (b) there is an inherent connectivity among them in function, structure and destiny; (c) there is an assumption that the phenomena of the universe are holographic. This concept holds that the phenomenon of the universe at a macro scale can be observed at a micro scale in humans. For example, the human body is formed of atoms, and atoms have electrons orbiting the nuclei just like the stars orbiting around the sun in the solar system, and the countless stars swirling around the Big Dipper to form the Milky Way. Further, our body is strongly influenced by the sun and moon, with the sun providing yang energy and the moon providing yin energy which affect all lives on earth. Women’s period corresponds with the lunar cycle of 29 days, for example. There is a “relational resonance of the human with the cosmos” (Evelyn & Berthrong, 1998, p. xxxvii). The human body is a small universe—this is the fundamental notion of the Chinese philosophy. The correspondence of the microcosmic world and the macrocosmic world is not only apparent in what we can see, but also in the invisible qi connecting all of existence. All phenomena originate in qi and all return to qi. Qi is the spirit, energy/ informational source that forms into matter, which returns to qi. To sum up, with regard to qi here are some essential beliefs in Confucian philosophy: • There is a primordial chaos where the original qi exists; this qi evolves into yin and yang energy which then interact with human energy which together brings forth all that exist in the cosmos; hence cosmos, nature and humans are integrated (Laozi, Tao Te Ching). • Everything comes from qi; qi is in everything. • Qi is information/bio-energy spirit that enables all existence, the inorganic, organic and human life forms, to communicate and function in a coordinated fashion. • Qi transforms and changes constantly and a state of harmonious interaction generates life and fosters all existence (Doctrine of the Mean5). • There is an underlying unconscious moral mechanism, Dao, that regulates the qi with the moral virtues. This maintains balance in the world. (Major, Queen, Meyer, & Roth, 2010). These notions are fundamental for both Daoism and Confucianism. Human-heaven oneness (人天合一) and human-heaven correspondence ( 人天相应) are inherent in Confucianism. That is, humans are by nature

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spiritual, created as a part of the sacred universe; and just as humans are part of the universe, the universe is part of humans. For the Confucians this linkage is a reality because all life is constituted of ch’i (qi), the material force or psycho-physical element of the universe. This is the unifying element of the cosmos and creates the basis for a profound reciprocity between humans and the natural world. (Evelyn & Berthrong, 1998, p. xxxvi)

Ancient Chinese believe that when there is injustice and suffering in human society, signs will be shown in the constellations; and sun and moon’s movement all display signs of natural and human disasters on Earth. In Wang Yangmin’s terms, the whole universe is of one heart-mind, and our heart-mind encompass the whole universe, and Dao is in us. As everything has qi and all human beings have qi, humans can use a myriad of methods to cultivate their qi to elevate their abilities and transform the world. Another ontological belief is that the cosmos, human society, and individuals are all regulated by virtues. Our thoughts, emotions and deeds all evoke qi, the loss or gaining of which depends on whether we follow the principle of virtues. This notion is illuminated in Confucian and Daoist classics. Virtues are seen as the functional principles that maintain the working of the cosmos and the well-being of all existence, and virtues are built into the collective unconsciousness, which make it possible that we are kind and loving (Lin, 2006). Tao Te Ching by Laozi, is called in Chinese a Book of Dao and its Virtues. It literally means that virtues are the manifestation of Dao, and Dao manifests itself in the world through virtue. In this book, Laozi talks about compassion, service, forgiveness, humility, kindness, softness, harmony, and peace, as fundamental principles and mechanisms for the working of the cosmos and the human society. The Book of Changes,6 one of the most significant Chinese philosophical classics, contains 64 chapters known as hexagrams. It delineates how virtue undergirds everything, including all symbolic and energy forms of our world and life, nature and the cosmos. The hexagram (Chapter 15) qian (谦), denoting humbleness (Huang, 2010), has the symbol of the mountain underneath the earth. It denotes that people in high position should be humble. The hexagram (Chapter 13) tongren (同人), denoting seeking harmony (Huang 2010), literally means “be one with others” and that we should work for the common good. This notion is echoed in another Confucian classic, Li Ji, or Book of Rites, that expounds that “When the Dao prevails, the whole world aims to work for the Common Good.” In Chinese traditional medicine, the oldest classic Huangdi Neijing, or The Inner Cannon of Huangdi, denotes that “Heaven and Humans correspond with each other,” and “Heaven and Earth are one” and that humans and nature share similar origin, nature, structure and principles

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(Unschuld, 2003). They have qi which connects them and they support each other through qi exchange and transformation.7 The very nature of qi is movement and therefore change is a fundamental element of its nature. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that qi forms the energy network in our body, and while our emotions and deeds can affect the qi in our body, our thoughts and deeds also affect the function and well-being of nature and even the cosmos. When we are angry, we hurt the qi in our liver; when we are sad, we deplete the qi in the lung; when we are worried, we affect the qi in our kidney, and when we are happy, we affect the qi of our heart. The four seasons also affect our organs’ functions, with energy of spring corresponding with that of the liver, summer with that of the heart, autumn with that of the lung, and winter with that of the kidney. In a word, our emotions and behaviors can preserve or deplete the qi energy in our body, and while nature affects the function of our body, our energy also circulates in and affects nature. An example that we are all familiar with from the material worlds is that trees produce oxygen for humans while we produce carbon dioxide for trees. This principle applies with respect to qi and its energy and information as well. In sum: • The most vital force that makes the cosmos is neither solely spiritual nor matter but both. The cosmos consists of dynamic energy fields that have psychophysical structures (Tu, 1998). • The working of qi is guided by virtues. Virtues determine the source and amount of energy, and the interconnection and interfusing of energy among the cosmos, nature and human beings (Roth, 1999). • Virtue is the underlying foundation of human relationship and it determines societal and individual well-being. Confucianism is not secular, rather it is a philosophy and practice founded in a spiritual tradition that was secularized for the application to the largest possible population as a means to guide human life and social interaction through virtue. Confucius himself was a mystic who taught that filial piety is the virtue that enables one to work with the spirits in the classic The Piety Sutra. In the Confucian tradition, filial piety is held in high regard, as people who have passed away are considered still alive in the spirit realm influencing the world in energy/information/spiritual forms. A person who is pious is connected back to the origin of existence. It begins with practicing filial piety through extending kindness and respect to parents and siblings, and this habit provides the foundation from which people can extend their love to the world and act in ways that engender family, community and world harmony.

Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm    149 The Teacher said, “He who loves his parents does not dare to do evil unto others; he who respects his parents does not dare to be arrogant to others. Love and respect are exerted to the utmost in serving the parents, and this virtue and teaching is extended to the people; the example is shown to the whole world beyond China.” (Piety Sutra: Tianzi 2)

Piety is hence the route to reach the mysterious and heavenly force (Piety Sutra: Ganyin 16). Today, ancestral worship, which is very prevalent in China, is one of the remaining forms of mystical Confucianism. Confucius also talked about that “Tao is the One that connects all existence” (The Analects: Liren), and he hints that the One is a sacred force. The mystical aspects of Confucius are embedded in various texts, including The Great Learning, the Book of History and the Book of Changes (Confucius interprets this classic). In the Book of Changes, Confucius made 10 commentaries, called the Ten Wings, and in it Confucius revealed many methods and existential states of being where one is connected with the divine force. He talked about enlightened masters who can communicate and cocreate with all that exist and who can transcend physical limitations. For example they can travel at great speed and appear in places at their will without the usual effort we make8 (Book of Changes: The Great Commentary, the 1st, Chapter 10). In sum, in Confucius teaching, virtues such as piety or loving-kindness are not only moral exhortations, but universal principles and structures that embody qi energy. Confucius sees virtues as heavenly ordained, and he spent his life illuminating how heavenly virtues can be implemented in daily life. AXIOLOGY Axiology refers to the values embodied in a particular paradigm. Confucius had a mission to restore the heavenly Dao in the world. Because human virtue is the manifestation and expression of Dao in the world, Confucius concluded that people should cultivate virtue as a means attuning themselves to the ways of the Dao. The primary driving value of Confucianism, therefore, is the cultivation of human virtue (Yu, 2013). Because virtue is the manifestation of Dao in the world, one could say that ontology and axiology are not separate rather they are the source of all and tightly integrated in Confucianism. All other endeavors, such as epistemology and methodology, must contribute to the virtuous development of human beings. The question then becomes what does this mean? Tu Weiming (2008) described Confucianism as a “this worldly” philosophy. It is through cultivating one’s moral virtues and doing good in this world that one accomplish one’s heavenly ordained purpose (Tu, 2008). Indeed, in Confucian axiology, wellness of oneself is connected with wellness of the world and even of the universe.

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In Confucius’ Analects, ren (仁), or loving-kindness, is the first of the top five virtues he advocates. For Confucius, being able to love one’s own fellow human beings is one’s top duty in this world. Yi (义) or propriety and li (礼) or civility, the second and third virtues stressed by Confucius, indicates one embodies loving-kindness in one’s readiness to give selfless help to others and to conduct one’s life in civil behavior (Lin & Wang, 2010). Zhi (智), or wisdom, is the next virtue which entails seeking knowledge and wisdom, and ultimately one arrives at the ultimate goal of being trustworthy and sincere, with full understanding of the truth and total commitment to it (Wang, Zhang, Xu, & Lin, 2014). In Confucian axiology, to be an enlightened person is to love people, and as humans we are kind and loving by nature, however, the influence of the environment separates people into different traits (The Three Character Classic: 1). Mencius, the second most famous Confucian sage living more than a hundred years after Confucius passed away, postulates that humans are born with the ability to empathize with others, as we inherently sense our common inter-being and our inherent common destiny. His famous example is the response of a passing stranger upon witnessing a child crawling at the edge of a well. The stranger will instinctively reach out his hand and stop the child from falling into the well (Mencius: Gao Zi Part One). This instinct is the foundation for our empathy for each other. Mencius refers to this as sprouts of goodness that everyone has which needs to be tended like a garden in order to cultivate our innate goodness. In the Great Learning, the real knowing and ultimate wisdom are achieved through perfect kindness, meaning unconditional kindness to all that exist. The text starts with this line: “the Dao of Great Learning is to achieve enlightenment through the understanding of virtues and to love people and to arrive at perfect kindness” (The Great Learning: 1). In Confucianism, harmony, the middle way or the doctrine of the mean (中庸) denotes a balance of the yin and yang energy that helps nurture all forms of life and that enables the human body to produce positive qi energy, and with this harmony, “heaven and earth are playing their roles and myriad of things and lives are born and nurtured. Harmony is the pathway for the cosmos and human beings to reach Dao.”9 (Doctrine of the Mean: 3) In sum, • the Confucian classics instruct us that virtue is the foundation for anyone to establish themselves; • it is the mechanism for the establishment of a harmonious society, and it is the foundation on which good governance is based; and • virtues are also the principles to guide human-nature relationship— the universe operates on the principles of cooperation, harmony

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and mutual support. When humans are able to follow the same principles, we emulate and are attuned to the Dao. In the Analects, besides the five virtues mentioned above, virtues emulated by Confucius are many, such as deep respect, great tolerance, trustworthiness, flexibility, and giving10 (The Analects: Yanghuo 17). He also exemplified on many occasions the daily acts of civility that he advocated: clear seeing, careful listening, warm attitude, respectful expression, trusting speech, diligent doing, questioning when there are doubts, containment of anger, and sharing of benefits11 (The Analects: Jishipian 16). Given the foregoing, a spiritual research paradigm derived from Confucianism suggests that one must put virtue as the primary guiding value for all research endeavors. One should cultivate virtue internally through contemplative practices and introspection. Outwardly, one should be kind, loving, respectful, trustworthy, and balanced, and one should endeavor to build reciprocal relationships with the participants. The research endeavor should be carried out in civility. Researchers and research subjects are equal, and efforts should be made to build harmony, which means embracing the principles of collaboration, cooperation, understanding, tolerance, and generosity. Research is a wisdom building process and exploring virtuous pathways to life is the common pursuit between the researcher and the participant. There must be genuine trust between them. For example, when studying children’s learning in school, one would not just focus on academic achievement, one would also attend to character building; one would create opportunities for mutual learning and integration of ideas with virtuous actions, among other examples. THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF CONFUCIANISM Gaining knowledge through the lens of Confucianism is an endeavor that requires cultivation, e.g., adoption of means to cultivate an inner self that is conscious of the sacred force motivating and creating the universe. The outcome of this cultivation is a person imbued with intuition with an ever expanding understanding of the interconnection of all existence. In Confucian epistemology, knowing is experiential and holistic. One has direct experience of inner energy transformation, which is connected with knowing the power of virtues that links all phenomenon in existence. It can involve the experience of virtues as a direct source of knowledge, which is perceived through bodily experience. For example, being kind to others creates a positive learning community, which brings one also the physical effect of feeling happy and energetic. In short, one needs to align one’s body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit with the power of the universe, and then

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one can feel the heart of the universe (Tu, 2002a). This knowing is a “transformative act” integrating knowing and action (p. 371). There are specific ways to acquire knowledge. The following are a few important measures. Cultivating Virtue Through Meditation In Confucianism, the way to knowledge is through many paths. Qi and virtues are connected, and it is through meditation that a bridge is built between the physical characteristics of qi and the spirituality of the virtues. Mencius said: “I am good in cultivating my own vital force, the all encompassing qi”12 (Mencius: Gong Sun Chou 2A-2). When he was asked to explain, he said: It is difficult to put into words. Qi is expansive and powerful, and to cultivate qi one must nurture it, conserve it, accumulate and not waste it. With these endeavors it is possible that one’s qi can fill the whole universe. Qi follows the rules of Dao and violating the rules disperses and wastes qi. Qi is accumulated through one’s selfless help to others. It cannot be gained through force or attacking others. In action, if one is not humble in the heart, qi is depleted. I often said that people do not know the real meaning of selfless giving; they treat it as an external act doing for others to see. (Mencius: Gong Sun Chou 2A-2)13,14

Elevating one’s vision, knowing and abilities requires the cultivation of qi. Qi opens one to the power of the universe. Virtuous acts generate positive energy circulation, so one must be willing to manage one’s anger and give up excessive desires then one will gain. The value of giving up excess is represented in the Book of Change, with the hexagram sun 损 (Chapter 41), which denotes decrease (Huang, 2010). Giving up excess is essential for achieving a state of tranquility, which enables knowledge to come from within the heart of the learner. Self-cultivation is the most important aspect of Confucian education. Learning is not for the sake of knowledge only; rather learning is primarily for self-improvement and inner transformation and then one helps the world. Tuning into the virtue of the Dao through meditation is an essential step in this kind of learning. Withdrawing into the inner heart is the act of meditation. Quieting the body and the mind enables one to intuitively sense what is deeply within us and experience the subtle movement of qi energy. In Confucianism, there is a deep knowing about how one cultivates one’s body, heart, soul and spirit, and the experience of one’s energy filling the whole universe and the existence of the highest force Dao (Tu, 2002b). This requires one to situate one’s being in the world by doing kind deeds while also cultivating

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internal energy. Once one is open to the deep working of the universe, one can sense that ren or loving kindness is a substantive energetic state of being. One comes to the direct understanding of the working of the universe, that is, Love generates all forms of existence and enables humanity to exist and flourish. We come to know that unconditional and all pervasive cosmic love is the highest goal we can pursue in our life (Lin, 2006). Virtues like love, civility, selflessness, wisdom, respect, trust, piety, cooperation, and harmony are advocated by Confucius not as moral rhetoric but as traits to be embodied. Throughout its long history, the heart and essence of Confucianism was muted due to the rigid learning for examinations under the Imperial Examination System that lasted for almost 1,400 years from 622 CE to 1905 CE. During this time, Confucian virtues became abstract concepts for memorization and scholarly discourse. Wang Yangming (1472– 1529) however, put his knowledge of the virtues into practice. He relied on meditation to come to the realization that we are one with the cosmos and we all share the same heart-mind, or the fundamental sacredness. He then used his knowledge to help the people of his time by being an example of one who integrated knowing and action, and heart and mind (Tu, 1976). Calligraphy Chinese calligraphy was seen by Confucians as a means of cultivation because practice, intention, and attention integrate the body, mind, and spirit of practitioners. When body, mind, and spirit are aligned, qi energy flows enabling the practitioner to access intuitive knowledge and be creative. Chinese characters are pictorial images imbued with moral teachings (Lin, 2014). For example the word virtue 德 (for a larger version see the subsequent note) contains the words people: 人, fourteen: 十四, one: 一, and heart: 心. When written together, people and 14 imply all people. So when writing virtue, one is drawing a picture of all people in one heart. Practicing calligraphy was a requirement in ancient times for children and adults. It brings tranquility, peace of mind, and was thought to provide health benefits. There are various forms of calligraphy that can help one to express states of being such as tranquility, solidness, grace, or ambition. As Jiahua Huang (2013) said in a presentation: “Today, when we read the works of calligraphers from all ages, we can easily identify that some of them are bold and unconstrained, some delicate and pretty, some dignified and rigorous, and some natural and graceful.” Calligraphy requires alignment of one’s heart, mind, and hand enabling the qi to flow and writing the characters with effortlessness. People appreciate the work of calligraphy that has qi embedded within it. There are images, energies, movements, and beauty in the alignments and strokes of the

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words. As Professor Huang (2013) said: “Chinese calligraphy is written by means of its chirography strokes, structure, and composition techniques, making it an aesthetic work of art. Therefore it is known as ‘poetry with no language, dance with no movement, painting with no pictures, music with no sound.’” He further elaborated during the presentation: In addition to the stippling, structure, the subtle change of forms of each word, different forms, different meanings, and charm, each line, each paragraph, or even the whole text are changing constantly in forms, strokes, lines and colors of ink; and the constant changes of the layout of space between words, lines and paragraphs make Chinese calligraphy varied and colorful with different calligraphers. (Huang, 2013)

The empty space and the tightness of the words and lines, and the styles of the writing all denote some sort of flow of energy. The various arrangements of the characters and structure create a qi field, imitating natural spiritual forces, be they dynamic, spontaneous, peaceful or free-spirited. Calligraphers play with the characters and immerse themselves in a mode of creative spirit and a tranquil heart-mind. One needs to be highly focused and devoid of excessive desires and have a clear mind to do a masterpiece. To achieve these states, some calligraphers meditate for several days, eat vegetarian food, and pray to deities for inspiration before they write calligraphy. For these people, this is a sacred art that connects them to the Dao. This relates to our theme of a spiritual research paradigm in that it is helpful that researchers find a means that bring their mind to tranquility and align their spiritual intention with a practice that generates qi. One needs to know how to create a harmonious qi (energy) field through which a positive researcher-participants relationship is generated and access to knowledge of the universe is enabled. Studying Confucian and Ancient Classics Chinese philosophies are derived from cultivation systems. Confucianism and Daoism are both cultivation systems that have produced a huge reserve of classics. The ideas in the classics are not just for reading and intellectual analysis, instead they require learners to constantly reflect upon, intuit, experience, and act upon them. This process involves alignment of one’s mind and heart with the wisdom and energy of the sages who composed the texts. Tu (1978) said this very elegantly: To appreciate the Way of the Sages is not only to study its external manifestation, such as in the Classics, but to understand the “intentionality” behind the spoken word. Actually, the intentionality of the Sages can never be grasped as

Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm    155 merely an external phenomenon. It must be savored in one’s own mind. Indeed, only in cultivating the inner experience of the mind can the Way of the Sages be fully “encompassed.” When one establishes a “spiritual communion” (shen-hui) with the ancients, one merges into their being as their spokesman and delegate. (p. 107)

So learning through studying the Confucian/Daoist classics is a conversation with the authors and simultaneously one experiences the living state as depicted in the texts. This is similar to the reading of religious texts by various religious followers. Up until recently, the Chinese believed that studying classics was an important way of knowing. In reading the classics one gets to know the great ideas of the ancient sages, acquires right attitude, and forms right behaviors. The reading is not a passive process of depositing information in the mind, rather it is seen as more like a cow eating grass and then the nutrition is derived from a process of regurgitation and further chewing on a partially digested mass. The material needs to be cooked and recooked until one becomes united with what is being studied. Relating this to the theme of our book, researchers need to draw nutrition-like knowledge from studying great classics. Just as we are what we eat, this kind of knowledge is embodied as intellectual, moral, and spiritual learning. The heart and mind of the researchers can be greatly expanded when one elevates oneself to the living state of an enlightened person. The participants can be co-learners and grow with the researchers in the learning process. Arts as Ways of Knowing Arts also have important roles in energy and virtue cultivation. Imagination and appreciation of beauty broadens the heart and the spirit. In Confucian and in Chinese culture overall, art is the way through which the student of Dao senses the energy and spirit of nature (Sun & Lin, 2012). Here it is necessary to compare Confucian tradition with the Daoist tradition on qi cultivation. In Daosit qi cultivating, it emphasizes the ineffable and the subtle energy; it insists that through practicing virtues to accumulate qi, one comes to know the universe (Dao) and our connection to it, e.g., Dao is always present in the body (Major, Queen, Meyer, & Roth, 2010; Roth, 1991, 1996, 1999). Body transformation plays a key role. One’s ultimate goal is to achieve the highest state of energy and achieve immortality. One helps with the world through working with the subtle energies of the world and in this regard, Daoist practitioners do not always let others know their good deeds.

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In Confucianism, one cultivates energy mainly for changes in dispositions and moral attributes, and the goal is to accomplish secular good deeds, which are also part of the heavenly mandate. “To establish Heart for Heaven and Earth” is the ultimate goal of Confucianists (Zhang Zi Quan Shu, Vol. 14, p. 1). Although Confucianists seldom live in the temples or in the mountains like the Daoists who want to be close to nature, it is a general practice in ancient China that art is used to cultivate intimacy with nature, to nurture spiritual sensitivity, and to cultivate the individual’s ability to create and improvise. It is a standard requirement for learned people to compose and recite poems and to paint. Many Confucian bureaucrats and intellectuals, and also ordinary people in Confucian societies, can write poems and paint at a high level. These practices are believed to broaden the heart and mind of the person. Arts can help build character and in fact can regulate and harmonize qi in a person. Music is also a way of fulfilling similar purposes. Confucianists believe that all these endeavors, when reaching a very high level, leads to union with the Dao. Confucius himself was a great artist. He did not feel the taste of the food while being immersed in learning a musical piece for months. Arts enable one to tap into the qi in nature, as one is aligned with the spiritual bio-energy in the nature. Practitioners immerse their spirit in rivers and mountains, in flowers and plants, and this broadens their mind and heart. The Chinese arts are categorized as belonging to various genres such as that of mountain and water painting, flowers and birds painting, people painting, etc. They are under the intense influence of Daoism (Sun & Lin, 2012) but also of Confucianism. Cultivating imaginative space in the heart and mind also enables a heightened sensitivity to the energy of qi. Hence, in Confucian cultivation, the nurturing of the spirit is also achieved through cultivating aesthetic tastes and creative abilities. These are integrated in the cultivation of Confucian virtues. In sum, the effort of learning the classics, working on the arts, doing calligraphy, appreciating music, etc., all require one to enter into a meditative state, a state in which one temporarily forgets the self and merges with the subtle reality of other beings and existences. Intuition is developed or enhanced through these activities. A sensitive mind, heart, and spirit is cultivated which is more aligned with the larger force, the qi energy that permeates everything. In this process, one also helps with the world through herself being tranquil and peaceful, as the Book of Change in the hexagram of xian (Chapter 31 咸) denoting mutual influence (Huang, 2010) said: “The sage touches the heart of people and the world is set in peace.” Through herself being in peace, she brings peace to the world.

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Learning Through Serving the World and for Serving the World In Confucianism, cultivating and building the qi energy is mainly for the goal of serving the world. The aspiration of Confucian sages is to help the world to bring about peace. The Great Learning states: So cultivating the body is to set the heart right. If we are bothered by anger we can not set our heart right; if we are in fear, we can not set our heart right; if we have favor of one thing over another we can not set our heart right; if we have worries, we can not set our heart right. Hence, cultivating the body is to set the heart right.15 (The Great Learning: 7)

In The Great Learning, there is a sequence of steps to integrate knowing and being: one needs to acquire knowledge in order to know what to give up and then one can control one’s mind, then one can achieve tranquility, then one achieves peace, then one can think for the world, and then one puts that into action to achieve one’s goal. Knowledge comes from understanding the “web-like” relational world, and the inextricable connection of the self to the world, or the self being like a cell in the body of the world. Hence, as Mencius says: I love my parents and extend that love to the parents of other people; I love my children and extend that love to the children of the world. In this way, I can govern the world as if the world is on my palm”16 (Mencius: Liang Huiwang Part 1). But all of this requires the cultivation of the body17 (The Great Learning: 13) Confucius urges his students to “learn broadly, to question the knowledge, to carefully reflect on it, to differentiate right from wrong, and to carry out real knowing with commitment”18 (Doctrine of the Mean: 20). This is part of the cultivation that incorporates the mind and the body. In summary, there are some clear ways to come to knowledge by integrating self-cultivation with serving the world. The process for acquiring true knowledge outlined in The Great Learning begins with serving the world, a large perspective and relates this to cultivation of the self, a micro perspective as follows: To achieve enlightenment and spread virtues in the world, one must help with governing the country (for peace); to do that one must bring harmony in the family; to do that one must cultivate the body; to do that one must set the heart right; to set the heart right one must have sincerity; to have sincerity, one must build up real understanding of the world; and to do that one must study the principles that govern the world.19 (The Great Learning: 6–8)

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Conversely, Great Learning begins with the cultivation of the self and then discusses how this can impact the world as follows: By first studying the principles of the world, one builds up real understanding of the world; with that understanding, one fosters sincerity that leads to setting the heart right; with the heart set right, the body is transformed and set right; and then the family becomes harmonious, and that harmony is extended to the country and then the whole world is in peace.20 (The Great Learning: 9–12)

Ultimately, from those in the highest position to those most ordinary citizens, the fundamental act is to cultivate themselves21 (The Great Learning: 6). Therefore, in Confucianism, knowledge is not for knowledge’s sake. Knowledge serves the following purposes: • Cultivation of a striving spirit for self perfection through social engagement. Individual enlightenment eventually gives rise to benefits to the community and the world. • Maintaining peace through reciprocity: If you do not want things done to you, don’t do them to others22 (The Analects: Yanyuan). • Integration of virtues in family, community, government and society (The Great Learning). • Fulfilling one’s heavenly mandate, as stated by the Song dynasty Confucian scholar Zhang Zhai: “Establish heart for heaven and earth, transform destiny for fellow citizens, pass on the lost wisdom of past sages, and build peace for tens of thousands of generations to come”23 (Zhang Zi Quan Shu, Vol. 14). Confucian Learning Is an Integrated Act Summing up, Confucian knowing requires: • A holistic worldview—all is connected, no separation of self from the group, intellect from spirit. • Integration of knowledge and moral behavior. • Self-transformation aimed at social transformation. • Human-nature/cosmos oneness achieved based on universal love. All these types of knowing require effort toward active self-transformation, to align one’s knowing and being with the universal Dao. The ideal world is in the making if we make active efforts to improve ourselves. No one will come to save the world lest we become the positive force for building peace and harmony in the society.

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CONSIDERATIONS ON RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES Before proceeding to discuss research methodologies, we refer to the research of Jahn and Dunne (2007), who while working within the field of objective science at Princeton Engineering called for a revision of the scientific paradigm so that it encompassed subjective knowledge. They came to this conclusion after many years of research, where they observed that human consciousness can influence matter without physical contact. They observed that a science of the subjective needs to be developed that retains the logical rigor and empirically based approach of the current scientific paradigm, while acknowledging a proactive role for human consciousness. Jahn and Dunne argue for a return of the subjective to the scientific research process as a means of enabling improved research to take account of phenomenon unexplained by the current postpositivist scientific research paradigm. There is another reason for placing an emphasis on the personal and the subjective alluded to by Carl Jung (1983). He observed that the scientific method in its penchant for objectivity relies on sampling and averaging as a means of observing and recording phenomenon. This process denies that unique individual subjective experiences are valid. It is a kind of soul-destroying way of seeing human experience because humans, while part of groups and societies, experience life as unique individuals. While Confucianism is situated within a strong community oriented culture, paradoxically it relies first and foremost on individual personal cultivation, which honors and gives credibility to personal subjective experience. When teaching, Confucius often provided contradictory advice to different disciples and when asked the reason for the inconsistency, he responded that each student was different and therefore required different lessons. This approach takes into account the unique subjective nature of the individual as a foundation for learning. The Chinese word jiaoyu inspired by Confucius’ approach, consists of the characters: teach and nurture, which embodies this idea (Yu, 2013). With respect to their recommendations regarding the nature of the science of the subjective, Jahn and Dunne said “more explicit and profound use of interdisciplinary metaphors; more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance” (Jahn & Dunne, 2007, p. 1) were required. We believe that while Confucianism presents a cosmological view that differs substantially from the dominant view in Western science, it can offer insight into how the subjective might be incorporated into a spiritual research paradigm and potentially all scientific inquiry. Cultivate Virtue As Confucianism holds that cultivation of one’s personal virtue and character is most important, it is essential that those engaged in a spiritual

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research paradigm put cultivation of virtue as their first priority. This process, emphasizing self improvement, is subjective in that the individuals achieve a deep awareness of themselves as very unique components of a larger whole. The main purpose for virtue cultivation is to link the individual with the world and the universe, and aims at the transformation of one’s body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit for the common good and peace and harmony of the world. In the past, one cultivates the inner self through meditation and the outer self through virtuous acts, living without excess, and under the guidance of a virtuous teacher. Why? Meditation quiets the body and the mind enabling one to intuitively sense what is deeply within so we are able to experience the subtle movement of qi energy, which in turn connects us to the virtue of the Dao. This is a recursive process whereby our connection with the Dao through meditation, acting virtuously, and living without excess generates positive qi circulation strengthening our attunement with the Dao, and this in turn strengthens our qi energy. The guidance of a virtuous teacher is important as he or she has progressed further along the path and can impart important guidance to the student. Through this kind of cultivation, one attains the understanding that unconditional love generates all forms of existence and enables humanity to exist and flourish. When one experiences this, it informs all of one’s actions and one is able to help people by being an example of one who integrates knowing and action, and heart and mind. This is the essence of Confucianism. All activities and actions are directed toward this goal. While we keep this in our primal attention, a Confucian informed spiritual research paradigm keeps in mind that the way to knowledge is through many paths. The Role of Meditation in Cultivating Virtue From an early Confucian perspective, meditation sets up conditions that enable phenomenon to arise in the body and consciousness. This approach assumes that consciousness is not the only source of knowledge, awareness, or personal transformation, rather it places great emphasis on the unconscious (the inner heart-mind) as a source of transformation. Hence, reliance on meditation helps create physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual tranquility and in the process phenomena will emerge from the unconscious that is transformative and beneficial to the subject (Culham, 2013; Roth, 1999). Of particular interest is the early Chinese view that virtue will arise within the self when one cultivates tranquility. As an indication of the importance of the body and the unconscious, the eyes of a virtuous person were thought to be bright like jade and the forehead had the luster of jade—both indicating the presence of a strong and good quality of embodied qi (Csikszentmihalyi, 2006). To the Confucians, the impartial observation of the inner state of mind, body, emotions, and spirit is a worthwhile

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object of inquiry not only because of the awareness that it engender, but also because of the personal transformation it enabled. Therefore meditation is an important aspect of a Confucian research paradigm. Cultivating the Spiritual and the Subjective Many people have said that Confucian teaching provides no mention of the sacred, but this is not true. The sacred is so routinized that one does not see it. In Confucianism, heaven is here and can be achieved if we all embrace the virtue of loving-kindness. It is true if we look around our world with a heightened awareness and expanded consciousness, all that exists is made with perfection, and it is because of the loss of wisdom and virtues that we do not see or experience this anymore. There is much to the process of cultivating spirituality and the subjective. In our research, we need to describe conditions under which the process unfolds. Not only that, a set of possible activities that can be engaged in to cultivate the subjective, is an important component of research methodologies from a Confucian spiritual research paradigm. Cultivate Harmony Related to cultivating virtue is the concept of cultivating harmony. Harmony is treated as a dynamic state of equilibrium between opposites that requires much striving and efforts of self-improvement, ultimately for the integration of body, mind, and spirit. This requires an adjustment of our relationship with the outside world, to ensure a healthy body, mind, and spirit. The Confucian ways of doing research is always embodied. The sense of interconnection and interbeing is lived. All humans are seen as sacred entities living and functioning in a moral cosmos and therefore cultivating harmony is an important part of exploration in research methods from a Confucian research paradigm. Phenomenology The discipline of Confucianism calls for the student to participate in a range of activities, such as meditation, study of the classics, calligraphy, practicing the arts, and reference to the behavior of sages as a means of learning ways of thinking and acting. This is not the only or perhaps primary means of learning. Wang Yangming held that even the teaching of Confucius may not be accepted if it does not accord with what one knows to be true in one’s heart-mind. He believed, provided one engages in the discipline of learning

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to be a virtuous person, one will know that within each person’s heart-mind lies a pure knowing that discerns the truth (Ivanhoe, 2013). Therefore, in the context of this discipline, the phenomenon of personal subjective experience of the individual is a vital and important source of knowledge. This accords with the philosophical discipline of phenomenology which: “studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view” (Woodruff, 2013). Furthermore, those engaged in phenomenology study the: “appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience” (Woodruff, 2013). This study is not restricted to the senses alone, rather it considers the “meaning things have in our experience, notably, the significance of objects, events, tools, the flow of time, the self, and others, as these things arise and are experienced in our life-world” (Woodruff, 2013). For our purposes, phenomenology is the study of phenomenon in our life experience, and the meanings they have in our subjective first-person point of view. Utilizing this perspective is an important condition for participating in a Confucian spiritual research paradigm. Subject–Object Relationship and Power Our assumptions regarding relationship with others and our power over others is an important condition of a Confucian spiritual research paradigm. Due to the cosmological view that humans are part of a larger whole, researchers and participants are assumed to be relational; both are learners of the world and in the process they strive to serve the world. Further, researchers and participants are equal. They respect each other and treat each other with trust and sincerity. The interconnectedness of their being defines for the researcher the importance of cultivating his or her virtues and energy accumulation, which is essential for the elevation of visions and enhancement of capabilities. Thus the researcher has a personal sense that virtuous behavior and intentions when working with others are part of their cultivation process. Researchers cannot view research subjects as a means to an end or instrumentally, rather they intrinsically value all research subjects as deserving of the respect accorded a family member. A CONFUCIAN SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM: METHODS AND DATA, AND UNIQUENESS The preceding section discussed the conditions under which a Confucian spiritual research paradigm is to be conducted. Now we turn to considering methods that researchers could be engaged in as part of the paradigm.

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Narrative Narrative may be used for self-reflective learning. Researchers can use this method for recording the process of personal self-growth and the impact of qi cultivation, such as subtle changes from control of breathing, adjustment of the mind, and active visualization. Life stories can be told of people who have accomplished great deeds in the world through practicing virtues and energy cultivation. The narratives can go into great details on how one adjusts mind and body through incorporating meditation, arts, calligraphy, and reflective learning of classics in their life to enrich their understanding of the world and themselves. As we have said the purpose of research is not only to add to knowledge in general but to transform the self and others. Researchers can use narratives to reflect on themselves and share their inner experiences so that researchers and participants learn from one another and grow together. Reflection-in-Action Reflection-in-action is another method that a Confucian researcher can draw from. Donald Schön (1983, 1987) argued against technical rationality dominating the positive epistemology of practice. He wanted practitioners—and this would, in our context, extend to researchers—to go beyond syllogistic, logical thinking. The concept of reflection-in-action is often called “thinking on our feet” (Smith, 2001/2011). In reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983, 1987), reflection does not mean deliberately reviewing data about a phenomenon using logical rules. Such rules are not helpful when the researcher encounters surprises, puzzles, and confusions. What would be done in a case in which completely unanticipated observations face the researcher? The researcher would, of course, reflect on the puzzling phenomenon in the context of prior understandings implicit in his or her repertoire of images, metaphors, theories, and actions (Schön, 1983)—the researcher’s frame of reference. However, the researcher would necessarily go beyond those understandings, trying to see the puzzling situation in a refreshing, new, and artful way (reframing; Russell & Munby, 1991). This involves questioning the assumptions of knowing-in-action, the tacit, often unexplained information that we use to “know” about something. How does reflection-in-action relate to Confucian observation? Both of them involve engaging in the moment, learning from lived experience, and reflecting on observations at the time they occur. Both reject the straightjacket of merely logical, syllogistic rules, and technical rationality. Both challenge the researcher to go beyond his or her original repertoires of metaphors, images, and ideas. Both encourage the researcher to think of

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new ways to understand puzzling or surprising situations or data; in this way they are both transformative. Both involve an artistic perspective, along with a cognitive perspective. However, reflection-in-action, at least in the terms of its theoretical creator, Schön, does not explore (a) qi, (b) livinglearning virtues, (c) the virtues as the source of qi energy, and (d) learning of the classics for the embodiment of knowing. Confucius’ concern for interpersonal relationships in the context of a highly stratified society is likely to be very different from Schön’s concept of interpersonal relationships among reflective practitioners engaged in a joint effort. Creative Activities While engaging in research for deeper knowing, one can take up art, creative writing, poetry, music, dance, and self-reflection. The objective is to engage the mind and body in disciplines that provide the person with the opportunity to experience the sublime, beauty, and the creative source that lies within. This helps one to arrive at an understanding of the spiritual experiences of self as a researcher and the subject of study. Texts Addressing Spiritual Matters Wide reading of the accounts and the texts of spiritual and subjective experiences from past and present sages can be helpful. The objective is to engage the mind in possibilities of others who are further along the path that lie beyond one’s personal experience and self-limitations. Reading fictional accounts of the wondrous experiences or spiritual matters is helpful in stretching the limitations of one’s imagination. This helps the research to understand many phenomena that are transcendental. Data Sources Subjective experiences by their nature are unique and experienced internally. We often don’t pay attention to our experiences or discuss them with others. There are common themes within the subjective that can be recounted providing participant’s validation and with valuable confirmation of their experiences. Data sources for a Confucian researcher can be from personal reflections, group discussions, interviews, surveys, and observations. In-depth interviews can be used to reveal the cultivation of moral virtues as reflected upon by the participants and the researcher. Reflections by the researchers and participants on their cultivation should be important sources of data.

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What Is Unique in the Methodologies of a Confucian Spiritual Research Paradigm? The methods previously described will take on some special features if they • explore zones that blend the inner and the outer scape of learning; • explore what “interpersonal” means through virtues cultivation; • explore the function of qi that connects researchers and the participants to the universe; • explore virtues as the source of qi energy; • assume learning-living virtues is a requirement; and • learning the classics is seen as a means of embodying the wisdom in them. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Modern science is beginning to investigate the spiritual world. String theory describes a universe that all is linked; quantum physics describes how our intention and action affect the results of scientific experiment, again describing a world that is interconnected. Modern neuroscience finds that meditation opens doors to the deeper level of our being even allowing us to reach the collective virtue unconscious mind, the Dao (Culham, 2013). This chapter presents concepts of an interconnected world and methods for practical implementation for an ideal world. Confucianism is about a person becoming “inside a sage and outside a leader” (内圣外王). In this chapter we propose that the researcher attempt to cultivate one’s moral aptitude, to embody love, humility, sincerity, and wisdom, and put these traits into serving the world. The researcher then is first and foremost a cultivator of virtuous attributes; then she/he should also help the world to become peaceful and harmonious. This does not mean that the world will have no conflicts, but it is a world of embracing diversity while we strive to build common ground for the good. Alignment of our heart, mind, and action is a constant attempt that requires xiu (修), cultivation, and yang (养)—nurturing of positive qi energy. This way our character is shaped and our ability is enhanced for personal well-being and the good of the larger world. Cultivating our spirituality is a science, a science of knowing about the reality of our integrated existence of body, mind, and spirit, and the reality of interconnections and interdependence through the most basic energy, qi. An individual, a classroom, a school, a community, a country, and the whole world—all can be seen as existing as a field of energy that is undergirded by virtues. Researchers need to understand how qi energy works, and what is vital for virtues cultivation, to spur the growth of the students and educators

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and the larger public holistically, and to help bring peace and harmony to the world, and even to the cosmos. NOTES 1. There are a number of views of what constitutes Confucianism. The view referenced in this chapter is articulated by Tu Weiming (1978, 1998, 2001, 2002a, 2008) who draws on Wang Yangming (1472–1529), Mencius (ca. 372– 289 BCE) and Confucius (ca. 551–479 BCE). 2. Throughout its long history, the heart and essence of Confucianism was muted due to the rigid learning for examinations under the Imperial Examination System that lasted for almost 1300 years from 622 CE to 1905 CE. During this time Confucian virtues became abstract concepts for memorization and scholarly discourse. 3. The importance and nature of Confucian virtue is much broader than the western conception of the term. See the section Ontology for a full explanation of the term. 4. See the section on Axiology for an explanation of this view. 5. See the Axiology section for a definition of Doctrine of the Mean 6. The Book of Changes (I Ching) is a Chinese classic with the stature of the Bible. It was written 2000 years before Confucius life time (ca. 551–479 BCE). Four of China’s most honoured sages have written commentaries on it including Confucius. His commentary is considered especially important for understanding the text (Huang, 2010). 7. Original texts in Huangdi Neijing: “人与天地相参也”《灵枢·岁露》、《 灵枢·经水》，“与天地如一”《素问·脉要精微论》. 8. Original text in Chinese: “易无思也，无为也，寂然不动，感而遂通天下之 故；非天下之至神，其孰能与于此？夫易，圣人之所以极深而研几也，唯深 也，故能通天下之志；唯几也，故能成天下之务；唯神也，故不疾而速，不 行而至.” 9. 喜、怒、哀、乐之未发, 谓之中。发而皆中节，谓之和。中也者，天下之大 本也。和也者，天下之达道也. 10. 恭、宽、信、敏、惠。恭则不侮，宽则得众，信则人任焉，敏则有功，惠则 足以使人. 11. 孔子曰, 君子有九思, 视思明，听思聪，色思温，貌思恭，言思忠，事思敬， 疑思问，忿思难，见得思义. 12. 吾善养吾浩然之气 13. http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/mencius.html#div-4 14. 曰：“难言也。其为气也, 至大至刚, 以直养而无害，则塞于天地之间。其为 气也，配义与道；无是，馁也。是集义所生者,非义袭而取之也。行有不慊于 心，则馁矣。我故曰，告子未尝知义，以其外之也。 15. 所谓修身在正其心者：身有所忿懥，则不得其正。有所恐惧，则不得其正。 有所好乐，则不得其正。有所忧患，则不得其正。此谓修身在正其心。 16. 老吾老，以及人之老；幼吾幼，以及人之幼，天下可运于掌。 17. 自天子以至于庶人，一是皆以修身为本 18. 博学之，审问之，慎思之，明辨之，笃行之

Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm    167 19. 古之欲明明德于天下者，先治其国；欲治其国者，先齐其家；欲齐其家者， 先修其身；欲修其身者，先正其心；欲正其心者，先诚其意；欲诚其意者， 先致其知；致知在格物。 20. 物格而后知至，知至而后意诚，意诚而后心正，心正而后身修，身修而后家 齐，家齐而后国治，国治而后天下平). 21. 自天子以至于庶人，一是皆以修身为本 22. 己所不欲，勿施于人 23. 为天地立心，为生民立命，为往圣继绝学， 为万世开太平

REFERENCES Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2006). Material virtue: Ethics and the body in early China. Boston, MA: Brill. Culham, T. (2013). Ethics education of business leaders: Emotional intelligence, virtues and contemplative learning. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Evelyn, M., & Berthrong, J. (1998). Introduction: Setting the context. In M. Evelyn & J. Berthrong (Eds.), Confucianism and ecology (pp. xxxv–xlv). Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Fleischacker, S. (1992). Integrity and moral relativism. Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brill. Huang, J. (2013). Chinese calligraphy. Talk at Confucius Institute at University of Maryland, College Park, MD. Huang, T. M. A. (2010). The complete I Ching—10th anniversary edition: The definitive translation by Taoist master Alfred Huang. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions. Ivanhoe P. J. (2013). Virtue ethics and the Chinese Confucian tradition. In S. Angle, & M. Slote (Eds.), Virtue ethics and confucianism (pp. 28–46). New York, NY: Routledge. Jahn, R. G., & Dunne, B. J. (2007). Science of the subjective. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 3(3), 295–305. Jung, C. G. (1983). The essential Jung, selected writings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lin, J. (2006). Love, peace and wisdom in education: Vision for education in the 21st century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Lin, J. (2013). Education for transformation and an expanded self: Paradigm shift for wisdom education. In J. Lin, R. Oxford, & E. Brantmeier (Eds.), Embodies pathways to wisdom and social transformation (pp. 23–32). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Lin, J. (2014, June). The cultural and spiritual essence in Chinese language. Presentation at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China. Lin, J., & Wang, Y. (2010). Confucius’s teaching of virtues and peace education. In E. Brantmeier, J. Lin, & J. Miller, J. (Eds.). Religion, spirituality and peace education (pp. 3–17). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Li, J., & Feng D. (1996). An introduction to Chinese philosophy (zhongguo zhexue chubu). Guangzhou, China: Guangdong People’s Publishing House.

168    J. LIN, T. CULHAM, and R. OXFORD Major, J. S., Queen, S. A., Meyer, A. S., & Roth, H. D. (Eds.). (2010). The Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and practice of government in early Han China. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Mertens, D. M. (2014). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative and qualitative, and mixed methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Roth, H. D. (1991). Psychology and self-cultivation in early Taoistic thought. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 51(2), 599–650. Roth, H. D. (1996). The inner cultivation tradition of early Daoism. In D. S. Lopez (Ed.), Religions of China in practice (pp. 123–145). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roth, H. D. (1999). Original Tao: Inward training (nei-yeh) and the foundations of Taoist mysticism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Russell, T., & Munby, H. (1991). Reframing: The role of experience in developing teachers’ professional knowledge. In D. A. Schön (Ed.), The reflective turn: Case studies in and on educational practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books. Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.  Smith, M. K. (2011). Donald Schön: Learning, reflection and change. The Encyclopedia of Informal Education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon. htm (Originally published 2001.) Sun, X., & Lin, J. (2012). Daoism and Chinese landscape painting: Implication for environmental education. In J. Lin & R. Oxford (Eds.), Transformative ecoeducation for human and planetary survival (pp. 335–348). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Taylor, C. (1982). Rationality. In M. Hollis & S. Lukes (Eds.), Rationality and relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tu, W. (1976). Neo-Confucian thought in action: Wang Yang-Ming’s youth (1472–1509).  Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Tu, W. (1978). Humanity and self-cultivation: Essays in Confucian thought. Boston, MA: Cheng & Tsui. Tu, W. (1998). Beyond the enlightenment mentality. In M. Evelyn & J. Berthrong (Eds.), Confucianism and ecology (pp. 3–21). Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Tu, W. (2001). The Confucian humanistic spirit and dialogues of civilization. In W. Tu, H. Zhu, & Y. Xiao, Tu Weiming: Clash or dialogues of civilizations? Changsha, China: Hunan University Publishing House. Tu, W. (2002a). A modern explanation of the Confucian “body-knowing” tradition. In G. Qiyong & Z. Wenlong (Eds.), Collection of Tu Weiming’s essays (Vol. 5; pp. 364–376). Wuhan, China: Wuhan Publishing House. Tu, W. (2002b). From the four levels of body, heart, soul and spirit to see the human science of Confucianism. In G. Qiyong & Z. Wenlong (Eds.), Collection of Tu Weiming’s essays (Vol. 5; pp. 329–336). Wuhan, China: Wuhan Publishing House. Tu, W. (2008, January). Toward a “dialogical civilization”: The Confucian analects as an exemplification. Keynote speech at Symposium on Contemporary Significance

Developing a Spiritual Research Paradigm    169 of Confucianism: Implications for Harmonious Society, Sustainable Development and World Peace, at Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and University of Maryland, College Park. Tutu, D. (2000). No future without forgiveness. New York, NY: Doubleday. Unschuld, P. U. (2003). Huang Di Neijing Su Wen (nature, knowledge, imagery in an ancient Chinese medical text). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Wang, Y., Zhang, A., Xu, R., & Lin, J. (2014). Chinese language, philosophy, and language of peace. In R. Oxford (Ed.), Cultural aspects of peace and peace education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Wong, D. (2001). Comparative philosophy: Chinese and Western. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2014 ed.). Retrieved from http:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/comparphil-chiwes/ Woodruff, D. (2013). Phenomenology. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2013 ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2013/entries/phenomenology/ Yu, J. (2013). The practicality of ancient virtue ethics: Greece and China. In S. Angle, & M. Slote (Eds.), Virtue ethics and Confucianism (pp. 127–140). New York, NY: Routledge.

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CHAPTER 8

EXPLORING THE UNITY OF SCIENCE AND SPIRIT A Daoist Perspective Tom Culham and Jing Lin

WHAT HAPPENED TO SPIRIT? Nestled at the top of a brown stony hill above the modern Cretan village of Lantas, at the intermingling of cool sage mountain air and warm salt sea breezes, are the ruins of an ancient temple to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. It is a few meters above what was once the source of a natural spring; ancient priests used these waters, and prayer, music, sleep, and dreams to cure the sick. And the village people, who still see life as one with the rhythms of the sea and sun, know, as their ancestors knew that emotions and health are one. As the wind and sun eroded that first ancient shrine, and dried its healing source, something also happened to the world beyond the village. Our faith in the healing power of spirit also waned, and the god of science and medicine became a much harder, more impersonal god than the fatherly Asclepius. When did we modern scientists and physicians lose the knowledge that was so much a part of these ancient teachings of medicine? And why has the road back to acceptance of this wholeness taken so many centuries to travel? (Esther Sternberg,1 as quoted in Tippett, 2010, p. 202) Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 171–198 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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PREAMBLE Jing Lin and I are coauthors of this chapter. We both are long-term students of qigong, a practice with roots in the spiritual tradition of Daoism.2 Jing has dedicated her career to education and I (Tom) practiced engineering for many years and recently entered the field of education. We begin with an account of an experience that occurred in China during the summer of 2012 as it relates to Sternberg’s comments about the separation of science and spirit. I (Tom) met with the senior monk of a Buddhist monastery at Jiu Hua Shan. During our meeting, I had the opportunity to inquire what he thought about the divergence of science and spirituality. This question was of particular importance to me due to my training as an engineer and my personal interest and involvement in the practice of qigong. I asked the question because I had difficulty with what appeared to me as irreconcilable differences in science and Daoism, which I studied as part of my interest in qigong. The monk’s response surprised me and opened the door for thinking about the question in a different way. He said that science and spirit are a unity. When science advances spirituality advances, and when spirituality advances science advances. It is interesting that Einstein, the paragon of Western science, appears to have held a similar view. He said: There is no logical path to these laws (of the universe); only (through) intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience can (we) reach them. . . . The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind . . . is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program but straight from the heart. (as quoted in Calaprice, 2011, p. 364)

One can conclude that Einstein holds the view that knowledge of the laws of the universe is achieved through the creative processes of intuition, sympathy, love, and reverence; factors one doesn’t usually associate with objectivity. He also suggests a link between the soul, the good, and scientific inquiry in the following quote: The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. . . . On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that scientific study of the higher kinds . . . have great value in leading men toward a worthier valuation of things of the spirit. (as quoted in Calaprice, 2011, p. 322)

In other words, Einstein suggests there is a limit to the ability of science to value the nobler things in life; however, it does play a secondary role in this process. There are two points in this statement worthy of note: first,

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valuation of the good in life is a subjective exercise of the soul and heart; and second, the heart is supported by the rational capabilities of the mind. Just as Einstein revolutionized the world of science through equating mass and energy with his E = mc2 formula, we believe he alludes to the integration of virtue, knowledge, and creativity in the aforementioned quotes. In this chapter, we explore an integrating approach to science and spirit as a means of developing a spiritual research paradigm. To achieve this, we consider what each of the paradigms of Western science and qigong can contribute to such a holistic approach. RATIONAL FOR OUR APPROACH The reader might point out that Daoism and qigong originate in a particular culture and in a particular religious setting that is very different than Western science and ask what is the value of considering such disparate views? Geoffery Lloyd (1996) conducted a comparative analysis of the ancient science of Greece and China, and one of the three questions he considered was: “What can we learn from such an investigation about more general issues to do with the relationship between culture and cognition?” (p. 303). In response, he observed that: Wherever ancient Greeks and Chinese may have started, as infants, they certainly seem to have ended with quite different sets of beliefs about the stars, the human body, health, and disease, indeed I would also add about space, time, causality, number, and nature themselves. (Lloyd, 1996, p. 312)

And that: In both ancient cultures the investigations undertaken were influenced by the particular values of the society in question and the particular institutions within which the investigators worked. (p. 314)

The Greeks emphasized reason and logos rooted in adversariality and argument, and the Chinese emphasized the living embodiment of wisdom in sages and the Dao. To expand a little, the Greeks saw that while philosophy was a way of life to be practiced (Hadot & Davidson, 1995), they focused on understanding the realities of life through argument of the logic of abstract ideas. The Daoists on the other hand were not as interested in articulating or defending specific propositions about life (Kirkland, 2004). Rather they focused their efforts on refining and transforming themselves to “attain full integration with life’s deepest realities” (Kirkland, 2004, p. 75). Daoists therefore emphasize practice, embodied experience, and the presence of sages as guides in their effort to live life well. Lloyd (1996) concluded

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that both approaches offer prospects “for the transformation of cognitive capabilities” (p. 314). It is clear that the ancient Greeks and Chinese had quite different paradigms for understanding the universe. We believe that investigating the Chinese Daoist paradigm might offer transformative insights for westerners, particularly for the purpose of developing a spiritual research paradigm. As we noted earlier, Daoists weren’t so interested in precision of words, rather they were interested in the practice and experience of living in harmony with the universe and therefore living well. Daoist were not the only spiritual tradition that emphasized personal experience as a guide to learning. The Buddha recommended that practitioners accept none of his teaching unless they had personally experienced it and found it to be true (Palmo, 2002). Confucius also held that one’s personal experience was critical to personal cultivation and understanding of one’s place in the universe (see Chapter 7). So there certainly are religious traditions that explore the nature and experience of spirituality with an attitude that methods, and doctrine are only guides on the path to spiritual development. We are not proposing that any particular religion is inadequate for the exploration of matters of spirit, rather, we are attempting to develop a spiritual research paradigm capable of exploring the phenomenon of spirit in a secular setting. Daoism seems to be particularly suited for this role, as one of the objectives in cultivating the Dao is to return the practitioner from a perspective constrained by culture and acquired habits to an original unfixed state that is spontaneously responsive to the environment and conditions in which he or she is located. Daoist cultivation through inner work involves “discovering the mechanisms of cultural inculcation and shedding off cultural habits (so) that one approaches Dao. Dao does not exist in metaphysical abstraction but could be felt concretely” (Yen, 2008 p. 87). In other words, cultivation of Dao involves returning to a state where one is not constrained by habit and culture. Further, cultivation of the Dao is practical and physical, and can be experienced. Therefore, we look to practical physical experiences of the Dao to attempt an articulation of a spiritual research paradigm. Until recently, Western science’s consideration of spirit was alien to scholarly research (Hadot & Davidson, 1995). Further, it was not valued in secular universities nor seen as a legitimate part of the Western research paradigm. In China and particularly in Daoism, physiological, psychological and spiritual experiences were seen as intimately linked both in philosophy and in practice (Roth, 1991). It is not unusual then to find texts exploring practical matters such as the teaching and practice of Chinese medicine with references to spirituality (Hsu, 1999, p. ii). Indeed Hsu (1999) notes that Western scholars who studied traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) made little reference to spirit while in fact the term shen (spirit) is widely

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used in TCM. Therefore, one could say that the exploration of spirit and what one might call a technology3 of spirit was largely absent from Western academic scholarly discourse because it is not valued. The foregoing proposes there is something that can be learned from studying another cultural paradigm for describing reality. A paradigm is defined as “basic belief systems based on ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions” (Guba & Lincoln 1994, p. 107). In addition, what one values (axiology) is integral to a paradigm (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). That is, research will differ based on different sets of beliefs; to understand research, one must examine the philosophy behind it. The understanding of the role of social context and culture has led to a field known as medical anthropology, which has the intention of investigation of the cultural construction of illness, and the analysis of ideas about the body, birth, maturity, aging, and death. (Hsu, 1999 p. i)

Thus from a scholarly perspective, it is seen as a useful exercise to consider other cultures for insights into practical matters of health, and we believe this is a useful approach for investigating a spiritual research paradigm. In recent years, variants of TCM (acupuncture, qigong, massage, moxibuxtion etc.) have been recognized in the West as valid healing modalities and in British Columbia, Canada, TCM is formally recognized as a medical practice (CTCMA, 2014). The foundation of TCM is articulated in Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (Huang Di Neijing Suwen) dated to the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and is a classic Daoist text (Ni, 1995). The point here is that not only does TCM integrate spirit and practical matters, it has been accepted as valid and is regulated as such in parts of North America. Daoism and qigong take an integrated view of spirit, mind, emotions, and the body, and has been demonstrated to produce applicable outcomes. Therefore, we give consideration to a Daoist perspective in light of the Western scientific paradigm as a means of proposing a spiritual research paradigm. We give consideration to the contribution of the Western scientific paradigm because it is familiar to westerners and because it contains, unbeknownst to most, an element of spirituality as alluded to by Einstein. Taking this approach is consistent with Daoist philosophical perspective because it holds, that contained within the full expression of an entity or an object is its opposite. The Daoist symbol of yin and yang embodies this principle where the black or white dot sits within the opposite of its colour. How does this relate to science? We believe that science is commonly seen as an enterprise that has as its purpose to objectively discover the nature of the universe (absent spirit), and this is to be achieved through the application of reductionism, reason, and the rational scientific method. This approach is what Kuhn labelled normal science and is summarized here and

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in Chapter 1 of this book. Kuhn (1970) also proposed, however, that the paradigm of science contains a component he referred to as revolutionary science, and this component is based on intuition and direct holistic insight of nature. Kuhn (1970) claimed that this component of science is responsible, for example, for the shift from Newtonian physics to quantum physics and other major shifts in our understanding of the universe. The intuitive mental processes that contribute to the revolutionary aspect of science are not as well-known and do not appear to be part of what we think of as normal science: that is, revolutionary science relies on a subjective holistic, direct unmediated experience for insight rather than reason and logic. WHAT IS A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM? What do we mean by a spiritual research paradigm? Spirit has been studied for eons through the great religions and by anyone who has asked the question, what is the meaning of life? What can we add? We are attempting to discuss spirit in a secular way that is based on observation and experience rather than in the context of a given doctrine, and we expect that a spiritual research paradigm will inform and transform those who are engaged in its activities. We recognize that we must start from where we currently sit in pluralistic secular educational institutions. That is, spirit is still almost a taboo subject for these institutions for many reasons. It is seen as irrational, as belonging in the realm of religion, and as having little to add to what are currently taken to be the core subjects of universities: science and the professions such as law, medicine, education, engineering, and business. What Do We Mean by Spiritual? To understand what spiritual means, we turn to William James, author of The Varieties of Religious Experience, published in 1902. His ideas on spirituality continue to be influential today to both those in the sciences and humanities (Nelson, 2010). So what makes a personal experience spiritual? According to James, spiritual experiences are “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual people who in their solitude understand that they have touched whatever they may consider the divine” (as quoted in Nelson, 2010, pp. 26–27). An important and essential feature of “spiritual experiences is that they are exclusive to individuals and are not shared directly with others” (Nelson, 2010, p. 27). As will be seen in what follows, enabling these kinds of very personal experiences is one objective of the Daoist practices. When the individual, through cultivation, returns to the Dao-given

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authentic self, he or she gains access to the Dao, and thus to universal knowledge (Roth, 1999). In describing mystical or spiritual experiences, Harold Roth (1999) provides his observations and quoted those of James and Gimello. Spiritual experiences are characterized by: 1. Ineffability: The experiences defy description; 2. Noetic quality: They impart definitive knowledge about fundamental truths; 3. Transiency: They pass quickly; 4. Passivity: Despite taking steps to cultivate it, when one is actually having the mystical experience it is as if one’s will is suspended (Roth, 1999, p. 127); 5. Transformative: One is never again the same as before one had it (James, as quoted in Roth, 1999, p. 127); 6. A feeling of oneness or unity: variously defined; and 7. Cessation of normal intellectual operations or the substitution for them of some ‘higher’ or qualitatively different mode of intellect (e.g., intuition) (Gimello, as quoted in Roth, 1999, p. 127). In other words, Point 7 holds that mystical practice provides access to a kind of intuitive knowledge that is beyond normal intellect. This is referred to as a “pure consciousness event” (Roth, 1999, p. 131). We noted earlier that Einstein held that the path to the laws of the universe is only attained through “intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience” (as quoted in Calaprice, 2011, p. 364). As we shall see later, Kuhn (1970) also holds that the sudden insights of intuition are the foundation of scientific paradigm shifts. Given the importance of intuitive knowledge to both science and spirituality, we give consideration to the nature of intuition. THE NATURE OF INTUITION Palmer (1998) defines intuition as “the act or faculty of knowing without the use of rational processes” (p. 177). The term intuition has been used to describe any process of acquiring knowledge that differs from conscious thought and bypasses the senses and memory (Palmer, 1998). The broad range of intuitive experiences falls into four distinct levels of awareness: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual (Palmer, 1998). At the physical level, a strong body response may be experienced in a situation where there is no reason to think that anything unusual is going on. The kind of body awareness, which enables primitive people to sense danger when there are no sensory cues of its presence, is a highly developed form of intuition at

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the physical level. It differs from instinct in that instinct remains unconscious, while intuition becomes fully conscious, although a person may act on it without stopping to justify or rationalize it. On the emotional level, intuition comes into consciousness through feelings. Although this type of perceptual awareness contributes to one’s understanding of other people, it should not be confused with developing awareness of one’s own internal feeling states. Intuition cannot be reduced to observation of behavior, body language, and other visual cues. It is a holistic awareness that includes both internal and external sensitivity, and which sometimes transcends sensory input altogether (Palmer, 1998). Intuition on the mental level often comes into awareness through images, or what is called inner vision. Patterns of order may be perceived where everything at first appears chaotic, or patterns of change may be apprehended intuitively long before the verification process of careful observation is completed (Palmer, 1998). Intuition on this level is related to thinking and is often associated with problem solving, mathematics, and scientific inquiry as noted by Kuhn (1970). For example, Einstein’s insights came from visual images he conjured up intuitively then translated into the language of mathematics. The theory of special relativity, for example, was triggered by his musing on what it would be like to ride through space on a beam of light (Lemonick, 1999). Spiritual intuition is associated with mystical experience, and at this level intuition is “pure” (Palmer, 1998, p. 192). Pure, spiritual intuition is distinguished from other forms by its independence from sensations, feelings, and thoughts. Paradoxically, the cues on which intuition depends on other levels are regarded as interference at the spiritual level. However, an awareness of how intuition functions on other levels helps to dispel the misconception that intuition as a way of knowing is an all-or-nothing proposition. Intuitive awareness may be affected by factors such as time, place, mood, attitude, state of consciousness, and many other variables (Palmer, 1998). In Burnett’s (2010) investigation of the role of intuition in the creative process, she observed that: Vaughan [1979] believed the highest level of intuition was spiritual. “Pure, spiritual intuition is distinguished from other forms by its independence from sensations, feelings, and thoughts” [Vaughan, 1979, p. 77]. Other theorists [Harman & Rheingold, 1984; Maslow, 1992; Miller, 1994; Palmer, 1998; Sisk & Torrance; 2001] also argued that intuition comes from a higher power. Many of those theorists believed that in order to move from the mind to the whole self, it should be done through the sacred unconscious. (Burnett, 2010, p. 88)

We conclude from the foregoing that intuition occurs at many levels from the physical to the spiritual. One might say that there is a continuum of spiritual experiences that is consistent with a holistic view of life. That is,

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we are all at once, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual beings. We believe that giving consideration to intuition will be useful in the development of a spiritual research paradigm. Burnett (2010) provided another perspective on intuition. She interviewed masters students engaged in a course on creativity to document their understanding and experience with intuition and created a description of intuition with the following features: • Intuition is a natural process that occurs at the unconscious level. While it is something that may be deliberately enhanced, as a natural process, it cannot be forced. • Intuitive insight comes from our senses, domain expertise and past experiences, and divine knowledge. We pick up this information tacitly through our sensory perception, from our lived experiences, and/or our connection to the universe. The mind uses this information and works at an unconscious level to seek patterns, sense gaps, and makes connections. Once the “work” has been completed, the answer will arrive. • The answer will come in an instant, as a rapid flash of insight. There will not be any logical data to back the answer up, at least initially. However, the person will “know” it is the answer without knowing why. • The answer can manifest itself in several different ways: physiologically (as a gut feel or surge of energy), emotionally (as a feeling of right/wrong or unexplained feeling), mentally (as an aha!), or as inner guidance (as an inner voice telling one what one should do (Burnett, 2010, p. 89). In what follows, we will consider the nature and role of intuition in scientific endeavors, and in the practice of qigong medicine and spiritual insight in light of the research conducted by Burnett (2010). THE PARADIGM AND VALUES OF WESTERN SCIENCE Scientific progress occurs in two ways: through normal science and through revolutions or what has become referred to as a paradigm shift. Almost all scientific effort and training is directed to the endeavor of normal science in which the goal is to achieve progress incrementally by refining, extending and articulating knowledge within a paradigm (Kuhn, 1970). In general, the process of normal science consists of the determination of significant facts, matching of facts with theory, and articulation of theory. The matter of paradigm shifts and their relationship to spirituality will be considered latter in this chapter.

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Values of Western Science Kuhn (1970) notes that the values of science are more widely shared and understood by the community of scientists than the generalized symbols. What he means here is that those working in microbiology will not be familiar with the symbols of those working in quantum mechanics and vice versa. “Values provide a sense of community to natural scientists as a whole” and therefore are important considerations (Kuhn, 1970, p. 184). An implicit value the broad community of scientists hold is that for a theory to be valid the community must agree on the theory and the experimental evidence that supports it (Kuhn, 1970). Consistent with the concept that agreement of a community of scientists is required is that one of the most deeply held values is that of predictions. “They should be accurate; quantitative predictions are preferable to qualitative ones” (Kuhn, 1970, p. 185). The judgment of whole theories must permit puzzle-formulation and solution development. They should be simple, self-consistent, and compatible with other theories currently held to be true (Kuhn, 1970). Consistency is a primary value of science. To emphasize the importance of this point, Kuhn (1970) stated: “Imagine what would happen in the sciences if consistency ceased to be a primary value” (p. 186). We will learn a response to this question when considering the practice of qigong medicine in what follows. The focus of science is to eliminate inconsistencies in formulas and theory that describe nature. When inconsistencies are identified, it is either a failure of theory describing phenomenon or it is an error in the method. An error in the theory calls for a reevaluation of the theory. Another important insight here is the value placed on the development and use of abstractions. For example E = mc2 is an abstraction; it is not reality. We will see subsequently how the training of scientists is focused on learning how nature fits into abstractions. Seeing the world as a mechanism is a cosmological view, which is consistent with the use of reductionism and objectivity as methods of inquiry. Requiring consistency is a value that is expressed in the desire to represent phenomenon in the abstract form. Carl Jung (1983) argued that applying this value at a societal level has had the effect of diminishing the value of individuals and their experience. Another implicit assumption in most scientific inquiry is that nature is out there, that is, it is determined through observation of external phenomenon. Even in the field of psychology, which attends to the subjective and the internal state of mind of the individual, scientific observation focuses on the objective and the external rather than the subjective and internal state of mind of the researcher. Science also embodies the value that if something can’t be measured it doesn’t exist. Sternberg said: “We need hard evidence, data. We have to be able to measure something to know that it’s real. . . . If you couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real. . . . But now we have different ways of ‘seeing

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things’” (as quoted in Tippett, 2010, p. 213). In the last statement, Sternberg is referring to the current ability to observe how emotions affect the body and the link scientists have made between health and emotions (Tippett, 2010). This statement reveals two points worthy of note and draws a distinction from values expressed in Daoism. The first is the community of scientists hold the value that if phenomenon can’t be measured it doesn’t exist, and the second is that now scientists have new ways of observing (and measuring) things that has changed their understanding of reality. This points out the fallacy of basing what is real on the ability to measure things. The Role of Intuition in Scientific Progress Scientific progress occurs in two ways. The first is through normal science, the purpose of which is to describe, reduce ambiguities, elucidate, and expand the number of problems solved within a given paradigm. The majority of work and problems solved by even the best scientist falls within the realm of normal science. The other manner in which progress occurs is through revolutions, which occur when one paradigm replaces another. The revolutionary process that scientists go through of changing from one paradigm to another is far from logical or predictable. Kuhn (1970) stated that normal science only leads to the recognition of anomalies or problems with the current paradigm. The shift from one paradigm to another is a relatively sudden and unstructured event, like the gestalt switch. Kuhn (1970) in describing the discovery of a new paradigm stated: Scientists often speak of “the scales falling from the eyes” or of “the lightning flash” and that “inundates” a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution. On other occasions the relevant illuminations comes in sleep. No ordinary sense of the term interpretation or logic fits these flashes of intuition through which a new paradigm is born. Though such intuitions depend upon the experience gained with old paradigms, they are not logically or piecemeal linked to particular items of that experience as an interpretation would be. Instead, they gather up large portions of that experience and transform them to the rather different bundle of experience that will thereafter be linked to the new paradigm but not the old. (Kuhn, pp. 122–123)

As has been noted, the transition from one paradigm to another is achieved through an intuitive process. Intuitive events described as unpredictable, sudden, and dramatic insights resulting in a gestalt shift, however, are preceded by intense and repetitive work within a logical framework. Scientist’s descriptions of intuitive insight such as “scales falling from the eyes”

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or “the lightning flash” (Kuhn, 1970, p. 122) have a spiritual connotation to them and bear striking similarity to the intuitive descriptions provided by Burnett (2010). While intuition appears to be an accidental outcome of scientific training, it is not the intended outcome. In fact the institutions that teach us how to use our minds are so skewed toward the rational-empirical ideal that intuition is seldom discussed, much less honored or encouraged (Palmer, 1998). The accidental intuitive events characteristic of science appear to be strikingly similar to intuitive events sought in qigong. The key difference is that the latter ones are an intentional outcome of qigong training as we shall subsequently see. THE PARADIGM AND VALUES OF DAOISM We refer to the Neiye (inner training) and its translation by Roth (1999) for insight regarding Daoist spiritual intuition or mystical experience for several reasons. The Neiye is a set of poetic verses that explores the nature of human beings and describes a meditation for achieving health, longevity, and noetic insights (Roth, 1999). It proposes a model of cultivation where the practitioner purifies him or herself through stillness, restraining thoughts and desires, and clearing the mind of clutter (Kirkland, 2004). The inner training of the Neiye was very influential in ancient China. Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi considered its practices in their writings, and the authors of the Zhuangzi and the Daodejing—both canonical Daoist texts—were influenced by the Neiye (Roth, 1991; Slingerland, 2000). Much of present day Daoist practice, including qigong, can be traced to the Neiye (Kirkland, 2004). From a Daoist perspective, one engages in meditative practice (inner work) with the potential outcome of accessing a higher level of intellect or consciousness; a nondual awareness of the Dao or the way (Roth, 1999). When one achieves this, it is not just enhanced knowledge or intellect that is achieved, rather it is a transformation of one’s understanding of one’s place in the world and awareness of the universe (Roth, 1999). Because the sage attains a direct experience of “how the Dao or the Way is the guiding principle of themselves and of all phenomena” (Roth, 1999, p. 140), the sage is no longer attached to a limited perspective of the self. This has the effect of transforming the sage’s knowledge and actions in the world. Roth (1999) stated: “You will not be enticed by profit or be frightened by harm (verse XXIV)” because you are no longer attached to the perspective of the individual self that is normally so enticed and so frightened . . . “your thoughts and deeds seem heavenly,” which means that, like heaven, you will be spontaneously responsive because this natural inclination is not interfered with by the selfconscious deliberation that often accompanies the individual self. Verse XVI

Exploring the Unity of Science and Spirit    183 says that following inner cultivation will allow you eventually “to mirror things with great purity and perceive things with great clarity.” (p. 141)

This practice appears to alter one’s perception of one’s self, alters one’s morals, and provides one with great insight and therefore is a holistic kind of training, which appears to operate in the purely spiritual mystical world. The meditative practices and spiritual aspects of Daoism can be found in the practical realm of health care in the practice of medical qigong. We believe this is an important point as it represents a tradition where the spirit and practical matters remained united from ancient times down to the present, which may inform the development of a spiritual research paradigm. Qigong is based on ancient health and longevity practices originating in prehistoric China known as “traditional body technologies” (Palmer, 2007). It was made widely available in China post 1978 when China started to implement more relaxing political policies and embarked on a policy of economic reforming and opening. The term “traditional” refers to the fact that the methods employed have roots in prehistoric shamanism, and are transmitted through classical Daoist texts, such as the Daodejing, to the present (Palmer, 2007). “Technology” refers to “specialized and highly elaborate discourses linking different body techniques to each other, as well as to cosmologies and intentional paths of life” (Palmer, 2007, p. 9). Chinese Metaphysical View of Qi and the Dao In order to understand the practice of qigong and the paradigm of Daoism, one must begin with a Chinese cultural and historical perspective of qi. This provides the backdrop for the role of qi in the Chinese approach to health and medicine. Cosmologically, qi is both matter and energy and is fundamental to the make up of the universe. In human terms, it is known as vital energy or vital breath (qi). It is of central importance to the cosmological, cultural, and political concerns (Meyer, 2010), and is vital in the self-cultivation processes described in the Neiye (Roth, 1999). Qi is responsible for the transformations and motions of the cosmos, and all organic processes of living beings. The significance of qi and its relationship to Dao and living beings is described as follows: The Dao is “the root of all creative transformation.” From a state of absolute “vacuity” or “nothingness” (wu 無), a process of autogenesis ensued, through which the “original” life generating qi (yuanqi 元氣) spontaneously came into play (zihua 自化). A further differentiation saw the appearance of the yin and yang qi, which in turn gave rise to the “myriad beings. (Chan, 2010, p. 4)

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With respect to humans, endowment of qi determines one’s innate nature, which is vitally important and plays an important role in self-cultivation (Chan, 2010). The Practice of Qigong Medicine Normally qi is not accessible to the five senses, however, with training, one is able to intuitively sense, retain and manipulate qi. In so doing one’s health is improved because the deficiency or imbalances of qi are rectified. If one wishes to become a qigong healer further training is required and the ability to sense other’s qi improves. Ultimately one is able to recognize the qi imbalances in other people and is able to directly adjust other’s qi through the external emission of qi thereby improving their health (Hsu, 1999). This is a significant point that relates to qigong cosmology, training or cultivation and healing. The qigong healer, meditates and in so doing puts him or herself into a Primordial state whereby his or her Primordial qi is restored. This qi can be transmitted to other people for healing purposes (Hsu, 1999). Primordial qi does not belong to the healer, rather it is assumed to be sourced in the life giving natural world (Hsu 1999). “The insight that qi does not intrinsically belong to anyone or anything has, furthermore, far-reaching consequences for the conceptualization of the body and the universe” (Hsu, 1999, p. 77). Qi was seen as the substrate that tied the cosmos, the state, and the body together as a single interdependent complex. Qigong Doctor Training There are thousands of styles of qigong. Some employ movement others do not. Most employ some form of formal posture, breathing, meditation, and or visualization exercises. We have chosen to rely on the descriptions provided by Elizabeth Hsu in her text The Transmission of Chinese Medicine. Hsu’s (1999) work is a study in medical anthropology, with the purpose of investigating the cultural construction of illness, and the analysis of ideas about the body, birth, maturity, aging, and death. According to Hsu (1999), the process of training a qigong healer is as follows: Competence in many different frameworks of knowledge and practice is required to become a qigong healer: Western medicine, Chinese herbal and medical drugs, writing of Daoist symbols that invoke the energies of deities, recitation of incantations, etc. The student learns qigong by imitation and is trained through daily meditation and exercises. The process of learning is not didactically structured; the different stages through which a student has to pass are not

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outlined in the beginning because they cannot be known, as every individual is different. Based on our personal experience, the purpose of practicing qigong in general is to enhance one’s qi energy and circulate it within the body and also enable qi energy exchange between the human body and the larger environment. With qi moving in more dynamic forms, the body can make movements to accommodate the movement of qi. This can be a healing process as well as an energy enhancing process for students. The movement of qi and one of the outcomes of learning is the experience of sensations, feelings, emotions, and visions to which the student is told to be attentive. The direction of the training depends largely on the particular experiences of the student. The style of training is designed to support the development of a more sensitive, aware and mindful person resulting in a transformation of the body, emotions, mind and spirit. In summary, qigong is a discipline that increases internal energy, heals and produces specific outcomes referred to as wonders, sudden and profound spiritual insights and where the acquisition of knowledge and skills are expected. These wonders and insights bear striking similarity to the spiritual and intuitive experiences described earlier in this chapter. Daoists place importance on wonder, awe, and sudden insight. Wonder and insight is the entry point to what is real, which Daoists recognize needs to be confirmed through experience or data but the real exists in wonder as we shall subsequently see. In addition, contrary to the view of science, Daoism places and regards the unique experience of individuals and their internal subjective experience as legitimate sources of knowledge. We propose that placing emphasis on wonder, the individual and inner experience is fundamental to spiritual insight. COMPARING AND CONTRASTING THE SCIENCE AND MEDICAL QIGONG There are some similarities and many differences in these paradigms that originate in very different cosmologies. Western science takes as its starting point that knowledge of the universe is achieved through investigation of phenomenon external to the individual. It makes the assumption that inanimate matter is the basis of inquiry and that spirit cannot or should not be investigated. It assumes that life emerges out of matter and that if phenomenon cannot be measured, it doesn’t exist, which we have pointed out is a fallacy. Its investigations focus on holding the object of inquiry in a state of stasis while changing one variable at a time to see the effect for the purpose of serving one of its highest values: consistency, repeatability, and reliability of prediction. A key objective of scientific inquiry is to

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develop abstractions that approximate nature that can be agreed upon and shared amongst scientists. Jung (1983) notes an outcome of the scientific penchant for predictability and abstraction is that scientific education and discovery relies on statistical truths and abstract knowledge: Therefore, (it) imparts an unrealistic, rational picture of the world in which the individual, as a merely marginal phenomenon, plays no role. The individual, however, as an irrational datum, is the true and authentic carrier of reality, the concrete man as opposed to the unreal ideal or “normal” man to whom the scientific statements refer. What is more, most of natural sciences try to represent the results of their investigations as though these had come into existence without man’s intervention, in such a way that the collaboration of the psyche—an indispensable factor—remains invisible. . . . Under the influence of scientific assumptions, not only the psyche but the individual man and, indeed, all individual events whatsoever suffer a levelling down and a process of blurring that distorts the picture of reality into a conceptual average. (Jung, 1983, p. 354)

Daoist inquiry, on the other hand, assumes that life is the highest value (Lai, 2004). Therefore, it takes as its starting point that one is observing life in nature. It assumes that living matter emerges out of qi, the animating force of life, which is always in motion, contains energy, matter and information. While consistency and repeatability may be of interest, it is not a primary value because life is infinite in its variety and is in motion. Because the fundamental substance of life, qi, is always in motion, the methodology of Daoist inquiry does not attempt to hold phenomenon in stasis while changing one variable. It observes and works with the whole phenomenon. In the case of human beings who are the instrument and object of inquiry, the whole person is considered vital to the process of inquiry: body, emotions, mind, and spirit. Similarly, measurement, while useful, is not the measure of reality as it is in science. Personal experience is the focus and measure of reality. The Daoist method of inquiry however, seeks tranquility in the presence of change (Culham, 2013; Roth 1999). This is more like homeostasis rather than stasis. Homeostasis is the effort of living cells and all life to retain equilibrium in the presence of the dynamics of a changing external and internal environment. Because life is a wonder, the method is open to wonder, mystery, and surprise. It anticipates mystery and paradox because no amount of rationalization satisfies the question of how and why we come to life. In training of qigong doctors its purpose is to provide the individual access to secret knowledge (Hsu, 1999) that is unique to that individual on the assumption that the doctor is in relationship with the patient and must rely on skills and knowledge that are unique to that doctor because the doctor is involved in manipulating qi, the foundation of life. This can only

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be achieved by applying the unique capability of the doctor based on his or her unique genealogy and life experience in relationship with the patient. This does not deny the need to study and acquire the accumulated knowledge of the community of practitioners, but it does place emphasis on the unique relationship between patient and doctor as a dynamic. From a cosmological perspective, Daoist inquiry takes as its subject of inquiry the individual in the context of the universe, and the community in which he or she practices. It assumes that each individual originates in the Dao and therefore is endowed with a small amount of the Dao (Roth, 1999). This endowment is known as xing or innate nature, which is hidden from the awareness of the individual by cultural conditioning, family, and life experience. Daoist cultivation has as its objective the peeling back of the layers of conditioning to reveal one’s innate nature to oneself. The final result of this clearing is the realization of one’s authentic innate nature, and because it is of the Dao, union with the Dao is possible. Given that one has achieved union with the Dao, one achieves awareness of the knowledge of the universe. So the inquiry is internal and focused on the individual with the emphasis on discovering the unique and true nature of the individual and the ultimate result being access to the knowledge of the universe. A Personal Example of Spiritual Research Daoism sounds like mysticism, but there is experiential substance to this cosmology and the perspective that arises from it. Rather than explicating based on our personal experience as practitioners of qigong, we turn to the personal experiences of Jill Bolte Taylor (2006), a Harvard trained neuroanatomist who suffered a stroke to her left brain. She was in the position to observe and record her experience when the operation of her right brain became available to her consciousness due to the shutdown of the inhibiting role of the left brain. We have taken this approach for several reasons. First, Bolte Taylor is a respected and highly trained doctor who brings the credibility of her qualifications as a Western trained doctor to her experiences. Second, through the description of her experiences, we wish to demonstrate the value of internal introspection as proposed by the Daoists; third we believe that the Daoists base their so called mystical approach not on “mysticism,” but rather on observable human phenomenon, which Bolte Taylor chronicles; and fourth, we wish to illustrate the parallels in Bolte Taylor’s experience with elements of Daoist meditative practice. This analysis provides a starting point from which to propose a spiritual research paradigm. Daoists claim that the ultimate outcome of their practice is a return to their authentic self and union with the Dao. We recount

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Bolte Taylor’s internal experience, which appears to have similarity with the Daoist goal: I shifted from the doing consciousness of my left brain to the being consciousness of my right brain. I morphed from feeling small and isolated to feeling enormous and expansive. I stopped thinking in language and shifted to taking pictures of what was going on in the present moment. . . . All I could perceive was right here, right now, and it was beautiful. My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me. . . . My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea . . . . My eyes could no longer perceive things as things that were separate from one another. Instead, the energy of everything blended together . . . I was consciously alert and my perception was that I was in the flow. In this shifted perception, it was impossible for me to perceive either physical or emotional loss because I was not capable of experiencing separation or individuality. Despite my neurological trauma, an unforgettable sense of peace pervaded my entire being and I felt calm. (Bolte Taylor, 2006, p. 68–71)

The desired state of Daoist and qigong cultivation is union with Dao or the universe. It appears that Bolte Taylor is describing an expanded awareness similar to and perhaps similar to union with the Dao as an ultimate outcome anticipated by Daoists. We noted earlier that Daoist cultivation purifies the mind through stillness, restraining thoughts and desires, and clearing the mind of clutter (Kirkland, 2004). When one achieves this, it is not just enhanced knowledge or intellect that is achieved, rather it is a transformation of one’s understanding of one’s place in the world and awareness of the universe (Roth, 1999). Because the sage attains a direct experience of “how the Dao or the Way is the guiding principle of themselves and of all phenomena” (Roth, 1999, p. 140), the sage is no longer attached to a limited perspective of the self. This has the effect of transforming the sage’s knowledge and actions in the world. Bolte Taylor stated that her left brain was the source of verbal thinking, and ongoing chatter and describes her state of mind when it was shut down during her stroke: My right mind character is adventurous, celebrative of abundance, and socially adept. It is sensitive to nonverbal communication, empathic, and accurately decodes emotion. My right mind is open to the eternal flow whereby I exist at one with the universe. It is the seat of my divine mind, the knower, the wise woman, and the observer. It is my intuition and higher consciousness. My right mind is ever present and gets lost in time. (p. 140)

Exploring the Unity of Science and Spirit    189 My stroke of insight is that at the core of my right hemisphere consciousness is a character that is directly connected to my feeling of deep inner peace. It is completely committed to the expression of peace, love, joy, and compassion in the world. (p. 133)

Her reference to the right brain as a source of intuition occurs several times. When her left brain was not functioning, she gained access to the “intuitive wisdom of her right brain” (Bolte Taylor, 2006, p. 168) and this connects to the theme that has been running through this chapter that intuition is an important human faculty that can be cultivated as part of a spiritual research paradigm. We believe that her experience illustrates that it is possible to obtain a kind of universal awareness; that it is possible for this to have practical implications in that this awareness enables one to perceive the interconnections of people and the influence people have on one another through the awareness of that connection. Bolte Taylor (2006) refers to it as energy. Daoists and Confucians refer to it as qi (Roth, 1999; Major, Queen, Meyer, & Roth, 2010). We have suggested that intuition is a human faculty that can be observed in western scientists, qigong doctors and in Bolte Taylor’s personal experience. Intuition can provide insight into the cause and treatment of illness (Hsu, 1999), but it also can provide insight into spiritual matters. A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM PROPOSAL Here we propose a spiritual research paradigm that may be suitable for educational purposes in a secular setting. The approach is to triangulate several sources of knowledge. We draw primarily from the Daoist and an early Confucian approach to self-cultivation, the training of qigong doctors, the personal experience of Jill Bolte Taylor, our own personal experience, and the paradigm of Western science to develop a spiritual research paradigm. We believe this is valid because from a scientific materialistic perspective it has been observed that all cultural phenomena are the product of the structure of the brain (Doidge, 2007; Restak, 1991). From a Daoist perspective the structure of the brain is the physical manifestation of qi as are all other parts of the body. Therefore, whether one holds the view that the physical structure of the brain gives rise to spirituality, or spiritual phenomenon gives rise to the physical structure of the brain, doesn’t matter. We are observing spirituality from different perspectives, unless of course one simply denies the existence of spiritual phenomenon. A spiritual research paradigm must be conducted within the context of certain conditions that enable spirit to be present. This requirement is expressed in the Neiye, where it holds that one must be in alignment with the

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Dao in order to accumulate qi such that virtue will emerge in one’s life (Roth, 1999). What does this mean? Bolte Taylor used an illustrative metaphor. She said it was a matter of “tending her garden.” When one carefully tends a garden, one enables life to emerge and express itself to its fullest extent. According to the Daoists, when something appears in this manner the innate nature of the entity is expressed and this is an expression of virtue in a very broad sense of the word (Culham, 2013). To heal from her stroke and maintain one’s sense of being one with the universe, Bolte Taylor made a number of observations that parallel our understanding of the process of cultivation. We state her observation and then discuss it in the context of the Daoist practice of qigong, and our personal experience. Engage the Perfect We are brought up to strive for more. We are not good enough: if I just take another self-help course, get a better car, get at bigger house, marry a perfect spouse, I will be better. This generates a lot of want and dissatisfaction in ourselves and the world. We believe Daoists and Buddhists hold similar views on this as a problem and the solution. All the time we have this infinite amount of wisdom and compassion within us. It’s just become clogged up, so we can’t find it. . . . The minute you switch on the light, there it is. However deep our ignorance, however profound our sense of unworthiness, however much we feel, inundated by our negative emotions, however alienated and isolated we feel, the moment we access the unconditioned nature of mind, it’s all gone. . . . We now realize that we have always identified ourselves with all the wrong stuff. That’s not who we are at all. (Palmo, 2002, p. 189)

Despite the debilitating effects of her stroke, Bolte Taylor (2006) said she experienced perfection and wholeness when her left brain shut down. Her experience eloquently matches up with Tenzin Palmo’s statement in the following: Although I could not walk or talk, understand language, read or write, or even roll my body over, I knew I was OK. The now off-line intellectual mind of my left hemisphere no longer inhibited my innate awareness that I was the miraculous power of life. I knew I was different now, but never once did my right mind indicate that I was “less than” what I had been before. I was simply a being of light radiating life into the world. . . . In the absence of my left hemisphere’s negative judgment, I perceived myself as perfect, whole, and beautiful just the way I was. (pp. 68–71)

Of course we do not want to have a stroke to experience this state, but there are means of enabling this as outlined in the following.

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Forget Yourself Roth (1999) noted that the Daoist practices of cultivation proposed in the Neiye involve a process of forgetting yourself: They involve a systematic process of negating, forgetting or emptying out the contents of consciousness (perceptions, emotions, desires, and thoughts) found in ordinary experience based in the ego-self. This systematic emptying leads to increasingly profound states of tranquility until one experiences a fully concentrated inner consciousness of unity, which is filled with light and clarity and is not tied to an individual self. (Roth, p. 125)

Bolte Taylor experienced a stroke that shut her left brain down resulting in a forgetting of herself. This enabled her right brain awareness to emerge and she became aware of a different side of her and different values. In the following, she described the effect of the stroke on the functioning of her left brain and the change in her awareness: As the language centers in my left hemisphere grew increasingly silent and I became detached from the memories of my life, I was comforted by an expanding sense of grace. In this void of higher cognition and details pertaining to my normal life, my consciousness soared into an all-knowingness, a “being at one” with the universe, if you will (p. 41). . . . My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me. (p. 69). . . . The now off-line intellectual mind of my left hemisphere no longer inhibited my innate awareness that I was the miraculous power of life. (p. 71)

Bolte Taylor (2006) noted that the concept of a separate self resides in the left brain and this concept melted away with her stroke. The outcome of her stroke appears to be similar to the outcome of cultivation proposed by Daoists. That is she forgot ego self, experienced a profound sense of tranquility, gained an awareness of her authentic self as integrated with the universe, and experienced a desire to bring peace and compassion to the world. Buddhist observations hold that: “Wisdom and compassion can only be revealed once the ‘I’ has disappeared. When we reach this level, we will be able to benefit others” (Palmo, 2002, p. 96). Slow Down Through Meditation, Dance, Music, Art Bolte Taylor (2006) recognized that her left and right brains expressed different capabilities. The left is task oriented, limited, judgmental, and sees time as operating in a linear fashion. She felt that connection to the

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universe and a less judgmental attitude depended on slowing down the chatter of her left brain to allow the more compassionate values and consciousness of the right brain to become dominant. She said: Our right brain is capable of detecting energy beyond the limitations of our left mind because of the way it is designed. . . . We are energy beings designed to perceive and translate energy into neural code. . . . Our right hemisphere is designed to perceive and decipher the subtle energy dynamics we perceive intuitively. . . . In order to hear the intuitive wisdom of the right mind, however, I must consciously slow my left mind down so I am not simply carried along on the current of my chatty story-teller. (pp. 167–168)

Pay Attention to the Energy or the Qi of Others Bolte Taylor (2006) became aware of the aura or energy of health care professionals she encountered and welcomed those who energetically expressed care, compassion, and love; she avoided those professionals who were negative, who were rushed or did not connect with her in a caring way. This not only became important for her healing, but for life following her recovery she said: I experienced people as concentrated packages of energy. Doctors and nurses were massive conglomerations of powerful beams of energy that came and went. . . . With this shift into my right hemisphere, I became empathic to what others felt. . . . I could read volumes from their facial expression and body language. I paid very close attention to how energy dynamics affected me. I realized that some people brought me energy while others took it away. (pp. 7–75) I chose to show up for those professionals who brought me energy by connecting with me, touching me gently and appropriately, making direct eye contact with me, and speaking to me calmly. I responded positively to positive treatment. The professionals who did not connect with me sapped my energy, so I protected myself by ignoring their requests. (p. 82) Since the stroke, I steer my life almost entirely by paying attention to how people, place, and things feel to me energetically. (p. 168)

Maintain Positive Personal Thoughts Rather than being a solid body with fixed boundaries, she became aware that our bodies are more fluid made up of energy that extends beyond the body. Consistent with the sense that other’s emotional state affected her

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well-being and healing process, Bolte Taylor (2006) became aware of how her own thought processes could help or hinder her healing and connection to the universe so she choose to emphasize positive thought processes. Happiness and well-being is determined more by one’s perception of external events rather than the objective events themselves (Achor, 2010). Not only that, the science of epigenetics holds that our cells are designed to respond genetically to external information and this can have a significant impact on our well-being (Lipton, 2005). Our own personal state of mind and that of those around us affect our health and well-being. Seek a Virtuous Teacher Schooled in the Art of Human Energy Bolte Taylor (2006) does not directly speak to the matter of a teacher; however, her comments regarding the energy of people can be related to the importance Daoists and Buddhists place on the master or teacher. Daoist teachers are an important aid for spiritual cultivation of the practitioner for two reasons, one of which Bolte Taylor alludes to. The Daoist tradition not only sees the teacher as someone who transfers intellectual knowledge as one would expect, but the energy presence of teacher and his or her practice of transmitting qi to the student is also seen as an important element of learning. Bolte Taylor alludes to this when during her stay in hospital she preferred to be in the presence of positive people because they exuded an energy that assisted her healing (2006). She could literally feel their energy. Hsu (1999) in her study of qigong doctors noted that they routinely emitted qi to their patients as part of the healing process. She noted too that part of the training of qigong doctors involved a process of them accumulating qi to the point where it was possible to emit qi without harming themselves. The assumption is that if one gives away one’s life energy qi one will suffer harm. However, the meditative practice is a process that gathers universal qi and stores it in the body of the doctor (Hsu, 1999). According to the Daoists, a person who has spent his or her entire life accumulating universal energy carries a large and powerful energy field and has the ability to transmit qi to others thereby enabling them to open to the Dao (Major et al., 2010). Such a teacher has the ability to influence others to be open to the Dao and thereby enable them to transform physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually (Major et al., 2010). Buddhists hold a similar view in that it is thought that a “qualified teacher embodies the blessings, power, compassion, and wisdom of all the Buddhas in human form” and enables an opening in the mind of the student through “mind to mind transmission” (Palmo, 2002, p. 206).

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Be Objective, Scientific What we mean by this is that one should observe one’s inner state impartially, be objective, be open to phenomenon, confirm your experiences, study, apply your knowledgeable, and document your experiences. The difference between Western science and this scientific approach is that the object of observation is the self as opposed to external phenomenon. While there is an emphasis on positive emotions, gratitude, joy, and awe, Bolte Taylor’s insights could not have been achieved without her knowledge and application of neuroscience. She did not abandon science to achieve her insights, rather she utilized her conscious awareness and intellectual knowledge to interpret and convey the depth of her experience. Buddhist’s advise that conscious awareness in meditation is enormously important (Palmo, 2002). The process of learning about spirit is not a matter of abandoning the skills of observation, rationality, and the scientific approach. It is turning these skills from a focus on external phenomenon to a focus on personal internal phenomenon. Spirit and science are clearly partners in Bolte Taylor’s description of her experience. Further, as a consequence of her experience, she gained a great deal of respect for the capabilities and the perspective that her right brain brought to her when her left brain was not functioning. This was a consequence of her ability to observe impartially without judgment, be open to the experience, and interpret her experience in the context of her knowledge. Hsu (1999) notes that in the process of training of qigong doctors, they are expected to be open to wonders and experience sudden intuitive insights through cultivation, however, they are also expected to enhance their intellectual knowledge of Chinese classics and traditional Chinese medicine. Intellectual pursuits and knowledge are not abandoned in Daoist and qigong practice, rather there is a balance of effort directed towards developing intellectual knowledge and intuitive insight. Because spiritual experiences can be subtle and fleeting, documenting them helps to consolidate them. Bolte Taylor (2006) has benefited from writing about her experience because she has captured and consolidated them for herself. When the experiences are in written form, they serve as a foundation for further personal insights. Not only that, others could not have benefited from her experience without her book. Express Gratitude, Joy, and Appreciation for Life One of the experiences associated with an encounter with Dao, spirit, or the numinous is a sense of awe, wonder, joy, and gratitude for simply being alive. The Neiye advises practitioners to align with and mirror the Dao,

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and one aspect of the Dao noticed in the Daoist tradition is that it gives indiscriminately, endlessly, and without expectation of return (Roth, 1999). Bolte Taylor (2006) expressed gratitude for the experience of having the stroke because of the expanded awareness it brought her. She said: My right mind is thrilled to be alive! I experience a feeling of awe when I consider that I am simultaneously capable of being at one with the universe, while having an individual identity whereby I move into the world and manifest positive change. (p. 171)

As a consequence, she (Bolte) experienced a deep sense of joy, awe, and gratitude for the gift of life (2006). Based on our personal experience, her conclusion is a model for enabling and appreciating spiritual experience and insight. Of course, one is not advised to seek health problems as a means of appreciating life, but as part of a practice we can appreciate the gift of life in all its forms regardless of the difficulties we experience. This kind of appreciation and sense of gratitude is far removed from the objective approach suggested in science, but it has the effect of inviting more of the same into one’s life because it is in alignment with the Dao. The Dao is the source of life and appreciation of the gift of life is an alignment. Practice Virtue Similar to the advice that one should express gratitude, joy and appreciation for life because it is in alignment with the Dao, one should find ways to appreciate the gift through the practice of virtue. The Neiye emphasizes that practicing virtue is important because it puts one in alignment with the Dao and therefore invites virtue into one’s life (Roth, 1999). Buddhists hold a similar view. “The Buddha always said that if you do not have ethical conduct, you cannot meditate, because the mind is too distracted” (Palmo, 2002, p. 197). The Daoist concept of virtue is holistic, encompassing body, emotions, mind, and spirit (Culham 2013). For example, virtue of the body is expressed as health. The implication is that if one is virtuous one will have good health, enjoy social well-being, be wise and achieve a connection with the Dao. While Hsu (1999) doesn’t provide the reasons for the advice, she notes that qigong doctors in training are advised to be virtuous and practice virtue. Following her experience, Bolte Taylor (2006) expresses a spontaneous desire to be compassionate, empathetic, and give back to society. This approach is something that she deeply desires to do out of a sense of gratitude for the insight she has gained. She feels it is consistent with the values such as peace, contentment, and expansiveness that are inherent in her right brain (2006).

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CONCLUSION We do not claim that our proposal is complete or exclusive in the sense that we have used Daoism as a reference for our proposal. The practices of other religions and science will make contributions to this discussion. We have argued that intuition is a human faculty important to both science and Daoism. Intuition is a human faculty that appears to originate in the right brain and can be experienced at a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. Intuition has made accidental but significant contributions to the advance of science. When scientists speak of intuitive insights, a spiritual overtone is conveyed in the description of their experiences. Nowadays, the values of science and training of scientists do not, however, recognize the contribution of intuition to science. Rather, the emphasis in the training of scientists is on objective, rational methods and the production of results and models that are consistent and predictive. The focus of scientific inquiry is on phenomenon external to the researcher and the production of results that emphasize the commonality of phenomenon as a means of understanding nature. These are very useful values and goals as they permit the communication of intellectual knowledge within the community of scientists. Daoism, on the other hand, provides contemplative practices that are designed to enable intuitive insights that can be experienced at any level by the individual. The focus of Daoist practice is on phenomenon internal to the researcher and holds that the uniqueness of the individual is vital in the process of understanding nature and transforming the individual to a more virtuous state. Daoism relies on the development of intellectual knowledge as a means of supporting and communicating with those learning and practicing its methods. At a very simple level, we propose that a spiritual research paradigm utilize pedagogy that engages both the objective, intellectual, rational, and the intuitive, emotional, spiritual faculties of humans. We believe that the Western scientific method has a support role to play in this paradigm, while a method informed by Daoist contemplative methods has a lead role to play. We believe that this approach is consistent with Einstein’s statement that: There is no logical path to these laws (of the universe); only (through) intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience can (we) reach them. . . . The state of mind which enables a man to do work of this kind . . . is akin to that of the religious worshiper or the lover; the daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or program but straight from the heart. (as quoted in Calaprice, 2011, p. 364)

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NOTES 1. Sternberg is a leader in the field of neural-immune research, internationally recognised for her discoveries about how the central nervous system and the immune system interact (Tippett, 2010, p. 201). 2. A more detailed description of qigong and Daoism is provided later in the chapter. 3. “Technology” refers to “specialised and highly elaborate discourses linking different body techniques to each other, as well as to cosmologies and intentional paths of life” (Palmer, 2007, p. 9). This will be elaborated later in the chapter.

REFERENCES Achor, S. (2010). The happiness advantage: The seven principles of positive psychology that fuel success and performance at work. New York, NY: Random House. Bolte Taylor, J. (2006). My stroke of insight. New York, NY: Penguin. Burnett, C. (2010). Holistic approaches to creative problem solving (Doctoral dissertation). Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Calaprice, A. (2011). The ultimate quotable Einstein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chan, A. K. L. (2010). Affectivity and the nature of the sage: Gleanings from a Tang Daoist master. Journal of Daoist Studies, 3(2), 1–27. CTCMA. (2014). College of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and acupuncturists of British Columbia. Retrieved August 26, 2014, from http://www.ctcma.bc.ca/ Culham, T. (2013), Ethics education of business leaders: Emotional intelligence, virtues and contemplative learning. In J. Lin & R. Oxford (Eds.), Transforming education for the future. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Doidge, N. (2007). The brain that changes itself. New York, NY: Viking. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105– 117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hadot, P., & Davidson, A. I. (1995). Philosophy as a way of life: Spiritual exercises from Socrates to Foucault. New York, NY: Blackwell. Harman, W., & Rheingold, H. (1984). Higher creativity: Liberating the unconscious for breakthrough insights. New York, NY: Tarcher. Hsu, E. (1999). The transmission of Chinese medicine. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Jung, C. (1983) The essential Jung: Selected writings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kirkland, R. (2004). Taoism: The enduring tradition. New York, NY: Routledge. Kuhn, S. T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

198    T. CULHAM and J. LIN Lai, C. T. (2004). Commentary: A Daoist perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46(3), 279. Lemonick, D. M. (1999). Was Einstein’s brain built for brilliance? Time Magazine, 153(25). Lipton, B. H. (2005). The biology of belief: Unleashing the power of consciousness, matter, & miracles. New York, NY: Haye House. Lloyd, G. (1996). Adversaries and authorities: Investigation into ancient Greek and Chinese science. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Major, J. S., Queen, S. A., Meyer, A. S., & Roth, H. D. (Eds.). (2010). The Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and practice of government in early Han China. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Maslow, A. (1992). Emotional blocks to creativity. In S. Parnes (Ed.), Sourcebook for creative problem solving. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press. Meyer, A. S. (2010). Appendix A: Key Chinese terms and their translations. In J. S. Major, S. A. Queen, A. S. Meyer, & H. D. Roth (Eds.), The Huainanzi: A guide to the theory and practice of government in early Han China (pp. 869–913). New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Miller, J. P. (1994). The contemplative practitioner: Meditation in education and the professions. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Nelson, K. (2010). The spiritual doorway in the brain: A neurologist’s search for the God experience. New York, NY: Penguin. Ni, M. (1995). The yellow emperor’s classic of medicine. Boston, MA: Shambala. Palmer, H. (1998). Inner knowing: Consciousness, creativity, insight, and intuition. New York, NY: Putnam. Palmer, D. A. (2007). Qigong fever: Body, science, and utopia in China. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Restak, R. (1991). The brain has a mind of its own: Insights from a practicing neurologist. New York, NY: Harmony Books. Roth, H. D. (1991). Psychology and self-cultivation in early Taoistic thought. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 51(2), 599–650. Roth, H. D. (1999). Original Tao: Inward training (nei-yeh) and the foundations of Taoist mysticism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Sisk, D., & Torrance, E. P. (2001). Spiritual intelligence: Developing higher consciousness. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press. Slingerland, E. (2000). Why philosophy is not “extra” in understanding the Analects. Philosophy of East and West, 50(1), 137–141. Tippett, K. (2010). Einstein’s god: Conversations about science and the human spirit. London England: Penguin. Tenzin Palmo, A. (2002). Reflections on a mountain lake: Teachings on practical Buddhism. Boston, MA: Shambala. Vaughan, F. E. (1979). Awakening intuition. Oxford, England: Anchor Press. Yen, H. C. (2008, October). Is Daoism cultural? A study of daoist cultivation. In UBC Conference on Daoist Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

CHAPTER 9

CREATION SPIRITUALITY AS A SPIRITUAL RESEARCH PARADIGM DRAWING ON MANY FAITHS Rebecca L. Oxford

We were made for something cosmic and will not fit peacefully into anything much smaller. —Matthew Fox If the only prayer you ever say in entire life is thank you, it will be enough. —Meister Eckhart

PART 1—LAYING THE GROUNDWORK Creation Spirituality (CS) is a postmodern, revolutionary movement that draws upon images from multiple faiths, encourages mysticism, cares for the environment, and works toward social justice. As such, CS represents a distinctive spiritual paradigm (worldview). I prefer to call it a spiritual research paradigm, which I define briefly as a worldview held by a community of spiritual seekers/searchers who are inspired by experiences that bring a holistic, Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 199–231 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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integrative sense of compassion, love, kindness, and creativity; develop wisdom; provide access to the divine; and serve as daily guideposts. (See Part 2 for a more detailed definition and explanation.) Matthew Fox (1988), the founder of CS, believes the CS theology to be at the forefront of an emerging “paradigm shift” (p. 79) or “global renaissance” (p. 157) in spirituality. CS focuses on wisdom and understanding, deals with questions of being and existence, and is concerned about values. Therefore, I contend that as a spiritual research paradigm CS has its own epistemology, ontology, and axiology, as explained in Parts 3 through 5. Part 6 compares CS to other contemporary movements and institutions and raises key spiritual questions for further research. The rest of Part 1 offers an overview of CS, starting with deep ecumenism. Deep Ecumenism With Judeo-Christian roots, CS honors Old and New Testament figures, such as Sarah, Abraham, Mary, Jesus, the sisters Mary and Martha, and others; the early Christians who lived in spiritual communities before the hierarchical church emerged; medieval Christian mystics, such as Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich; and Jewish leader Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Yet what makes CS so refreshing and rich is its deep ecumenism, i.e., its successful integration of an astonishing array of scripture, thought, and imagery from many other spiritual traditions beyond the Judeo-Christian path, such as ancient goddess religions, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, Daoism, Sufism, and Hinduism. To picture deep ecumenism, Matthew Fox uses the metaphor of a powerful, underground river, the divine source of all wisdom, which supplies many wells, each representing a different spiritual tradition. Although the wells or traditions might look separate, the wisdom-bearing river fundamentally unites them all (Fox, 2004). A Transgressive Theology Fox is in his mid 70s and remains an indefatigable writer (more than 30 books) and speaker about CS. This theology is in several ways transgressive, i.e., transgressing expectations or rules. First, as we have seen, CS incorporates themes and figures from major world religions and draws on a variety of ancient and native spiritual traditions. Second, CS is based on the concepts of original blessing and creation, rather than the traditional Christian doctrines of original sin, fall, and redemption. Third, CS espouses feminism and talks about God and the Earth in feminine terms (Fox, 1988), although at this

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stage Fox (2008) also discusses metaphors of the sacred masculine. Fourth, CS welcomes people of all gender identities and sexual orientations and views them, like other people, in their wholeness and divinity. Fifth, CS has a deep concern for social, environmental, and gender justice (Fox, 2015). The CS theology is based on Fox’s strong foundation of religious and spiritual education. He earned a doctorate summa cum laude in the history and theology of spirituality from the Institut Catholique de Paris and master’s degrees in theology and philosophy. Despite Fox’s unquestioned theological credentials, the Roman Catholic Church, in which he served as a priest for decades, was enraged by his radical views. As a result, in 1988 he was silenced by the Vatican for one year, and in 1993 he was expelled from the Catholic Church’s Dominican Order. With this expulsion, his career as a Catholic priest ended (for details, see Fox, 1996). Resilient and spiritually devoted, he was ordained as an Episcopalian priest in 1994. He founded and served as president of the University of Creation Spirituality (now Wisdom University) in Oakland, California. Since leaving the UCS, Fox has taught at Stanford University, the Vancouver School of Theology, the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and other institutions (Fox, 2015). He also lectures widely and writes books. Comparing Traditional Christianity With Creation Spirituality Table 9.1 compares traditional Christianity with CS. For Fox, traditional Christianity began after the days of the earliest Christians, whose beliefs he argues were more like those of CS. Many of the themes in this table are explored later in this chapter. TABLE 9.1  Contrast Between Traditional Christianity and Creation Spirituality Traditional Christianity (after the times of the earliest Christians)

Creation Spirituality

Anthropocentrism, focusing on the human apart from the rest of nature

A living cosmology, with a focus on the cosmos and nature and the human in relation to nature

Historical Jesus Christ

Cosmic Christ

Dualism, either/or thinking, compartmentalizing reality

Unity, interdependence, interconnectedness of all things

Parts-mentality

Wholeness mentality

Rational, logical, analytic, left-brained thinking

Imaginative, intuitive, mystical, rightbrained thinking that balances rational, logical, analytic, left-brained thinking (continued)

202    R. L. OXFORD TABLE 9.1  Contrast Between Traditional Christianity and Creation Spirituality (continued) Traditional Christianity (after the times of the earliest Christians)

Creation Spirituality

Lack of deep education

Deep education that is aimed at wisdom; involves creativity, imagination, and engagement; and is linked with mysticism

Obedience as a prime moral virtue

Creativity as a prime moral virtue

Personal salvation

Communal healing, i.e., compassion as salvation

Theism (God is outside us)

Panentheism (God is in all and all is in God)

Original sin (fall/redemption religion), which involves fear

Original blessing (creation-centered spirituality), which involves gratitude

Ascetic (rejecting the senses and certain forms of beauty)

Aesthetic (honoring the senses and beauty, natural and human-made); art as a key part of the cosmology

God the Father

God the Mother (but later a concern for the sacred masculine as well, Fox 2008)

Patriarchy, hierarchy, institutional, rulebound

Appreciation of feminine qualities of bodiliness, fertility, and “birthing,” as well as compassion and interdependence

Anti-feminism

Feminism (although also supportive of the sacred masculine, Fox, 2008)

Lack of concern about Mother Earth; lack of deep ecology

Serious concern and action about Mother Earth; deep ecology

Absence of deep economics; less concern about justice and equity in human society

Deep economics; justice and equity in human society as equivalent to harmony in nature and harmony with nature

Separateness of different religions and denominations

Deep ecumenism

Lack of acceptance of divergent sexual orientations

Acceptance of divergent sexual orientations

Divine transcendence beyond the world

Divine immanence within the world, even to the divinity of the world

Sundering of mysticism, art, and science

Combination of mysticism, art, and science

Solemnity

Celebration and joy

Note: This table draws upon Fox (1983, 1988, 2008, 2014, 2015) and Bauckham (1996)

Throughout this chapter, I stay close to the meaning of CS by extensively quoting Fox, but I also cite other experts from a range of fields. I now turn to Part 2, which focuses on paradigms and paradigm shifting.

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PART 2—SPIRITUALITY, PARADIGM, AND PARADIGM SHIFTING This section explores what is meant by the following terms: spirituality, research, paradigm, paradigm shift, and spiritual research paradigm. It also explains how CS relates to these terms. Spiritual and Spirituality The term spiritual means concerning the spirit (Harper, 2014f), and spirit refers to the animating or vital principle (Harper, 2014e). The Latin spirare means “to breathe,” and the word spirit implies the sensation or act of breathing. Therefore, inspiration, which characterizes spiritual experience, means a breathing in, and even more strikingly, the immediate influence of the breath of God (Harper, 2014c). The term spiritual has many possible connotations. I especially appreciate the aspects pointed out by Bai, Morgan, Scott, and Cohen (2016, this volume, pp. 77–96). For Bai et al., a spiritual experience can be “sensorially and perceptually extraordinary or nonordinary, including [the] experience of enchantment.” Other possible aspects include: “a sense of wholeness, integration, and even cosmic harmony,” “heart-qualities such as compassion, love, kindness, joy,” “a sense of sacredness and ecstasy,” “extraordinary clarity and insight,” and “creativity and vitality” (Bai et al.). In summarizing this diverse list, I conclude that spiritual experience can include any extraordinary or nonordinary experience that brings a holistic, integrative sense of compassion, love, kindness, joy, sacredness, clarity, insight, and creativity. I add that spiritual experience offers wisdom and that it touches the divine, or in a different spatial metaphor, brings out the divinity that is already present in every person. Spiritual experience can also provide guidance about how to live one’s life. In this broad view, spiritual experience might include participating in sacred yoga, sacramentally painting a picture, singing with the divine in mind, or engaging in various forms of prayer (e.g., faith prayer; prayer of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, or worship; prayer of petition, supplication, or intercession; prayer of consecration, dedication, contrition, or contemplation; and even prayer as inspired study). Psychologists distinguish between spirituality and religiosity (Peterson, 2006). Spirituality may include religious experience but also [includes] one’s compassionate experience of nature or humanity. Thus, people may describe themselves as spiritual because they feel elevated in a beautiful setting or because they have “moral” values, but they may not believe in God or congregate with like-minded people in worship. (Peterson, 2006, p. 294)

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In contrast, the term religiosity “subsumes traditional (religion-based) ways of experiencing the sacred and transcendent” (Peterson, 2006, p. 294) and typically implies believing in God and worshipping with others. CS clearly privileges the spiritual aspect over traditional, church-oriented religiosity. Research I argue that CS is invested in spiritual research in the fundamental sense of searching closely. For example, Fox (1988) discusses those “who have challenged and supported me in the research” (p. 3). The etymological meaning of the verb research is to search closely (Harper, 2014d). In education and the social sciences, there are many research approaches, ranging from quantitative (often called postpositivist and claiming “objectivity”) to a host of more qualitative (subjective) modes, such as narrative, autobiographical, phenomenological, critical, and participatory. Research about religion and religiosity is frequently conducted using quantitative measurement (e.g., Fetzer Institute, 1999; Hill & Hood, 1999), while much research stemming directly from spiritual experience is qualitative; after all, as Bai et al. (2016, this volume, p. 79) state, spiritual experience is “phenomenologically rooted in human subjectivity.” I also contend that CS is involved in inquiry, a related concept. Etymologically speaking, inquiry means the process of seeking or asking (Harper, 2014b). The term inquiry has traditionally referred to a formal act of asking for information or to an investigation, review, analysis, or exploration, often by means of reasoning, logic, and inference (Dewey, 1938; Haack, 1993), but more recently, inquiry has expanded to involve subjective, spiritual experience, such as meditation. (See contemplative inquiry described by Zajonc, 2009, and in Part 3.) Paradigm In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn (2012) describes a paradigm as a universally recognized set of achievements defining a particular scientific discipline for a time. Such achievements, undergirded by preconceptions and assumptions, provide models of problems and solutions for a scientific community and influence society at large. A paradigm determines what is to be observed and investigated, the kinds of questions that should be asked and how they should be asked, and how results should be understood. Though Kuhn (2012) argues that only the natural sciences have paradigms and paradigm shifts (see Paradigm Shift), these two concepts have been widely adopted by social scientists (e.g., Aronowitz & Bratsis, 2002; Stuart, Arboleda-Florez, & Sartorius, 2012), marketers

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(e.g., Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2014), and spiritual leaders (e.g., Fox, 1988). When the word paradigm is used outside of the natural sciences, it is often called a Weltanschauung, i.e., worldview or intuition about the world (from Welt or world + Anschauung or intuition) (Anschauug, 2014). Paradigm Shift Paradigms sometimes shift. In science, there are alternating periods of “normal science,” when the existing model dominates, and revolution, when a sudden change occurs through a paradigm shift (Kuhn, 2012). Fox (1988) says that CS calls forth a “global renaissance, . . . a new vision, a new paradigm, a new wisdom, a new civilization” (pp. 157, 160). When a religious or spiritual shift and a scientific shift occur together, “a ‘new soul,’ is born” (Fox, 1988, p. 82). Why is the CS-fostered paradigm shift necessary? It is precisely the despair of our times that convinces me that a renaissance is right around the corner, that a renaissance is the only answer to the depths of our dilemma. It is either renaissance or planetary extinction. There is no middle ground. (Fox, 1988, p. 162)

CS seeks to overturn the traditional, institutional Christian paradigm that has been largely unchallenged for many centuries. Bauckham (1996) describes Fox’s sense of such a shift: Fox calls this the birth of a global renaissance, or, using Christian mythical imagery, the coming of the Cosmic Christ. This he envisages . . . as an emerging paradigm shift in religious conceptuality, sensibility and world view, a paradigm shift which is at the same time a return to forgotten, ancient wisdom. In Fox’s case, the ancient wisdom is the so-called creation-centered tradition of spirituality within Christianity, though he is quite prepared to draw on, for example, Native American traditions and to emphasize the spiritual wisdom of traditional peoples. (p. 116)

In addition, as shown earlier in Table 9.1, the paradigm shift proffered by CS could move the traditional Christian belief system to a very new spirituality that highlights cosmology, the Cosmic Christ, compassion, original blessing, panentheism, feminism, ecology, and other elements. A Synthesis: Spiritual Research Paradigm An abbreviated definition of the term spiritual research paradigm was given in Part 1. My more complete definition, which follows, expands on the earlier one.

206    R. L. OXFORD A spiritual research paradigm is a broad thought-pattern or a worldview held for a time (sometimes a very extended period) by a community of spiritual seekers/searchers/inquirers, who are inspired by extraordinary or non-ordinary experiences that bring a holistic, integrative sense of compassion, love, kindness, joy, sacredness, clarity, insight, and creativity. Such experiences develop wisdom, provide access to the divine inside the seekers, and, in the best of instances, serve as guideposts for daily living.

I believe that CS represents a spiritual research paradigm when research is understood as the process of “searching closely,” as noted earlier. There are six reasons for this. First, CS yokes mysticism, which is an “experiential union with creation and its unnameable mysteries” (Fox, 1988, p. 78), with deep education (Part 3 of this chapter) to help people search closely (and widely) and thus enable them to experience the divine and attain wisdom. Second, CS has many similarities to contemplative inquiry, though the latter does not always aim toward the divine (Part 3). Third, CS incorporates extensive scientific research in its vibrant cosmology (Part 4). Fourth, CS can be understood in terms of epistemology, ontology, and axiology (Parts 3 through 5) in the same way as can other research paradigms and philosophical perspectives. Fifth, as an open system rather than a closed one, CS implicitly encourages seekers to conduct new spiritual investigations about their own deepest natures, about the meaning of the Cosmic Christ in the new millennium, and about ways to expand prophetic compassion and justice in the world. (See my list of possibilities for spiritual research in Part 6.) Sixth, Fox’s writings are full of erudite endnotes, spiritual and literary quotations, and connections, and he suggests that inspired study, which he obviously employs, can constitute prayer and inner work (Part 3). Using Fox’s words, I also view such study as co-creating with the divine, a process that occurs on the via creativa, or the creative path (see Parts 3 and 5). From personal experience, I know that inspired study involves prayer, inner work, and co-creation; I experienced all of these while doing research for this chapter and other spiritual works (e.g., Oxford, 2010; Oxford-Carpenter, 1984). PART 3—WHAT IS THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF CS? Epistemology answers questions such as: What is known, how do we find wisdom, and how do we know what we know (in terms of methodology, scope, and validity)? In CS, the methodology for gaining wisdom is comprised of mysticism and deep education. Research in its deepest sense of a close search ties together deep education and mysticism, both of which, as this section shows, are connected to contemplative inquiry. The scope of this epistemology is viewed as universal. Its validity can be described as

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supported not only by the personal spiritual experience of many contemporary seekers, including some scientists, but also by ancient wisdom literature, the Old Testament, the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament, the writings of medieval Christian mystics, and the scriptures of Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, and other traditions. Deep Education and Mysticism: The Aim is Wisdom For deep education and mysticism, the aim is wisdom. Gaining wisdom involves “educing what is already present in our midst: the image of God, the Cosmic Christ [see ontology section] present in every individual. True power happens when we educe the divine beauty and power from one another” (Fox, 1988, p. 209, emphasis in original). Deep Education Fox and Sheldrake (1997) cite Thomas Kuhn as explaining that “in a time of paradigm shift, education is all-important” (p. 185). Deep education, as part of CS, is holistic; uses both sides of the brain; promotes imagination, intuition, creativity, and engagement; honors values, not just information; and embraces “wonder at our bigger selves, our biggest context, the cosmos as we are now getting to know it, a cosmos awash in creativity and expansion and silence and dark mystery” (Fox, 2014, p. 280). If we follow the model of Meister Eckhart, “wisdom schools . . . could replace our knowledge factories!” (Fox, 2014, p. 280). Meister Eckhart was an unorthodox 13th and 14th century German theologian and mystic who, like Fox, ran into trouble with the Catholic Church. Eckhart’s writings overturned standard gender images in religion. For Eckhart, God is fertile and gives birth to the Son (Logos or Word), the divine in all of us (see Fox, 2014). Eckhart’s works were forgotten for many centuries until rediscovered in the 19th century, after which he attained great popularity for combining spiritual psychology with mystical images and metaphors. Fox actively builds institutions for deep education. As mentioned earlier, he founded and led the University of Creation Spirituality in California. More recently he established the Youth and Elder Learning Laboratory for Ancestral Wisdom Education (YELLAWE), based on a holistic approach to education and creativity and involving meditative practices. This laboratory has operated in several inner-city school systems in the United States. Mysticism Mysticism, a partner of deep education, involves playfulness, “radical amazement” (Heschel, 1976), awe, harmony, a return to the source and the true self, nondualism, compassion, and world-affirmation (Fox, 1983).

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The word mysticism comes from the Greek mystikos, which has two meanings: “to shut one’s senses” and “to enter the mysteries” (Fox, 1988, p. 39). Temporarily shutting the senses is not the mortification of the senses; it is “letting go of sensory input, . . . that we might sink into silence and nothingness, experience solitude and celebrate it and learn from it” and thus undergo “renewal,” “housecleaning,” or “deautomatization” (p. 39). The second aspect of mystikos, entering the mysteries, means engaging in “the primal sacrament, the primal mystery that is the universe itself. . . . [B]y returning to the mystery of the universe as a starting point for the mystical journey, the creation tradition deanthropocentrizes liturgy and gives it life again” (Fox, 1988, pp. 39-40). Fox (1988) cautions against what he calls pseudo-mysticisms, such as nationalism, militarism, political fascism, idolatry of technology, consumerism, Christian fundamentalism, New Ageism that focuses on past life experiences and states of consciousness, asceticism, celebrity mystiques, and psychologism (reducing spirituality to psychological categories). The view of mysticism in CS is much deeper and more genuine. “Every one of us is a mystic. We are born full of wonder and can recover it at any age” (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 79). CS’s mysticism involves moving from an anthropomorphic and antimystical “personal savior” Christianity to a more imaginative Cosmic Christ (available to people of any faith) through a metanoia, i.e., a change of perspective (Fox, 1988). This change involves a “curriculum” for “spiritual disciplines” (Fox, 1988, p. 79). Fox (2001) says in his book, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life, that mysticism is a matrix for prayer. Mysticism in this sense involves “becoming rooted” in universal mysteries (see previous). “To be radical is to be mystery-rooted, planted as a radish or other root plant is planted, in the soil of the very mysteries of life” (Fox, 2001, p. 71). This process is not restricted to those saints we call mystics; it is an extraordinary phenomenon that perfectly ordinary people can experience. In addition to the mystical part of the matrix for prayer, there is also a material, cultural aspect of that matrix. “Prayer takes place as a wrestling with the spiritual powers and principalities (where spiritual means deep, living, and real) of one’s world, one’s culture” (p. 10). This cultural aspect of the matrix for prayer is also psychological, because it involves the human conscious and unconscious, which are influenced by culture’s intellectual, political, philosophical, industrial, scientific, and technological revolutions. Another aspect of the matrix for prayer is the prayerful, loving attitude in which prayers are to be said. In a nutshell, prayer is psychologically radical because of its mysticism and socially radical because of its prophetic, justice-seeking aspects. Mysticism can include heart-inspired study. Fox (1983) describes “heart knowledge” or the “fire inside” (p. 54). Fox also states that study “feeds the soul’s ‘inner work,’ provided, of course, that you bring your heart to it”

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(Fox, 2014, p. 18). “Both Eckhart and Aquinas, following the Jewish tradition and that of Dominican training, . . . teach that study is prayer” (Fox, 2014, p. 18). Of course, the spiritual curriculum of mysticism goes beyond purely cognitive study. For example, in the perspective of CS, mysticism includes meditation. Meditation “diminishes the lateralization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, reducing the feeling of separation and augmenting a greater sense of harmony with the world” (Cannato, 2010, p. 129), as well as enhancing consciousness (Wilber, 2006). The brain’s left hemisphere, which academia frequently employs to the extreme (Bucko & Fox, 2013), operates in a linear, analytic way, while the right hemisphere is more holistic and intuitive. The church and the Enlightenment have shriveled the right brain (Fox, 1988). “Churches and synagogues require laboratories of prayer where the ‘prune brain’ that the right lobe has become can be watered, nourished, and developed. The Cosmic Christ cannot find a home in a left-brained setting alone” (Fox, 1988, p. 79). Use of the whole brain is required. “Wisdom does not proceed from either right or left brain, but from the happy marriage of the two” (Fox, 1983, pp. 23–24). Art is meditation and therefore a form of mysticism. Art is crucial to the mystical-educational process and is one of the three parts of the CS cosmology mentioned earlier (Fox, 1988). Just as science has its laboratory hours for teaching the methods of scientific inquiry, so too theology requires laboratories in painting, clay, ritual, massage, and music to teach the art of mystical development. (Fox, 1988, p. 79) [E]xcitement and learning happen anew when art as meditation—centering by way of giving birth in arts of painting or massage, clay or dance, ritual or music listening—is engaged in. (Fox, 1988, p. 209)

Drama, dancing, myths, stories, colors, symbols, and poetry are other artistic manifestations of mystical meditation (Fox, 1988). Bucko and Fox (2013) mention the mystical-artistic use of yoga, sacred sexuality, and many types of sport “if you bring your heart and your focus to it” (p. 26). Creating art or experiencing it helps us feel radical amazement as we gain wisdom. “There is wisdom in all creative works,” says medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen (1982, p. 49, in Fox, 1988, p. 209). Ritual—the “art of arts”—(Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 143) includes both the ceremony and the preparation for ceremony and is “the inner work of the tribe, the inner work of the group, . . . the inner work of the individual” (Bucko & Fox, p. 138). Ritual “brings out many forms of art from the community: music, visual arts, poetic arts and spoken word, dance, even the art of grieving” (Bucko & Fox, p. 143). In recent years Fox has been organizing what he calls cosmic masses as a form of ritual, complete with “VJing and DJing and rap” (Bucko & Fox, p. 141). The goal is to make ritual real again,

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especially for the youth. CS links ritual and story. Fox would like to see ritual centers in every city, centers where people can share their autobiographical stories in a ritual context (Bucko & Fox, 2013). “We understand and live our lives in and through stories, the bones upon which we hang the flesh of our lives” (Cannato, 2010, p. 145). Autobiography “particularizes things, but really everyone’s experience has a universal dimension to it. We’re dealing with archetypes,” or recurrent symbols or motifs (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 169). Jesus’s parables are invitational stories, with open endings and socially and politically, as well as spiritually, provocative implications (Oxford, 2010). “Parables are not just lively stories taken from nature; the point can often turn on what is striking, peculiar, or unpredictable” (Chilton, 2010, in Fox, 2014, p. 102). Jesus’ parables and aphorisms are “heart teachings” (Fox, 2014, p. 99). In Daoism these might be called “heart-toheart transmissions” ( Jing Lin, personal communication, July 27, 2014). The New Testament also shows Jesus teaching through “table gatherings . . . that might at times result in changes of heart and consciousness as well as group action” (Fox, 2014, p. 99). Additionally, Jesus also spent 40 days in the desert, where he prayed alone and wrestled with angels, Satan, and wild beasts in the mode of a shamanic vision quest (Chilton, 2004, in Fox, 2014). “As a teacher of wisdom, Jesus was not primarily a teacher of information (what to believe) or morals (how to behave), but a teacher of a way or path of transformation” (Borg, 1995, p. 75, in Fox, 2014, p. 105). He was mystic and a teacher of mysticism (Fox, 1988); he was “a poet, a storyteller, an artist” rather than “a priest, a theologian, an academician” (Fox, 1983, p. 239). Mysticism and deep education often require the use of the visioning (imagination) and paradox. Bucko and Fox (2013) cite the work of Buddhist activist Joanna Macy (Macy & Johnstone, 2012) in encouraging spiritual visioning practices, such as reflecting on empowerment, developing a partnership with the Earth by writing a letter from Gaia, answering the question “Tell me, who are you?” differently many times, imagining and talking about the pain in the world, and completing sentences of gratitude. Like Buddhists, people from any tradition can use paradox as a way of entering the spiritual mysteries. “Paradox often comes closest to communicating what we know—and what we don’t know—about God” (Fox, 2014, p. 38). Cannato (2010) emphasizes the nature of paradox in spiritual growth. “[W]hereas before paradoxes were seen as puzzles to be solved, they are now viewed as true expressions of the real, which need to be embraced and integrated” (p. 106). In my view, mystical experience and deep education are often similar to—or directly integrated with—inspired consciousness, peak experiences, flow, and hot cognition.

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• Inspired consciousness consists of “superior states of consciousness” (Silo, 2006, p. 95), such as intuitions, flashes of insight, visions, and sudden ecstasy, rapture, or recognition, all achieved without deductive or discursive thought. Ecstasy is accompanied by movement and generalized energy, rapture is marked by powerful positive emotion, and recognition involves a sense of comprehending everything in an instant (Silo, 2006). Mystics, philosophers, and poets experience inspired consciousness (Silo, 2006). Scientists experience it, too (Culham & Lin, this volume). Everyday versions of inspired consciousness occur in dreams and sudden hunches. • Peak experiences (Maslow, 1971) are especially joyous, exciting, ego-transcending moments involving sudden feelings of intense happiness, ecstasy, creativity, well-being, wonder, awe, love, empathy, and timelessness. Maslow (1971) describes a peak experience as a great and mystical experience, a religious experience if you wish—an illumination, a revelation, an insight . . . [leading to] “the cognition of being,” . . . the cognition that Plato and Socrates were talking about; almost, you could say, a technology of happiness, of pure excellence, pure truth, pure goodness.( p. 169)

There are countless triggers for peak experiences, such as meditation, art, music, and nature (Maslow, 1971). • Csíkszentmihályi (1998, 2008, 2013) depicts flow as complete engagement, joy, confidence, intrinsic motivation (desire to do a task for its own sake, or autotelism), a balance between challenges and competence, effortlessness, lack of self-consciousness, and an altered perception of time (slowing down or speeding up). This positive state occurs “when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” (p. 3). • “Hot cognition” is transformative learning in which emotions and motivation spark multiple levels of cognition. Building on the work of William James (1910/1987), Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle (1993) reject “cold,” overly rational, and emotion-free learning and emphasize hot cognition. Comparing Deep Education/Mysticism to Contemplative Inquiry Deep education and mysticism have many similarities to certain forms of contemplative inquiry, although the “practice (of CS)goes beyond traditional contemplative exercises” (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 26). Scientist-educator Arthur Zajonc (2006a, 2006b) describes contemplative inquiry as challenging the epistemology of violence and offering an epistemology of love. “Contemplative inquiry not only yields insight (veritas) but also transforms the knower through his or her intimate (one could say loving) participation

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in the subject of one’s contemplative attention. Contemplative education is transformative education” (Zajonc, 2006a, p. 2). Zajonc (2006a) mentions the following features or stages of contemplative inquiry: respect, gentleness, intimacy, vulnerability, participation, transformation, Bildung (formation, or sculpting of the learner), and insight. He also quotes Goethe on features of contemplative inquiry: “experiential learning,” “delicate empiricism” that “is also deeply participatory,” theory “as a high form of seeing,” and “connection” (Zajonc, 2006a, p. 4). Meditation is a form of contemplative inquiry, and it brings wisdom, love, peace, insight, and renewal (Zajonc, 2008), outcomes also noted by Fox (1983, 1988, 2014) for CS. Zajonc (2006c) depicts “epiphanic knowing”—knowing as personal epiphany—in contemplative inquiry in science and religion. His descriptions of contemplative inquiry are remarkably like certain aspects of CS’s mysticism and deep education, as well as inspired consciousness and peak experiences. According to Burggraf and Grossenbacher (2007), contemplative inquiry can include study practices, such as reading reflectively, listening carefully, showing intellectual humility, committing wholeheartedly to the object of study, and suspending assumptions and judgments. It can also involve cultivating compassion, opening to panoramic awareness, engaging reflectively with the visual or auditory arts, and developing a playful mind. Note similarities to certain elements of CS’s mysticism and deep education. Roth (2006) proposes a field called “contemplative studies,” one of the goals of which is to cultivate firsthand knowledge of contemplative experiences. Roth describes chanting, prayer, ritual, meditation, music, dance, drama, poetry and prose, and sculpting as contemplative, and he cites mystics such as Meister Eckhart. In these ways, his ideas are close to CS. Roth’s university course on contemplative inquiry involves intuition, tranquility, flow, global meditative traditions, ethics, empathy, neuropsychology, and other topics. Table 9.2 compares CS’s deep education and mysticism on the one hand with contemplative inquiry on the other. The main difference is that the aim of deep education and mysticism is, as noted earlier, is to educe the TABLE 9.2  A Preliminary Epistemological Comparison of Mysticism and Deep Education (in Creation Spirituality) With Contemplative Inquiry

Aspect The divine

Methods and/or outcomes in Creation Spirituality’s Mysticism and Deep Educationa Moving from “personal savior” to Cosmic Christ (MF88) Touching the divine, educing the divine in each of us, returning to the mystery of the universe (MF88)

Methods and/or outcomes in Contemplative Inquiryb Divinity might or might not be involved

(continued)

Creation Spirituality as a Spiritual Research Paradigm Drawing on Many Faiths    213 TABLE 9.2  A Preliminary Epistemological Comparison of Mysticism and Deep Education (in Creation Spirituality) With Contemplative Inquiry (continued)

Aspect

Methods and/or outcomes in Creation Spirituality’s Mysticism and Deep Educationa

Methods and/or outcomes in Contemplative Inquiryb

Focus

Transformative, experiential, holistic, both sides of the brain (MF83, MF88, MF14) “Heart knowledge,” “fire inside” (MF83) Wisdom; honors values, not information (MF14) Education as returning to the source, the true self (MF83)

Transformative (AZa, AZ09), experiential (AZa, AZ09, HR), intimate participation (AZa), education as formation (Bildung), or sculpting of the person (AZa), critical first-person/subjective approach along with third-person objective approach (HR)

Meditation

Various forms of meditation; one type involves silence (Meister Eckhart) and releasing sensory input (MF88)

A range of meditation practices from around the world (HR, AZ09)

The arts as meditative or contemplative

Art as meditation; specific mention of painting, clay, ritual (“art of arts”), music, drama, dancing, myths, stories/autobiographies/parables, colors, symbols, poetry; also mentioned: yoga, sacred sexuality, sport (“with heart”), massage (MF88, BF)

Chanting, prayer, ritual, music, dance, drama, poetry and prose, painting, sculpting (HR); engaging reflectively with visual or auditory arts (BG)

Study

Study as prayer feeding the soul’s “inner work” (if study is done with heart) (MF14), deep engagement (MF14) (cf. hot cognition, Pintrich et al., 1993; cf. flow, Csíkszentmihályi, 1990/2008)

Reading reflectively at deep, nuanced levels (BG), listening carefully (BG), suspending judgment and assumptions (BG), not accepting on faith (HR), deep engagement/intimacy with object of study (BG), intellectual humility (BG), flow (HR)

Insight

Insight, intuition (MF14); visioning, imagination, paradox (BF); entering the mysteries (MF88) (cf. inspired consciousness, Silo, 2006; peak experiences, Maslow, 1971)

Insight (AZa, AZ09), intuition (HR), epiphanic knowing (epiphany) (AZc), opening to panoramic awareness (wide attention) (BG)

Possible positive qualities emerging

Compassion, harmony, worldaffirmation, mindfulness, love of Mother Earth, playfulness, awe, radical amazement at creation (MF83, MF88, MF14, BF)

Compassion (BG), love (AZa, AZb, AZ09), lovingkindness (HR); renewal (AZ09); mindfulness (HR); application of ethical/environmental principles (HR); respect, gentleness, vulnerability (AZa); peace-building, peace (AZb, AZ09); spontaneity/playful mind (BG); tranquility (HR)

Fox, 1983 = MF83; Fox, 1988 = MF88; Fox, 2014 = MF14; Bucko & Fox, 2013 = BF Burggraf & Grossenbacher, 2007 = BG; Roth, 2006 = HR; Zajonc, 2006a = AZa; Zajonc, 2006b = AZb; Zajonc, 2006c = AZc; Zajonc, 2009 = AZ09 Note: Methods and outcomes are not clearly separated in the literature or in this table. a

b

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divine in each of us and to create wisdom, while the divine aspect is not always present in contemplative inquiry. Despite this difference, there are similarities, as Table 9.2 shows. For instance, both deep education/mysticism and contemplative inquiry are transformative and largely experiential or participatory. Both can use a range of standard meditative practices, such as breathing exercises, but they can also involve art in meditative or contemplative ways. Both can embrace deep, reflective study of a topic. Both are likely to engage insight and intuition, as well as developing positive personal qualities, such as compassion, love, spontaneity or playfulness, and mindfulness. Following Table 9.2, I turn to CS’s four paths, another centerpiece of the epistemology of CS. Four Paths of CS: Ways to Wisdom To me, the four paths of CS are multiple ways of knowing and therefore epistemological routes toward wisdom. “Our inner work can be understood as a fourfold journey. . . . This journey is not linear but spirals through our lives” (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 79). The four paths are the via positiva, the via negativa, the via creativa, and the via transformativa (Fox, 1983). These four paths guide mysticism, and the last of these paths overtly articulates the need for prophecy, entailing compassionate justice. • The via positiva, or the positive path, deals with affirmation, thanksgiving, ecstasy, radical amazement, and awe and reflects the theology of creation and incarnation. It champions the divine energy (the Word), pleasure, humility and simplicity as sensuality, cosmic harmony and beauty, royal personhood, and cosmic hospitality. • On the via negativa, or the negative path, we find darkness, pain, suffering, and even sometimes nothingness. Light does not happen without darkness, and CS sees value in both. Deep inside the sun is a paradoxical “burning world of darkness” (Fox & Sheldrake, 1997, p. 135). Barbara Taylor Brown (2014) encourages us to embrace darkness, not just light, and in so doing come closer to God. Jing Lin (personal communication, July 27, 2014) notes the pain on the via negativa: “For example, we hear the scream of pain of animals; we enter a state of sadness along with someone; and clearing up the shadows in the subconscious mind can mean the literal death of the old self. We incorporate this painful but necessary process into our learning.” The via negativa offers the challenge to empty oneself through concentration, prayer, contemplation, silence, and living with mystery.

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• The via creativa, or the creative path, represents joyous creation, cocreation with God, and beauty. Its theology is that of the resurrection. It involves recognizing that we are co-creators with God, seeing ourselves as God’s works of art, using creativity as meditation and a return to the source, disciplining ourselves as creators, and understanding the divine feminine. • Along the via transformativa, or the transformative path, we discover prophecy, social transformation, compassion, justice, and community, along with the theology of the Holy Spirit. This path involves seeing the New Creation, actively transforming civilization, trusting the Holy Spirit’s call for justice, listening to the oppressed, and being compassionate. “The basic work of God is compassion, and we, who are all original blessings and sons and daughters of the Divine, are called to compassion” (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 79). “Compassion is where peace and justice kiss” (Meister Eckhart in Fox, 2011, p. 146). Summary of the Epistemology of CS This section showed mysticism and deep education as an epistemological gateway involving a potentially wide array of experiences, such as ritual, art, play, study, imagination, and shamanism. It compared mysticism and deep education with contemplative inquiry, and then summarized CS’s four paths, routes that I consider to be epistemological guides to wisdom. PART 4—WHAT IS THE ONTOLOGY OF CS? Ontology relates to questions such as: What exists, what is real, and what does it mean to be? This section addresses three groups of ontological themes in CS. The first group centers on cosmological images. The second focuses on the feminine principle of the divine. The third encompasses original blessing and the meaning of sin. The opprobrium of traditional Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, has been primarily aimed at these aspects of CS. Cosmology, Cosmic Christ, and Panentheism The present discussion embraces cosmology, the Cosmic Christ and Jesus, and the meaning of panentheism.

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Cosmology Fox (1988) outlines the three elements of the cosmology of CS. The first element is a scientific story about the creation and history of the universe. The cosmic story starts with the Big Bang, followed by 13.8 billion years of amazing changes (Fox, 1988; see Swimme & Tucker, 2011 for details). Fox argues that spirituality, as expressed in mysticism, coheres with the ideas of great scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Fritjof Capra, Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, and Thomas Berry. For instance, “Fritjof Capra and Brian Swimme, by their work on cosmology and mysticism, have opened the door for a more mystical view of the world” (Fox, 1988, p. 47). Fritjof Capra’s famous book, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975/2010), argues that physics and Eastern mysticism inevitably lead to the same wisdom. Swimme and Tucker (2011) describe the journey of the universe by interweaving the traditions of the East and the West and by honoring universal themes of feminine wisdom, embodied in goddess figures such as Aphrodite, Mary, Kuan Yin, and the African Oshun. The second element is mysticism, described earlier in Part 3. The third element is art, “which translates schience and mysticism into images that awaken body, soul, and society” (p. 1) and simultaneously expresses “awe at creation” (p. 78). Thus, at the heart of CS we find an intertwining of advanced science, mysticism or prayer, and art. Cosmic Christ and Jesus CS says the Cosmic Christ, the anointed one, is coming—or rather coming again, having been ecclesiastically buried for centuries though lingering in the hearts of mystics. Chilton (2004, p. 248) comments, In Colossians, Christ is the center of the cosmos—natural, social, and supernatural—that created the world and makes the world new each day. . . . The Cosmic Christ restores this lost unity, the vastness of our souls and all their relationships. (Fox, 2014, p. 22)

The Cosmic Christ can serve as an important force for non-Christians and Christians alike by bringing coherence to the world. The Cosmic Christ “personalizes and localizes the experience of ‘the pattern that connects’” (Fox, 1988, p. 133). As Fox (2014) says, [Meister] Eckhart draws heavily from the cosmic passage of John 1: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” . . . The word that God speaks is continuous—it is still going on, as all creation is. (p. 25)

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Though the traditional church has lost its cosmology, the Cosmic Christ is eternally “Christ as Logos” (Fox, 2014, p. 100). The Cosmic Christ does not belong to Christianity alone. Native Americans and the prophets and wisdom writers of ancient Israel have experienced the Cosmic Christ, though they used other terms for this experience (Fox, 1988). In CS, Jesus Christ is not just a historical figure and teacher who uses a range of epistemological tools to educe wisdom (Part 3); he is also the Cosmic Christ, meaning that he unites heaven and earth. He draws “heaven and earth together in a celebration of the unity of all things, a recapitulation. He is the image of God par excellence, and so he calls us back to our own origins in the Godhead” (Fox, 1983, p. 124). Jesus Christ as one who comes to announce life rather than death and “to announce the presence of the kingdom/queendom of God” (Fox, 1983, p. 122) in every person. He died an “ignominious and cosmic death on a cross, violent in its disconnection” (Fox, 1988, p. 133) between humanity and divinity, injustice and justice. Paradoxically, this death “does in the last analysis, connect. It connects heaven and earth, past and future, divinity and humanity, all of creation” (Fox, 1988, pp. 133–134). The cross teaches us to empty ourselves and to let go (kenosis), which is connected to mindfulness (Fox, 1988). “The wounds of the Cosmic Christ, so visible in all of our lives and Mother Earth herself today, are not in vain” (Fox, 1988, p. 241), because they bring wisdom and cosmic peace. Death can have no power over Jesus Christ, because death cannot kill love and compassion. Karl Rahner (1993) rejects the idea that the incarnation of Jesus Christ was mainly for the purpose of redeeming humanity from sin. He argues instead that the incarnation was more importantly intended to provide “divinization of the world as a whole” and “a . . . definitive state of fulfillment for the cosmos” (in Cannato, 2010, pp. 181, 190). Panentheism The cosmology of CS is related to panentheism, which declares, “All things in God and God in all things” (Fox, 1988, p. 57). In panentheism, all of creation is in God, and God’s goodness is in all of creation. The book of Genesis suggests that humans are good because they were made in God’s image. In fact, all of creation is good. “Panentheism is a mystical way of seeing God and the world; in it dualisms are ended, and yet the transcendence or further surprises of Divinity are not squelched, as can happen in a pantheistic view” (Fox, 2014, p. 23). The Sacred Feminine The feminine principle dwells in CS. Most of Fox’s works rarely refer to God as he, him, or father, and reject the Christian tendency to masculinize

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God’s image. (For arguments against the masculinizing tendency, see Campbell, 1968; Christ, 1980; Daly, 1973; Molenkott, 1983; Oxford-Carpenter, 1984; Starhawk, 1979; Tillich, 1957; Ulanov, 1971.) CS sees Jesus Christ as maternal. Though he is the son of God, he is the representation of “the ancient tradition of God as Mother and of the goddess in every person” (Fox, 1988, p. 31), male or female. “I believe the appropriate symbol of the Cosmic Christ who became incarnate in Jesus is that of Jesus as Mother Earth crucified yet rising daily” (Fox,1988, p. 145), so “[b]ringing back the Divine Feminine . . . is . . . a big part of honoring the spirit of Mother Earth” (Fox, 2014, p. 278). Medieval mystics use feminine and masculine sacred images. For instance, Julian of Norwich describes Jesus as “our true Mother in whom we are endlessly carried” (Doyle, 1983, p. 99 in Fox, 1988, p. 146), and Meister Eckhart “leads us to a new and deeper marriage of Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine” (Fox, 2014, p. xxii). In recent years, CS has moved somewhat toward a divine gender balance by presenting ten metaphors for awakening the sacred masculine along with the divine feminine (see Fox, 2008). Original Blessing and the Meaning of Sin Just as “Creation Spirituality is the oldest tradition in the Bible” (Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 67), “[t]he ‘new’ theology of original blessing is in fact far more ancient than the familiar theology of original sin” (Fox, 1983, p. 255). Original blessing is traceable to the Genesis account of God’s creation of a good universe, including humans and all other beings. The ancient God of the Covenant was a blessing giver, promising abundant life. Fox is right to stress that what a sense of creation involves, theologically and existentially, are the themes of blessing, gift and gratitude. Of course it is true that, as Fox argues in Original Blessing, the goodness of creation as given by God—the blessing of creation in God’s continuous, extravagant lavishing of goodness on it—is more fundamental than the marring of creation by human sin and evil. (Bauckham, 1996, p. 118)

Sadly, original blessing has not been taught by the church for many centuries (Fox, 1983). Rather than original blessing, original sin has been the official doctrine, created by Augustine late in life (Fox, 1983, 1988). The idea of original sin came from the old story of Adam and Eve, who ate the apple from the tree in the Garden of Eden, learned too much, and thereby fell from grace. In Augustine’s view, Adam and Eve committed the so-called “original sin,” supposedly dooming every future generation to mortality and innate guilt. The only redemption from human sin, according to Augustine, is through God’s son, Jesus Christ, who was crucified for humanity’s sake and resurrected. Fox (1983, 2014) argues that this fall/redemption theme is too

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anthropocentric to be the main narrative of our nearly 13.8-billion-year-old universe, in which humans have been present for a relatively short time. Further, the original sin mentality is psychologically harmful to humans, causing the individual to condemn herself or himself, believing, “I came into the world despised, unwanted, ugly, and powerless” (Fox, 1988, p. 29). As a result of the fall/redemption theology, beauty, the erotic, and other sources of human joy are often viewed as suspect. This theology therefore generates a patriarchal asceticism, which prizes mortification of the senses, distrusts passion and the body, and condemns Mother Earth and creation itself (Fox, 1983, 1988). “Because the fall/redemption tradition considers all nature ‘fallen’ and does not seek God in nature but inside the individual soul, it is not only silent toward nature but hostile to it” (Fox, 1983, p. 11). Though the idea of inherited guilt has no meaningful foundation, CS does not deny that sin itself exists. Sin means missing the mark, and its basis is “the dualism that human, sexual, racial, economic exploitations are all about” (Fox, 1983, p. 296). “[T]he sin behind all sin is seen as dualism. Separation. Subject/object relationships. Fractures or fissures in our relationships. Take any sin: war, burglary, rape, thievery. Every such action is treating another as an object outside oneself” (Fox, 1983, p. 49). In the same book he says that “the basic sin against creation” is injustice (p. 297), which can be seen as an outcome of dualism. Summary of the Ontology of CS The ontology of CS centers on the existence of the following: the cosmological science of creation, the arrival or rearrival of the Cosmic Christ, and panentheism; the divine feminine; and original blessing and a sense of sin. These are among the elements that most roil Christian traditionalists, but they remain central to the CS theology. PART 5—WHAT IS THE AXIOLOGY OF CS? Axiology highlights questions such as: What is valued and what is good? Some of the greatest values in CS are creativity, beauty, compassion, deep ecology, deep ecumenism, and deep economics. Another value, deep education, was discussed under epistemology (Part 3). Creativity CS values creativity, as seen in the prior discussion of the via creativa, or creative path. “Salvation is the return of creativity, which is the return of the Spirit. . . . We are told by those who have studied the processes of nature

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that creativity happens at the border between chaos and order” (Fox, 2002, pp. 6–7, emphasis in original). For Fox (1988), creativity is “the most important moral virtue” and “the fundamental law of the human psyche” (p. 202). We must “be courageous enough to create” (Fox, 1983, p. 244), and in so doing we follow the Cosmic Christ, who awakens “the creativity in every person” (Fox, 1988, p. 31). Any act of human creativity means cocreating with God and is “our imitating of Divinity” (Fox, 2002, p. 77). Beauty CS fosters an aesthetic, sensuous appreciation of the universe. Beauty is present in nature. Because nature’s “beauty is born and not made” (Fox, 1983, p. 218), it is a constant surprise and a marvel to us. “In the microcosmic experience of a local snowfall’s beauty there lies a hint that the entire effort of the universe has been and continues to be one of cosmic beauty and harmony” (Fox, 1983, p. 219). Humans can also make beauty. “Beauty has to do with seeing all of life as blessing, with returning blessing for blessing, with forging blessing of pain and suffering and tragedy and loss. Beauty needs to be made and remade. It is the vital work of the artist within ourselves . . . [and] what our lives are about” (p. 218). We must not be seduced by “the consumer society’s efforts to sell us ersatz beauty” (Fox, 1983, p. 218). CS contends that in the patriarchal asceticism of traditional Christianity, sensual passion, and certain forms of beauty are distrusted and often outright forsaken. In addition, Mother Earth and creation are largely dismissed by the patriarchal mentality, asserts Fox (1983, 1988). Compassion Compassion, etymologically meaning “a suffering together” (Harper, 2014a), is based on love and is valued in CS. Compassion is the “keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things” (Fox, 1988, p. 50). In addition, “[c]ompassion means justice,” says Meister Eckhart (in Fox, 2011, p. 146). Mystics speak out prophetically against injustice (“the mystic is invariably dangerous and always in trouble; the mystic is prophetic,” Fox, 1988, p. 63) and show compassion to those who suffer. For all God’s creatures, compassion “is our universal heritage” (Fox, 1988, p. 50). Deep Ecology CS values deep ecology. “[E]cology is functional cosmology. . . . Earth is . . . our local neighborhood [in the universe]. Ecological and cosmological awareness are in tandem” (Fox, 2014, p. 17). Building on Meister

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Eckhart, Fox (1988) says that every creature of this planet is a word of God, so “Mother Earth is a special word of God” (Fox, 1988, p. 147). Yet Mother Earth is dying. “The killing of Mother Earth in our time is the number one ethical, spiritual, and human issue of our planet. . . Nothing will survive if Mother Earth does not survive” (Fox, 1988, pp. 144, 149, emphasis in original). We need to save her. Fox (2014) calls this our “universal vocation, the community calling. . . . [N]o one can escape this vocation to save Mother Earth” (pp. 277–278). Mystic Hildegard of Bingen intones, “The earth should not be injured, the earth should not be destroyed. . . . All of creation God gives to humankind to use. But if this privilege is misused, God’s justice permits creation to punish humanity” (1982, pp. 77–80, Fox, 1988, p. 144). Progressive Catholic “geologian” (priest-scientist) Thomas Berry (2009) attributes “the present disruption of all basic life systems of Earth” to “a culture that emerged from a biblical-Christian matrix” (p. 35). Western Christians have long assumed that everything on Earth is subject to their free disposition, and they have paid far more attention to social matters than ecological matters (Berry, 2009). Despite the church’s belated and lackluster response to the ecological crisis, certain Christian individuals and groups, such as Matthew Fox and CS, are actively engaged in saving the Earth, says Berry (2009). The “great work” of our day consists of ecological economics, ecological restoration, and environmental education (Berry, 2009). Along with this, the Cosmic Christ can contribute to the healing of Mother Earth by challenging the patriarchal era’s fear of nature, fear of death, and flight from mortality and by celebrating nature and humanity (Fox, 1988), as well as by “[b]ringing back the Divine Feminine” to honor Mother Earth (Fox, 2014, p. 278). In these statements, Fox seems to be suggesting that the Cosmic Christ is not only a uniting force, but also a sometimes-demanding teacher. Deep Ecumenism CS values deep ecumenism or “interspirituality” (Fox, 2014). An analogy from Father Bede Griffiths is that of a hand. Each of the five fingers represents one of the world’s great religions. Looking only at the tips, the fingers seem entirely separate, but they actually form one hand (Fox & Sheldrake, 1997). Yet another analogy is “one river, many wells,” mentioned in Part 1. A recent CS volume, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times (Fox, 2014), embodies deep ecumenism by focusing on Eckhart while also highlighting other medieval mystics, as well as Rabbi Abraham Heschel, Christian theologians Marcus Borg and Bruce Chilton, Catholic priest-scientists Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, Buddhist spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh, Sufi poet Rumi, Hindu art historian and linguist Ananda

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Coomaraswamy, German-American feminist theologian-activist Dorothee Soelle, and Lakota holy man Black Elk. In the same volume, those individuals mingle with depth psychologists Otto Rank and Carl Jung, American poet Adrienne Rich, economic justice advocate David Korten, artist-philosopher M. C. Richards, and many more. The ecumenical glue holding these figures together is their common language of spirit and compassion. Deep Economics CS yearns for and works toward a deep “economics of community and Main Street” that will overturn the “rapacious, reptilian economics of Wall Street” (in Bucko & Fox, 2013, p. 202). Fox calls for an economics that works for everyone, . . . an economics that works for the Earth and all creatures—not only humans, but water and soil, forests and air, giant leviathans and birds and everything that lives, . . . an economics that also works for the future. (Fox, 2014, p. 281)

This economics will foster universal justice and compassion, create wealth to support communities rather than individuals, encourage rituals and celebration rather than mindless entertainment, uplift the spirit, and contribute to “soul growth” (Fox, 2014, p. 282). Such an economics, says Fox (2014), is proposed by David Korten (2009) and Anita Roddick (1992, 2000). Multigenerational communities, such as the Canticle Farm community (modeled after the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi), aim to live their spiritual beliefs and embody the new economics (Bucko & Fox, 2013). Some of the “new monastics” are part of this change (Bucko & Fox, 2013). In all communities people can work toward the principles of deep economics. Summary of the Axiology of CS We have seen six examples of values within CS: creativity, beauty, compassion, deep ecology, deep ecumenism, and deep economics. These values are all part of the paradigm shift or global renaissance described by Fox (1988). Many of them, from his perspective, are not the map of traditional Christianity. PART 6—HOW DOES CS COMPARE WITH OTHER CONTEMPORARY INSTITUTIONS AND MOVEMENTS? CS has certain similarities to other current institutions and movements in Western society, such as the Church of the Saviour, the “Great Emergence,”

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and the relatively new academic field of positive psychology, as I show in the following. Part 6 concludes with a series of spiritual research questions. The Church of the Saviour CS reminds me of the Church of the Saviour, which Gordon Cosby founded in Washington, DC, in the mid-20th century and which I attended in the 1980s before having to move out of the area. While there, I was deeply involved in the church’s worship services, activities, and groups. The Church of the Saviour and CS are similar in the honoring of prayer (Bankson & Sokolove, 2014; Fox, 2001), celebration, the environment, and small spiritual communities, similar to those of the earliest Christians. Furthermore, I personally found the Church of the Saviour, like CS, to be fair to men and women alike, and this is validated by an example of worship leading at the Church of the Saviour (Bankson & Sokolove, p. 380). Other likenesses exist between the Church of the Saviour and CS. The Church of the Saviour links the journey inward, e.g., the inner encounter with God, with the journey outward, e.g., missions related to racial, economic, gender, sexual, age-related, and ecological justice (Boornstein, 2009; Church of the Saviour, 2015; Cosby, 1999, 2013; O’Connor, 1971, 1975a, 1975b). This combination of inward and outward is similar to the focus of CS, a fact recognized by Peter Bankson of the Seekers Church, a community of the Church of the Saviour. In a sermon, Bankson (2001) describes Matthew Fox’s (2001) concept of prayer as a “radical response to life” (see Part 3) with two interlinked dimensions: it needs to be deeply rooted in the mystery of life [more inward]; and it needs to be uprooting injustice in the world [more outward]. Both of these, the wonder and the work, Fox argues, are essential for authentic prayer. (Bankson, 2001)

The prophetic aspect of CS, which is so similar to that of the Church of the Saviour, is emphasized in the same sermon by Bankson (2001), who says, “Matthew Fox offers these signs of a true prophet—a personal uprooting, . . . creativity in the face of life, a community orientation, and a willingness to bear the pain of the death of the old” (para. 22). Despite many similarities between the Church of the Saviour and CS, there are also disparities. For example, CS’s highly enthusiastic acceptance and encouragement of feminine images of God might not be consistently paralleled in the Church of the Saviour. On the one hand, in the 1980s I worked with others to adapt the Church of the Saviour lectionary to include feminine images of God, while I intensively researched and wrote an article

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uncovering many images of the divine feminine in the Bible and in early Christian theology before the Council of Nicaea (Oxford-Carpenter, 1984). Additionally, the present-day Church of the Saviour website contains a lovely poem by “modern-day mystic” Edwina Gateley (2013) highlighting the divine feminine. On the other hand, in a sermon at the Seekers Church, which was mentioned earlier as a Church of the Saviour community, Deborah Sokolove (1999) criticizes feminine images of God as limiting, although she is a “feminist Christian” (Bankson & Sokolove, 2014, p. 379); yet her sermon is balanced in suggesting that masculine images of the divine are equally restricting. Within the Church of the Saviour, these diverse opinions about gendered images of God might or might not reflect the beliefs of the larger membership. Regardless, the church uses gender egalitarianism in all practical matters. Members of the Church of the Saviour do not use the CS term “the Cosmic Christ,” nor has the church adopted CS’s four paths. The Church of the Saviour focuses on personal callings, which do not seem to be a key to CS. Finally, despite its openness, the Church of the Saviour is a profoundly Christian institution, while CS, though building on Judeo-Christian roots, is deeply, intentionally ecumenical. All told, in an overall sense the similarities between CS and the Church of the Saviour appear much stronger than the differences. The “Great Emergence” CS overlaps somewhat, or perhaps significantly, with the Christian “Great Emergence” as described by Tickle (2012), although CS is not mentioned by that author. Theology influenced by emergence theory rejects reductionism and foundationalism entirely, denouncing the modern project of ‘irreducible truths’ in favor of . . . holism. . . . The Great Emergence describes a shift away from the view that the world is a machine capable of being understood—and, in many ways, manipulated—by dissecting it into pieces. (Schroyer, 2012, in Tickle, 2012, pp. 182–183)

In Christianity, emerging or emergent churches (both terms are currently used by different leaders) are rewriting Christian theology into something less focused on logic, rationalism, rules, absolute truth, denominationalism, and official church hierarchies and more centered on mysticism, paradox, narrative, networking, ecumenism, and affinity groupings, such as new communities (Tickle, 2012). Interestingly, the CS terms via positiva and via negativa, drawn from medieval sources, appear in a book on the language of the emerging church (Sweet, McLaren, & Haselmeyer, 2002).

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All such aspects of the emerging/emergent churches are condemned by many traditional Christian churches, and these aspects within CS receive equal disparagement from traditionalists. As we have seen in the preceding paragraph, there are many likenesses between CS and the emergent/emerging church movement. We have also seen that CS and the Church of the Saviour are much alike. Not altogether surprisingly, the Church of the Saviour is directly linked with the emerging church movement. Brian McLaren’s (2013) personal eulogy for Gordon Cosby, founder of the Church of the Saviour, says that the Church of the Saviour was “the original ‘Emerging Church’” and that it “has modeled ongoing, continual emergence” (para. 4). The words by which McLaren describes Cosby and the Church of the Saviour could easily be said about Fox and CS: “lifelong desire to integrate inward and outward journeys . . . discipleship and mission . . . contemplation and action . . . spirituality and social justice . . . modeled . . . for people around the world” (para. 5). Despite many similarities, there are some key differences between CS and the Great Emergence. For instance, CS has a more unified platform of deep ecology, deep economics, and deep education. Moreover, though emerging/emergent churches are ecumenical, not all show CS’s radical ecumenism. Whether emerging/emergent churches show gender justice, a value within CS, depends on the individual church, but most of the famous leaders appear to be male. Positive Psychology In rejecting original sin, CS resonates with positive psychology (Seligman, 2004, 2006, 2011; Csíkszentmihályi & Csíkszentmihályi, 2006), which helps people flourish and thrive, not just cope with pain. Positive psychology and CS both share a hopeful view of humanity and are interested in the spiritual aspect of life. Today’s positive psychologists . . . emphasize a life of meaning and emphasize that it can be found in both spiritual and secular pursuits. In so doing, positive psychology places the psychology of religion in a central place it has rarely occupied in the history of [psychology]. (Peterson, 2006, p. 6)

As noted by Thomas Culham (personal correspondence, July 28, 2014), there are significant similarities in the emotional and physiological experiences—wondrous, generative, and life-affirming—of people guided through positive psychology interventions and through contemplative-spiritual practices, such as meditation. Despite the fundamental similarities between positive psychology and CS, positive psychology does not have a cosmology or a

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Cosmic Christ, does not underscore ecumenism, and does not directly overtly count ecological and economic justice among its pursuits. Summary of Comparisons and New Research Questions to Address CS is a spiritual research paradigm that has much in common with some other current institutions and movements, such as the Church of the Saviour, the Emergence Movement, and positive psychology. However, it has many special aspects, such as the powerful cosmology that unites science, art, and mysticism; the intense concern for the divine feminine principle; the four paths; and the quartet of deep ecology, deep ecumenism, deep economics, and deep education. Inquiry related to any of these strands would offer much to humanity, even if participants do not subscribe to every tenet of CS. As a spiritual research paradigm, CS might help us approach major questions such as the following: • How can today’s social media and entertainment systems be used to address the needs of Mother Earth, and how can the urgency of this be conveyed? • How can Western society learn to understand and deal with material goods in a manner that supports economic justice? • In what ways does rampant workaholism mitigate against spirituality, and how can art as meditation reduce workaholism? • How can educational institutions in our cities and towns become places of wisdom instead of knowledge factories? • Why is racial segregation still pervasive in society today? What can be done about it from the spiritual standpoint? • What do social justice and compassion mean regarding university admissions of impoverished minorities? What do social justice and compassion mean for refugees and immigrants flooding into countries that are safer or wealthier than their own? • How do issues of sex and gender relate to spirituality? What does the answer mean for the full acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals by spiritual and religious groups? • Would it promote deep ecumenism if the Cosmic Christ became more openly recognized as already present in many religious traditions? How might this recognition occur? • How can we as individuals become more fully aware of our divine nature? • What do collaboration and unity mean in the lives of those in rural, isolated areas and those who feel estranged and alone in big cities?

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• How do quantum mechanics and string theory relate to our individual lives and our sense of the sacred? These are just a few important questions that CS could address. Many of them have, in fact, been touched upon in Matthew Fox’s books, but each question begs for more in-depth attention. Based on the open, loving, and participatory nature of CS, it seems clear that the people whose very lives revolve around these questions—that is, all of us—would be eligible to devise and contribute to the spiritual research addressing the questions above. The data-generating modes might include, among others, prayer, breathing meditation, art, poetry, drama, sculpting, photography, ritual, writing or telling of autobiographies, visioning exercises, observation, surveys, and interviews. When relevant, the tools and insights of physics, biology, ecology, psychology, sociology, economics, education, and other natural and social sciences could be employed. Experimentation might be included, but only if participants themselves help to shape the experiments in a fair and open way. If the research includes groups of people, the interpretation would be done by the wisest and most caring ones—whoever the contemporary equivalents of shamans or medicine (wo)men might be in our communities and societies—and then would be shared with everyone. As major transformations occur during this process, the Cosmic Christ in all of us is honored. Then, as Arthur Zajonc (2009) says, “knowing becomes love.” ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to Tom Culham and Jing Lin for their astute and caring comments on this chapter, which caused me to think more deeply. I am thankful to Matthew Fox for opening my eyes to new theological possibilities. Although I am aware of theological and even linguistic criticisms of his work, I strongly value the profound gifts he himself and Creation Spirituality have given to me and many others. REFERENCES Anschauung. (2014). Merriam-Webster dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anschauung Aronowitz, S., & Bratsis, P. (Eds.). (2002). Paradigm lost: State theory reconsidered. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Bai, H., Morgan, P., Scott, C., & Cohen, A. (2016, this volume). Prolegomenon to spiritual research paradigm: Importance of attending to the embodied and the subtle. In J. Lin, R. Oxford, & T. Culham (Eds.), Toward a spiritual research

228    R. L. OXFORD paradigm: Exploring new ways of knowing, researching, and being (pp.  77–96). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Bankson, P. (2001, October 7). Prayer: A radical response to life [Sermon]. Washington, DC: Seekers Church, a community of the Church of the Saviour. Retrieved from http://www.seekerschurch.org/worship/sermons/866-peter-bankson -prayer-a-radical-response-to-life Bankson, P., & Sokolove, D. (2014). Calling on God: Inclusive Christian prayers for three years of Sundays. Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths. Bauckham, R. (1996). The new age theology of Matthew Fox: A Christian theological response. Anvil, 13(2), 115–126. Retrieved from http://biblicalstudies. org.uk/pdf/anvil/13-2_115.pdf Berry, T. (2009). The Christian future and the fate of Earth. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Boornstein, M. (2009, January 6). Activist D.C. church embraces transition in name of its mission. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html Borg, M. J. (1995). Meeting Jesus again for the first time: The historical Jesus and the heart of contemporary faith. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Brown, B. T. (2014). Learning to walk in the dark. New York, NY: HarperOne. Bucko, A., & Fox, M. (2013). Occupy spirituality. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Burggraf, S., & Grossenbacher, P. (2007). Contemplative modes of inquiry in liberal arts education. Liberal Arts Online. Retrieved from www.liberalartswabash.edu Campbell, J. (1968). The masks of God: Creative mythology. New York, NY: Vintage. Cannato, J. (2010). Field of compassion: How the new cosmology is transforming spiritual life. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books. Capra, F. (2010). The tao of physics: An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. Boston, MA: Shambhala. (Originally published in 1975.) Chilton, B. (2004). Rabbi Paul: An intellectual biography. New York, NY: Doubleday. Chilton, B. (2010). The way of Jesus: To repair and renew the world. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Christ, C. P. (1980). Diving deep and surfacing. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Church of the Saviour. (2015). The Church of the Saviour story. Inward/Outward. Retrieved from http://inwardoutward.org/the-church-of-the-saviour/ our-story/ Cosby, N. G. (1999). By grace transformed: Christianity for a new millennium. New York, NY: Crossroad. Cosby, N. G. (2013). Seized by the power of a great affection: Meditations on the divine encounter. Washington, DC: Inward/Outward. Csíkszentmihályi, I. S., & Csíkszentmihályi, M. (Eds.). (2006). A life worth living: Contributions to positive psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1998). Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Csíkszentmihályi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harper. Csíkszentmihályi, M. (2013). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Creation Spirituality as a Spiritual Research Paradigm Drawing on Many Faiths    229 Culham, T., & Lin, J. (2016, this volume). Exploring the unity of science and spirit: A Daoist perspective. In J. Lin, R. Oxford, & R. Culham (Eds.), Toward a spiritual research paradigm: Exploring new ways of knowing, researching and being (pp. 171–198). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Daly, M. (1973). Beyond God the father. Boston, MA: Beacon. Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York, NY: Henry Holt. Doyle, B. (Ed.). (1983). Meditations with Julian of Norwich. Santa Fe, NM: Bear. Fetzer Institute. (1999). Multidimensional measurement of religiousness/spirituality for use in health research. Kalamazoo, MI: Author. Fox, M. (1983). Original blessing: A primer in creation spirituality presented in four paths, twenty-six themes, and two questions. Santa Fe, NM: Bear. Fox, M. (1988). The coming of the cosmic Christ: The healing of Mother Earth and the birth of a global renaissance. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Fox, M. (1996). Confessions: The making of a post denominational priest. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Fox, M. (2001). Prayer: A radical response to life. New York, NY: Tarcher/Putnam. Fox, M. (2002). Creativity: Where the divine and human meet. New York, NY: Tarcher/ Penguin. Fox, M. (2004). One river, many wells. New York, NY: Tarcher/Putnam. Fox, M. (2008). The hidden spirituality of men: Ten metaphors to awaken the sacred masculine. Novato, CA: New World Library. Fox, M. (2011). Christian mystics: 365 readings and meditations. Novato, CA: New World Library. Fox, M. (2014). Meister Eckhart: A mystic-warrior for our times. Novato, CA: New World Library. Fox, M. (2015). Matthew Fox and creation spirituality: Reawakening mysticism, protecting Mother Earth. Retrieved from http://www.matthewfox.org/ Fox, M., & Sheldrake, R. (1997). Natural grace: Dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science. New York, NY: Doubleday. Gateley, E. (2013). Enfolded and embraced. Inward/outward: Daily words. Retrieved from http://inwardoutward.org/quote-author/edwina-gateley/ Haack, S. (1993). Evidence and inquiry: Towards reconstruction in epistemology. Oxford, England: Blackwell. Harper, D. (2014a). Compassion. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http:// etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=compassion&sear chmode=none Harper, D. (2014b). Inquire. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http://www. etymonline.com/index.php?term=inquire&allowed_in_frame=0 Harper, D. (2014c). Inspiration. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http:// www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=inspiration& searchmode=none Harper, D. (2014d). Research. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http:// etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=research&search mode=none Harper, D. (2014e). Spirit. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http://www. etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=spirit&searchmod e=none

230    R. L. OXFORD Harper, D. (2014f). Spiritual. Online etymology dictionary. Retrieved from http:// www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=spiritual&sea rchmode=none Heschel, A. (1976). God in search of man: A philosophy of Judaism. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Hildegard of Bingen. (1982). Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen. (G. Uhlein, Trans.). Santa Fe, NM: Bear. Hill, P. C., & Hood, R. W. (1999). Measures of religiosity. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press. James, W. (1987). Writings 1902–1910 (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Library of America. (Originally published in 1910.) Korten, D. (2009). Agenda for a new economy: From phantom wealth to real wealth. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions (4th ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Macy, J., & Johnstone, C. (2012). Active hope: How to face the mess we’re in without going crazy. Novato, CA: New World Library. Maslow, A.H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. New York, NY: Penguin Compass. McLaren, B. (2013). In memoriam: Gordon Cosby. Retrieved from http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/in-memoriam-gordon-cosby.html Molenkott, V. R. (1983). The divine feminine: Biblical imagery of God as female. New York, NY: Crossroad. O’Connor, E. (1971). Our many selves: A handbook for self-discovery. New York, NY: Harper & Row. O’Connor, E. (1975a). Journey inward, journey outward. New York, NY: HarperCollins. O’Connor, E. (1975b). The call to commitment. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Oxford, R. L. (2010). How Christianity addresses peace and what this means for education. In E. J. Brantmeier, J. Lin, & J. P. Miller (Eds.), Spirituality, religion, and peace education (pp. 63–79). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Oxford-Carpenter, R. L. (1984). Gender and the trinity. Theology Today, 41(1), 7–25. Peterson, C. (2006). A primer in positive psychology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Pintrich, P. R., Marx, R. W., & Boyle, R. A. (1993). Beyond cold conceptual change: The role of motivational beliefs and contextual factors in the process of contextual change. Review of Educational Research, 63(2), 167–199. Rahner, K. (1993). Foundations of Christian faith: An introduction to the idea of Christianity. (W. V. Dych, Trans.) New York, NY: Crossroad. Ramaswamy, V., & Ozcan, K. (2014). The co-creation paradigm. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books. Roddick, A. (1992). Body and soul. London, England: Vermillion. Roddick, A. (2000). Business as unusual. London, England: Thorsons. Roth, H. D. (2006). Contemplative studies: Prospects for a new field. Teachers College Record, 108(9), 1787–1815. Schroyer, D. (2012). A guide for reading and discussing the great emergence. In P. Tickle, The great emergence: How Christianity is changing and why (2nd ed.), (pp. 175–216). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

Creation Spirituality as a Spiritual Research Paradigm Drawing on Many Faiths    231 Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York, NY: Atria Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York, NY: Vintage. Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Atria/Simon & Schuster. Silo (Rodríguez Cobos, M. L.). (2006). Psychology IV: Apuntes de psicología (psychology notes) (pp. 96–106). Mendoza, Argentina: Universal Humanism. Retrieved from http://www.silo.net/collected_works/psychology_notes Sokolove, D. (1999, July 18). Naming God [Sermon]. Presented at Seekers Church, Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.seekerschurch.org/worship/ sermons/776-deborah-sokolove-naming-god Starhawk. (1979). The spiral dance: A rebirth of the ancient religion of the great goddess. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Stuart, H., Arboleda-Florez, J., & Sartorius, N. (2012). Paradigms lost: Fighting stigma and the lessons learned. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Sweet, L. I., McLaren, B. D., & Haselmeyer, J. (2002). “A” is for abductive: The language of the emerging church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Swimme, B. T., & Tucker, M. E. (2011). Journey of the universe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Tickle, P. (2012). The great emergence: How Christianity is changing and why (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker. Tillich, P. (1957). Systematic theology (Vol. 3). New York, NY: Harper & Row. Ulanov, A. B. (1971). The feminine in Jungian psychology and Christian theology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Wilber, K. (2006). Integral spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Boston, MA: Integral Books. Zajonc, A. (2006a). Cognitive-affective connections in teaching and learning: The relationship between love and knowledge. Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, 3(1), 1–9. Zajonc, A. (2006b). Contemplative and transformative pedagogy. Kosmos Journal, 5(1), 1–3. Zajonc, A. (2006c). Molding the self and the common cognitive sources of science and religion. In V. H. Kazanjian, Jr., & P. Laurence (Eds.), Education as transformation: Religious pluralism, spirituality, and a new vision for higher education in America. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Zajonc, A. (2009). Meditation as contemplative inquiry: When knowing becomes love. Aurora, CO: Lindisfarne.

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CHAPTER 10

PARADIGMATIC DIALOGUES, INTERSUBJECTIVITY, AND NONDUALITY IN QUALITATIVE INQUIRY Considerations From Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta Edward J. Brantmeier and Noorie K. Brantmeier

A subjective-objective ontology means that there is underneath our literate abstraction, a deeply participatory relation to things and to the earth, a felt reciprocity. —Abram, 1996, p. 124 I believe in non-duality (advaita), I believe in the essential unity of man, and for that matter, of all that lives. . . . The rock bottom foundation of the technique for achieving the power of nonviolence is belief in the essential oneness of all life. —Gandhi, 1924, p. 390

Interconnectedness, as conveyed by Abram and Gandhi in these quotes, are powerful ontological stances that have implications for how we relate to others in everyday life and in the qualitative inquiry process. The assumption Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 233–255 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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is that “we are in it together” and that we influence one another in the process of understanding the ways individuals and groups construct knowledge and understand how we know. Epistemologically, individuals and cultural groups vary significantly in their approaches to ways of knowing and to constructing knowledge. Various forms of knowledge and ways of knowing beyond the rational or cognitive are valued in cultural groups around the world (Reagan, 1996). Understanding this variance and searching for potential common threads seems an important pursuit to advance a spiritual research paradigm. The researcher-subject relationship in positivistic inquiry processes brings to the fore various assumptions of experience and reality, namely that objectivity is possible in a world of subject-to-object relationships. It assumes a duality exists, or in other words, separate realities exist between the researcher and the subject of research. In contrast to this position of duality, binaries are in tension with an ontological position that human experience is complex, interwoven, and interdependent; we exist in a connected way and when we study others using social scientific inquiry, we need to be careful of claims of pure objectivity. This dualistic ontological position contrasts with the ontological position that (a) human experience is complex, interwoven, and interdependent; (b) we exist in an interconnected way; and (c) when we study others using social scientific inquiry, we need to be careful of claims of pure objectivity. The assumption of dual realities and of objectivity will be brought into question in this chapter by focusing on paradigmatic dialogues within the field of qualitative inquiry. Additionally, we will take a closer look at the concept of intersubjectivity as part of the qualitative inquiry process. When a researcher enters the subjectivity of another in the inquiry process can she truly take a position with the other in a way that allows the researcher to adequately represent the participant’s values, thought patterns, and worldview? Is there potential for mutual understanding and cotransformation in the inquiry process, especially during moments of nonduality—or in other words, moments of spiritual connectedness? Intersubjectivity is not an original conception, rather it has deep historical roots in various wisdom traditions from cultures across space and time. In specific, advaita vedanta, or nonduality, a concept originating in a Hindu philosophical school of thought, will be examined to add to the conversation in the spiritual research paradigm dialogue. Intersubjectivity assumes a very different ontological and epistemological stance in research, one premised on interdependence and connection—the core of the definition of spirituality that we use in this chapter. A spiritual paradigm is one that conceptualizes nonduality (advaita vedanta) as a norm for conducting “engaged” research. Spirituality is defined here as awareness and actionorientations that assume interdependence and connection (and not objectivity in the sense of disconnection between researcher and subject). The

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Research Paradigms

Spirituality in Research Methods

Intersubjectivity + Hinduism’s Advaita-Vedanta

Figure 10.1  Conceptual framework for a spiritual research paradigm.

definition also assumes that there are different ways of knowing beyond reason, logic, and emotion, namely through intuition, insight through contemplative means, and less tangible modes of extrasensory and paranormal experience. These different ways of knowing require a different method for understanding spiritual experience, different ethical obligations, and mindfulness about how and where to apply such knowledge. Figure 10.1 illustrates the key concepts that will be discussed in this chapter. THE RESEARCH PARADIGM DIALOGUE: ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AXIOLOGY, METHODOLOGY AND TELEOLOGY Paradigms are a way of seeing, but they can also be a way of not seeing (Feilzer, 2010; Guba & Lincoln, 1985; Kuhn, 1962). The concept of paradigms as an organizing metaphysical framework to enable researchers to examine the underlying belief systems that guide their work comes out of foundational theory work by Denzin, Lincoln, and Guba. A paradigm is defined as a worldview, a general perspective, a way of breaking down the complexity of the real world . . . which are deeply embedded in the socialization of adherents and practitioners; they tell us what is important, legitimate, and reasonable, they are also normative, telling the practitioner what to do. (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 15)

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An important note about paradigms are these, fundamental beliefs, perspectives, or worldviews, often go unquestioned (Creswell, 2007; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Denzin, Lincoln, and Guba outlined four basic belief systems that constitute a paradigmatic viewpoint: (a) axiology (the nature of ethics), (b) ontology (the nature of reality), (c) epistemology (the nature of knowledge and the relationship between the knower and that which would be known), and (d) methodology (the appropriate approach to systematic inquiry) (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). Another important consideration is teleology, which asks the question, “To what end should we apply the knowledge gained?” (Lynham, 2002). Figure 10.2 illustrates the key questions asked when constructing a paradigmatic viewpoint. Paradigms drive the methods researchers use and the ways they interact with the people who participate in their work. The following paradigms will be explored in this chapter for the purpose of situating a spiritual research paradigm: positivism, postpositivism, constructivist/interpretive, critical, and participatory action research. We will explore the argument that a spiritual paradigm may stand alone, or may be a commensurable approach within existing research paradigms. Positivist Paradigm Positivism emerged as a philosophical paradigm in the 19th century and asserts that real events can be observed empirically and explained with

Ontology

• What is the nature of reality?

Epistemology

• What makes for knowledge of reality?

Methodology

• How is knowledge aquired and accumulated?

Axiology

• How should we act in acquiring, accumulating, and applying knowledge?

Teleology

• To what end should we apply knowledge?

Figure 10.2  Belief systems and corresponding paradigmatic questions.

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logical analysis. Ontologically, this paradigm assumes that there is “a single, objective reality—the world is out there—[and] that we can observe, know and measure it” (Merriam, 1991, p. 43). Epistemologically, there is a stance that objectivity leads to unbiased, “true” results. People and their behaviors become objects for study, with the researcher maintaining as much distance from the researched as possible so as to remain objective (Merriam, 1991, p. 44). Methodologically, referring to how knowledge is acquired and accumulated in a positivist paradigm, the focus is quantitative and experimental with verification being extremely important. Axiology or the consideration of ethics is largely excluded from the positivist worldview because there is an undergirding belief that rigorous methods create objectivity, and in some cases the deception of research participants is accepted. Research is seen as value neutral, designed to uncover facts and determine trends. The answer to the teleological question in positivism is that the aim is primarily to establish cause-and-effect relationships for the purpose of contributing to the greater scientific knowledge base. Postpositivism was born in response to the rigidity of the positivist paradigm. Postpositivist Paradigm Postpositivism was introduced as a rejection of the positivist paradigm. Ontologically, postpositivism posits that knowledge is conjectural—in essence absolute truth can never be found. The postpositivist worldview suggests that the evidence established in research is always imperfect and fallible. The fallibility inherent in research necessitates that researchers state that they do not prove a hypothesis; instead, they indicate a failure to reject the hypothesis (Phillips & Burbules, 2000). Epistemologically, this worldview assumes that we can only approximate nature. The research and the statistics produced provide a way to make a decision using incomplete data. One of the key principles of postpositivism is that interaction with research subjects should be kept to a minimum to reduce researcher bias. Methodologically, postpositivist research can be conducted quantitatively or qualitatively, though the paradigm most often lends itself to quantitative methods. Axiology has been traditionally excluded from the discussion of postpositivism, but the paradigm is sensitive to possibilities for bias, and ideally rigorous procedures should reduce bias. The answer to the teleological question in the postpositivist paradigm is that research serves to contribute to science and accumulate knowledge. Unlike critical and participatory approaches, the validity of research conducted from a postpositivist worldview comes from peers (the research community), not from the subjects being studied (Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Merriam, 1991; Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).

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Constructivist/interpretive Paradigm The constructivist or interpretive paradigm is based on the principle that transactional knowledge, or knowledge produced from researcherparticipant interactions, is valued (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). As stated by Swandt (1994): Proponents of these persuasions (constructivist/interpretive) share the goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it. This goal is variously spoken of as an abiding concern for the life world, for the emic point of view, for understanding meaning, for grasping the actor’s definition of a situation. (p. 40)

Researchers from this paradigm “generate or inductively develop a theory or pattern of meanings” (Creswell, 2003, p. 9). Unlike the positivist and postpositivist paradigms, the ontological dimension of the constructivist/interpretive paradigm suggests that the researcher comes to know the “knowable” by overcoming the space between the researcher and participant. Empathy allows the researcher a clearer perception of the participant’s experience, and the transactions and closeness of the relationship are a strength (Josselson, 1995). Epistemologically the constructivist/interpretive paradigm suggests that the reality experienced by participants can only be understood through interaction with participants. Methodologically, the constructivist/interpretive paradigm lends itself to qualitative methods with the researcher “as the primary instrument for both data collection and analysis. The researcher shares in the world of the researched and then interprets what he or she experienced there” (Merriam, 1991, p. 49). Guba and Lincoln (2005) maintain, “Axiological questions, or the ethics of conducting research, suggest that propositional transactional knowing is instrumentally valuable as a means to social emancipation, which is an end in itself, [and] is intrinsically valuable” (p. 198). Critical Paradigm The critique of structures that perpetuate unequal power and privilege leading to the oppression of vulnerable groups is central to the critical paradigm. In this paradigm, “research is driven by the study of social structures, freedom and oppression, and power and control. Researchers believe that the knowledge produced through inquiry can change existing oppressive structures and remove oppression” (Merriam, 1991, p. 52). Epistemologically, the paradigm suggests that the nature of reality is historically situated and shaped by our positionality and values (Guba & Lincoln, 2008). Ontologically, like constructivism the critical paradigm values interaction, and

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through that interaction knowledge is created. The critical paradigm posits that knowledge is socially constructed and that individuals in power create “reality.” A key principle of this paradigm is that it requires researchers to critically reflect upon society and their complicity in reinforcing an oppressive structure so that they and the people they research can overcome domination and repression through praxis. Taking action to change the social structure is seen as both freeing and empowering. (Merriam, 1991, p. 53)

Praxis is defined as “the combination of reflection and action (which) is critical to this paradigm” (Merriam, 1991, p. 52). The critical paradigm most often supports qualitative methods, though mixed methods and quantitative research can be supported methodologically as long as there is alignment. Ethics are important in the critical paradigm, as is the teleological question of, “To what end ought we apply research knowledge?” Under this paradigm, the answer is that research should be used for the purpose of giving voice to traditionally underrepresented groups (Delgado, 1989). Participatory Paradigm As in the constructivist/interpretive and critical paradigms, interaction with participants is a cornerstone of the participatory paradigm, also known as participatory action research. Participatory research is grounded in community-based approaches where research is conducted with and by community members, not on them. The epistemology of this worldview endorses the primacy of practical knowing (Heron & Reason, 1997). The ontology as propounded by Heron and Reason (1997) states that “mind and the given cosmos are engaged in a creative dance, so that what emerges as reality is the fruit of an interaction of the given cosmos and the way the mind engages with it” (p. 279). Also, ontologically speaking, the reality of individuals’ lived experience of marginalization is shifted to the center of inquiry (Hall, 1992). Methodologically, research tools are placed in the hands of people who have been historically marginalized so that they empowered to transform their lives (Evans, Hole, Berg, Hutchinson, & Sookraj, 2009). Axiologically, the participatory paradigm addresses the question of ethics as an issue of human flourishing. Human flourishing is viewed as a “process of social participation in which there is a mutually enabling balance, within and between people, of autonomy, co-operation and hierarchy. It is conceived as interdependent with the flourishing of the planet ecosystem” (Heron, 1996, p. 11). Teleologically, this type of research questions the origins of the production of knowledge, who has access to knowledge, and whose interests and ends knowledge serves (Merriam, 1991, p. 56).

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Spiritual Paradigm Guba and Lincoln (2011) assert that “new-paradigm inquiry grows daily” and point to the “blurring of genres” (p. 191). The authors also note that the emergence of new paradigms often leads to paradigms that are less distinct, less oppositional, and more integrative (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). “Blended paradigms are often established to transform social institutions and overturn traditional practices by providing concrete evidence of multiple perspectives, realities, and unmet needs” (Guido, Chavez, & Lincoln, 2010, p. 11). In this chapter, we explore a spiritual paradigm as a potentially blended paradigm and also propose a possible stand-alone spiritual paradigm. Table 10.1 is a heuristic for comparing selected, commensurable existing paradigms. Table 10.1 outlines the key tenets of the constructivist/interpretive, critical, and participatory paradigms and provides possible tenets of a spiritual paradigm as both a blended approach and stand-alone paradigm. The key questions here are: When is a blended paradigm insufficient, and when is a new paradigm required? A spiritual paradigm seems closely aligned with the participatory paradigm with its focus on connections to others and the environment. As stated by Storm (1972, 1994), the participatory worldview “allows us as human persons to know that we are part of the whole rather than separated as mind over and against matter, or placed here in the relatively separate creation of a transcendent god.” The participatory worldview is open to experiential knowing, to include, “direct encounters, face-to-face meetings, feeling and imaging the presence of some energy, entity, person, place process or thing” (Heron & Reason, 1997, p. 281). Methodologically, the participatory paradigm is grounded in collaborative inquiry. The focus on collaborative inquiry is an area where the spiritual and participatory waters may divide. A spiritual paradigm may be more aligned with a constructivist or interpretive paradigm with its purpose on deep understanding, which may or may not include co-inquiry with research participants. The features of a spiritual paradigm that are uniquely spiritual are the recognition of knowledge coming to participants or being found by participants in noncognitive or nonrational ways. Insight, gut feelings, intuitions, and paranormal ways of knowing are considered to be real, discoverable, and describable in this paradigm. TRUTH CLAIMS AND QUALITATIVE INQUIRY Paradigms include issues of design, methodology, and philosophy as core to an approach in research. The methods of research are typically understood in terms of how data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted (Creswell,

“Interpretive research assumes that there are multiple realities . . . reality is not an objective that can be discovered and measured, but rather a construction of the human mind” (Merriam, 1991, p. 48).

“If realities only exist within the human mind then subjective interaction seems to be the only way to access them” (Lincoln & Lynham, 2011).

Ontology What is the nature of reality?” (Mertens, 2010, p. 10)

Epistemology What makes for knowledge of that reality?

Constructivist/ Interpretive

Interaction/knowledge is socially constructed/those in power create “reality” which has to be changed to include alternative epistemologies as valid (Bernal, 2002).

The nature of reality is historically situated and shaped by our positionality and values (Guba & Lincoln, 2008).

Critical

In community-based participatory research, the knower participates in the known and that evidence is generated in at least four interdependent ways- experiential, presentational, propositional, and practical (Heron & Reason, 1997; Hills & Mullet, 2000).

The reality of the individuals’ experience of marginalization is the focus of inquiry.

Participatory

TABLE 10.1  Underlying Beliefs of Inquiry Paradigms

A spiritual paradigm assumes we exist in relation to others and are all connected in a meaning making process. Spiritual knowing can be intuitive, extrasensory, or paranormal—beyond logic, reason, and emotion. Knowledge can come from places beyond the cognitive or rational. Invites “vastly different worldviews about what is considered “valid knowledge” (Bernal, 1997, p. 115). (From the critical paradigm) Knowledge can be gained if we treat individuals as “whole” people and cannot be objectively described. Ideally the author posits that the epistemology must be “simultaneously empirical, inter subjective, and process oriented” (Flax, 1990 as cited by Josselson, 1995, p. 29). (From the constructivist/ inter-pretive paradigm)

(continued)

The nature of reality is co-created through our interactions with all sentient beings.

Spiritual paradigm (stand-alone)

The mind “creatively participates with [the cosmos] and can only know it in terms of its constructs, whether affective, imaginal, conceptual or practical” (Heron, p. l0) (From the participatory paradigm)

Spiritual paradigm (blended)

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“Researcher as the primary instrument for both data collection and analysis, shares in the world of the researched and then interprets what he or she experienced there” (Merriam, 1991, p. 49).

Transactional knowing is instrumentally valuable as a means to social emancipation, which is an end in itself, is intrinsically valuable (Guba & Lincoln, 2005, p. 198).

Methodology How such knowledge is acquired and accumulated?

Axiology How we ought to act in acquiring, accumulating and applying such knowledge?

Constructivist/ Interpretive

Participants are respected, power is shared. Work towards social justice and illumination of social ills (Mertens, 2010)

Dialogic, transformative methodology—eliminate false consciousness and energize and facilitate transformation.

Critical

“It is axiomatic that participatory action research done well should lead to the empowerment of individuals and communities” (Evans, Hole, Berg, Hutchinson & Sookraj, 2009, p. 903). The participatory paradigm addresses the axiological question

Co-operative inquiry is a participatory action methodology that does research with people not on to or about them. This methodology engages people in a transformative process of change by cycling through several iterations of action and reflection (Hills & Mullet, 2000, p. 7).

Participatory

TABLE 10.1  Underlying Beliefs of Inquiry Paradigms (continued)

Paradigms and methods must be in alignment and be commensurable. A spiritual paradigm lends itself to quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches though researcher positioning should be explicit. Contemplative inquiry is mindful of alternative ways of knowing and cocreation, sometimes by sources beyond the material, of reality. Moral inclusion of all sentient beings is key. Participants are respected as a spiritual paradigm assumes we are all connected and are all “in it” together. An ethical stance of openness, inclusiveness of diversity, and wonder

This paradigm heavily draws on qualitative methods. (From the participatory paradigm) It also includes innumerable others, such as: art as a mode of knowledge, intentional selfhealing, participative knowledge of organic and inorganic forms, altered states of consciousness and many more.

This paradigm addresses the axiological question in terms of human flourishing. Human flourishing is viewed as a “process of social participation in which there is a mutually enabling balance, within and between people, of

(continued)

Spiritual paradigm (stand-alone)

Spiritual paradigm (blended)

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Teleology To what end ought we apply such knowledge?

Constructivist/ Interpretive

Critical theorists are not only trying to describe a situation from a particular viewpoint they are trying to change an oppressive situation

Critical

This type of research questions the origins of the production of knowledge, who has access to knowledge, and whose interests and ends knowledge serves (Merriam, 1991, p. 56).

in terms of human flourishing. Human flourishing is viewed as a “process of social participation in which there is a mutually enabling balance, within and between people, of autonomy, co-operation and hierarchy. It is conceived as interdependent with the flourishing of the planet ecosystem” (Heron, 1996, p. 11).

Participatory

TABLE 10.1  Underlying Beliefs of Inquiry Paradigms (continued)

It is inquiry conducted with others rather than on or to others. In this spirit of advocacy participants are active collaborators in the inquiries (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998 as cited by Creswell, 2009, p. 10). (From the participatory paradigm)

autonomy, co-operation and hierarchy. It is conceived as interdependent with the flourishing of the planet ecosystem” (Heron, 1996, p. 11). (From the participatory paradigm)

Spiritual paradigm (blended)

Paradigmatic positioning suggests we have a responsibility to serve one another and living creatures through boundless, selfless service. Diverse ways of knowing, existing, and understanding enrich all life

about alternative ways of knowing needs to guide inquiry. The relationship of subjects to subjects is sacred and requires an approach of great care and respect.

Spiritual paradigm (stand-alone)

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2014). Different methods of inquiry are used to validate different types of truth claims within research processes, namely, empirical truth claims, normative truth claims, and subjective truth claims (Habermas, 1987; Carspecken, 1996). Empirical truths claims are validated through the principle of multiple access; multiple researchers across space and time validate laws of motion and gravity, for example. Normative truth claims are validated through the principle of in-group access, namely, the researcher needs to be a member of a cultural group to validate the truth of that group, or alternatively, the researcher needs to cultivate an emic or insider’s perspective and validate those interpretations through member checking with ingroup members. Finally, subjective truth claims are validated through the principle of privileged access. Premised on the notion of trustworthiness of the research participant, subjective truth claims are validated through understanding the perceptions, observing the behaviors, and checking with the individual about her/his truth. Understanding that different research designs and methods provide the framework and process used to substantiate various truth claims (empirical, normative, and subjective) is important because it moves conversation beyond what is the better or best method to the task of matching method with the type of truth claim being made. Quantitative surveys may not be adequately matched to explain the normative truths of a group of people, particularly if the group values oral tradition over the written word. Similarly, ethnography may be ill equipped to understand the traffic flow patterns on multiple interstate highways across the United States. The point here is that a research question should ultimately steer the method chosen for inquiry. Also, normative truth claims (the truth of groups of people) and subjective truth claims (the truth of an individual) are often validated through qualitative interviews, in which one person sits with another and asks him or her questions to derive understanding and meaning from the perspective of the one being interviewed. The boundaries of researcher and researched are exactly the focus of exploration in this chapter. We argue that certain assumptions of objective reality and certain understandings of relationship, namely that researchers enter into intersubjective territory when they interview people, need to be examined more closely as part of exploring a spiritual research paradigm. ADVAITA VEDANTA: NONDUALITY So why is the focus in this chapter on a philosophical branch of Hinduism labeled advaita vedanta as it relates to intersubjectivity in qualitative inquiry? In sharp contrast to a positivist ontological position of objective reality and an epistemological stance of knowing “truth” in the context of subject to

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object relationships in a positivist paradigm, advaita vedanta assumes very different ontological and epistemological stances. The concept of nonduality is important to explore as it relates to an ontological stance of interdependence and epistemological position of knowing in relation. Early Vedic understandings of nonduality, some dating more than 2600 years ago, may have applicability to our present understanding of existence, relationship, and ultimately the truth claims that are made about individuals and groups in qualitative inquiry. The origins, conceptions, and implications of will be explored in this section. Hinduism and Advaita Vedanta The label Hinduism is a broad, encompassing brush stroke that attempts to paint an expansive landscape of philosophical and religious thought with origins more than 600 years before the common era in the ancient Vedas and the later Upanishads; these traditions extend in influence into present religious and spiritual practice in India. Upadhyaya (2010) describes the essential task of the Vedas and Upanishads as follows: “The central concern in these highly revered treatises is the realization of the essential unity of the entire humanity in the spirit of ‘live and let live’” (p. 100). There are countless visions of holistic peace. The Yajurveda (1987), for instance, declares, “One sees all creatures as if they were his own selves and himself in others—his mind rests in peace” (pp. 40–46). Counter to a perception of relatedness as separate, that is, individuals and objects are discretely atomized parts, this statement of nonduality from the Yajurveda maintains that existence is interdependent—mutual, reciprocal, nondual. This statement of nonduality is elaborated on in various other Hindu texts, as well as much later in the philosophy and actions of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi maintains, I believe in non-duality (advaita), I believe in the essential unity of man, and for that matter, of all that lives . . . . The rock bottom foundation of the technique for achieving the power of nonviolence is belief in the essential oneness of all life. (Gandhi, 1924, p. 390)

Oneness of all life is a powerful ontological stance that Gandhi uses to develop a method of satyagraha (soul-force and or truth in action). In action, this technique assumes that hurting others is hurting the self; nonduality forms the bedrock of how one engages with others in a process of social, political, and economic change. Contemporary explorations of oneness are common place in yogic and other movement-meditation traditions that emerge from Hinduism and Buddhism.

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Explorations of the relationship of self to other and of self to ultimate reality are commonplace in Hindu philosophical texts. Advaita vedanta, literally translated as nonduality, is a philosophical school in Hinduism advanced by Adi Shankara, a sage from India who lived from 686–718 A.D. Nonduality forms the bedrock of both ontology and epistemology in this thought tradition within Hinduism. To illustrate what is meant by nonduality here, let us explore Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination: Timeless Teachings on Nonduality. Shankara (1975) urges the meditator to see beyond the illusion of separateness in explaining an approach to nonduality: “Unreal also are this body, these organs, this life-breath, this sense of ego. Therefore, ‘That art Thou’—pure, blissful, supreme Brahman, the one without a second” (p. 74). In this conception, the atman residing in individuals is nondistinct from the brahman—the ultimate reality some would label as God. There is an illusion of dual existence, of a self that is separated from ultimate reality. This philosophical position is of interest to qualitative researchers because it points at the boundaries of self and other that habitually come up in the interpretive process of reconstructing meaning and worldview of others. This assumptions of this philosophical position move beyond positivist and post-positivist research paradigms; they assume the objective boundary of mind and matter is a false construct. In essence, both mind and matter are objects of knowledge in this system of thought. When a researcher encounters a participant in the inquiry process, the very encounter and interchange can be an instance of co-creation; the sum of the parts is beyond the parts themselves. Acknowledging this mutual influence in an open, honest way may add trustworthiness and validity to the process. Prabhavananda and Isherwood (in Shankara, 1975) maintain, “Western realism and idealism are both based on distinction between mind and matter: Indian philosophy puts mind and matter in the same category—both are objects of knowledge” (p. 8). Knowing the source of knowledge (that includes both mind and matter) is an essential pursuit in Hindu philosophical/spiritual endeavor. This source of knowledge is considered beyond rational or cognitive thought processes, yet it includes those processes. This distinction of mind and matter, essential to subject and object relationships, is a nondistinction in Indian philosophy and therefore assumes importance when examining subject-to-subject relationships. Mind shapes matter and matter shapes mind. In other words, perception generates reality and reality influences perception. A feedback loop of sorts ensures where truth is co-constructed in a dynamic interplay. Ultimate reality (Brahman, God, Oneness etc.) is widely explored in various Hindu philosophical explorations and multiple methods of achieving knowledge or experience of ultimate reality are proposed; the way of knowledge, the way of devotion, the way of mediation, and the way of action

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(Herman, 1991). The way of meditation, just one of those possible pathways, is explained in Shankara’s (1975) Viveka-Chudamani and gives descriptive insight into nonduality: The spiritual seeker who is possessed of tranquility, self-control, mental poise and forbearance, devotes himself to the practice of contemplation, and meditates upon the Atman within himself as the Atman within all things. Thus, he completely destroys the sense of separateness that arises from the darkness of ignorance, and dwells in joy, identifying himself with Brahman, free from distracting thoughts and selfish occupations. (p. 92)

Thus, the veil of ignorance, the veil of the illusion of separateness, can be achieved through skillful meditative means of the seeker who merges in samadhi—or one-pointed concentration on the mutuality and co-reality of atman and brahman. Shankara provides a specific method of seeing self in all things, teachings that are later echoed later in the famous text, the Bhagavad Gita, when Krsna teaches Arjuna a life lesson: Arming himself with discipline Seeing everything with an equal eye, He sees the self in all creatures And all creature the self. (Miller, 1986, p. 67)

Ontologically, advaita vedanta assumes we exist in relation to all creatures. Epistemologically, the assumption is that knowledge is co-created. Teleologically, this paradigmatic positioning suggests we have a responsibility to serve one another and living creatures through boundless, selfless service. Gandhi (1932), a person who attempted to live this philosophy, writes: The purpose of life is undoubtedly to know oneself. We cannot do it unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives. The sum total of that life is God. Hence the necessity of realizing God living within everyone of us. The instrument of this knowledge is boundless, selfless service. (pp. 242–243)

Eastern Roots, Western Branches In philosophical exploration of the relationship between the human individual (atman) and God (brahman), the Chandogya Upanishad (before 6th century BCE) is credited with first exploring the concept of the Sanskrit phrase, tat tvam asi, or “that-art-thou.” Yes, that is more than 2,600 years ago. The Sanskrit phrase tat tvam asi has been explored by Western philosophers, theologians, mystics, and social theorists. For example, Martin Buber, the Austrian-born, Jewish philosopher spends considerable time in his philosophical works exploring the German Ich-du (I-thou) and Ich-es

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(I-it) relationship (Kramer, 2003). Is our existence separate (I-it), or mutual (I-thou)? In addition, Habermas (1984, 1987) explores the subject-tosubject relationship in the ideal speech act, one predicated on communicative rationality where subjects relate to subjects rather than instrumental rationality where subjects related to objects—often for personal gain. The exploration of subject to object and subject-to-subject relationships clearly is important for understanding inquiry methods for understanding self and other. So how does nonduality (advaita vedanta) and the concept of thatart-thou (tat tvam asi) inform practice in qualitative inquiry? Is the illusion of separateness something to consider when doing qualitative inquiry? What would “destroying the sense of separateness” look like in the inquiry process and what would the results be? In addition, what specific methods might be developed for understanding spiritual knowing and insight? INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN QUALITATIVE INQUIRY The question emerges, how separate are we really from the “objects” we observe in research? Werner Heisenberg (1960), originator of Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty, maintains: Science no longer is in the position of observer of nature, but rather recognizes itself as part of the interplay between man and nature. The scientific method . . . changes and transforms its object: the procedure can no longer keep its distance from the object. (p. 231)

In addition, Heisenberg (1958) maintains that, “The very act of observing alters the object being observed when quantum numbers are small” (p. 24). So what then is the nature of reality and the reality of observer and observed if on the quantum level, the observed appears to be in a sort of interplay with the observer (Figure 10.3)? Hermeneutics and the Emic and the Etic Perspectives Whose perspective do we understand during qualitative inquiry? Others’ perspective? Our own? Both? Or something between the two? Hermeneutic reconstructive analysis, put in simple terms, is the process of meaning reconstruction through closely examining the “implicit components, structures, and/or generative rules of meaning” (Carspecken, 2008). The careful and deliberate process of meaning reconstruction is different than everyday conversations, where meaning often lies implicit within dialogue between/among cultural actors who often understand what is meant

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Intersubjectivity

Researcher

Participant

Figure 10.3  Intersubjective exchange.

by what is said. However, understanding what is meant by what is said is tricky business given layers of cultural meaning embedded within a simple speech act. For example, in an interview a participant might express the following seemingly simple statement, “I enjoy riding my bike to school.” What meanings are folded within the simple statement? What cultural values and thought patterns undergird this statement? Does the participant value environmental sustainability, physical exercise, joy and freedom of movement, and/or formal education processes such as school? What do they mean by this simple statement? Unfolding that complexity is part of the hermeneutic meaning reconstructive process. A major point here is that when cultural actors from different groups engage in dialogue, implicit assumptions and meaning are often misunderstood or confused by those from the outside. Getting it “right” from an emic perspective, the perspective of an insider, can take considerable effort and requires decentered position taking. In qualitative inquiry, being aware of and then suspending one’s own judgment, assumptions, and worldview is essential to accurately portray an emic or insider’s perspective in the research process. In other words, how do we move from our own values, thought patterns, and interpretations of behaviors, to accurately convey the worldview of research participants? This approach is in contrast with an etic perspective, or objective outsider’s perspective on empirical phenomena. Carspecken (1996) states the importance of “intersubjective recognition” or position taking as a cultural

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insider in the process of reconstructing the “normative-evaluative” world, or cultural world, of a group of people (pp. 143–144). This emic perspective requires position taking with cultural actors in order to reconstruct meaning through their eyes, values, and thought patterns. In discussing the features of a hermeneutic circle, Carspecken (1996) maintains: To infer meaning fields you must “take the position” of the actor, the ones addressed by the act, and other people present but unaddressed, in order to note the impressions of meaning possibly experienced by each party. This is intersubjectivity, which consists of taking the subjective position from a variety of perspectives on the act; it is position taking. To articulate a meaning field into explicit discourse, you move through the various positions in a conscious and explicit manner rather than in the tacit and implicit manner typical of everyday interactions. You must take a performative attitude toward the activity, occupying virtually the positions of the others in the setting, if you are to interpret it. (p. 99)

The act of position taking with multiple cultural actors requires both cognitive and emotional flexibility and also suspension of judgment. Perhaps the aforementioned participant who made the statement, “I enjoy riding my bike to school” does so because she values physical activity, exercise, or sustainability. Perhaps she values the independence of bike riding, and implicitly she may value the knowledge, education, and skills that one can inquire in school. Regardless of the actual implicit meaning in this very simple statement, the point here is that it is incumbent on the researcher to explore multiple pathways of meaning to “get it right,” not through his or her own perspective, but right from the perspective of the participant. Li (2000) writes about suspension of judgment and intersubjectivity during a specific type of qualitative inquiry: narrative inquiry. Narrative inquirers need to get in the habit of suspending “I” or emptying our minds and putting “I” in the position of “other” when listening to stories, and practice responding with stories and questions only for more details. This is a slow, long, and even painful process. (p. 220)

Explaining the process of intersubjectivity in interviewing during narrative inquiry, Li (2010) draws on Daoist thought: “Following Daoist understanding, an intelligent person is empty-minded and receptive to, without prejudices, preconceived assumptions or judgment, new knowledge, may it be surprising or shocking. We empty our boat before we may be able to load more” (p. 220). As qualitative inquirers, how do we effectively “empty our boat” in the process of position taking and getting an interpretation of meaning right from the perspective of an insider or multiple insiders? Right here means consistent with the meaning applied by the participant. This is a complex

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process that requires self-awareness and attention to the process of inquiry and how researchers and participants, and the cultural groups from which they derive meaning interplay in dynamic ways. Unger (2005) maintains: The two subjects (researcher and respondent; text, person or group) come together in meaning-shaping dialogue that reflects not only the individual significance of each subject’s social practices but also the social-cultural reality that is reflected in and supported (re-created) in the process of qualitative research dialogue. By privileging the relational and experiential process of understanding, this interpretative framework challenges the irremediable chasm between subject and object that is the epistemological cornerstone of the empiricist model of knowledge inquiry. (p. 2)

The subject interacting with a subject needs to be a focus of attention for the qualitative inquirer. How does my presence, my person, my culture, my professional status, impact the responses that I am getting from a participant with whom I am engaging? How would this be different if another inquirer were in my shoes doing an interview or observation? Unger (2005) asserts something of importance here: Hermeneutics is the fundamental process of understanding and interpretation, and so should qualitative methods in methodological principles mirror this process. The knowledge. (p. 10)

Qualitative inquiry requires significant self-awareness on the part of the researcher and significant cognitive and emotional abilities to suspend judgment. It also requires authentic honesty and humility in the process of understanding meaning from multiple viewpoints in a given context and getting it right from an insider’s perspective. The research process itself can be the sight of knowledge production and transformation. In critical and participatory paradigmatic approaches, for example, researchers are positioned to capture and co-create knowledge that potentially has transformative impact. These paradigms do not assume knowledge is neutral, but rather active, and the inquiry process itself can be one of change, growth, and rehumanization. In the next section we move toward the practical by framing questions that summarize the discussion so far in this chapter and point toward future action. GETTING PRACTICAL: SPIRITUALITY IN RESEARCH METHODS Rather than providing a summative conclusion for this chapter from the exploratory dialogue here, we offer some questions to consider for students

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and scholars of qualitative inquiry. When exploring the overarching paradigmatic dialogue in quantitative and qualitative inquiry and more specifically, intersubjectivity in the context of qualitative inquiry, many questions emerge that should be carefully considered: 1. From what paradigm are you operating as a researcher? 2. What are the unique features of a spiritual paradigm and what does it borrow from existing paradigms? 3. What assumptions do you have about the relationship of the researcher and participants/objects of research? 4. How does a paradigm influence your research questions and methods? 5. What forms of truth do you seek? 6. What assumptions do you hold about subject-to-subject and subjectto-object relationships? 7. What is the role of position taking and empathy in understanding emic perspectives in the qualitative inquiry process? 8. When interviewing, where are the boundaries of self and other? 9. Are there ethical considerations to ensure protection of research participants and adequately substantiating truth claims made in research? 10. How do you know when you are influencing the responses or behaviors of a participant in the process of inquiry? What do you do about that? 11. How can you practice “emptying your boat”? 12. Do you want to “destroy the sense of separateness,” as Shankara advises in the technique recommended in this chapter? In closing, the ongoing paradigmatic dialogue in research is particularly important for gaining awareness about ontological, epistemological, axiological, and teleological assumptions involved in the way a researcher frames inquiry and the method chosen to answer research questions. Interrogating these assumptions and the truth claims made from inquiry processes that operate on these assumptions seems important for contextualizing conversations about what constitutes evidence and truth. In this chapter, we offer a way of looking at the relationship of the researcher and researched through the eyes of nonduality. In essence, an awareness of the researchers’ positionality and the type of truth they are trying to understand (empirical, normative, subjective) is important because it should guide the method of collecting data and the method of analyzing data. Advaita vedanta, or nonduality, is a longstanding and influential philosophical strand in Hinduism that assumes we exist in relationship and realizes our oneness with everything is an essential spiritual task. In bringing this philosophical

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tradition into conversation with the paradigmatic dialogue within research, we suggest that the nature of knowing and truth are connected to the assumptions we hold about subject-to-object or subject-to-subject relationships in the research process. In practice, this relationship is important to pay attention to, because, dependent on the purpose of inquiry, researchers need to understand the worldviews of others, their own worldviews, the limitations of both, and how the process of intersubjective exchange can impact, change, or transform understanding and meaning within that context. To more fully explore a spiritual paradigm for research would require clarity in defining spirituality and the methods for understanding spirituality. Is qualitative inquiry itself a spiritual act, if spirituality is defined as connectedness to something larger than ourselves? These questions and more emerge in the ongoing pursuit of developing methods to more fully understand multiple ways of knowing. If we are to begin to understand how intersubjectivity in the research process influences truth claims made and if we are to begin to understand spiritual knowing, then new methods of inquiry need to be developed, tested, and validated. This small chapter opens more questions than it provides answers, and in doing so, it affirms that the pursuit of multiple ways of knowing and methods for validating those is a journey of a thousand miles—a journey worthwhile. REFERENCES Abram, D. (1996). The spell of the sensuous. New York, NY: Pantheon Bernal, D. (2002). Critical race theory, Latino critical theory, and critical raced-gendered epistemologies: Recognizing students of color as holders and creators of knowledge. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 105–126. Carspecken, P. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved from http://srmo.sagepub.com/view/sage-encyc-qualitative-research-methods/n373.xml Creswell, J. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Creswell, J. (2014). A concise introduction to mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2411–2441. Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The sage handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Evans, M., Hole, R., Berg, L. D., Hutchinson, P., & Sookraj, D. (2009). Common insights, differing methodologies: Toward a fusion of indigenous methodologies, participatory action research, and white studies in an urban aboriginal research agenda. Qualitative Inquiry, 15(5), 893–910. doi:10.1177/1077800409333392

254    E. J. BRANTMEIER and N. K. BRANTMEIER Feilzer, M. Y. (2010). Doing mixed methods research pragmatically: Implications for the rediscovery of pragmatism as a research paradigm. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 4, 6–16. Gandhi, M. K. (1924). Young India, 1924–1926: Collected works. Madras, India: S. Ganesan. Gandhi, M. K. (1932). A letter: Mhadevb-haini diary, 1. In R. Iyer (Ed.), Essential writings of Mahatma Gandhi (pp. 242–243). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Guba, E. G. (1990). The paradigm dialog. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 191–216). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Guido, F. M., Chávez, A. F., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2010). Underlying paradigms in student affairs research and practice. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 47(1), 1–22. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action. (Vol. 1): Reason and the rationalization of society. (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action. (Vol. 2): Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Heisenberg, W. (1958). Physics and philosophy. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Heisenberg, W. (1960). The representation of nature in contemporary physics. In R. May (Ed.), Symbolism in religion and literature (pp. 215–232). New York, NY: Braziller. Herman, A. (1991). Brief introduction to Hinduism: Religion, philosophy, and ways of liberation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Heron, P. (1996). Co-operative inquiry: Research into the human condition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Heron, J., & Reason, P. (1997). A participatory inquiry paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3) 274–294. Hills, M., & Mullet, J. (2000). Methodologies and methods for community-based research and evaluation. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, Community Health Promotion Coalition. Josselson, R. (1995). Imagining the real: Empathy, narrative and the dialogic self. In R. Josselson & A. Leiblich (Eds.), The narrative study of lives (Vol. 3): Interpreting experience (pp. 27–44). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kramer, K. (2003). Martin Buber’s I and thou: Practicing living dialogue. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Li, X. (2010). Daoism, narrative inquiry, and a curriculum of peace education. In E. J. Brantmeier, J. Lin, & J. Miller (Eds.), Spirituality, religion, and peace education (pp. 209–226). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Lincoln, Y. S., & Lynham, S. A. (2011). Criteria for assessing theory in human resource development from an interpretive perspective. Human Resource Development International, 14(1), 3–22.

Paradigmatic Dialogues, Intersubjectivity, and Nonduality in Qualitative Inquiry    255 Lynham, S. A. (2000). Theory building in the human resource development profession. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 11(2), 159–178. Lynham, S. A. (2002a). The general method of theory-building in applied disciplines. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(3), 221–241. doi: 10.1177/1523422302043002 Merriam, S. B. (1991). How research produces knowledge. In J. M. Peters & P. Jarvis (Eds.), Adult education: Evolution and achievements in a developing field of study (pp. 42–65). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (3rd ed.). San Franciso: Jossey-Bass. Mertens, D. M. (2010). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Miller, B. S. (1986). The Bhagauad-Gita: Krishna’s counsel in time of war. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Phillips, D. C., & Burbules, N. C. (2000). Postpositivism and educational research. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Reagan, T. G. (1996). Non-Western educational traditions: Alternative approaches to educational thought and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Shankara. (1975). Crest-jewel of discrimination (viveka-chudamani): Timeless teachings on nonduality. (S. Prabhavandanda, & C. Isherwood, Trans.). Hollywood, CA: Vedanta Press. Storm, H. (1972). Seven arrows. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Storm, H. (1994). Lightningbolt. New York, NY: Ballantine. Swandt, T. A. (1994). Constructivist, interpretive approaches to human inquiry. In J. O’Brien (Ed.), The production of reality: Essays and readings on social interaction (pp. 40–43). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Unger, M. P. (2005). Intersubjectivity, hermeneutics, and the production of knowledge in qualitative Mennonite scholarship. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 4(3), 1–11. Upadhyaya, P. (2010). Hinduism and peace education. In E. J. Brantmeier, J. Lin, & J. Miller (Eds.), Spirituality, religion, and peace education (pp. 99–14). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Yajurveda. (1987). The texts of the white yajurveda. (R. T. H. Griffith, Trans.). Varanasi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal.

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CHAPTER 11

SEEKING COLLECTIVE WISDOM A Spiritual-Dialogic Research Approach Sachi Edwards

Developing a research paradigm aimed at examining and understanding spiritual knowledge and processes can seem daunting, because in many ways the spiritual journey (i.e., the attempt to intimately understand the self and others beyond the material or physical realms) is an internal endeavor that takes place deep in the heart and soul of an individual. Some may say that this quality of the spiritual journey makes it difficult to uncover, and even more difficult to measure. However, spirituality is also largely communal, as demonstrated by practices found in a variety of spiritual traditions that rely on communities and groups as an instrument for strengthening spiritual knowledge and wisdom in a collective fashion. Take, for instance, the Hindu tradition of satsang, in which people gather together to make meaning of spiritual matters through reflective conversations. Similarly, the Christian practice of Bible study groups, or circle sitting rituals that exist in numerous indigenous traditions, are also collective practices that rely on a community of people with a shared goal of spiritual growth. This community aspect of spirituality Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 257–273 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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lends itself well to research (both as a topic and a method of inquiry) and is the central focus of this chapter. The spiritual-dialogic research approach I describe here serves as an example of the type of scholarly exploration that may be encompassed by a spiritual research paradigm. Just as spiritual traditions rely on community groups to advance and develop individuals’ spirituality, a community of scholars contributing to the articulation of a spiritual paradigm can advance and develop the quality of research individuals are able to produce within it. As is the case with any other type of research, the more we build a community dedicated to discussing ideas and sharing methods for conducting research within this paradigm, the more sophisticated, credible, and ethically sound our research can become. With that in mind, this chapter highlights the use of community in spiritual research in two ways. First, it describes the process of designing and implementing a case study of an interfaith dialogue group (in essence, a community) on a college campus. The study represents an effort to make sense of the students’ experiences and outcomes as participants in this spiritual-dialogic community process. Secondly, I share my own experiences participating in a spiritual group dialogue (another type of community) of my own during the data collection process for the aforementioned case study. This group gave me the opportunity to explore my own questions about truth and spirituality that arose during the research process, and simultaneously served as a peer debriefing mechanism. Through sharing firsthand experience with research that both analyzes and employs spiritual processes, this chapter seeks to contribute not only to the development of the spiritual research paradigm, but also to the development of a conversation about how a community of scholars committed to this type of work may go about conducting research within this paradigm. GIVING STRUCTURE TO OUR SPIRITUAL INQUIRIES The main function of a research paradigm is to articulate the worldview from which one approaches research. Doing so provides structure and direction to our research processes that help us determine questions, methods, and analytic strategies that align with our fundamental assumptions and/or assertions about the nature of reality. To be sure, there are a variety of welldeveloped research paradigms that represent a wide range of worldviews and approaches to knowledge (e.g., postpositivist, constructivist, and transformative, to name the most common). Moreover, there are many ways in which each of these paradigms may, at times, overlap with one another—a fact that does not detract from the merit or the utility of each paradigm individually. The spiritual research paradigm may also have overlapping values with existing paradigms—as illustrated in Figure 11.1. For instance, those who

Transformative Findings are co-created, but must address issues of power and trust

Constructivist Findings are co-created by researcher and participants

Postpositivist Objectivity; researcher remains objective and dispassionate

Constructivist Multiple realities; socially constructed

Transformative Multiple realities; interpretations influenced by social identity and privilege

Methodology: Primarily qualitative; particular attention given to the spiritual, cultural, and historical impacts on researchers’ and participants’ perspectives

Constructivist Raise participants’ awareness; balance representation of views

Transformative Respect cultural norms; promote human rights and social justice

Axiology: Nature of Ethical Behavior

Postpositivist Respect privacy; informed consent; minimize harm; equal opportunity

Axiology: Recognition and incorporation of participants’ spiritual ontologies and epistemologies; reflexivity of researchers’ own spiritual truths/biases and its impact on the research outcomes

Epistemology: Findings are cocreated by researcher and participants; researcher actively engages in spiritual reflection as a means of constructing knowledge

Ontology: Spiritual reality is unknowable; individuals have different assumptions about reality, influenced by their spiritual worldview and upbringing

Spiritual Research Paradigm

Postpositivist One reality; knowable within a specified level of probability

Possible overlap in values Shared value

Transformative Multiple methods possible; historical context of power dynamics described

Constructivist Primarily qualitative; contextual factors are described

Postpositivist Primarily quantitative; interventionist; decontextualized

Figure 11.1  Foundational values of a spiritual research paradigm. Adapted in part from Mertens (2010, p. 11)

Epistemology: Nature of Knowledge; Role of Researcher

Ontology: Nature of Reality

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Methodology: Approach to Systematic Inquiry

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approach research from a spiritual perspective are likely to recognize researchers (and their natural human perspectives/biases) as influencing factors on a study’s findings, just as the constructivist paradigm asserts. As such, it would also be important to consider and describe relevant contextual factors when analyzing/presenting spiritual research findings, which is true for constructivist and transformative paradigms as well. Additionally, the spiritual research paradigm may describe participant confidentiality, consideration of multiple perspectives, and respect for cultural differences as integral components of ethical behavior—values that are shared with many other research paradigms. Despite these similarities, however, there are a number of qualities of a spiritual paradigm that would make it unique and enable researchers who adopt it to transcend the boundaries of research we find delineated in postpositivist, constructivist, and transformative paradigms (as portrayed in Figure 11.1). These qualities are largely matters of attention and intention, as I describe in what follows. Attention The ontological worldview put forth by a spiritual paradigm would need to recognize that while the ultimate truth about the spirit and about divinity (if there is one) may not be obtainable, various truths, or versions of the truth, exist in the minds and hearts of people. Throughout history, individuals, societies, and institutions have been, and continue to be, heavily influenced by their foundational spiritual assumptions or beliefs—religious, secular, or otherwise. As such, research endeavors within the spiritual paradigm would attend to spiritual processes, knowledge, philosophy, feelings, identities, traditions, and/or rituals as a means of understanding a given situation, event, experience, or phenomenon. Just as research within the transformative paradigm necessitates an analysis of relevant power dynamics and social inequities, the spiritual paradigm would necessitate an analysis of spiritual elements and influences on the research topic. Doing so would require attention on the part of the researcher to internal human emotions and experiences that are often kept private and seldom considered appropriate in existing paradigms of scholarly or scientific work. However, in turn, attention of this sort may enable the researcher to access the type of wisdom and intuition that relates directly to the deepest level of our humanity—the type of wisdom and intuition that many of the great philosophers throughout history have used to explore the meaning and essence of our lives as human beings. Since our attention here is directed beyond the material world, the knowledge we seek may not be possible to “prove.” Instead, we attempt to understand, to the best of our abilities, various “truths”

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about spirituality by carefully cultivating and attending to internal spiritual wisdoms, both in ourselves and in others. Intention Equally important to inquiry within the spiritual paradigm may be the way researchers manage their intentions throughout the research process. Spiritual research often explores worldviews, emotions, and/or experiences that are so firmly intertwined with the core of our existence that we, as researchers, may struggle to recognize the biases we bring to our scholarship. For that reason, it is incumbent upon us to actively and regularly engage in critical self-reflection during data collection, data analysis, and beyond. Such reflection can help us to check our assumptions (that we may not initially realize we are making) and strengthen the credibility of our research. Moreover, because this type of reflection can be seen as a spiritual journey in itself, it may help us better understand the various spiritual wisdoms and processes upon which our inquiry is based. If our intention as spiritual researchers is to genuinely access and understand spiritualities, then we must also participate in spiritual exercise ourselves—exercises that, in their own right, can contribute to the production of knowledge. Spiritual Research Values It is this attention and intention that seems to guide all other defining qualities of the spiritual research paradigm. For instance, because spiritual research attends to matters that do not necessarily require the existence of one definitive reality, the epistemology of this paradigm would acknowledge that the relationship between knowledge and those who seek knowledge is, in itself, a process. In order to understand spiritual realities—experiences, wisdoms, identities, etc.—researchers may need to engage in a dynamic, communicative, interactive, and reflexive process of discovery. Moreover, because the ultimate truth about the spiritual realm is unknowable, our knowledge of spiritual truths is constantly being developed and refined through our rituals, dialogues, and collaborations. With regard to axiology (i.e., perspectives on research ethics), the spiritual paradigm would likely emphasize the importance of genuine intentions on behalf of the researcher to respectfully pursue relevant information and accurately represent findings. A possible strategy for tracking the progression of these intentions, and for ensuring genuine and ethical research is to actively engage in spiritual reflection throughout data collection and analysis. Such reflection allows the researcher to better recognize his/her own

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biases, questions, and underlying assumptions about the spiritual matters under question. Another important element of ethical research in the spiritual paradigm may be to recognize and incorporate participants’ ontological and epistemological perspectives. When it comes to spirituality, participants in any given study might have a variety of beliefs about the nature of reality. Thus, if we are to genuinely understand, and accurately represent, the feelings and experiences of our participants, we may, at times, need to set aside our own beliefs, and interpret the world from another perspective(s). Methodologically speaking, whether through qualitative or quantitative analyses, attending to and utilizing spiritual processes, experiences, and identities is an important element of inquiry within this paradigm. Some existing methodologies (summarized in Table 11.1) lend themselves nicely to this type of research. This chapter focuses specifically on my own experiences employing what I have termed spiritual group dialogues as a descriptive example of a methodological approach well suited for a spiritual paradigm. UNCOVERING SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE AND PROCESSES THROUGH DIALOGUE The spiritual-dialogic approach to research, as this chapter describes, is particularly appropriate for a spiritual research paradigm. Certainly, research involving spiritual group dialogues can take the form of constructivist (if the intention is to describe the dialogue experience without attention to internal spiritual processes) or transformative (if the focus is on power dynamics and inequalities between religious groups) research. However, when used as a means of deepening knowledge of and about spiritual matters, it becomes a natural fit for a spiritual paradigm. Spiritual group dialogues have the ability to create spiritual knowledge through an interactive exchange of ideas and perspectives. They can also bring awareness to spiritual processes through active reflection on the dialogue itself. Thus, for the spiritual researcher, this type of dialogue may be ideal as an approach for exploring a variety of research interests. The process of creating spiritual knowledge through a spiritual group dialogue is not one that intends to develop one superior version of spiritual truth by securing group consensus, or by any other means for that matter. Instead, participation in a spiritual group dialogue helps each group member create and refine spiritual knowledge unique to his/herself, which may or may not be similar to the spiritual knowledge others in the group develop for themselves. The group process, therefore, is simply a vehicle through which to assist individuals in their own spiritual journeys, especially when such groups encompass diverse spiritual perspectives. As Huang (1995) explains, dialogue between people from different religious or spiritual backgrounds (including those who do not believe in a higher power) allows group members the opportunity to explore

Seeking Collective Wisdom    263 TABLE 11.1  Selected Relevant Methodological Approaches to a Spiritual Research Paradigm Methodological Approach

Characteristics

Relevance to a Spiritual Research Paradigm

Autoethnography

Researcher engages in ethnographic investigation of his/her self in the context of a given phenomenon through a variety of reflective strategies

Emphasis on reflection as a means of producing data; strong potential to access internal feelings and spiritual knowledge

Focus Groups

Researcher facilitates discussions among multiple participants about a given topic in order to gather perspectives and observe idea development

Less structured varieties have potential for the free flow of ideas between participants and the shared exploration of internal spiritual knowledge and experiences

Narratology

Researcher systematically analyses narratives (written, spoken, or visual text) in order to uncover meanings, relationships, and phenomena

Analysis of spiritual or religious narratives/texts may uncover wisdom from ancient and/or modern traditions

Phenomenology

Researcher interprets in depth Emphasis on hermeneutics conversations with participants and lived experiences; strong using hermeneutics in potential to access spiritual order to uncover the lived processes and showcase internal experiences of a phenomenon feelings

Portraiture

Researcher creates highly detailed and contextualized narrative descriptions of a given situation or event in a way that illuminates larger universal phenomena

Emphasis on researcher reflexivity and inclusion of the researcher in descriptions of context; potential to link individual spiritual experiences and/or knowledge to assumptions about larger “truths”

Storytelling

Researcher organizes events and situations into a story format in order to represent a lived experience, without the need to unwaveringly attend to chronological order

Strong emphasis on researcher reflexivity and the presentation of multiple perspectives; potential to access spiritual processes and experiences situated within a larger context

Spiritual Group Dialogues

Researcher and/or participants work collaboratively to develop a modified intersubjective understanding of a given topic

Emphasis on the process of dialogue as a spiritual journey in itself that also creates new spiritual knowledge; potential to access both individual and group spiritualities

Unstructured Interviews

Researcher engages in oneon-one conversations with participants with the intention of gaining knowledge about a given topic or phenomenon

Potential for exploring spiritual knowledge, experiences, and/or processes

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various ways of knowing or understanding the transcendent reality. In turn, this process also enables individuals to develop and evolve their own understanding of spiritual matters by learning to articulate their own spirituality and learning to understand spirituality from others’ perspectives at the same time. When asked to describe one’s spirituality, and to compare and contrast it with the experiences of others, rich and intriguing descriptions come forward, uncovering inner emotions and deeply held beliefs of each member of the group. As a topic of inquiry, spiritual group dialogues can be ideal for observing and understanding the process of spiritual growth and the development of spiritual knowledge. For instance (drawing on an example from my own research), a group might choose to discuss whether or not they sense a higher power—i.e., God, the divine, the spiritual connection between all living things, or any other label—and how they choose to describe it/them/ her/him if they do. Some group members may take an immediate stance one way or another: Yes, God exists; or no, there is no such thing as God. However, in a spiritual group dialogue, participants would likely be asked to explain what God is as a means of pushing the conversation beyond a theological or intellectual debate. When given the opportunity, time, and space to carefully reflect on what to say, the dialogue deepens and begins to enter a spiritual dimension. When I observed this scenario in my own research, participants shared experiences of feeling, hearing, or sensing a higher power, and used those stories to explain how they conceive of the divine in their own minds. Other participants shared about having similar experiences, but that they were then led to different conclusions about the divine. Still other participants shared experiences that led them to believe that no higher power exists, but that humanity itself is a spiritual force. Through continued exchange of this sort, the participants in my study were pushed beyond scientific or doctrine-dependent discourse, toward a communal exploration of their deeply rooted spiritualities, and ultimately to a stronger sense of clarity about their own existence as spiritual beings. What makes a spiritual group dialogue unique (when compared with other forms of group dialogue) is that participants are encouraged to look beyond that which they can see, touch, smell, hear, or taste. Wisdom and experiences that are linked to internal “gut” intuition and cultivated by metaphysical relationships are welcomed, valued, and legitimate, which is often not true in other areas of education or other types of group dialogue. Thus, when using spiritual group dialogues in research, one can uncover knowledge, experiences, and processes that transcend the five senses, providing useful insight into the spiritual layer of our human experience. Additionally, spiritual group dialogues are beneficial for researchers themselves to participate in, as a means of deepening their personal understanding of the spiritual journey and for reflecting on their own positionality in their research. Panikkar (1999) suggests that those who are interested in learning

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about others’ religions or spiritualities must first engage in introspective dialogue themselves, in order to better understand their own religion and/or spirituality. In essence, learning about yourself makes you better able to learn about others—a position that many have used to argue the need for more interfaith initiatives in higher education (Astin, 2004; Nash & Scott, 2009). Moreover, Panikkar (1999) explains that individuals’ spiritualities are rooted both in ancient customs and the ever-evolving contemporary human experience. Thus, it is important to regularly and continuously reflect on one’s own spiritual lens, and the various contextual influences on it, especially when attempting inquiry into the spiritual lives of others. Research of this sort is sure to trigger reactions, emotions, and/or questions in the researcher—whether conscious or not—and participation in a spiritual group dialogue can facilitate the reflective exploration needed to sort through these thoughts/feelings. In the sections that follow, I offer examples from my own experiences simultaneously carrying out a research project on a spiritual group dialogue and participating in a spiritual group dialogue. First, I will detail the research design and implementation, with an emphasis on the research process more so than on the findings. Then, I will share about the way I used my own spiritual group dialogue as a tool for analysis, self-reflexivity, and peer debriefing. As I said previously, these examples are intended to contribute to the development of a larger conversation about what research within a spiritual research paradigm might look like. In particular, I emphasize the ways in which credibility might be upheld within this type of research, since that is likely the largest hurdle any research paradigm/methodology faces when sharing its work with the wider public audience. SPIRITUAL GROUP DIALOGUES AS A RESEARCH TOPIC The study I refer to throughout this chapter is an exploratory multicase study. It followed three sections of a college course that adopted a critical-dialogic pedagogy as a way of engaging students in self-reflective conversations about religious identity. Admittedly, the pedagogical approach used in these courses—known as intergroup dialogue (see Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler & Cytron-Walker, 2007)—is better classified as a transformative oriented practice than a spiritual one (because of its emphasis on the need to raise issues of identity based privilege and oppression). However, despite the stated pedagogy and purpose of this course, in practice the dialogues I observed among my participants did not follow a transformative model.1 Instead, many of my participants used their time in the course to exchange perspectives on spiritual matters, and talk through some of their own questions about divinity. In large part, this occurred because the students craved a space where they could have the type of conversations they felt were taboo

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in other social and academic settings. As Astin (2004) pointed out, 68% of college students report feeling “unsettled about spiritual and religious matters,” yet higher education generally ignores this aspect of students’ lives (p. 38), a sentiment that many of my participants echoed. Through my research, I recognized my participants’ desire for a spiritual dialogue group, and then proceeded to observe their experiences participating in one. My intention, then, was to understand the process of spiritual development my participants went through, and to learn about how their participation in the group impacted their own individual spiritual knowledge. The courses I studied met once per week for 2 hours, for a total of seven weeks each. There were 12–14 students in each course, representing diverse religious identities (due to purposeful enrollment procedures on the part of the program administrators). There were two facilitators in each group who loosely guided the conversations by organizing icebreaker activities and assuaging conflict when it arose. I was present in each course session, but kept any participation in the groups’ discussions to a minimum so as not to influence the direction in which their conversations, and corresponding spiritual development, unfolded organically. In order to access the internal spiritual journey of each of my participants, I relied on a combination of several different data collection methods, the most important of which were participant-observation, analysis of participants’ reflective journals (a required part of the course), and in-depth interviews. These three sources of data served as a triangulation strategy, which according to Mertens (2010) increases the credibility of qualitative research. The internal, and somewhat elusive, nature of one’s spiritual experiences made the issue of credibility particularly important in this case, and perhaps in all spiritual research. Thus, it was essential for me to blend these three data collection methods, rather than simply relying on one or two of them. Each technique offered me something unique, and when used together it became possible for me to learn about my participants’ spiritual development in their course. In what follows I will explain my three primary data collection strategies, how I used them, and how they benefited my research. Participant Observation My weekly participant observations in the spiritual group dialogues served as the foundation of my data collection efforts. Being physically present in each course session allowed me to make firsthand observations about the pedagogical process, the actions of the facilitators, and any other detail of the dialogue that my participants may not have written about in their journals or recalled during my interviews with them. Moreover, because I was there to see my participants’ body language as the dialogues

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unfolded, I was able to make notes to myself as reminders to inquire with them about their internal emotional reactions during various parts of the course. If a student appeared angry, sad, uncomfortable, bored, or had any other reaction that piqued my curiosity, I was sure to document it in the field notes I wrote immediately following each course session. In essence, my participant observation allowed me to ask questions that pushed them deeper into spiritual reflection when I spoke with each of them individually after the course. Additionally, my participation in the course (albeit, very minimal) gave my participants the chance to become comfortable with me. While they all gave me permission to observe their dialogues on the first day of the course (i.e., the first day they met me), getting to know them over the seven weeks of the course made it much easier to ask them for further participation in my research when the time came. To be sure, my presence during the dialogue sessions, which were often very personal in nature, made them more willing to share their journal reflections and to reveal their intimate thoughts and feelings in my postcourse interviews. After all, I was no longer a stranger at that point, and I had already heard portions of each of their spiritual journeys. In that way, my participant observation gave me greater access to my participants’ reflection journals, and enabled me to have more meaningful conversations with them about their spiritual perspectives and experiences. A final way that my participant observation helped my research was that it provided me with a number of topics and questions to reflect on in my own spiritual group dialogue (which I will describe later in this chapter). Without the experience of hearing and seeing my participants’ dialogues unfold, I would not have been challenged to deal with my own spiritual and emotional reactions to the process. Doing so was an extremely valuable part of my research and my data analysis, and was a substantial part of what made my research spiritual in nature. Analysis of Participant Reflection Journals My second method of data collection was analyzing each participant’s weekly reflection journals. These journals were a required part of their course in which students were asked to discuss their emotional reactions to the dialogue sessions and how their spiritual and/or religious perspectives impact those emotions. I collected these journals at the end of the courses, and carefully read through them prior to conducting interviews. The students wrote the journals knowing that they would not be shared with their group mates. As such, they were much more open about various emotions, thoughts, or experiences, including some they chose not to share out loud with the group. These journals, then, were an extremely valuable resource,

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because they took me into the minds and hearts of my participants in a very spiritual way. Reading the journals also allowed me to either confirm or complicate the assumptions and questions that arose through my participant observation. As I read through each set of journals, I wrote comments in the margins noting any surprises, uncertainties, or further questions that came to me. I also made sure to debrief with myself after reading each set of journals through a reflective memo, a practice that Maxwell (2005) suggests increases the credibility of qualitative research. In this memo, I engaged my own spirituality and examined the ways in which my interpretation of the journal content may have been impacted by my own spiritual worldview. Then, before starting each interview (i.e., earlier on the same day), I reread that participant’s journals along with my own comments and corresponding memo. This reminded me of the questions I wanted to ask during the interview, and as such allowed me to delve even further into the spiritual layer of my participants’ experience during the interview. In-Depth Interviews At the pinnacle of this data triangle were the in-depth, post-course, one-on-one interviews I conducted with each student. It was during these interviews that I was able to venture furthest into the spiritualities of my participants—but only because of the foundation of data that I gathered through my observations and journal analyses. In preparing for these interviews, I had created a tentative protocol listing questions I wanted to ask each participant. For each interview, however, I printed out a separate copy of the protocol and added notes reminding myself of the additional questions, issues, or situations I wanted to raise that were uniquely tailored to that participant. Moreover, I allowed myself the freedom to stray from the interview protocol whenever there was the opportunity to explore an area of my participants’ spiritual journey that I had not previously thought to ask about. My rigorous preparation for each interview, coupled with the flexibility I permitted during the process, made it possible for each interview to be extremely personal and spiritual. Findings While this chapter is not intended as a report of my study’s findings, I will briefly mention some of the outcomes of this study as a demonstration of the type of knowledge spiritual research may uncover. Also, since this study included 39 participants across three cases and amassed over 1,700

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pages of data, I will not attempt to provide a comprehensive description of the findings here. Instead, I will describe the spiritual development of one of my participants, as a sample of what I was able to learn utilizing my spiritual-dialogic research approach. One of the strongest commonalities in my participants’ spiritual development in their dialogue course was the way that learning about others’ spiritual stories, struggles, or experiences led them to an increased sense of spiritual self-awareness. Many of my participants shared that they had never engaged in this type of spiritual reflection before, let alone in a group setting. Doing so, as they explained, was like becoming acquainted with their own spiritual selves and attaining a sense of clarity on their beliefs about the metaphysical reality, even if that “clarity” meant recognizing that they “know” less than they thought they did. Take Ally,2 for instance. She came to the spiritual dialogue group with very sure ideas about God, her beliefs, and her religion. She identified as a devout Roman Catholic and was not interested in hearing any perspectives that contradicted her own. However, after hearing some of her peers talk about their struggle to make sense of their own spirituality and their yearning for the kind of certainty that Ally displayed, she began to reflect more on just how certain she really was. In the end, she determined that there are several aspects of the metaphysical realm she cannot explain. This new development in her spiritual knowing, one that embraced that which she did not know, helped her to rearticulate her Catholic faith and the role that her spirituality has in her life. She shared with the group that she, too, has spiritual uncertainties, but that her religious practice, for her, is a vehicle for letting go of those uncertainties—something she was not entirely conscious of previously. Ally’s story prompted others in the group to further reflect, and further consider how they go about utilizing their own spiritual practice (religious, secular, or otherwise). Ultimately, the participants in Ally’s group maintained very different perspectives and beliefs, but through sharing their spiritual struggles, questions, and practices, they helped each other form new levels of spiritual knowledge. Seeing themselves reflected in others, despite all their differences, allowed them to develop a clearer image of their own spirituality. As Ally put it, “I felt like I could really identify with almost everyone in the class even though we all had a different outcome.” SPIRITUAL GROUP DIALOGUES AS A METHOD OF ANALYSIS Throughout my data collection for the research project I describe above, I participated in a spiritual group dialogue of my own. This group consisted

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of seven individuals (including myself)—two fellow graduate students, three university administrators, and one campus chaplain—with diverse religious and spiritual orientations. We came together out of a common interest in exploring questions about our own spirituality, and met biweekly throughout the entire school year in which I was engaged in data collection. In each group meeting, we would discuss a selected topic (e.g., life after death, masculine/feminine energies, divinity in nature, humans’ relationship to other animals, etc.); explore religious and philosophical writings on the matter; and exchange ideas, stories, and our internal intuition. Engaging in this process helped me to further put myself in my research participants’ shoes—as a member of a spiritual group dialogue—and also pushed me to reflect on my own spirituality more deeply and actively than I do on a regular basis. While my research was not the central focus of the group, it did influence the direction of our conversations because I purposefully infused it into my contribution to the dialogues, which the rest of my group welcomed. In that way, it served as an outlet for some of my personal questions and frustrations about my research where I could get feedback on my initial reactions to the data I was collecting. My participation in this group helped me to uphold a high standard of ethics and reflexivity during my research, and in turn increased the credibility of my findings. In this section, I will describe three ways in which this group supplemented my research, and how I used it to analyze and interpret my research findings. Monitoring Progressive Subjectivity and SelfReflexivity One of the primary issues I knew I had to deal with during my emotionally and spiritually rigorous year of data collection was learning how to manage my progressive subjectivity as a researcher. As someone who was raised in a blended Hindu-Buddhist-Shinto family context, I naturally tend to interpret things from an Eastern philosophical perspective. Thus, my peers in this group, particularly the Christian chaplain who facilitated most of our discussions, were extremely helpful to my ongoing process of selfreflexivity. At the start of each session, they would allow me to share what I was thinking and feeling with regard to my research, which in itself was therapeutic because it gave me the space to talk through some of the things I was not able to discuss in my role as a researcher in my participants’ spiritual dialogue groups. Then, they would offer perspectives and questions for me to further reflect on, perspectives that I may not have thought of otherwise. Ultimately, this helped me gain a great deal of clarity on my

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own subjectivity and positionality, clarity that I am not sure I could have achieved on my own. Data Analysis After each biweekly meeting, I would process my new spiritual knowledge with myself through a reflective memo. Then, with the memory of my own spiritual group dialogue fresh in my mind, I would write an analytical memo about the status of my research project. This ongoing process of simultaneously reflecting and analyzing is, in part, what made my research process iterative, as qualitative research must be (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011). For me, having this regularly scheduled spiritual group dialogue meeting, and a corresponding schedule for writing memos, helped me to keep up with my research and analysis in the midst of all the other obligations I had on my plate at the time. Similar to the way weekly religious rituals compel people to set aside time for spiritual reflection, this biweekly group forced me to spend time doing my own spiritual reflection and data analysis on a regular basis, an important part of qualitative research. For research that adopts a spiritual research paradigm, this may be particularly important, as the foundation of the paradigm rests on the search for that which can only be found through internal spiritual reflection. Often, while writing my analytical memos after a spiritual dialogue group meeting, I would find myself with further questions or concerns about the way I noticed myself interpreting or understanding my data. When this happened, I would make a note of it and would raise it during my next spiritual dialogue group meeting. In essence, during my data analysis process, I sought out aspects of my interpretation to bring to my peers for alternative perspectives, i.e., peer debriefing. Peer Debriefing Peer debriefing, or the act of engaging individuals who are not involved with the research process in probing and questioning the research methods, analysis, and outcomes, is a common strategy for increasing credibility in qualitative research (Mertens, 2010). My participation in this spiritual dialogue group served precisely this purpose. As I said previously, my peers in the spiritual dialogue group welcomed my questions, comments, or concerns regarding my research, and offered their own perspectives on some of my findings (or my interpretations of my findings). Having a diverse group of people—with regard to religion, race, gender, age, sexuality, level of education, place of origin, etc.—to share my research with, gave me

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access to a wide range of interpretations on the stories and experiences I was pulling out of my data. Moreover, because I was obtaining this feedback from peers who were actively engaged in a spiritual group dialogue themselves, I knew that they understood the spiritual approach I intended to bring to my research. Had I not had this spiritual group dialogue to turn to, and had instead relied on peers who were unfamiliar with or uninterested by the practice of spiritual reflection, my peer debriefing process may have been more difficult. SPIRITUAL RESEARCH AS A COLLECTIVIST APPROACH TO LEARNING The process of creating, refining, and enhancing knowledge related to spirituality, in many ways, relies on the collective efforts of a community of people. That is not to say that spiritual research must always be conducted by a team of researchers—in fact, the research presented in this chapter was carried out by a single researcher—nor is it intended to say that all spiritual research must necessarily be dialogic in nature in order to be effective. However, what I seek to emphasize here is that because of the internal, intangible quality of spiritual wisdom, experience, and intuition, adopting a cooperative approach to spiritual reflection within the research process can serve to assist in uncovering some of the difficult-to-access information we may be looking for. At the same time, a collaborative approach to research is one way to enhance the depth and credibility of research within the spiritual paradigm. In this chapter, I discussed two ways in which the power of a community can be harnessed for spiritual research: one as a way to explore college students’ spiritual development, and another as a strategy for data analysis on the part of the researcher. Importantly, both processes included a purposeful attention to spiritual matters, designed and carried out with careful intention to genuinely and accurately understand the spiritual development process. Had my attention been focused squarely on evaluating theoretical learning outcomes of a particular pedagogical approach, I may have missed the experiences of spiritual growth my participants felt. Similarly, had my intentions in my own spiritual study group been simply to rationalize my own or others’ spiritual beliefs, I may not have gotten the chance to deeply reflect on my own ingrained spiritual perspectives and the way they impacted my research. Certainly, there are ways in which research can embody spiritual attentions and intentions without using group dialogues, or community of any kind for that matter. However, in the case I present here, the use of dialogue and of community served as helpful tools for reaching the desired research end.

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To be sure, my own strategies for spiritual research represent only one out of many possible options within this paradigm. It is my hope that through further development of the spiritual research paradigm, which in itself depends on the collective efforts of a spiritual research community, additional research strategies will continue to be shared, discussed, utilized, and strengthened. As the saying goes, two (or 3, or 100) heads are better than one. NOTES 1. I have analyzed the findings of this study using the transformative Intergroup Dialogue framework in other works, but that is not the purpose of this chapter so I will not do so here. 2. To protect they anonymity of this participant, I am using a pseudonym here instead of her real name.

REFERENCES Astin, A. W. (2004). Why spirituality deserves a central place in liberal education. Liberal Education, 90(2), 34–41. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2011). The practice of qualitative research. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Huang, Y. (1995). Religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue: Beyond universalism and particularism. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 37(3), 127–144. Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mertens, D. M. (2010). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Nash, R. J., & Scott, L. (2009). Spirituality, religious pluralism, and higher education leadership development. In A. Kezar (Ed.), Rethinking leadership in a complex, multicultural, and global environment: New concepts and models for higher education (pp. 131–150). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Panikkar, R. (1999). The intrareligious dialogue. New York, NY: Paulist Press. (Originally published in 1978.) Zúñiga, X., Nagda, B. R. A., Chesler, M., & Cytron-Walker, A. (2007). Intergroup dialogue in higher education: Meaningful learning about social justice. ASHE Higher Education Report, 32(4), 1–128.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Anne W. Anderson is a doctoral candidate in literacy studies at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and is also the director of blended and online learning for the Program for Experienced Learners at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Her primary research focus, studying what she calls the big ideas of life found in children’s literature, has led her to explore religious and philosophical beliefs, ethical and moral questions, political and economic positions, and all the drama of the human experience. She uses a variety of research methods to study fiction and nonfiction texts and sometimes presents her findings using drama, poetry, and other arts-based research methods. Heesoon Bai is a professor specializing in the philosophy of education in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. She and her SFU colleagues (including Charles Scott in this book) designed and mounted a master of education program in contemplative inquiry, the first of its kind in North America. Originally trained as a philosopher in the tradition of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, she has been broadening her philosophical vision and purview to embrace worldview-based intercultural philosophies, especially in wisdom traditions, in the context of her teaching and researching at SFU for two decades. Her interest in contemplative and spiritual work quietly began during her teenage years in Korea, became an important scholarly and research focus while undertaking her doctorate, and continues to nourish her and her professional work. While being open and receptive to all schools, traditions, and modalities of contemplative engagement, Heesoon is most at home in Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 275–279 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Buddhism and Daoism. Bai’s published works can be found at http://summit.sfu.ca/collection/204; and her faculty profile at SFU can be found at http://www.sfu.ca/education/faculty-profiles/hbai.html Edward J. Brantmeier is an associate professor in the Learning, Technology, and Leadership Education Department and assistant director of the Center for Faculty Innovation at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.  In 2009, he was a Fulbright-Nehru scholar at Banaras Hindu University in India. Brantmeier has published more than 30 articles and book chapters on the topics of multicultural education, teaching/learning, and peace education, including four coedited books: Transforming Education for Peace (2008); 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Peace and Reconciliation (2009); Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education (2010); and Re-envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation (2013). He was a founding coeditor of a book series on peace education (14 volumes).  He serves on the editorial board of the international Journal of Peace Education.  Ed has been invited to present his research on peace education in England, Cyprus, India, Nepal, Brazil, Germany, and the United States.  Noorie K. Brantmeier is an assistant professor in the Learning, Technology and Leadership Education Department at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Brantmeier’s scholarship focuses on critical and mixed methods research approaches, community development with indigenous communities and marginalized groups, the measurement of racial attitudes to improve teaching and learning outcomes, and adult education and training. Brantmeier holds a PhD in education and human resource studies with a specialization in research methodology from Colorado State University, a master’s of social work from Washington University, St. Louis, where she studied as a Buder Scholar in American Indian studies, and a bachelor’s degree in social work from Indiana University, Bloomington. Avraham Cohen is a professor in counseling psychology at City University of Seattle in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He serves as the associate director for the master’s in counseling program. Since 1987 he has conducted a private psychotherapy practice in Vancouver. He has studied Daoist and Buddhist philosophies and engaged in practices that include meditation and the Japanese martial art of Ki-Aikido. He also has authored and coauthored numerous peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and books in the fields of education and psychotherapy. He is active in presenting at national and international conferences and in conducting diverse workshops. His recent book publications are Becoming Fully Human Within Educational Environments: Inner Life, Relationship, and Learning and Speaking of Learning: Recollections, Revelations, and Realizations. His contact email is [email protected]

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Tom Culham, an engineer, has held a variety of senior business leadership roles including consulting engineer, trade association representative, and forest products manufacturing executive. After a 30-year career, he recently shifted his life and work focus to practicing, researching, and applying the contemplative aspects of ancient wisdom traditions in contemporary education. His PhD thesis, Ethics Education of Business Leaders, was published as a book that has received positive reviews in Canada’s National Post and peerreviewed journals. The work draws on neuroscience, psychology, virtue ethics, Daoist contemplative practices, and leadership education emphasizing emotional intelligence. Culham is currently principal of his management consulting firm, research fellow at the UBC Center for Applied Ethics, and a sessional instructor at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Sachi Edwards is an adjunct faculty member in the Higher Education, Student Affairs, and International Education program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research and scholarship focus on pedagogical pathways to peace and social justice, indigenous and spiritual approaches to learning, and the impact of religious identity on sociocultural power dynamics. Her work has appeared in several books, including Re-envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation (2013), Transforming Our Practices: American Indian Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies (2015), and Revitalizing Minority Voices: Promoting Linguistic Diversity (2015), among others. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on peace education and cultural diversity Oren Ergas lectures at the Hebrew University’s School of Education and in teaching education colleges in Israel. His research focuses on curricular and pedagogical aspects of contemplative education. His work is published in diverse educational peer-reviewed journals and books including, The Journal of Philosophy of Education, Critical Studies in Education, Paideusis, The Journal of Transformative Education, and The Routledge Handbook for Education, Religion and Values. He coedited Philosophy East/West: Exploring Intersections between Educational and Contemplative Practice with Sharon Todd. Ramdas Lamb is a professor of religion at the University of Hawaii. From 1969 to 1978, he was a monastic member of the Ramananda Sampraday, the largest renunciant order in India. During that time, the focus of his learning was on ascetic and yogic practices. After returning to the United States, he pursued an academic education, earning a PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has been teaching and writing about Indian religious traditions and practices at the University of Hawaii since 1991. Jing Lin is a professor in international education policy at University of

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Maryland, College Park. She received her doctorate from the University of Michigan. She has done extensive research on peace education, environmental education, spirituality, religion, and education, which result in single authored and coedited books entitled Love, Peace and Wisdom in Education: Vision for Education in the 21st Century (2006), Educators as Peace Makers: Transforming Education for Global Peace (2008), Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education (2010), Transformative Eco-Education for Human and Planetary Survival (2012), and Re-envisioning Higher Education: Embodied Pathways to Wisdom and Social Transformation (2013). She is the coeditor of a four-book series on peace education; East Asian philosophy; transformation of education; and religion, spirituality, and education. Jing Lin is also an expert on Chinese education. She has published five books on Chinese education, culture, and society, spending two decades systematically examining educational changes in China. Bob London is a professor at California State University, San Bernardino, and program coordinator for the master’s in holistic and integrative education, recognized internationally as an exemplar of transformative approaches to higher education. Bob directs the Spirituality and Education Network and chairs the AERA Spirituality and Education Special Interest Group. His primary professional interests include integrating a spiritual perspective in education, our connection to nature from a spiritual perspective, holistic approaches to mathematics education, and research methodology consistent with a spiritual perspective. In his personal life he has had a consistent spiritual practice, both as a student and teacher, for more than 40 years. John (Jack) Miller has been working in the field of holistic education for more than 35 years. He is the author/editor of 18 books on holistic learning and contemplative practices in education, which include Whole Child Education, The Holistic Curriculum, Transcendental Learning: The Educational Legacy of Alcott, Emerson, Fuller, Peabody and Thoreau, and most recently Teaching from the Thinking Heart: The Practice of Holistic Education. His writing has been translated into nine languages. The Holistic Curriculum has provided the program framework for the Equinox Holistic Alternative School in Toronto, where he has been involved in an advisory role. Miller has worked extensively with holistic educators in Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong for the past 20 years and has been a visiting professor at universities in Japan and Hong Kong. In 2009 he was one of 24 educators invited to Bhutan to help that country develop their educational system so that it supports the country’s goal of gross national happiness. Miller teaches courses on holistic education and spirituality education for graduate students and students in the Initial Teacher Education Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto where he is a professor.

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Patricia Morgan works in the area of contemplative studies and is particularly interested in the prefigurative foundations of learning. This work evolved from an early interest in the impacts of trance video, which began in arts research with the Otago School of Medicine in 1994.  Most recently she has lectured on contemplative law, ethics, acting, writing, leadership and art, and taught in the areas of contemplative education, student development, policy, and transformative education.  Morgan completed a 3-month fellowship with the Mind and Life Institute, Hadley, Massachusetts, in March 2015, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the School of Business and Law, Canberra University, Australia.  Her most current article: “A Brief History of the Current Reemergence of Contemplative Education,” was published by the Journal of Transformative Education in June 2015. Rebecca L. Oxford is a professor emerita and distinguished scholar-teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park, and is currently an adjunct professor of psychology and language teaching at two branches of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Her greatest interests are spirituality, education, and psychologically and socioculturally based narrative inquiry. She has published more than 250 articles and chapters and produced six special issues of journals. She has published 12 books, including solely authored and edited and jointly authored and edited. Rebecca is currently coediting two book series, Transforming Education for the Future and Spirituality, Religion, and Education. Additionally, she has coedited Tapestry, a language textbook series with dozens of volumes to which were added volumes for selected parts of the world. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award for research, has presented keynote addresses in 42 countries, and holds two degrees in Russian from Vanderbilt University and Yale University, and two in educational psychology from Boston University and the University of North Carolina. Charles Scott, PhD, has been working on integrating theory and research into teaching practice (and vice versa), which is an ongoing, dynamically reciprocating focus of his scholarly work. His research interests include the development of theories and practices in contemplative inquiry and their applications in education. Dialogue and its applications in developing learning relationships in educational settings is another research interest. His greatest interest lies in the intersections of these two areas: the intersubjective realms of contemplative inquiry. His own contemplative practices are based in both the Raja Yoga tradition and the meeting of I and thou. He is also interested in student narrative and the roles narrative plays in both identity formation and contemplative inquiry. He has had the great pleasure of working with Heesoon Bai, Laurie Anderson, Celeste Snowber, Wanda Cassidy, Kumari Beck, Vicki Kelly, and Indrani Margolin in a master of education program at Simon Fraser University titled: Contemplative Inquiry and Approaches in Education.

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INDEX

A

B

a priori, 40 academia, xiii, 2, 4–5, 12, 14–16, 18, 56, 64, 69, 127, 137, 209, accountability, 13 advaita vedanta, vi, xviii, 233–235, 244–248, 252 aisthesis, 134 ambient/ambience, 27, 40–41, 43, 47 asceticism, 64, 67, 70–71, 208, 219–220 ascetics, 66 astrophysics, 49 atman, 246, 247 attention, 260 attunement, 17, 19, 141–143, 160 autobiography, x, 16, 210 auto-ethnographical, 16 autoethnography, 17, 263 awareness of change, xiv, 130–131 axiological, 145, 238–9, 242, 252 axiology, x, xii, xvi–xviii, 45, 143, 149, 150, 175, 200, 206, 219, 222, 235–237, 242, 259, 261 ayurveda, 86

Bacon, 3, 29 beauty, xvii, 74, 153, 155, 164, 202, 207, 214–215, 219–220, 222 beginner’s mind, 130 Bennet, J. G., xv, 97, 99–102, 111 Bhante Gunaratana, 128, 129 bildung, 212, 213 blessing, 193, 200, 202, 205, 215, 218–220 Bohr, N., 48 Bolte Taylor, J., xvii, 187–195, 197 brahman, 253, 255–256 Brown Contemplative Initiative, 12 Buber, M., 247 Buddha, 102, 134–135, 174, 193, 195 Buddhism, xvii, 129, 200, 207, 245, 276 Buddhist, 64, 102, 129–130, 172, 190–195, 210, 221, 270, 276

C calligraphy, 153–154, 161, 163

Toward a Spiritual Research Paradigm, pages 281–287 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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282   Index cardiognosis, 134–135, 138 catholic, 33, 64, 201, 207, 215, 221, 269 Chinese philosophy, 142, 144–6 Christian/Christianity, 26, 44, 57, 63, 119, 200–202, 205, 207–208, 215–217, 219, 221–225, 257, 270 Church of the Saviour, 222–225 closed system, 35 coconstruction, 26 compassion, xvi, xvii, 78–79, 81, 128, 130–131, 133–137, 147, 189–193, 196, 200, 202–203, 205–207, 212–215, 217, 219–220, 222, 226 Comtean, 6, 15 Confucian, xvi, 141–158, 160–165, 174, 189 Confucianism, xvi, 141, 143–146, 148–154, 156–161, 165 Confucius, 141–142, 148–150, 153, 156, 157, 159, 161, 174, 182 constructivism, 4, 6, 34, 238 constructivist, xviii, 33, 36, 42, 45, 236, 238–243, 258–260, 262 contemplative turn, xiii, 2, 16, 17 contemplation, x, 18, 33, 42, 46, 78, 132, 203, 214, 225, 247 cosmology, xvii, 143, 184, 187, 201–202, 205–206, 209, 215–217, 220, 226 cosmos/cosmic, xvi, 143–148, 150, 153, 158, 161, 166, 183–184, 201, 207, 216–217, 239, 241 covenant, 218 creation spirituality (CS), xvii, 199–227 creativity, xvii, 79, 128, 173, 179, 200, 202–203, 206–207, 211, 215, 219–220, 222, 223 Creswell, J. W., 236, 238, 243

D Dao, 143, 145, 147, 149–152, 154–156, 158, 160, 165, 173–174, 176–177, 182–183, 187–188, 190, 193–195 Daoism, xvii, 146, 154, 156, 172–175, 181–183, 185, 187, 196, 200, 207, 210

Darwin, C., 59 Dewey, J., 3, 67 Descartes, R., 4 despair, 136, 205 dharma, 100 dogma, 63, 74, 138 dogmatical, 5 drug(s), 64, 72, 184

E Eckhart, T., 199–200, 207–208, 212– 213, 216, 218, 220, 221 ecology, 65, 202, 205, 227 deep ecology, xvii, 202, 219–220, 222, 225–226 Ecstasy, 79, 203, 210–211, 214 ecumenical, xvii, 222, 224–225 ecumenism, xvii, 200, 202, 219, 221–222, 224–226 deep education, 202, 206–207, 210– 215, 219, 225–226 ego(s), 5, 134, 191, 211, 246 embodiment, 87, 128, 137–138, 164, 173 empiric, xiii, 31 empirical, ix, x, 4–5, 32, 38, 45–55, 59, 61–62, 67, 73–74, 83–84, 98, 102, 182, 241, 244, 249, 252 enlightenment, 3, 29–30, 70, 79, 82, 141, 144, 150, 157–158, 209 enneagram, xv, 97–124 epistemological, xvii, 6, 26, 29, 145, 175, 212–215, 217, 234, 244–245, 251–252, 261 epistemology, ix, xii, xvi–xviii, 2, 10, 20, 28, 37–38, 45, 47, 83, 128, 134, 138, 149, 151, 163, 200, 206, 211, 214–215, 219, 235–236, 239, 241, 246, 259, 261 ethnography/ethnograpger, 16–17, 244, 263 ethos, 6, 12–15, 27, 89–90

Index    283

F faith/faith traditions, xii–xiii, xvii, 26, 30, 32–33, 39, 41–46 Faraday, M., 59 feminine, xvii, 200, 202, 215–219, 221, 223–224, 226, 270 feminism, 200, 202, 205 feminist studies, xii Fox, M., 199–202, 204–225, 227–230 Foucault, M., 39 formal systematics of the enneagram, 111 Freud, S., 60–61 fundamentalism, 57, 61, 208 fundamentalist, 26, 58, 62

G Gandhi, M., 66, 233, 245, 247, 253 geist, 12, 14 gender justice, xvii, 201, 225 god, xiii, xvii, 2, 4–5, 11, 13, 21, 34, 55, 63, 68, 70, 94, 100, 171, 198, 200, 202–204, 207, 210, 214–221, 223–224, 228–231, 240, 246–247, 269 Gratitude, 194–195, 202

H Habermas, J., 244, 248 Harrison, P., 66 Hawken, P., 134 hegemony, 4, 13 hermeneutics, xviii, 248, 251, 263 Heschel, A. J., 200, 207, 221, 230 Hinduism, xvii, 200, 207, 244, 245, 246, 252 Hsu, 174, 184, 193–195 Huangdi Neijing, 147 human rights, ix, 259 Huston, S., 14

I Ich-du, 247 Ich-es, 247 ideology, 57, 60 idiosyncratic, 16, 80, 82–83 impartial watchfulness, xvi, 130–131 imperial examination system, 153 imperialist, 6 in media res, 25 inner work, xv, 81, 88, 91, 98, 102, 115–117, 120–121, 174, 182, 206, 208–209, 213–214 ineffability, 82 instrumentality, 13 intention, 260, 261 interconnection, xi, xii, xvi, 78, 114, 148, 151, 161 interconnectivty, 79 interconnectedness, 162, 201, 233 interpenetration, 79 intersubjectivist, xv intersubjectivity, xv, xviii, 223–225, 237, 239, 241, 243, 247–253 inquiry, 5–7, 10–23, 26, 51, 77, 84, 90, 92–93, 96, 118, 121–122, 125, 128–133, 135, 142–144, 159, 161, 172, 178, 180, 185–187, 196, 204, 206, 209, 211–215, 226, 228–229, 232–234, 255, 258–259, 261–262, 264–265, 267, 275, 279 irrational numbers, 48 Islam, 30, 58 isolated system, 36–38, 42, 44, 46

J James, W., 14, 22, 176, 211, 230 Jesus, 29, 135, 200–201, 210, 216–218, 228 jiaoyu, 159 journey inward, 223 journey outward, 223 Judaism, 30, 58 Judeo–Christian, xvii, 200, 224

284   Index Julian of Norwhich, 135, 139, 200, 218, 229 Jung, C., 159, 180, 186, 222 justice, ix, xvii, 45, 134, 147, 199, 201, 202, 206, 208, 214, 215, 217, 219–220, 221–223, 225–226, 242, 259

K Kant, E./Kantian, v, xiii, 1–2, 4–9, 21–22 Keats, J., 127 kensho, 79 koan, 21 Kuhn, T., 1–4, 5, 11, 10–20, 22, 28, 32, 37, 50–51, 61, 75, 175–182, 197, 204–205, 207, 230, 235, 254

L life force, xvi Lloyd, G., 173 Locke, J., 3, 78 logos, 27, 173, 217 loving kindness, 153 LSD, 64

Mencius, 142, 145, 150, 152, 157, 182 mescaline, 64 metacurriculum, 12 metaphysical, xiii, 28–29, 30–31, 35, 40, 42, 49, 174, 183, 235, 264, 269 metaphysics, xv, 5, 29, 64–65 methodological, 11, 12, 28, 32, 56, 90– 91, 135, 145, 175, 251, 262–263 metta, 135–137 microbiology, 49, 180 mindfulness, xvi, 56, 72, 128–133, 213–214, 217, 235 mitochondria, 41 modernist, 31, 79, 83, 90–91 modern era, 30, monotheistic religions, 18 moreness, 1, 8, 16, 18, 20 mother earth, 202, 213, 217–221, 226 Moustakas, C., 84, 132 mysticism, xvii, 35, 65, 70, 187, 199, 202, 206–216, 224, 226 mystics, 70, 200, 207–208, 211–212, 216, 218, 220–221, 247 mysticism, xvii, 35, 65, 70, 168, 187, 198–199, 202, 206–216, 224, 226, 228–229 mystery(ies), xvii, 29, 43, 108, 119, 120, 186, 206–208, 210, 212–214, 223

N M MacDonald, G., 25 marginalization, 79–80, 87, 239, 241 Marx, K., 60–61, 211 Maslow, A., 178, 211, 213 McClintock, B., 135 Medieval/Middle Ages, 30, 48, 59, 200, 207, 209, 218, 221, 224 Meditation, v, xiii, xv–xvii, 18, 20, 22–23, 35, 43, 45, 74, 78, 88, 95, 127–129, 131–133, 135–138, 152– 153, 160–161, 163, 165, 182, 184, 191, 194, 198, 204, 209, 211–213, 215, 225–230, 245, 247, 276

narrative, x, xiii, 1, 2, 4, 10–11, 13–14, 16, 20, 27, 56, 83–84, 86, 163, 204, 219, 224, 250, 263, 279 narratology, 263 Neiye, 182–183, 189, 191, 194, 195 noetic quality, 177 nominal, 34 noncognitive, 240 nonconceptual awareness, 130–131 nondualistic, 132 nonduality, xviii, 233–235, 237, 239, 241, 244–248, 251–252 nonegotistic alertness, xvi, 130–131 nonjudgmental observation, xvi, 129, 131, 137

Index    285 nonparadigm, xiii, 15, 21 nonphysical, xiv, 25, 62 nonpositivist, 31, 56 nonquantitative, 56 nonsensory, 67, 68

O oneness, xi, xii, xvi, 145–146, 158, 177, 233, 245–246, 252 ontological, 82, 141, 145, 147, 175, 215, 233–234, 238, 244–245, 252, 260–261 ontology, ix, xii–xviii, 28, 45, 143, 145, 149, 200, 206, 207, 215, 219, 233, 235–236, 239, 241, 246, 259 open system, 35, 42, 46, 206 originary, 28, 40–43 outer circle, 103–105, 111–112, 114, 117, 119, 122

P Palmer, P., 2, 6, 10, 18, 20, 22, 134, 138, 177–178, 182–183, 197–198 panentheism, 17, 222, 225, 235, 237, 239 paradigm shift, xvii, 28, 32, 61, 64, 179, 200, 203–205, 207, 222 participatory observation, xvi, 131 passivity, 177 pathos, 27 peak experiences, 210–213 pedagogy, 196, 265 phenomenological, xvi, 20, 33, 49, 56, 80, 84, 133, 204 phenomenology, x, xii, xvi, 57, 80, 84, 128, 131–133, 137, 161–163 pi, 48 piety, 148, 149, 153 pluralist, 89–90 Popper, K., 5, 58, 60–62 portraiture, 263 positive psychology, 223, 225–226

positivism, 2, 4–5, 15, 29–30, 236–237 positivist, ix, xviii, 6, 10, 13, 31–33, 42, 49, 56, 59, 86, 144, 236–238, 244–246 Postman, P., xiii, 11 postmodern, xii, xvii, 79–80, 83, 89–90, 105, 199 postmodernity, 80 postpositivism, 2, 4–5, 29–30, 45, 236–237 poststructural, 80 poststructuralist, 79–90 practitioners, 3, 33, 70–72, 78, 128, 138, 153, 155–156, 163–164, 174, 187, 194, 235 praxis, 239 pray/prayer, xiii, xvii, 31, 33, 35, 42, 45, 68, 119, 137, 154, 171, 199, 203, 206, 208–210, 212–214, 216, 223, 227 predisposition, 6, 28 primordial, 29, 42, 88, 143–146, 184 pseudoscience, 60–61 psilocybin, 64 psychotherapy/psychotherapeutic, 80, 96, 276

Q qigong, xvi,172–173, 175, 179–180, 182–190, 193–195 quantum physics, xi, 11, 49, 64–65, 165, 176 quantitative analysis, 55–56 qi, xvi, 143–149, 150, 152–154,156, 157, 160, 163–165, 183–186, 189–190, 192–193

R radical, xvii, 16, 135, 143, 201, 207–209, 213–214, 223, 225 Ramanujan, S, 67–68 rapture, 210–211 rationalism, 30, 35, 224

286   Index researcher–subject relationship, 234 refutation, 8, 16 relativism, 34, 80 religiosity, 203–204, 230 reformation, 150, 153 renaissance, 30, 200, 205, 222, 229 reformation, 30 renunciants, 65–66 representational, 34 resilience, 33 rhetoricity/rhetorical, xiii, xiv, 25, 27–28, 37, 39–44, 47, 49 Roshi, O. S., 119 Roshi, S., 130, 138

S sage(s), 89, 150, 156, 165, 171, 182, 188, 246 salvation, 202, 219 Sardello, R., 133, 138 satsang, 257 satyagraha, 245 self-control, 68–70, 247 self-cultivation, 88, 145, 152, 157, 183–184, 189 self-reflexivity, xii, 265 sensory, x, xiii, 31, 39, 67, 68, 78, 133, 177–179, 208, 213 shamanism, 183, 215 shen, 155, 174 sin, 200, 202, 215, 217–219, 225 social justice, ix, 45, 134, 199, 225–226, 242, 259, 277 sociocultural, x, 80, 89–90, 277 solitude, 69–70, 176, 208 soul, x–xii, xv, 14, 22, 26, 97–99, 103, 119, 122, 127, 134–135, 138–139, 143–144, 151–152, 159–160, 168, 172–173, 188, 205, 208, 213, 216, 219, 222, 229, 231, 245, 257 soul-making, 127, 229 Spinoza, 3 spirare, 203 spiritual group, xviii, 258, 262–267, 269–272

SRP (special research paradigm), xiv, xv, 77–79, 83, 87, 90–91 suffering, 130–1, 136, 147, 214, 220 Sufism, xvii, 200 sustainability, 134, 249, 250 symbol, xv, 97–98, 101–104, 147, 175, 218

T taiji, 145 TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), xvi, 148, 174, 175 tao, 70, 100, 146–147, 149, 168, 216 tat tvam asi, 247–248 Taylor, C., 20, 22, 47, 80, 96, 142, 168 teacher(s), vii, 33, 67, 71, 101, 121, 122, 130, 135, 149, 160, 193, 210, 217, 221, 278, 279 teleology, x, xii, xviii, 235–236, 244 telos, x, xii theology, 29, 51, 64, 74–75, 94, 125, 145, 200–201, 209, 215, 218–219, 224, 228, 230–231 testament old/new, 200, 207 Tobin Hart, 133 transcendence, xiii, 4, 25, 38, 42, 44–46, 48, 145, 202, 217 transcended rhetoricity, 37 transcendental, 64, 77–78, 132, 278 transformation, vii, ix, xv, 7, 81, 95, 97–112, 114, 116, 120, 123–125, 133–134, 143, 148, 151–152, 155, 158, 160–161, 167, 174, 182–183, 185, 188, 210, 212, 215, 227, 232, 234, 242, 251, 276–278 transgressive, xvii, 200 transiency, 177 truth(s), x, xviii, 16–17, 32, 55, 57, 58–59, 60–62, 81, 150, 162, 211, 224, 237, 240, 244–246, 252, 253, 258, 260–262 Tu Weiming, 144, 149

Index    287

U ubuntu, 144 unity, xvi, 48, 99, 141, 143, 171–198, 201, 216–217, 226, 233, 245 universe, 36–37, 50, 62, 73–74, 81, 93, 101–102, 108, 124, 131, 136, 141–143, 145–147, 149–155, 160, 165, 172, 174–177, 179, 182–185, 187–188, 192–193, 195–196, 208, 212, 216, 218–220, 231 upanishads, 245

W Wang Yangming, 153, 161 well-being, 12, 38, 145, 147–148, 165, 193, 195, 211 wellness, 149 weltanschauung, 205 workaholism, 226 worship, 149, 203, 223 wuji, 145

X V Van Bingen, H., 200, 209, 221, 230 van Manen, M., 84, 96 Vatican, 201 Vedas, 245 verisimilitude, 16, 19 veritas, 211, 224 via creativa, 206, 214, 219 via negativa, 214, via positiva, 214, 224 via transformativa, 214–215 virtue(s), xvi, 143–144, 146–153, 156–158, 161–166 virtuous, 141, 149, 151–152, 160, 162, 165, 193, 195–196 vipassana, 129

xian, 156 Xunzi, 182

Y yoga, 18, 57, 64–67, 70–71, 78, 85, 203, 209, 213, 279 yogis, 66 yajurveda, 245

Z Zhou Dunyu, 145