xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>What I'd like to offer is a view of meditation from activity theory --
>whether
>sitting in meditation, and focussing on breathing -- or walking in
>meditation,
>and focussing on the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other --
>it is
>the rhythm, deliberately doing something at the level of operations, that
>frees
>the mind at the level of action. Concentration on what is normally
>routine
>moves the routine to the level of action, makes the day-to-day and the
>moment
>by moment adjustable, and to some degree, controllable. The degree of
>control
>is a matter of not trying, the more one tries, the less control one has.
>The
>beautiful contradiction is that letting go puts it in your hand. At the
>bottom
>of this slippery slope is balance. This lesson can transfer to other
>actions.
>But a lot of the time it does not.
in the words of judith diamondstone, "HUZZAH!" - :)
really, awareness-indeed consciousness- is as much an activity as anything
- existence is an activity, and i think you are right in pointing out how
difficult it is for folks to consider the ways that "attention"
constitutes a particular activity - i reckon AT is about ways to pursue
the tradition of psychology, though, you know, make inferences about the
mind by observing external behaviours, and all that.
i suppose my confusion with AT has always been around the assumptions of
'activity' and the embedded history of behaviour with 'inferences about
the mind' - and that whole thang..
...well, plus all that political and ideological stuff.
ha ha
diane
************************************************************************************
"Waves of hands, hesitations at street corners, someone dropping a
cigarette in a gutter - all are stories. But which is the true story? That
I do not know. Hence I keep my phrases hung like clothes in a cupboard,
waiting for someone to wear them. Thus waiting, thus speculating, making
this note and then another, I do not cling to life."
Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931.
(...life clings to me...)
*************************************************************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
vancouver, bc
mailing address: 46 broadview avenue, montreal, qc, H9R 3Z2
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