Co-Professor
Opening The Mind'S Eye
University Of Utah Honors College Praxis Lab
In this unique Honors course, students explore and experience contemplative practices from around the world and throughout history—from the ancient to the modern, from the spiritual to the secular, from the visionary to the embodied—and consider these practices’ potential for interacting with, and deepening, university education. Students learn hands-on practices from the instructors and from distinguished visitors from numerous secular and spiritual traditions (mindfulness and insight meditation, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, traditional yoga, Qigong, Quaker practice, Catholic and Islamic mystical poetry, contemplative psychotherapy and Jewish Kabbalah, among others).Students not only learn about the practices but personally and actively experience them (through in-depth classroom sessions and continuing at home). The course also presents the latest medical and scientific research on meditation (including visits by medical and neuroscience faculty), and students explore the growing use of contemplative practices in universities around the country.Students then conceive and implement collaborative and innovative class projects that apply these practices to the university. Some of the areas the students’ project(s) may impact could possibly include classroom applications, program development, workshops, campus wellness, mental health, and more. Students partner with campus and/or off-campus organizations to take what they have learned and experienced into the community and world.Together, we work to “open the mind’s eye”—to unlock the mind and heart’s potential for our full humanness.