ABSTRACT

Among the expressions of post-modernity in Western culture is an increasing engagement in meditation retreats. This dissertation examines the experiential dimensions of wonder in view of the intense environment of Buddhist "rnindfulness" (sati) practice. They are linked by virtue of wonder's resonance with the insight -- (vipassana) such practice is understood to elicit which, in turn, invites an investigation of the pedagogy of retreat.

Wonder is identified by Plato to be philosophy's true beginning and by Martin Heidegger as its sustaining passion1 wherein one confronts the unexpected strangeness of what is most ordinary - the fact that something is as it is. The mindfulness meditation retreat involves a social leave-taking in which qualities of silence and a disciplined attentiveness are fostered; Buddhist theory understands this practice to lead to definitive insights regarding the nature and diverse agencies - the ontological character - of experience.

This work introduces both wonder and mindfulness retreats through phenomenological narrative, before a more hermeneutically informed inquiry of each is undertaken. Meditation achieves an interrogation of habit that opens one to the lived-moment. In wonder our customary assumptions endure a marked rupture or crisis: neither one's concepts of "self" nor "other" are indifferent to its thrall, such that an ethically charged interest can be awakened and one's very identity put into question. Similarly, meditative insights reveal an agency beyond the horizons of will, wherein the lived-moment attains its own (extra)ordinary character. Mindfulness meditation may be regarded a method for promoting wonder; insight, as wonder's culmination.

Teaching in the meditative environment is congenial to wonder/insight insofar as it encourages inner silence, attentiveness, and a deepening consent towards experiences-lived. In this way the meditation instructor practises an "anagogical" regard - i.e., teaching which accompanies (agogy) the practitioner back or anew (ana-) to the honest textures of what is present. My exploration of personal experience and interview material reveals such anagogy to be imbued with kindness and humility, and to be attuned to the enduring virtues of companionship along a curriculum vitae fully engaged in the myriad, unavoidable expressions of life to which our continual becoming makes us heir.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. THE PHOTOGRAPH: A Beginning I

NOTES 9

2. (POST)MODERN COND~ONS II

Myriad Voices 12

The Emperor and the Instrumental 16

A Nostalgia 18

Overarching Ambifions 20

A Collapse of the Modem 21

A Restlessness 23

NOTES 30

3. THE RETREAT: An Introduction 34

4. A PHENOMENOLOGY OF WONDER 49

'Nothing ever happens': It's no wonder 52

Where's the wonder in it? 57

Wonder-struck: Wonder brings us to a standstill 62

'Oh...': Wonder leaves us speechless 63

In a new light: Wonder opens our eyes 64

'Look!': Wonder calls to us 66

The wonder of it all: Wonder gives things their meaning 68

The open face: Wonder exposes our vulnerability 70

NOTES 79

5. WHAT BECOMES OF PHILOSOPHY'S BEGINNING' 84

Wonder and Knowledge 86

Aristotle 86

Aquinas 88

Descartes 89

Wonder as Beginning 91

Plato 92

Heidegger 93

The (Un)usual 95

Between-ness 96

Wonder's Agency 96

Wonder and Method 98

The Stop 100

NOTES 104

6. LWED DIMENSIONS OFMEDIT~ON RETREATS 109

Shelley: Struck by the ordinary 110

The Retreat 116

What Brings You? 116

'Retreat From' 116

'Retreat Into' 119

Return to the 'World' 121

Mindful Occupation: When eating soup is eating soup 124

Mindfulness as an Interrogation of Habit 127

Meditation as Disciplined Resistance 131

The Silence of Others 133

Modes of Discipline 137

A Hermeneutik of Resistance 138

When Mindfulness Becomes 'Practised' 142

Insight: 'So THIS is what happens' 146

Out of the Ordinary 147

When Everything Fits 150

Vision Transformed 153

Insight, Wonder and the Present Intensified 157

NOTES 159

7. A BUDDHIST PERSPEC'I1VE 163

A Hermeneutic of Presence 168

Meditation: Sources and Methods 168

Four Foundations of Mindfulness 170

Experience as Experience 172

Meditation as a 'Technology' 175

A Hermeneutic of Change 176

Causality and Its Characteristics 178

Change as Radical Movement 179

Change as a Passion 181

Change as the Condition of Being 183

NOTES 189

8. 'ANAGOGY' IN THE FACE OF WONDER 193

Beginning Again: 'Self-doubt' 195

Teacher as Fallible 197

Teaching as Consensual 201

Teacher as Practised 206

Regarding 'Anagogy' 216

Praxis as Teacher I 'Anagogue' 217

Curriculum Vitae: An excursion 220

I 222

II 224

III 227

NOTES 235

BIBLIOGRAPHY 239

© Max van Manen, 2002
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