Donald McCown, Diane C. Reibel, and Marc S. Micozzi: Teaching Mindfulness: A Practical Guide for Clinicians and Educators

Pedagogy in modern Western culture generally subscribes to a formal teacher–student relationship, in which the teacher is considered to be the expert, and the student a veritable tabula rasa to be filled and molded as the instructor deems fit. Teacher, instruction, and curriculum act in concert upon the object that is the student, with the transaction of learning conceptualized as an outcome, not a process. Learning mindfulness is in many ways the antithesis to this Western pedagogical model. Basic tenets of mindfulness assert that the individual is already complete in their understanding and form, and only need to become aware of this innate wholeness. The “teacher” in many traditions is not considered to hold any special knowledge or authority over the “student,” they are regarded as equals, with the former merely serving as a guide or “spiritual friend” to the latter. Furthermore, the unfolding of the content in a mindfulness curriculum is simply the present moment as it is, and thus no terminal point of completion in the learning process is ever truly achieved. …