Transcendent Practices				    		Spg 2004

Tales of Practice: An Interview with your Mentor or Selected Practitioner.

Students will be expected to interview their mentors, and to write up the results, using the format of Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life?  Students unfamiliar with this text are encouraged to review the first half of the text, which continuing students read winter quarter.  All students should read the second half of the text in preparation for this spring project.  Students who choose to study with the current faculty will not be able to use these faculty as interview subjects; they will have two options regarding the interview process.  The first is to hook up with a local practitioner (yogi, sculptor, poet) to complete an interview.  The second will be to do a biographical research project and construct a text-based “interview” with their (faculty approved) subject; faculty distinctly prefer an interview with a current, living practitioner to an interview with one that is dead.

It seems likely that there will be a wide variety of encounters with mentors.  If your chosen mentor has little time to educate/elucidate their practice with you, you may spend more time doing library research about the history of your practice.  Your mentor may ask you to spend the bulk of your time doing errands or sweeping floors.  Whatever requests are made, it’s important that the student view his/her relationship with the mentor as an exchange, where the student is offering her/himself in service in exchange for the mentor’s time and instruction.  A wise student will be as clear as possible in the initial proposal of this exchange to the mentor.  Regardless of the relationship that results, the student must assume the responsibility of using his/her time efficiently to genuinely deepen his/her understanding of the chosen practice.

Needless to say, faculty see this process as an opportunity to encourage students to pursue a personally chosen course of study, and encourage a focused pursuit of a single discipline.  Through Fall and Winter Quarter, Transcendent Practices has endeavored to have students define for themselves the concepts of Transcendence and Practice.  We’ve discussed the theme of Grounding and the psychology of Flow, the biological basis of mystical experience and the centrality of breath, the ecstatic poetry of 13th century Islam and contemporary America.  We’ve exposed students to practitioners of many disciplines, some overtly spiritual, some decidedly not.  We’ve asked students to experience six months of yoga practice, sculpting, and poetry writing.  With this last, more independent quarter of study, we hope that students will further clarify for themselves the answers to our most fundamental questions:  What is transcendence?  What is a practice?  Are the two concepts related, and if so, how?  (tk)

A 4-5 page, word-processed, double-spaced interview with a serious practitioner of your choice modeled on the interviews comprising Cope’s Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life? is due in seminar on Thursday of week 7.  Please give yourself time for peer review and editing of this interview.  As a courtesy, a copy of your interview should be shared with the interviewee. 

The following questions, taken directly from Cope’s book, are the questions he asked the 25 people he interviewed, including himself.  These questions should structure your interview.

i)What inspired you to become involved in contemplative practice, and what continues to be your deepest source of inspiration?
ii)How has practice changed your life?
iii)What do you know about the teachings of your tradition, not through scripture, but through direct experience?
iv) What is the cutting edge of your personal practice?
v) What do you believe is possible for you ‘in this life’?

Before beginning this project we as a program must complete, and have approved, a Human Subjects Review Application.  And, a necessary component of your final interview is a copy of a signed Informed Consent Agreement and a Cover Letter.  (sw)