| Titel: | Awake and Aware: Utilizing Split-Attention to Link Mindful Awareness with Everyday Activities |
|---|---|
| Autor: | Whitten, W. Roy |
| Mediengruppe: | dissertation |
| Herausgeber: | --- |
| Zeitschrift: | Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering |
| Jahr: | 2005 |
| Band: | 65 |
| Heft: | --- |
| Seiten: | --- |
| Sprache: | English |
| Abstract: | Fourteen years ago, Tart (1990) suggested that people could use some of Gurdjieff's practices to extend the experience of mindful awareness-most often learned at a Buddhist-oriented retreat-into the complexity and turmoil of their daily lives. He defined mindful awareness, introduced the Gurdjieff practices of self-observation and self-remembering, offered a set of guidelines developed from his work with mindfulness studies in general and Gurdjieff s work in particular, and he invited teachers and practitioners of mindfulness to experiment with these guidelines and publish their results. To date, no one has formally responded to his invitation. This research project was inspired by Tart's invitation, and it reflected the researcher's lifelong interest in the possibility of generating mindful awareness in the midst of daily activities. This study addressed systemic limitations that appeared to exist in the current pedagogy of mindfulness training which was fundamentally reliant on a meditation-based methodology that required regular and, at times, lengthy withdrawal from everyday life. Four co-researchers cooperatively participated in a 90-day inquiry into the question: what happens when people link mindful awareness with everyday activities? They employed the Gurdjieffian practice of split-attention (Ouspensky, 1977; Tart, 1994) as the linking activity, spent 95% of the inquiry in their own work/life environment, and, during this three-month period, invested 70 hours in mutual reflection on their experiences. The study utilized case study methodology to evaluate and describe the experience of participants. The results included a marked increase in the experience of mindful awareness in the midst of everyday life. The events and circumstances of life at work and at home, which previously had appeared to be barriers to mindful awareness, often functioned as the occasions for waking up into mindful awareness. Participants found themselves waking up far more often in the midst of their daily activities, they became somewhat more proficient at extending these moments of mindfulness when they occurred, and they determined that the practice of split-attention was practical, easy to use, and highly effective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) |