Hello all

Over the last few blogs I have been introducing some of the speakers at the Contemplative Pedagogy weekend which is now just two weeks away! Today is the turn of Steven Stanley who is doing some very interesting mindfulness research, with a particular interest in mindfulness meditation as a psychosocial research methodology. I have not yet met Steven but know that we both share the challenge of creating space for retreats! Thank you Steven, for providing the information below, I look forward to meeting you soon.

Steven Stanley, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. A social psychologist interested in the critical and qualitative study of social life, he teaches mindfulness and Qigong courses and retreats, both inside and outside of the university. He is particularly interested in the potentials of early Pāli Buddhist ideas and practices, as well as modern retreat practice, for potentially reorienting our relationship to life in capitalism. In his research, he has investigated historical changes in meanings of mindfulness and meditation, ethics and politics of the mindfulness movement, mindfulness meditation as a psychosocial research methodology, interactional aspects of ‘inquiry’ sequences in mindfulness courses, and pluralism in mindfulness-based mental health care interventions. His teaching explores mindfulness and socially engaged Buddhism as styles of contemplative education for social science and Social Work. He has recently completed the Committed Dharma Practitioner Programme and Pali Summer School.

‘Contemplating Doing Nothing: Mindfulness and Normative Public Conduct’

I will speak about my experience of leading a ‘breaching experiment’ with undergraduate social psychology students informed by ‘Zen sociology’ and ethnomethodology in which they either individually or collectively go somewhere busy (e.g. city centre), stop, stand and ‘do nothing’ for 10 minutes. They write a fieldnote about what they experienced and we have also collected audio and video data which captures what happens from the ‘outside’. I can present this data and give people a sense of the methods and results. It’s a work in progress and part of an ongoing project.