Getting to why? Contemplative practice as reflection on intentionality

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Getting to why? Contemplative practice as reflection on intentionality
 
Creator Wessels, Francois
 
Subject Organisation Studies; Psychology; Pastoral Theology; Cultural Studies narrative; intentionality; spirituality; contemplative practice; mindfulness
Description In my experience, conflict and other forms of being stuck or (as it is commonly referred to in narrative texts) ‘stuckness’ are related to actions, behaviour or events. If we consider a narrative paradigm, they happen in the realm of the Bruner’s ‘landscape of action’. Efforts at escaping these problem-saturated experiences mostly resort to replacing these actions, habits, modes of operation or rules with a different set of rules, without first reflecting on the intentionality or ‘why’ behind the actions. Most often this only serves to perpetuate the problem. This article will attempt to show that alternating between various initiatives in the ‘landscape of action’ provides only temporary respite to the problem, if any; that the intentionality behind these actions needs to be revisited and that contemplative practice facilitate such reflection on intentionality. This is therefore an exercise in reflecting on intentionality or even purpose, that is, a teleological question. This process traverses the dimensions of ‘what’ (actions), ‘how’ (methodology) and ‘why’ (intentionality), referring to the biology of human decision-making in the process of doing so. This article posits that this reflection may be facilitated by contemplative practices such as mindfulness and reflecting on soul.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor NONE
Date 2015-08-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v71i1.2701
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 71, No 1 (2015); 7 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/2701/6226 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/2701/6227 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/2701/6228 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/2701/6102
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 Francois Wessels https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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