First, this paper introduces contemplative pedagogy (CP) as an emerging philosophy of education that has roots in eastern philosophy and which has aroused interest in western culture as well. Jon Kabat-Zinn started his research on Buddhist meditation practice for stress relief in the seventeens. An accumulative body of scientific evidence suggest CP cannot be disregarded as mere mystical orientalism, but one practise and philosophy that can enhance and enrich western education in different ways. CP can be considered one fruitfull approach to environmental education among other strands of education.
Second, this paper introduces the basic tenets of CP as bodily ethics, or bodily form of moral education. This short introduction is conducted on the basis of our previous research on this subject. (Pulkki & Saari & Dahlin.) The core of this argumentation is the critisism of too narrowly cognitive and intellectual approach to education. Instead, this paper emphasises the bodily aspects of moral education (ibid.). For example emotions like anger and anxiety manifest themselves in the body, and meditation practise can bring these emotions (anger, frustration etc.) into consciousness. This way CP (f.e. meditation) can be seen to have an important bodily dimension adressing such areas of human action that are needed for environmental education for changing the ways we experience and relate to nature.
Third, this paper shows how ideas of CP and bodily ethics prove useful, not only in terms of calmness, relaxation, attention, and learning, that are the the usually mentioned benefits of CP. Moreover, meditation practice, as one paradigmatic example of CP, enables the Merleay-Pontyan insight that human and nonhuman beings are made of the ”same stuff”. In other words, the consept of ”flesh” (Merleau-Ponty) is used for showing how human alienation from one's body is, in essence, a part of the same alienation that is occuring between human and nature (see Bai & Scutt). The experience, that human beings and other living beings are made of the same stuff, the same ”flesh”, is an environmentally promising learning possibility.
Fourth, realizing how the flesh of the world in human and nonhuman beings is the same, the dualist relationships between one self and the outer world can be transformed in a way that is fruifull for environmental education. One possibility of meditation consist of enlargening one's scope of interests to include more living beings. Meditation, that is in its core both mental and bodily practise (Klemola), enables new kind of opening up to environment and to the world. Increasing compassion is also one benefit of CP. For example the CP practise of ”metta” involves extending ones scope of compassion from one's immediate surroundings to further and further (cf. Loy; Willard). This insight will give moral motivation to environmentally friendly action. Learning to experience one's body and the outer reality as the same ”flesh” of the world, opens novel vistas for both the philosophy and practice of environmental education. For example, experiencing polluting one's own body and the polluting of a lake in similar fashion, it becomes harder to treat nature in indifferent ways. Through bodily ethics of CP this kind of environmental problems can be addressed on the level of peoples experience. Many wisdom traditions of the world share the same insight of oneness of man and nature, and this insight can be achieved through CP also in secular schooling settings.
