Ryotaro Kusumoto is a Visiting Research Fellow at Kyoto University’s Mindful Living Research Group. He has completed there his doctoral dissertation on the philosophy of mindful education. His research aims at re-articulating and implementing mindfulness in higher education and life-long learning. He has previously elucidated traditional Japanese Buddhist educative frameworks and have explored the potentiality of mindful education on student agency, human flourishing, and academic excellence. His research is featured in journal such as Religions, Mindfulness, Journal of Philosophy of Education, etc. He also has trained as a teacher in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Life (MBCT-L) with Oxford Mindfulness Foundation. In collaboration with the latter, he has been coordinating joint Mindful Leadership Programmes in Kyoto, integrating the ancient wisdom and modern science of mindfulness, with special reference to Japanese traditional culture and arts.

The Threefold Wisdom (三慧) Model of Mindful Education: Study, Reflection, and Cultivation (聞・思・修)

In this presentation, we will explore how mindfulness can further be weaved into higher education as the very thread of the learning process in order to foster both academic excellence and human flourishing. To do so, we will rely upon the ancient framework of the development of wisdom according to the three steps of “study, reflection, and cultivation” (聞慧、思慧、修慧), as it is found in Asian and Buddhist classics. In this way, mindfulness and education can be articulated according to a synergistic relationship in which learning is supported by mindfulness, and mindfulness is refined throughout each educative phase. We will demonstrate how this conception of mindful education, integrating conceptual and experiential modes of knowing according to the approach developed in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), is especially relevant in our Digital Age. Facing the challenges of information overload, distractibility, and superficial engagement, the threefold wisdom model of mindful education can serve as a compass for students to memorize relevant information, to constitute a self-reflexive and properly organized knowledge, and eventually to cultivate an embodied wisdom in their lives and activities.

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