Understanding how the mind works can provide insight into the meaning of various feelings and emotions. Rather than merely grasping empathy on an intellectual level, we can experience how it functions and emerges. By observing the mind, we can uncover how social assumptions and prejudices later filter these reactions. The book explores the interplay between mental processes, bodily reactions, and emotions. Contemplating the foundations of suffering or empathy can enrich our understanding of the emotional dimensions of how we perceive the world. Additionally, many psycho-social phenomena can be comprehended more deeply through critical-contemplative inquiry from a first-person perspective.
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction
1My Choice: Being Faithful to the Event
2Content of the Book
Part 1: Self-Description with Reflection on Self and the World
1 Crossing Borders, Not Closing Them: the First-Person Perspective in
Sociological Research
1Introduction
2But the Other One I Want to Understand Might Be Me
3A/ Autoethnography
4B/ Contemplative Studies
5C/ Transformational Phenomenology Research
6Theoretical Contemplation of First-Person Research Approaches
7Summary and Conclusions
Part 2: Working with the Mind and Body
2 Phenomenological and Interactional Interpretations of Corporality and
Intersubjectivity in Hatha Yoga
1Introduction
2I Practice Hatha Yoga in Yoga Session: Self-Report with Contemplative
Reflection
3Interpretation
4Conclusions
3 Who Am I When I Am Teaching? Self in Yoga Practice
1Introduction
2Self-Observations and Their Self-Analysis
3Self-Observation/Self-Report Krzysztof T. Konecki January 28, 2020;
Conducting a Session
4A Note Summarizing the Main Topic of the above Session: Concentration on
Instructions and the Transfer of Technical Knowledge
5Need for a Response, Need for Interaction
6Individual Practice and the Teacher as a Participant
7Individual Practice
8Me as a Participant
9Conclusions
4 Can You Stop Your Mind and Your Daily Activities? An Analysis of Meditation
in Yoga Practice
1Introduction
2What Is Meditation?
3Preparation for Meditation
4Meditation as a Challenge: Pain, Negative Emotions, and Sleepiness
5Self-Knowledge
6The Course of Meditation Racing Thoughts, Visions, Achieving Peace
7Effortlessness
8Self-Perception
9Perception of the World: Changes in Perception of Being in the World
10The Effects of Meditation: Reflections Afterward
11Learning to Be in Meditation
12Conclusions
Part 3: Applying Contemplation to Understand Suffering
5 Empathy! So What?
1Instead of Introduction. Contemplative Memo
2Empathy
3The Method
4Contemplative Experiment
5Explication of Results
6Theorizing Empathy
7Conclusions
6 A Contemplative Sociologist Looks at War
1Introduction
2A Contemplative Explication of a Witness from a Neighboring Country
3My Contemplative Coda
4Communicating with Opponents regarding my Perceptions of the War
5Conclusions
Conclusions
Index
Krzysztof T. Konecki is a Professor of Sociology specializing in qualitative methods and works at the Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz. He is the editor-in-chief of Qualitative Sociology Review and a member of the Board of the Polish Sociological Association and the Committee of Sociology of the Polish Academy of Science. He recently published The Meaning of Contemplation for Social Qualitative Research. Applications and Examples (Routledge, 2022).
