One day in about 1986 or '87, I discovered that my campus could connect me from a given room on campus to one or more classrooms in schools 35 and 90 miles north of us. This was a big deal since I was teaching teachers in courses which gave them salary raises and gave them new enthusiasms for their jobs. However, their days are such that they teach for a full day and then come to class. Finding that they could go to another room right in their building instead of a long drive over icy roads dodging deer and other dangers saved money and their energy. I was getting into what is sometime called "distance education".
I have a doctorate in research methods in education but I don't need an advanced degree to know that after teaching a whole day, with all the ups and downs of unexpected challenges and changes, less driving and getting home more quickly while driving more safely was a good thing. That day lead to nearly 20 years of working in front of tv cameras, getting and sending student email and writing web pages they could use to learn and to show their knowledge to me.
Google has now created Hangouts, which can connect people in video calls. In fact, up to 9 people from anywhere on the internet can all participate in a call at the same time. What this means in my view is that she should take her practice and her activities and add a "distance meditation" branch to it.
The essence of meditation benefits is greater self-awareness. Meditation, in the sense I am using it, means doing something with the mind that magnifies the way it is behaving so that when the mind wanders or changes what is being focused on, the wandering is highlighted. If the wandering is highlighted, emphasized in some way, at the time it begins, the mind can be brought back to the desired focus. This training vastly increases awareness of what one is doing with one's mind all through the day. It vastly increases the chance that we can notice what we are doing, what we want in all our various channels of want and allows us to have more useful conferences with ourselves over what to do with our time and energy.
I have experienced all sorts of complaints over distance ed not being the same as a face-to-face classroom. Right, it isn't the same and in some ways it is inferior to being on a solitary walk with a great teacher. But in some ways, it is way better. Try it, test it and you will find quite a few benefits, many not at all hidden. In the same way, she will experience all sorts of internal and external complaints over distance meditation:
"It ain't the same….
"It's a joke…
etc.
Still, this is what I think she should try.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
