Becoming ‘Intimate’ With the Present Moment: Mindfulness and the Question of Temporality

TY - JOUR

T1 - Becoming ‘Intimate’ With the Present Moment:

T2 - Mindfulness and the Question of Temporality

AU - Primdahl, Nis Langer

PY - 2023/2

Y1 - 2023/2

N2 - Being in the present moment is a key element in most widespread definitions of modern mindfulness. A claim about temporality can thus be said to lie at the core of mindfulness, in which some ways of relating to time are considered subordinate to others; being in the present moment is ascribed higher value than being elsewhere in time. However, although the significance of the present moment is clear, its content and meaning are ambiguous; what temporal states are promoted through mindfulness? This article seeks to theorize this ambiguity by focusing on the specific context of school-based mindfulness as a case in which temporality and education intertwine. Whereas educational research on issues related to time and temporality typically construes time as a condition or resource for educational practices, I argue that school-based mindfulness represents a particular method of making temporality—specifically, the relation between the student self and the present moment—into an object of education. I identify three dimensions of what it means to be in the present moment through empirical examples drawn from a broader study on the educational purposes of school-based mindfulness. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the complexity of the notion of the present moment in school-based mindfulness for future research in this field.

AB - Being in the present moment is a key element in most widespread definitions of modern mindfulness. A claim about temporality can thus be said to lie at the core of mindfulness, in which some ways of relating to time are considered subordinate to others; being in the present moment is ascribed higher value than being elsewhere in time. However, although the significance of the present moment is clear, its content and meaning are ambiguous; what temporal states are promoted through mindfulness? This article seeks to theorize this ambiguity by focusing on the specific context of school-based mindfulness as a case in which temporality and education intertwine. Whereas educational research on issues related to time and temporality typically construes time as a condition or resource for educational practices, I argue that school-based mindfulness represents a particular method of making temporality—specifically, the relation between the student self and the present moment—into an object of education. I identify three dimensions of what it means to be in the present moment through empirical examples drawn from a broader study on the educational purposes of school-based mindfulness. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the complexity of the notion of the present moment in school-based mindfulness for future research in this field.

KW - acceleration

KW - contemplative practices

KW - education, temporality

KW - mindfulness

KW - present moment

KW - school-based mindfulness

KW - schooling

KW - wellbeing

U2 - 10.1177/0961463X221123356

DO - 10.1177/0961463X221123356

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0961-463X

VL - 32

SP - 33

EP - 49

JO - Time & Society

JF - Time & Society

IS - 1

ER -