I guess I'm a Buddhist

Sent to Richard Quinney, a practicing Buddhist, mentor, and  co-editor whose idea it was for us to put Criminology as Peacemaking together (who writes back that he will in turn write Mike DeValve):

Your first chapter of our book introduced me to peacemaking as buddhism.  Now I discover that my way of thinking about the process--the one I've just been blogging about--has for some time been known among buddhist practitioners as "relational mindfulness."  These folks apply it to therapist-client relations, I'm grounded in victim-offender mediation.  I've never felt as though my thinking belonged squarely in a group.  Shared mindfulness is another term for letting the force of love take hold among us.  Neat!  Thanks for starting me down this peacemaking path, dear old friend and mentor--l&p

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com, 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-6341

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From: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 1:43 PM
To: DeValve, Michael
Subject: RE: intersubjective mindfulness/interbeing: I think I've got it

Monday's okay except 11-2 for lunch.  Yes, google the senior author to see that he advertises himself as Zen Buddhist, and is another candidate for involvement besides Kabat-Zinn.  My hesitation is that they're into promoting themselves commercially.  I'd volunteer my services as via skype, and lend my name, to you and Cary in any way that's useful.  The idea behind the project sounds wonderful.  l&p

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com, 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-6341

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From: DeValve, Michael [mdevalve@uncfsu.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 1:33 PM
To: Pepinsky, Harold E.
Subject: RE: intersubjective mindfulness/interbeing: I think I've got it

Yeah, it how I’ve been doing things, but more as an application of Nhat Hanh’s insights than as a formalized, deliberate strategy like insight mediation (e.g., Picard & Jull, 2011, attached).  Your thinking on such issues being consonant with that of others only makes sense, as it was your scholarship that began my inquiry vector in the first place.  It is cool that you’re still doing some of the same stuff, though, and that others working from related premises are building their efforts in ways that retain fidelity to original concepts. I’ll have to read up on relational psychotherapy, but my initial sense is that it is like other mindfulness-based psychotherapeutic efforts, in that it derives its theory and clinical dynamics from Buddhist thought.

Yes, let’s talk soon.  Maybe Monday?  Cary and I have been talking daily about the mindfulness and crim/cj project.  Our plan is to create a detailed TOC and proposal to float around.  We will send it to Cheri and to you, and hopefully we can entice you both to participate in ways that are both interesting and comfortable.  You’d mentioned also contacting Jon Kabat-Zinn.  Well, certainly he and/or Sharon Salzberg would be assets to the project.  Cary and I both feel that this project has the potential to answer the two loudest critiques of peacemaking: empirical supportability and practicality.  Research into mindfulness, like that done by Richard Davidson, inter alia, speaks directly to the neurobiological capacity of the mind to change the brain (e.g., neuroplasticity); research into attention and perception tends to show that mindful practices deepen perception acuity, even to the point of making critical incidents safer for everyone.  We can illustrate practicality for justice practitioners and organizations, as I think we did in that POP article I sent you, as well as address ideas like insight mediation, therapeutic jurisprudence, and others.

From: Pepinsky, Harold E. [mailto:pepinsky@indiana.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 11:52 AM
To: DeValve, Michael
Subject: intersubjective mindfulness/interbeing: I think I've got it

It didn't take me long to find that "relational psychotherapy" is derived from the form of Buddhist practice your mentor Thich Nhat Hanh calls "interbeing," traced at length at http://books.google.com/books?id=2Ldsrt1VwTUC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=intersubjective+mindfulness&source=bl&ots=gAPpvCLypZ&sig=aPViB_DeX3_q1cBGDhAtIGfjdZI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Lf_mULPsE4LkrAGmr4Bo&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=intersubjective%20mindfulness&f=false : an excerpt from Christopher K. Germer, Ronald Siegel and Paul R. Fulton, Relational Psychotherapy, Guilford Press, 2006, ca. p. 90.  They even cite Kabat-Zinn.  So my intuitive google search for intersubjective mindfulness pays off, and in good Buddhist fashion, amounts to facing suffering with empathy and compassion.  Even though I resist categories and labels, I confess it's nice to find that my thinking belongs with others' rather directly.

Is this the tack you've been taking on mindfulness and mediation all along?  Perhaps we can have a focused chit-chat on skype sometime soon and you can tell me more of your take on the pairing of the two.  l&p

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com, 519 Evergreen Circle, Worthington, OH 43085-3667, 1-614-885-6341