Contemplative practices in higher education can reveal and enact intersubjectivity—the shared, relational dimension of experience—creating conditions for transformative learning that affects students' consciousness and their overall journey of transformation. A review of theoretical and research literature on postsecondary contemplative education, combined with qualitative data from graduate students in a contemplative inquiry program, provides evidence that these intersubjective, second-person approaches to learning have transformative potential.
The current mindfulness movement has decontextualized and appropriated mindfulness from its Buddhist foundations, favoring a model that offers objectively verifiable biophysical and mental benefits. Self-transcendence, whether from the perspective of Buddhism or Viktor Frankl's Existential Analysis, offers an existentially viable path forward for college students, in lieu of the current medical-therapeutic paradigm promoted by advocates of mindfulness-based interventions. The authors conclude by considering Existential and Buddhist notions of self-transcendence in dialogue, suggesting they offer an educational practice worthy of implementation.