Einstein & Zen : learning to learn /
Einstein and Zen
Conrad P. Pritscher.
- xiv, 242 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
- Counterpoints, v. 384 1058-1634 ; .
- Counterpoints (New York, N.Y.) ; v. 384. .
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Transcending local thought -- Einstein freed himself -- Physics and awareness -- Open inquiry, organizing, and detailing -- Openly Inquiring -- Explorations of consciousness -- Imaginary Einstein-Lorentz letters -- Initial conditions -- Tiptoeing around consciousness -- Beginnings -- Conditions for noticing -- The farther reaches of thought -- Conflicting ideas -- Defining complex conceptions and processes -- Zen -- Leadership and trust -- Unlearning as a condition for open learning -- Twelve stem behaviors -- When precision may waste energy -- Tactics for using mind opening -- About mind opening -- Distinguishing between concepts and the process by which concepts are related -- Generating wonder and curiosity -- From either/or to both/and -- One way to begin teaching teachers -- Another way-Doane's class -- Wanderings of calf -- Zen and Einsteinian mind opener -- Awareness -- More on Zen -- Discontinuities and continuities: Stages of (nonstage) Zen -- Insight generation -- Measuring with FMRI and EEG -- What can be said (about what can't be said) -- Questions about Zen -- Einstein's transcending -- Universal silence = A silent universe -- An Inquirer asks about ways of the way -- Trained but uneducated-Many thats, few hows -- The wisdom of self-direction -- Immeasurables -- Trivial learning -- The plague of presumptuous educators -- Physics, beyond physics, and ''now'' -- You are your own oracle -- Whole parts -- Einsteinian Uncertainties -- "Nothing" Is "In" (or out).
"This book makes a strong case for free schooling, comparing the mind of Albert Einstein - who said much - to Zen conscious practice, which says little but encompasses everything. Examining the work of brain researchers, neuroscientists, physicists, and other scholars to illuminate the commonalities between Einstein's thought and the Zen practice of paying attention to one's present experience, the book reveals their many similarities, showing the development of self-direction as a key to fostering compassionate consideration of others and to harmonious, semi-effortless learning and living. Examples demonstrate that students who choose to study what is interesting, remarkable, and important for them tend to become more like Einstein than students with the rigid school curricula; students who are free to learn often demonstrate empathy, and less rigid rule-following, while involved in the process of imaginatively becoming their own oracles and self-educators."--BOOK JACKET.