Description
Encounters with nonhuman animals (hereafter “animals”) who show subjectivities can pull at humans’ heartstrings. I would call this “feeling animals’ subjectivities.” This emotional involvement in encounters with animals can leadto genuine concern for them. Thus, many scholars appeal for us to feel animals’
subjectivities. It sounds as if we can easily feel animals’ subjectivities as long as
we are willing to do so. However, many thoughts (e.g., exanimate knowledge
about animals, stereotypes about animals, and matters that occupy human’s
limited attention) can deflect us away from our feelings, and thus make it difficult to feel animals’ subjectivities. The practice of mindfulness meditation is a general way to move away from the thinking mind. Thus, it probably can be used to promote feeling animals’ subjectivities.
This project stemmed from my personal problems: (1) being hindered by the
thinking mind from feeling animals’ subjectivities, and (2) being unable to
appreciate animals’ positive experiences because of the opposite effect of the
desire to appreciate. However, the value of this project went beyond my personal
development. I aimed to organise and report my experiences of dealing with my
personal problems for others to use as references.
I took one form of autoethnography as the methodology — writing personal
experiences with referencing others’ research, not only to improve the personal
life, but also to inspire readers to consider and deal with their own lives — this
matched my aim. In this project, I autoethnographically explored two questions:
(1) What difficulties or perplexities did I encounter in practising mindfulness
meditation to promote feeling dogs’ subjectivities, and what enlightenment did I
get? (2) How could I solve the problem caused by the desire that destroyed my
appreciation of dogs’ positive experiences? I focused on dogs in this project
because humans are relatively familiar with their behavioural expressions. This
allowed me to conduct this initial exploration without worrying that I might be
unable to feel the subjectivity of the animal I chose, no matter how much I
practised mindfulness meditation.
The main enlightenment or key findings I got in this project can be summed
up in four points: (1) the possible roles of mindfulness meditation in Locke’s
motivational sequence; (2) the meaning of “moving away from thinking” and a
first-hand understanding of non-doing in the process of moving away from
thinking; (3) the importance of the relaxed state in feeling animals’ subjectivities; (4) three non-striving understandings of appreciation, which were helpful in dealing with the problems caused by desires to appreciate.
This project provided my experiences of promoting feeling animals’
subjectivities by practising mindfulness meditation. It took a practical step
forward than simple appeal, and provided people with practical information on
how they might promote feeling animals’ subjectivities, and how they might
overcome the opposite effect of desires to appreciate animals’ positive
experiences. This might help people to feel animals’ subjectivities and
appreciate animals’ positive experiences, which might lead to genuine concern
for animals. In addition, its focus on a positive topic brought new blood to
autoethnographic studies, which always seemed to focus on something negative,
such as racism, bullying, death, and diseases
| Period | 13 Dec 2022 |
|---|---|
| Examinee | Zhuoyuan Zhang |
| Examination held at |
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| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Mindfulness