Getting curious about how we learn, by Rohan Gunatillake
Aug 24, 2023
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Guest Rohan Gunatillake, an expert in learning and mindfulness, discusses three unique approaches to learning: hearing a new idea, analyzing it, and putting it into practice. He emphasizes infusing our studies and mindfulness practice with a sense of play and fun, leading to deeper understanding and skill refinement.
Learning should be infused with a sense of play and fun to enhance skill refinement.
Deep experiential understanding in mindfulness and meditation has transformative power in life.
Deep dives
Learning about Sleep Cove podcast
Sleep Cove is a podcast hosted by Christopher Fitton, a clinical hypnotherapist. The podcast features sleep hypnosis, guided meditations, and bedtime stories aimed at facilitating a restful night's sleep. The episodes take listeners to tranquil settings like tropical beaches and serene canals in Venice. Sleep Cove also includes fairytales and ancient mythological stories. Listeners can find the Sleep Cove podcast on various podcast platforms.
Reflecting on children starting school
The host reflects on how quickly children grow up as his youngest child, Sophia, prepares to start school for the first time. He contrasts her learning style with that of her older brother, Arn, and discusses the emotional significance of this milestone in their lives. Attending a workshop offered by the school, he contemplates the changing landscape of education and considers how learning works in mindfulness and meditation.
Levels of knowledge in mindfulness learning
The host recollects his experience at a meditation center in Myanmar, where he learned about mindfulness from a teacher named Sayadur U Tejania. Tejania shared three levels of knowledge: belief in something taught by an authority, intellectual understanding through reflection, and direct experiential knowing. The host invites listeners to explore the third level by guiding them through a mindfulness practice to observe and soften resistance. He emphasizes the transformative power of this deep experiential understanding in meditation and life.
As he helps his youngest child prepare for her first day of school, Rohan offers us all a chance to practice three unique approaches to learning. Whether we’re hearing a new idea, analyzing that new idea, or putting that idea into practice, the steps laid out in today’s meditation lead us towards deeper understanding. Above all, Rohan suggests infusing our studies, or mindfulness practice, with a sense of play, a sense of fun, which can help us eagerly seek out opportunities to refine our skills.
Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com