A Report on Emotional Education for Young Children: THE PATHS SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM WITH REFLECTIONS ON FELT BODILY EXPERIENCE AND BUDDHIST PRINCIPLES By Michael S. Drummond msdrummond49@yahoo.com Abstract This report focuses on the PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) social-emotional education curriculua for preschool and elementary school students developed in the 1990s, by Dr. Mark Greenberg and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA. In considering Greenberg’s discussion of the PATHS program with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the article first offers a brief Buddhist context for emotion education. Of interest is that the PATHS curriculum also uses the concept of “feelings that arise in the body” and so in the later part of the article I draw out the implications of this concept in my discussion on the nature of bodily experienced emotions. In this discussion, I also give reference to developments in Humanistic Psychology, Neuropsychology and Buddhist mindfulness meditation. Introduction 1 The Buddhist view of human suffering is based on the habit of craving (tanhā).1 In Buddhist psychology, craving is the foundation of all negative emotional habits: greed, worry, jealousy, anger, aversion, hate, fear, passion, etc. Although craving is the basis of all negative emotions, it also cannot be separated from them. So when one works to reduce craving, all other negative emotional habits are likewise reduced, and vise-versa: when one works to reduce various negative emotional habits, craving is also reduced.2 Buddhism says that these habits are developed from early childhood onwards (MN.I.432-3)3 The Palī Suttas (Discourses of the Buddha) have many passages that analyze craving in various ways, for example, the Buddha said that due to craving, Kings quarrel with kings, rich with rich, monks with monks, householders with householders; mother quarrels with child, child with mother, father with child, child with father; brother quarrels with brother, brother with sister, sister with brother, friend with friend. Then men take swords and shields and buckle on bows and quivers, and they charge into battle massed in double array with arrows and spears flying and swords flashing; and there they are wounded by arrows and spears, and their heads are cut off by swords, whereby they incur death or deadly suffering (MN.I.86-7). On the other hand, it is well known that Buddhist Vipassanā meditation is effective in taking out craving and interconnected negative emotional habits. Indeed the Buddha gained awakening by the mindful observation of bodily feelings (DN.1.17).4 But we see in the suttas that the Buddha said it took him many lifetimes to get to the point to root out all habits of craving. 2 We do not know if there is such a thing as past or future lives, but the real point is that it takes a lot of ‘inner work’ to become free of negative emotional habits. But what if our schools could teach young children emotional intelligence, that is teach them to avoid developing deep levels of negative emotional habits. It seems that this would be, overall, in accordance with Buddhist views. Also this would help students to have a more wholesome and fulfilling life; if later in their lives these children began to practice meditation or participate in counseling or therapy, they would start from a higher level of purification and be able to root out deeper levels of negativities. It is for these reasons that, in this article, I give an overview of the pioneering school-based program known as PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies). I have chosen the PATHS program due to its wide use and its ability to benefit children across various categories of negative emotional habits. Moreover, PATHS is both a preschool and an elementary social-emotional curriculum and as such it is comprehensive. Moreover, the studies on its efficacy indicate that it successfully teaches students, when taught three times a week at 20 to 30 minutes per class, to identify and defuse negative or difficult emotions. I will close this introduction with mention of one of many outcome studies. This particular 2004-5 study followed 114 students from five schools in Hampshire County, UK. Of the five, four were pre-schools and one was a primary school. At the time of the study, these schools had been 3 using the PATHS program for three years. This study measured students across five categories: 1. Emotional Symptoms, 2. Conduct Problems, 3. Hyperactivity/Inattention, 4. Peer Problems, 5. Pro-social Behavior. The results were positive, showing statistically significant positive change across these five categories, in the students in the study.5 With this example, let us now directly consider the PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) program. The PATHS Program The concept of emotional intelligence was popularized in Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, wherein he shows that people can develop intelligence about the nature of their emotions and how to protect themselves against their own negative emotional reactions. But starting in the mid-1980s psychologists were at work developing emotional education programs (Greenberg et al., 1995: 119). One of these leading programs, PATHS, was co-created by Dr. Mark Greenberg6 and Carol Kusche; it is a social-emotional education curriculum. More recently, Greenberg and colleagues have created a PATHS preschool program (Domitrovich et al., 2007).7 This program leads into the PATHS elementary school program. Greenberg et al., 1995: 117 explains that children in the PATHS program learn to integrate emotion, thought and behavior (ibid.: 118). In Riggs et al., 2006, Greenberg explains that children usually are not able to talk about their emotions and so are more ‘reactive’, i.e., they act on their negative emotions without considering the consequences. Herein lies 4 a significant part of the reason it is important to use educational methodologies to help children to develop their emotional intelligence, so that they can begin to integrate, the emotion and objective reasoning. This then can result in more balanced, less harmful behavior. In his dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama (at the 8th Mind and Life Conference), Greenberg goes back to the importance of the mother-child relation in the raising of children. Research findings show that “when parents help their young children, including infants, to cope with negative emotions such as strong desire, anger or sadness, their children develop better regulation of their emotions and show more positive behavior” (Goleman, 2006). Unfortunately there are also parents who react negatively (with anger or indifference) to the emotional states of their young children. Obviously they do not understand their children’s emotional behavior, and so the children grow up lacking, in various degrees, healthy home taught emotional development. Greenberg notes that, When parents ignore or punish infants for showing these emotions … over time, children, knowing that certain emotions can’t be shared [with mother and father], shut down [suppress their emotions]. This makes a child overstressed, both physiologically and psychologically, because the emotion is still there, and it puts an obstacle in the way of developing a basic trust between the child and adults. Mary Ainsworth’s observations of infants and their mothers identified such patterns. By one year of age, some 5 infants will avoid contact with the mother rather than go to her when they are upset and distressed (ibid.). Children create negative emotional habits to protect themselves from parents who are not skilled in understanding emotions. Greenberg also tells us that infants are negatively affected when their mothers lack well-being: mothers who suffer from depression pass this on to their children. As these children grow up, they often have higher levels of aggression and depression than normal(Dawson et al., 1999). This means that early childhood emotion education actually begins with the mother working to keep her own emotions healthy; this is in harmony with Buddhist teachings. However there is a need for professional assistance as adults are often not aware of their emotional health. The implications are clear: the optimum situation is that students receive social-emotional education so that they develop an adequate background in emotional intelligence to limit the amount of negative emotional habits that they absorb. Unfortunately, when parents do not understand the importance of their child’s emotional life, the children often develop behavior problems in school. The student will under-perform in her or his studies. Young students who display impulsive anger and other negative reactions to various school situations are actually showing us that they are having problems understanding their emotions at the logical, rational, thinking level; they are not skillful at using their rational abilities to logically project or “plan ahead,” i.e., ‘what will be the result if I hit this person, or take this person’s bag?’ This is one of the key areas that the PATHS curriculum works to 6 develop: alternative, emotionally cognizant, socially harmonious thinking strategies. This begins with the student being able to identify her or his emotional states and to be able to disengage from them. Such ability then acts as a brake, inhibiting the habit to follow an impulsive emotional state to the extremes of fight or flight: Children who have good planning skills and are aware of their emotions by the time they are five or six, are at much lower risk for … having problems of aggression and anxiety disorders (Goleman, 2006) Consequently, if schools become involved in teaching emotional education, practical emotional knowledge can develop in the same way as mathematical knowledge through the teaching of math. How is this done? The PATHS elementary curriculum teaches the identification of 35 emotions, while the PATHS preschool curriculum teaches 11 emotions. The teaching of these emotions is integrated with the development of emotionally cognizant thinking strategies. How do we think about the emotion that is now affecting us? How do we experience it? How do we defuse it? These are issues of using logical and rational analysis to assist in maintaining emotional balance. As schools in general teach children how to think, it is possible to go further and teach children how to think strategically about the emotional states that they experience from day to day. They also regularly see others experiencing such emotions and learn 7 how to work with emotions so their situations do not become negatively inclined. For these reasons the PATHS programs are multi-modal or multi- skill teaching across various domains of emotion and social competency. One of the basic structures the mature human personality is self-control. This becomes all the more important with the awareness and understanding of one’s currently arising emotions, as self-control and emotional awareness will tend towards integration, a self-control that is consciously in control over destructive emotions. This then serves for the development of “peer-related social skills” and the ability to extricate oneself from unhealthy social, peer-related situations (cf. Bierman et al., 1999: 649). Five aspects of emotional education The PATHS curriculum is for pre-school and elementary school environments, as the PATHS elementary curriculum has been adapted for pre-school settings (Domitrovich et al., 2007: 83). Both curriculua are concerned with reducing “children’s aggressive, disruptive, and withdrawn behavior” while also developing their ability to identify and work with emotions in themselves (ibid., 69). In the PATHS curriculum there are five important aspects in teaching competence. (1) Students, when excited with negative emotions, learn how to recognize them [the cues or characteristics of the emotions] and calm down; (2) They develop the ability to see emotional states that other students are affected by; (3) They learn to talk about one’s current emotional experience; (4) They develop the ability to 8 plan ahead: this helps the student to learn how to stay away from situations that cause negative emotions. It also helps the student to come out of an emotion with the least delay; (5) Students develop the skill of seeing how our emotional behavior impacts other people (Goleman, 2006). This last skill helps to develop the student’s empathy towards other people - a PATHS student will learn that his or her anger will negatively affect other students; so PATHS students learn to work with these five tools for defusing emotion. Greenberg et al., 1995: 123-4 notes several other important teaching points of the PATHS program:  That emotions (happy/sad, sad/mad, love/anger) cannot arise simultaneously.  Students learn that emotions can be hidden, instead of showing them in a difficult situation. They learn how to develop this skill.  Students learn that feelings can change, they are not permanent.8 Findings in Greenberg et al., 1995 shows that the intervention training of the PATHS elementary curriculum results in the students developing, in somewhat less than a full school year, a systematic foundation in the PATHS curriculum. Domitrovich et al., 2007, as is mentioned below, had similar findings for the PATHS preschool curriculum. Students developed a range of emotion related vocabulary while developing the ability To provide appropriate personal examples of the experience of basic feelings [while developing an understanding] that they can hide, manage, and change their feelings, and understand cues for recognizing feelings in others (p. 131). 9 The Therapeutic Value of Felt Bodily Experience The PATHS curriculum teaches students how to understand, at the thinking level, their emotions and the impact of these emotions; this facilitates not acting on negative emotions. A second method of negative emotion ‘therapy’ is also used in the PATHS curriculum and it has important ramifications. This is the teaching of the awareness of emotion-related feelings that “arise inside our body.” We would like to ask here, just what does this mean? Greenberg has said that the PATHS elementary curriculum teaches that “feelings are important signals. They can arise inside our body … and … provide very important information (Goleman, 2006).” He likewise mentions that the PATHS curriculum teaches the students that such feelings “should be investigated.” Similarly Domitrovich, Greenberg’s colleague who works with the PATHS preschool curriculum, says that “teachers are encouraged to foster children's awareness of the bodily experiences of emotions”. I assume that these two statements are referring to the same phenomenon. In Domitrovich’s case, the teaching of the “the bodily experiences of emotions” is a “standard part” of each chapter or lesson wherein an emotion is taught, and the PATHS pre-school program teaches 11 emotions.9 These statements have important implications and their methodological or conceptual aspects need more drawing out than what is found in the PATHS outcome studies. For example, Greenberg, 1995: 125 10 and 133 briefly refers to bodily experience of emotion: “inner feelings might be different” and “inner states of feelings,” while in Riggs et al., 2006: 4, there is mention of “comfortable or uncomfortable feelings.” None of these statements provide any explanation of what this implies, or how to understand these phenomena.10 There is ambiguity in how the literature uses the term, ‘feelings.’ For example, Domitrovich et al., 2007: 74, seems to use the term ‘feelings’ as emotions and ‘feelings’ as bodily experienced emotion. It is the perspective of this article that they are not the same.11 For example they say that happy, sad, scared and mad are feelings. It is clear from the context that this refers to mental emotions, and not feelings that arise inside our bodies. Greenberg et al. 1995: 122-3 states, “The unit also includes instruction on such issues as cues for recognition of feelings in oneself and in others.” Here it appears that the first mention of “feelings in oneself” could refer to feelings in the body, rather than to an emotion. On the other hand, when referring to feelings “in others,” it seems that this refers to emotions, not bodily feelings. Page 123 then explains that when measuring the children for understanding of emotional states, the “children were asked to define five complex feelings (proud, guilty, jealous, nervous/anxious, and lonely).” Again, this appears to be using the term ‘feeling’ as an emotion rather than a “bodily experienced emotion” or a felt bodily experience. This is confirmed a few lines below wherein the measurements are given: a score of 1 if their answers were correct but concrete or idiosyncratic “(e.g., for 11 proud: “when you do something right”), or a score of 2 for responses that were correct but less idiosyncratic (e.g., for proud: pleased with yourself when you accomplish something”). Both examples appear to use the term ‘feelings’ as referring to emotions. Similar examples are found on page 124, and in less detail in Riggs et al., 1999: 651. I suggest that in the actual PATHS curriculum materials we will find more comprehensive teaching about bodily experiences of emotions than what is found in the literature.12 It also seems likely that if the PATHS students are learning to be aware of their felt bodily experience when they are confronted with difficult emotions, then they are learning, at least indirectly, that the purposeful awareness of bodily feelings, when in a strong emotion, is an important tool to help one get free from that emotion. Bodily sensations as a tool in emotional healing is something that Humanistic Psychology has long utilized. The role of bodily feelings in emotion is also a focus of noted research in Neuropsychology. Likewise bodily feelings as a cause of negative emotional habits and bodily feelings as a tool to be free from such negative habits, is a central aspect of Buddhist meditation. It is my view that the information acquired in these three disciplines also is pertinent for the PATHS programs. For example, as PATHS students progress in their training, they would understand, perhaps through guided investigation,13 that some emotions, such as fear and anger, have unpleasant feelings while other emotions, such as happiness and passion, have pleasant sensations. They would also learn that the strength of the unpleasant (and the pleasant) feelings reduces as and when they are 12 observed with awareness (Gendlin, 1964: 12). Along with this they could also progress, perhaps at a more mature age, to seeing and understanding that the bodily experienced negative emotions can be separated from the negative thinking component of the emotion and that when that is done, both phenomena disintegrate (Drummond, 2006: 121). I have now examined aspects of the PATHS programs that are related to feelings and so I wish to briefly consider the experience of inner bodily feelings as discussed in Humanistic Psychology, Neuropsychology and Palī Buddhism, as represented, respectively, by A.R. Damasio, E.T. Gendlin, and the Buddhist Palī language suttas, or Discourses of the Buddha. 13 Discussion: PATHS, Psychology, Neuro-psychology, Buddhist psychology and Bodily Feelings Domitrovich et al., 2007 reports that their nine-month long clinical trial of the preschool PATHS curriculum, which was adapted from the elementary school level PATHS curriculum (c.f., Greenberg et al., 1995), showed positive results. Student assessments were gathered at the beginning and end of the school year, a period of nine months. The results of the trial show that the preschool students in the PATHS program developed skills in what Domitrovich et al. call “emotion knowledge.” Moreover, teachers and parents saw that the children were more skillful in social situations (“socially competent”) than the control group, and by the end of the school year, they were more socially active as compared with the control group who were more socially withdrawn. They explain: The results of this randomized clinical trial of the Preschool PATHS program suggest that … teachers can effectively deliver a universal curriculum and improve children’s emotional knowledge, self-regulation, social interaction level and social skills in less than one preschool year … The findings provide preliminary support for the adapted version of the elementary [school level] PATHS Curriculum. But as was noted earlier, Domitrovich also stated that the preschool PATHS program has standardized the teaching of awareness of the bodily experience of emotion, while Greenberg has likewise introduced the 14 awareness of feelings in the body in the PATHS elementary school program. It is the hypothesis of this article that the ability to be consciously aware of bodily feelings is a very important skill in the gaining and protecting of emotional health and so also it must be seen as an important component of social-emotional education. Why is this so? To explain, I will take examples from three disciplines: 1. Neuropsychology’s understanding of bodily feelings as represented by the work of A.R. Damasio, 2. Humanistic Psychology’s Focusing Therapy, also known as Experiential Therapy, 3. Palī Buddhist Studies as seen in the Palī language Discourses of the Buddha (suttas). The work of A.R. Damasio has led the way in neuropsychology in explaining the function of bodily feelings in decision making, while the work of E.T. Gendlin has shown, in both his theoretical and practical work, how bodily feeling is a basis of meaning (his philosophical work, titled, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning) and how it can also be the basis of effective psychotherapy (his practical work, titled, Focusing). When looking at the Buddhist Suttas, we see that bodily feelings are seen as the basis of the self as well as the base of negative emotional habits. On the other hand, and pertinent to our discussion, awareness of bodily feelings is a major mindfulness technique that dissolves the deepest of negative habit. 15 Felt Bodily Experience in Neuro-psychology It is interesting that the PATHS curriculum of social-emotional education emphasizes the knowledge and experience of bodily feelings. But exactly what are these feelings that manifest on or in the body? Damasio argues that bodily feelings have evolved over time (Damasio, 1999) to be the basis of advantageous decision making (Bechara et al., 1997), and that this is intricately connected to the functioning of the self (Damasio, 1999), thus both advantageous decision making and the functioning of the self are connected to emotional experience. I will illustrate this: the experience of anger at something or someone who is putting me in danger is felt on the body prior to its conscious manifestation as thought. The biological or evolutionary purpose of the bodily experience of anger is to prepare for protective action ahead of the [slower] creation of a conscious strategy to deal with the problem. In the case of an ancient nomad dealing with an animal, or a member from a hostile tribe in a jungle, the time saved by acting [i.e., deciding] on the bodily felt experience could easily have been the difference between life or death (ibid.). Considering this, it is understandable that bodily feelings are intricately connected to the human sense of self. Felt Bodily Experience in Experiential Psychotherapy As important as Damasio’s findings are, he has not, so far as I know, considered the therapeutic effect of awareness of bodily sensations. It was the pioneering philosophical and therapeutic work of E.T. Gendlin,14 16 formalized in his 1978 book, Focusing,15 that showed the way of systematically utilizing, through his ‘direct reference’ and ‘handle’ techniques, awareness of bodily feelings in emotion regulation and the deconstructing of negative emotional habits. He shows that amidst a negative emotion, these feelings, which are different from but closely related to emotions, can be manipulated in such a way that an emotion is defused and deconstructed. Gendlin’s direct reference/handle technique16 allows for this defusing and also facilitates the process to reach deeper and deeper levels of neutralizing the emotion’s root. It is important to note that Gendlin found that the more a person observes the bodily feeling associated with a negative emotional situation, the more the unpleasant tone or quality of the feeling decreases (Gendlin, 1964: 12).17 Let us now move to the next section that considers how the Palī language suttas understand the basic aspects of bodily felt experience. Felt Bodily Experience and Buddhist psychology The psychology system that is found in the Palī Suttas, is about 2400 years old. The Discourses of the Buddha (suttas), shows the Buddha getting awakened by the mindful observation of bodily feelings or sensations (DN.1.36).18 The suttas show that bodily feelings are generated when ever there is sense cognition with the sense objects of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue body and mind.19 Therefore, we can see that a feeling flows on the body when the mind comes in contact with a sense object and this feeling 17 then conditions the manifestation of an emotion. Thinking is one part of this emotion. It is stated as follows: Dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one thinks about20 [it is here that the emotion begins to man. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates. With what one has mentally proliferated as the source, perceptions and notions tinged by mental proliferation beset a man with respect to past, future, and present forms cognizable through the eye (MN.1.111- 112). Buddhism sees bodily feeling as the bridge which connects mind with body while the feelings are said to have three basic qualities: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.21 I will now present five passages from the suttas so that the reader can better understand the depth of analysis that Buddhism has given to understanding bodily feelings. Passages 1 and 2 reflect the purification of negative emotional habits through awareness of feelings that arise in the body. Passages 3 and 4 assert that craving is the basis of negative emotional habits while also being the basis of the human personality. Passage 5 shows that the basis of craving is bodily feeling. 18 The body, feelings and knowing feelings: 1. This body … is old kamma/karma,22 to be seen as generated and fashioned by volitional forces, as something to be felt (vedaniya)” (SN.II.64-5, adapted from Bodhi 2000). Analysis: This is an interesting statement. I interpret it to mean, at a minimum, that the body is impacted by our emotional habits. The dissolution of these habits is through being aware the bodily feelings, i.e., of one’s bodily felt experience.23 2. Just as many diverse winds blow back and forth across the sky … so in this very body … various kinds of feelings arise, pleasant ones, and unpleasant ones, and those neither unpleasant nor pleasant. Having fully understood feelings in their entirety, the practitioner is awakened in this very life (SN.IV.218, ibid.). Analysis: This passage supports my interpretation of the first passage. It is very direct in its statement that the body is the field on which the feelings play out their role. This passage also makes a strong assertion that the full knowledge of feelings and their characteristics results or is equal to, awakening. With reflection on other suttas, it is clear that the “full understanding of feelings” refers to understanding the role that bodily feelings play in the establishment and growth of all emotional habits. Conversely, the same the mindful observation of bodily feelings results in the deconstruction of all negative emotional habits. 19 Here the suttas explain the relation between craving and the personality: 3. How does the Blessed One explain the origin of personality? ‘Friend the Blessed One explains the origin of the personality as craving … it is accompanied by delight and lust: delights in this and that; that is, craving for sensual pleasures (including the craving to escape from unpleasant experience)’ (MN.I.299, ibid.). Here the passage shows the relation between feelings and craving: 4. A pleasant feeling arises in an untaught ordinary person. Touched by that pleasant feeling, he craves after pleasure and continues to lust after pleasure. Then that pleasant feeling … ceases. With the cessation of the pleasant feeling, an unpleasant feeling arises. Touched by that unpleasant feeling, he sorrows, grieves and laments [and wishes for the pleasant feeling to return] (MN.I.239, ibid.). Here is shown the relation between suffering and craving: 5. And what is the origin of stress, unsatisfactoriness and unpleasant emotional experience (suffering)? It is craving … 20 and it is accompanied by delight and lust. [suffering also originates from a desire to escape from the unpleasant]. (MN.I.48-49, adapted from Ñāṇamoli, 1995). Analysis of passages 3, 4, and 5: These passages show the relationship between  Craving and the development of the personality  Between craving and bodily feelings  Between craving and human suffering. When thinking of the human situation, these three passages are interlocking and when one is examined, the other two are implicated. 21 Conclusion I have given a brief overview of the PATHS social-emotional education curriculum with reference to certain Buddhist concepts, to highlight the benefit that it can give to young students, including those from Buddhist cultural backgrounds. Lastly, I have examined the outcome studies on the PATHS program and found that although there is mention of the therapeutic use of bodily feelings, it is not fully articulated. It is for this reason that I have taken time in the second half of the article, to examine other academic materials that more fully articulate the emotion-related nature of bodily feelings and how observing them in particular ways results in a therapeutic change in the personality. This was done in hopes of deepening the discussion on an important aspect of the effective PATHS program. Abbreviations MN Majjhima Nikāya SN Saṃyutta Nikāya DN Dīgha Nikāya AN Aṅguttara Nikāya Bibliography Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., Damasio, A.R. (1997). ‘Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy,’ Science, 275, pp. 1293–5. Bierman, K.L., Coie, J.D., Dodge, K.A., Greenberg, M.A., Lochman, J.E., McMahon, R.J. & Pinderhughes, E.E. 1999, ‘Initial Impact of the Fast Track Prevention Trial for Conduct Problems: II. Classroom Effects.’ 22 Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 67(5), 648-657. Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans.), 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Summerville, MA: Wisdom. Bowen, S., Parks, G.A., Coumar, A., Marlatt, G.A., 2006. ‘Mindfulness Meditation in the Prevention and Treatment of Addictive Behaviors’. In Buddhist Thought and Applied Psychological Research: Transcending the Boundaries, D.K. Nauriyal, M.S. Drummond & Y.B. Lal (eds), pp. 393– 412. London, RoutledgeCurzon. Damasio, A.R. 1994. Descartes’ Error, New York: Putman’s Damasio, A.R., (1999). The Feeling of What Happens, New York: Harvest. Damasio, A.R. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens. Heinemann: London Dawson, G., Frey, K., Panagiotides, H., Yamada, E., Hessl, D., and Osterling, J. (1999) “Infants of Depressed Mothers Exhibit Atypical Frontal Electrical Brain Activity During Interactions with Mother and with a Familiar, Nondepressed Adult,” Child Development 70, 1058-66. Domitrovich , C.E., Cortes, R.C., Greenberg, M.T. (2007). ‘Improving Young Children’s Social and Emotional Competence: A Randomized Trial of the Preschool “PATHS” Curriculum.’ The Journal of Primary Prevention, Vol. 28, No. 2. Drummond, M.S. (2006). Conceptualizing the Efficacy of Vipassanā Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka. Buddhist Studies Review, 23(1), 113- 30. Gendlin, E.T., (1962/1997). Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Gendlin, E.T., (1982). Focusing. New York: Bantam. 23 Gendlin, E.T., (1964). ‘A Theory of Personality Change’. In Personality Change, P. Worchel & D. Byrne (eds.). London: John Wiley and Sons. Downloaded from www.focusing.org (20 February 2006). Gilpin, R. (2006). The use of Theravāda Buddhist practices and perspectives in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Thesis for Master of Arts in Buddhist Studies. Sunderland, UK, Sunderland University. Goleman, D.J. (2006). Destructive Emotions. In Buddhist Thought and Applied Psychological Research: Transcending the Boundaries, D.K. Nauriyal, M.S. Drummond & Y.B. Lal (Eds.), London, RoutledgeCurzon. Greenberg, M.T., Kusche, C.A., Cook E.T., & Quamma, J.P. (1995). ‘Promoting emotional competence in school-aged children: The effects of the PATHS Curriculum.’ Development and Psychopathology, 7, 117–136. Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu (trans.) & Bhikkhu Bodhi (ed., revision), 1995. The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Riggs, N.R., Greenberg, M.T., Kusche, C.A., & Pentzl, M.A. 2006. ‘The Mediational Role of Neurocognition in the Behavioral Outcomes of a Prevention Program in Elementary School Students: Effects of the PATHS Curriculum.’ Prevention Science, 1389-4986/06 Walshe, M., 1987. The Long Discourses of the Buddha. London: Wisdom Publications 24  This report, concerning the PATHS emotion education curriculums for preschool and elementary students, is inspired by Dr. Mark Greenberg’s dialogue about his PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) social-emotional educational curriculum, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the 8th Mind and Life Conference in Dharamsala, India. This dialogue was recorded by Daniel Goleman in his book, Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, under the section titled, ‘Schooling for the Good Heart.’ This report also considers various academic articles that focus on outcome studies of the PATHS program. Mark Greenberg is the director of the Prevention Research Center and Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Penn State University, USA. The Prevention Research Center aims to promote the well-being of children and youth and to reduce the prevalence of high-risk behaviors and poor outcomes in children, families and communities. 1 When this article refers to Buddhism, it is actually referring to Early Buddhism as represented by the Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. The canonical texts of this Buddhist school are in the Palī language, which is a Sanskrit-based language. All Palī terms, except for proper nouns, have been italicized. Gentium fonts are required for reading the Palī fonts. 2 This is also the implication found in the research of Bowen, S., Parks, G.A., Coumar, A., Marlatt, G.A., 2006. ‘Mindfulness Meditation in the Prevention and Treatment of Addictive Behaviors’. In Buddhist Thought and Applied Psychological Research: Transcending the Boundaries, D.K. Nauriyal, M.S. Drummond & Y.B. Lal (eds), pp. 393–412. London, RoutledgeCurzon. 3 The code, ‘MN.I.432-3’ tells us the collection and page number of the sutta passage. All sutta references are from Majjhima Nikāya, Dīgha Nikāya, Saṃyutta Nikāya and Aṅguttara Nikāya. ‘Nikāya’ is translated as ‘collection’, thus the ‘Majjhima Nikāya’ is translated as the ‘Collection of Middle Length Suttas’, ‘Dīgha Nikāya’ as the ‘Collection of Long Suttas’, ‘Saṃyutta Nikāya’ as the ‘Collection of Connected Suttas’ and ‘Aṅguttara Nikāya’ as the ‘Collection of Numbered Suttas’ ). Next, ‘Majjhima Nikāya’ = ‘MN’, ‘Dīgha Nikāya’ = ‘DN’, ‘Saṃyutta Nikāya’ = ‘SN’ and ‘Aṅguttara Nikāya’ = ‘AN’. The Roman numbers refer to the book and Arabic numbers refer to the page of the original Palī language Nikāyas. This is according to the Pali Text Society pagination system. Therefore, ‘MN.I.432-3’ refers to book I, page 432-3 of the Majjhima Nikāya. 4 I say this based on the various sutta passages that identify the body as the field of feeling (vedanā), as in normal sutta passages there is little or no qualification as to what exactly is ment by feeling. I quote such an explicit sutta passage in the last section of the article. In the last section, I also discuss findings in neuropsychology and Humanistic Psychology that lend substantial credence to the assertion that feelings in Nikāyan psychology can only mean feelings that arise in or on the body. 5 www3.hants.gov.uk/paths-evaluation-review.pdf (February 16, 2009). 6 Greenberg is at Pennsylvania State University in the USA, where he is the director of the Prevention Research Center and Professor of Human Development and Psychology. 7 In general, all descriptions of the PATHS program applies to both PATHS pre-school and PATHS elementary programs. 8 Experiencing the 1st and 3rd is important for not suppressing emotion. 9 In personal email exchange with Dr. Domitrovich on 15 Dec 2008. 10 I also suggest that Greenberg’s mention of feelings that provide “important information” which “can arise inside our body” and Domitrovich’s use of the phrase “bodily experiences of emotions,” can likewise be termed, ‘bodily feelings,’ ‘bodily sensations’ or ‘felt bodily experience.’ 11 I follow E.T. Gendlin’s view of bodily feelings as a “felt sense” and as such see that bodily feelings, what are sometimes termed as “sensations”, to be different from emotion. Gendlin is the initiator of the influential Focusing technique that is intricately connected with emotional intelligence through incorporating the felt sense as its main object of inquiry (Gendlin, E.T. (1998). Foreword. In K. Flanagan, Everyday genius. Focusing on your emotional intelligence, p. 7. Cork: http://www.mindandlife.org/pubde.html Mercier Press/Marino Books). Gendlin’s Focusing Institute says that “Felt sensing is … a dimension of experience which is not emotion and not thought, which is subtle yet concretely felt” (http://www.focusing.org/cornell_three_key_aspects.html). 12 But the actual curriculum is difficult to obtain as it has been licensed to the Channing Bete company. 13 My supposition. 14 Perhaps the main student of Carl Rogers. 15 http://focusing.org/folio_current.asp. December 30, 2008. Gendlin began using the Focusing technique in the late 1960s. Rogers called the Focusing technique “original, innovative and exciting”. (in email correspondence with Dr. Purton Campbell, one of the leading authorities on Focusing and Person Centered Therapy. 16 The direct reference and handle techniques are basically two sides of the same coin, so that in this sentence I do not pluralize the noun ‘technique’. 17 This is also seen in the Palī Buddhist suttas: the mindful awareness of unpleasant feelings must cause the unpleasantness of the feeling to decrease, as it is stated that the observation of bodily sensations results in the gradual freedom from negative emotional habits (see my discussion about the arising of the latent habitual tendencies in Drummond, 2006: 115 and the dissolution of them at page 120). 18 “I, having truly understood the arising and passing away of feelings, their attraction and peril and the deliverance from them, am liberated without remainder” (Adapted from, Walshe, 1987). The Buddha’s chief disciples also gained full awakening by the observation of bodily sensations: c.f., MN.I.500-1, the Dighanakha Sutta, wherein Sāriputta gains awakening by observing felt bodily experience. 19 The suttas (AN.IV.385) say that all intentions and thoughts arise with feelings (saṅkappavitakkā vedanāsamosaraṇā), while other passages (AN.IV.339) show that all mental phenomena arise with feelings (sabbe dhammā vedanāsamosaraṇā). 20 It is here that the emotion begins to manifest. My assertion is based on the structure of the 5 th through to the 9th factors of the 12-factored model of Dependent Origination (DO). Basically, I am suggesting that when the above passage mentions perceiving and thinking this is actually at the special and temporal occurrence of the 8th and 9th factors of DO (DO 8 and 9), the emotions of craving and attachment. 21 This is the same for sense contact through the ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Each has its own object and class of consciousness: the ears, sound, and ear consciousness; the nose, odor and nose consciousness; the tongue, flavor and tongue consciousness, the body, tactile objects and body consciousness; the mind, thought and mind consciousness. When any of these spheres come into contact, a feeling arises and flows on the body. 22 The suttas (AN.III.415) define kamma as intentional behavior (cetanāhaṃ kammaṃ vadāmi). I understand that as meaning emotion-based habit. 23 I draw the reader’s attention to the above discussions on Damasio’s and Gendlin’s work. Both have explicitly, in their various publications, used the word ‘feelings’ to indicate sensations that run through the body and can be ‘felt’ in the body, due to the cognizing of a sense object. The way in which they describe their findings leads us to understand that the Nikāyan discussions on feelings, must always be referring to a bodily experienced sensation or feeling. Moreover, these feelings have an affective aspect or tone to them (mostly being either pleasant or unpleasant) in that they guide the individual to choose one object over another, or one experience over another or one description over another. In following Gendlin as well as the Nikāyan model of Dependent Origination, it is clear that bodily feelings are not emotions. For one thing, emotions are more complex phenomena.