Flexible strategies to develop a contemplative perspective in Higher Education.

This paper aims to share my experience of integration of contemplative practices in HED begun in 1998 at the University of Torino. Firstly, I will make a short reference to the types of courses, duration and kind of experience offered to students. Secondly, I will show how these practices are linked up by a common thread as experiential methods of contemplative knowledge. In fact, in some courses I mixed contemplative practices with specific research tools of the social sciences such as journal or observation at the workplace and others. In general, such programs could open the door for student’s personal change depending, among other variables, on the mix between their cognitive and experiential dimensions. Finally, I wish also to underline their value for research. As contemplative practices could be interpreted as methods of knowing ourselves and the world around us, there is room for a deep re-definition of first person methods in human and life sciences.