Rhonda Magee, Law Professor Using Mindfulness to Defeat Bias
Rhonda Magee, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, discusses her journey with mindfulness and its application in law and combating bias. She explores how mindfulness and compassion can address societal polarization and help individuals respond wisely to conflict.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Listener Question: Mindfulness in Schools for Stress
Listener Question: Integrating Meditation with Prayer
Rhonda Magee's Personal Journey to Meditation
Defining 'Liberation' Through Meditation Practice
Experiences of Bias and Discrimination in Professional Spaces
Rhonda Magee's Current Work: Law, Mindfulness, and Social Justice
Mindfulness and Compassion in the Face of Madness and Fear
Explanation of Mindfulness vs. Loving Kindness Meditation
The Benefit of Loving Kindness for Personal and Collective Suffering
Optimism for Scaling Mindfulness Practices for Social Change
Research on Meditation and Reduction of Bias
How the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) Works
The 'Whiteness' and Male Orientation of the Mindfulness Field
Expanding Accessibility of Mindfulness Practices
5 Key Concepts
Sangha
A Buddhist term for a practice community where individuals gather to sit together and learn principles and practices that support deeper awareness and compassion.
Cognitive Behavioral Freedom
Rhonda Magee's definition of liberation, referring to the capacity to create a space between stimulus and response, allowing one to choose how to react to the world rather than being automatically led by external factors.
Mindfulness Meditation
A practice focused on observing the breath and noticing when the mind becomes distracted. The act of noticing the distraction is considered the core victory of the practice, indicating awareness.
Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta)
A practice where one consciously cultivates the capacity to sense and soften distress in the body, creating spaciousness around the experience and fostering a desire for well-being for oneself and others.
Implicit Associations Test (IAT)
An online test that measures unconscious biases by assessing the speed with which individuals associate different types of human faces or groups with various positive or negative terms.
8 Questions Answered
Yes, introducing mindfulness in schools is a great idea; when taught correctly in a public school context, it is secular, scientifically validated, and beneficial for young people.
Yes, meditation practice can help turn down the volume on random discursive thinking, which can make one's prayer life more robust and focused.
For Rhonda Magee, it means having the lived experience of not being led around by external stimuli, creating a space between stimulus and response, and being at the center of one's own life.
Mindfulness, especially loving kindness practice, helps to still one's fearful heart, prevent contraction and 'othering,' and expand the capacity to imagine common humanity, allowing for engagement from a place of non-reactivity.
Preliminary research indicates that meditators show less implicit bias, and loving kindness practices specifically may help minimize bias against certain groups, though more extensive research is needed to confirm these findings.
The IAT can be found online by searching for 'IAT implicit associations test harvard.edu,' and it is widely accessible.
The field in America was largely established by a specific group of mostly white and Jewish teachers, leading to a disproportionately white population in meditation centers and research.
To achieve widespread adoption and benefits, the field needs to find ways to make practices much more accessible to people from diverse backgrounds, including those who may view it as 'crazy' or recent immigrants.
19 Actionable Insights
1. Cultivate Loving Kindness
When feeling distress, consciously practice loving kindness meditation to sense into physical tension, create spaciousness, and soften reactivity. This cultivates a desire for well-being for yourself and others.
2. Reduce Personal Suffering
Utilize mindfulness to reduce personal suffering by stilling a fearful heart and countering the tendency to contract or ‘other’ others. This practice allows you to consciously choose not to react from fear or triggers, thereby stopping the creation of more pain.
3. Practice Basic Mindfulness
Practice basic mindfulness by focusing on your breath, and when your mind wanders, notice the distraction without judgment and gently return your attention to the breath. This process cultivates self-awareness and helps you see you’re not owned by your thoughts.
4. Cultivate Cognitive Freedom
Cultivate cognitive freedom through mindfulness to create a space between stimulus and response. This practice enables you to choose how you respond to the world instead of being pulled by external stimuli.
5. Decondition Biased Urges
Once you become aware of biased urges and impulses through mindfulness, consciously stop blindly feeding them. This practice can lead to deconditioning these urges, making them less likely to arise over time.
6. Increase Bias Awareness
Practice mindfulness to become more aware of your own biases and urges, such as racist or homicidal impulses. This awareness allows you to observe these thoughts and let them pass, rather than being owned by them.
7. Daily Devotional Centering Practice
Dedicate time before dawn for personal devotional centering practices, similar to Rhonda’s grandmother. This routine provides inner support for whatever one might do for the rest of the day.
8. Integrate Meditation into Prayer
Integrate meditation into your prayer life to make it more robust. Meditation can help turn down the volume on random discursive thinking, allowing for more focused prayer.
9. Join a Practice Community
Join a practice community, also known as a sangha, to deepen your understanding of meditation and support your journey. Practicing in community can be quite supportive and foster connectedness with other people.
10. Integrate Contemplative Professional Practices
Integrate contemplative practices like mindfulness and compassion into your professional identity development. This can enhance skillfulness, helping you become a wise counselor and deal well with conflicts in your field.
11. Address Bias with Mindfulness
Apply mindfulness and compassion practices to discern and address bias more effectively. This approach helps in dealing with prejudice through and in law.
12. Create Grounded Learning Space
Create a spacious and grounded environment when teaching or learning, allowing participants to center themselves and disconnect from distractions. This subtle approach helps in focusing on the material.
13. Introduce Mindfulness in Schools
Introduce mindfulness and meditation coursework in school settings to help students cope with stress. It is a secular and scientifically validated practice that can be beneficial for young people.
14. Take Implicit Bias Test
Take the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) at harvard.edu to gain insight into your own implicit biases. This 10-12 minute online test can reveal patterns in how your mind operates in ways you might not explicitly recognize.
15. Adopt Long-Term Change View
Adopt a long-term perspective on societal change, understanding that deep-seated problems won’t be solved overnight. Continuously practice and expand mindfulness within communities to contribute to a gradual shift towards collective sanity.
16. Expand Mindfulness Accessibility
Actively work to expand the accessibility of mindfulness practices to diverse populations, including non-white communities, recent immigrants, and English language learners. This ensures broader viability and impact beyond current demographics.
17. Elevate Diverse Mindfulness Voices
Utilize existing platforms to elevate diverse voices and teachers in the mindfulness space. This strategy helps reach groups that might not be accessible through current, often overrepresented, demographics.
18. Incentivize Pro-Social Mindfulness Research
Advocate for and incentivize research into the social applications of mindfulness and compassion practices. Encourage PhD students and neuroscientists to explore how these practices can impact education, policing, healthcare, and public health interventions, moving beyond solely personal effectiveness.
19. Submit Podcast Questions
Call 646-883-8326 to leave a voicemail with your questions for the podcast. It’s possible your question will be played and answered on the show.
4 Key Quotes
I don't want to be a part of the pain, creating more pain in the world for myself or for others.
Rhonda Magee
Your compassion is a muscle, and you're working that muscle.
Dan Harris
If you look closely, you will see a murderer and a rapist.
Stephen Batchelor (quoted by Dan Harris)
It's almost certainly a benefit. And it is a birthright of all of us, not just something that's available to all of us.
Dan Harris
1 Protocols
Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta) Practice
Dan Harris- Consciously cultivate the capacity to sense into the tightness or pain of distress in the body.
- Create some spaciousness around that experience.
- Soften the tendency of whatever reactivity might be experienced in the moment.
- Remind and re-embody oneself in the sense of desire for well-being for oneself and for others.
- Systematically envision specific people: start with yourself, then a benefactor, a dear friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, and finally all beings.