An innovative exploration of the complex interplay between mental processes, bodily reactions, and emotions.
Understanding how the mind works can provide insight into the meaning of various feelings and emotions. Rather than merely grasping empathy on an intellectual level, we can experience how it functions and emerges. By observing the mind, we can uncover how social assumptions and prejudices later filter these reactions. Contemplating the foundations of suffering or empathy can enrich our understanding of the emotional dimensions of how we perceive the world. Additionally, many psycho-social phenomena can be comprehended more deeply through critical-contemplative inquiry from a first-person perspective.
Publication date: August 7, 2026
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction
1 My Choice: Being Faithful to the Event
2 Content of the Book
Part 1: Self-Description with Reflection on Self and the World
1 Crossing Borders, Not Closing Them: the First-Person Perspective in Sociological Research
1 Introduction
2 But the Other One I Want to Understand Might Be Me
3 A/ Autoethnography
4 B/ Contemplative Studies 5 C/ Transformational Phenomenology Research
6 Theoretical Contemplation of First-Person Research Approaches
7 Summary and Conclusions
Part 2: Working with the Mind and Body
2 Phenomenological and Interactional Interpretations of Corporality and Intersubjectivity in Hatha Yoga
1 Introduction
2 I Practice Hatha Yoga in Yoga Session: Self-Report with Contemplative Reflection
3 Interpretation
4 Conclusions
3 Who Am I When I Am Teaching? Self in Yoga Practice
1 Introduction
2 Self-Observations and Their Self-Analysis
3 “Self-Observation/Self-Report – Krzysztof T. Konecki – January 28, 2020; Conducting a Session
4 A Note Summarizing the Main Topic of the above Session: “Concentration on Instructions and the Transfer of Technical Knowledge”
5 Need for a Response, Need for Interaction
6 Individual Practice and the Teacher as a Participant
7 Individual Practice
8 “Me as a Participant”
9 Conclusions
4 Can You Stop Your Mind and Your Daily Activities? An Analysis of Meditation in Yoga Practice
1 Introduction
2 What Is Meditation?
3 Preparation for Meditation
4 Meditation as a Challenge: Pain, Negative Emotions, and Sleepiness
5 Self-Knowledge
6 The Course of Meditation – Racing Thoughts, Visions, Achieving Peace
7 Effortlessness
8 Self-Perception
9 Perception of the World: Changes in Perception of Being in the World
10 The Effects of Meditation: Reflections Afterward
11 Learning to Be in Meditation
12 Conclusions
Part 3: Applying Contemplation to Understand Suffering
5 Empathy! So What?
1 Instead of Introduction. Contemplative Memo
2 Empathy …
3 The Method
4 Contemplative Experiment
5 Explication of Results
6 Theorizing Empathy
7 Conclusions
6 A Contemplative Sociologist Looks at War
1 Introduction
2 A Contemplative Explication of a Witness from a Neighboring Country
3 My Contemplative Coda
4 Communicating with Opponents regarding my Perceptions of the War
5 Conclusions
Conclusions
Index