Obiter Dicta Issue 5 - October 26, 2015 | Page 27

SPORTS Tuesday, October 27, 2015   27 Blue jays a great start but it’s not as good as incorporating life skills education into law school curricula itself. Some schools, such as the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, have begun to include full term “Mindfulness in Law” course offerings. This too is inspiring, but mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) differs from the life skills education proposed in this essay in two ways. First, MBSR involves selective applications of focus to bring users into the present moment, through body scan techniques for instance, rather than freeing the broader awareness in which all things are apparent, for what they really are, in real time. The subtle difference between them is this: in MBSR participants learn to ride the wave of an ever-changing reality without being attached to the changes, whereas in this transpersonal approach, they learn to identify with a changeless center amidst our ever-changing reality, while also developing the ability to recover from life’s ups and downs and the wisdom to know when and how to intervene therein. In other words, MBSR is but one facet of right brain education. While its impact has been profound, the true work of transformation is even more so. Law students, our clients, and societies deserve nothing else. Paramedics, firefighters, and nursing students across the province seem to agree. Members from each group are participating in a professional development initiative offered by Fodor, in partnership with universities and teaching hospitals across South Ontario. Fodor’s facilitators guide participants through a self-realization process — i ncreasingly at the undergraduate level and for academic credit. The program has 4 pillars: self-acceptance, self-care, selfresponsibility, and self-change. Law schools should draw inspiration from such projects and from administrators who’ve dared to re-conceptualize patient centered care as a process that begins with provider centered growth. » continued from page 17 A Way Forward Lessons in quieting the mind, deep reflection, and being accountable to ourselves, must be explicitly present in the curriculum, rather than offered as optional programming for those with time to spare. What law students need are seminars that engage their right brain faculties, alongside first year criminal, property, tort, contract, and constitutional law. Rather than shortening law school to 2 years, as some have proposed, let us use the immense time and money students presently invest in their third year of school toward a whole brain education. “It’s an act of rebellion to show up as someone trying to be whole and I would add, as someone who believes there is a hidden wholeness beneath the very evident brokenness of our world.”  Parker Palmer Cynicism is a popular affectation, as is false hope. Both are emotional responses to the knowledge that justice, freedom, love, and happiness exist in the world, but are absent from our own lives. These responses function as a kind of learned helplessness that impedes our ability to evolve and innovate. Realism on the other hand, precludes neither a heart-swelling belief in how we might live, nor a heartbreaking understanding of how far away we are from doing so. It asks only that we hold both the wholeness and brokenness of the world in our conscious awareness at the same time. When we do, it is apparent that we have a choice between practicing law in ways that amount to fighting over the broken bits of dying systems, or creating holistic solutions to complex problems by drawing on the design thinking necessary to resolve twenty-first century challenges. Complex problems, however, tend to have paradoxical solutions. And living in paradox requires using both sides of our brain.  u be named later (Ryan Thompson) on 27 August1992. Cone also went on to go 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA over 12 innings in 2 starts against the Athletics in the 1992 ALCS before getting two no decisions with a 3.48ERA over 10.1 innings in 2 starts against the Braves in the 1992 World Ser