Mindfulness in a Moroccan University: Exploring Students’ Transformational Journey Through an Academic Course in Mindfulness

The Course

In fall 2018, a three-credit mindfulness course was offered as an elective for undergraduate students. The goal of the course was to both examine mindfulness as a scholarly field and develop a personal practice, with the understanding that mindfulness was a foreign concept in this culture. The course design and implementation were based on principles of experiential learning and body-oriented and contemplative pedagogy (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Ergas, 2014).

This 16-week course comprised in-class guided meditation, a daily personal practice of sitting in silence for 80 breaths (Kabat-Zinn, 2013), a weekly critical reflective journal, art activities such as weekly hand embroidery classes, gardening, silent walks, a mindfulness retreat, and other practices. A multidisciplinary approach explored readings from contemplative traditions, neuroscience, psychology, education, business, spirituality, and religion, thus promoting learning through three kinds of wisdom: suta-maya panna, wisdom gained by listening to others; cinta-maya panna, intellectual and analytical understanding; and bhavana-maya panna, wisdom based on direct personal experience (Vicittasarabivamsa, 1992).

Research Design

This qualitative research study adopted interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to address one research question: How do students in a Moroccan higher education institution experience a mindfulness course? With IPA, the researcher tries to understand “how participants are making sense of their personal and social world,” and the emphasis is on the researcher “making sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world,” resulting in double hermeneutics (Smith & Osborn, 2008, p. 54). IPA is recommended in studies that are complex, process focused, and novel and is usually carried out through detailed analysis of a small sample size, which made it an appropriate methodology for this research. I engaged in researcher reflexivity to gain a deeper understanding of my beliefs and assumptions to reduce biases.

Participants

Seventeen students voluntarily enrolled in this course. A prescreening was conducted to rule out any preexisting mental health issue, addiction, or personal grief (Dobkin et al., 2011) to ensure students were not exposed to harm. The participants were of four different nationalities (one Lebanese, one Libyan, 13 Moroccans, and two Americans). Half of the class had some idea of mindfulness, while others did not have any context.

I informed the students about this research after they received their final course grade. I was conscious that the mindfulness journey for each student was the primary purpose of this course and did not want to influence their experience with the research. I also wanted to minimize the power inequality to prevent students from participating in the study because of a faculty request. I was pleasantly surprised that 12 of 17 students provided immediate consent; three responded within a week, and two did not respond. Three of the 15 who provided consent dropped out during the interview phase. To protect student privacy, I gave pseudonyms to all participants except one, who wanted to use her given name.

Data Collection

Data included 235 pages of weekly critical reflective journal entries from the consenting students and 9 hr of recorded interviews with 12 students. As part of the course, a structured approach to critical reflection was selected to promote deep learning. This critical reflection was a customized version of Ash and Clayton’s (2009) DEAL model, which requires one to describe an event, examine assumptions and emotions, and articulate learning through the process. After the consents, I delved into the weekly journals to understand how the students thought, processed, and interpreted their experiences. The semistructured interviews were free-flowing; however, a specific set of questions was used to maintain consistency (Smith & Osborn, 2008). The interviews were intended to achieve a more in-depth understanding of the students’ experiences and were conducted two to four months after course completion to allow time for reflection. In an attempt to minimize the power distance, the interviews were conducted in the common learning spaces in the library. An online tool, Temi, was used to transcribe interview data, and all recordings were deleted after transcription.

Data Analysis

I analyzed data using double hermeneutics (Smith & Osborn, 2008), in line with the IPA approach. After applying open coding for the first two transcripts, I used the initial list of codes as a guide for other transcripts, with room to add new codes. I started with 154 codes and ended with 102 codes after removing redundant codes and merging similar codes. I categorized codes into 14 code groups, which later merged into seven themes. In accordance with IPA, larger themes or theoretic connections were emphasized while recognizing the significance of nuanced individual interpretations. I used Atlas.ti software for data analysis of a large body of text from journals and interviews.

Nature and Evolution of Practice

At the beginning of the course, students were overwhelmed with the practices, often getting emotional during the in-class guided meditation. They started feeling the intensity of their emotions and unresolved issues as they began to connect with their bodies, thoughts, feelings, and sensations, moving away from external distractions. Students expressed that these practices were physically and psychologically demanding, scary, and confusing. Nafiza said, “At first, I just wanted an easy class that I can take.…Oh my God, what did I do to myself by coming here?” Another student, Meriem, commented:

At first, I found the amount of meditation sessions a little too much. I was not used to these practices this often and taking that much time; I found it tiring. But as time was passing, I learned not only to do it better, but also to look forward to it.

Understanding Well-Being and Self-Care

For most students, well-being was a new and challenging concept to practice. Lamia was amused at her lack of awareness about well-being: “I don’t know if it existed in my dictionary before. Now this is all [I am] thinking about, yeah. Before this course I burnt out! Huh, well-being?” Now she understood well-being as being well: intellectually, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Students examined the concept of well-being through readings, class discussions, and personal mindfulness practices. Amina acknowledged that the class made her realize “that ignoring stuff and avoiding how I feel…was so wrong.…I was just faking it.”

The understanding of well-being ranged from being authentic, being there for oneself, becoming self-aware, eating well, embracing feelings, and being compassionate toward themselves. For Kiara, it was recognizing “how I feel rather than how I want to feel,” and Salma clarified well-being as more than self-awareness: “Well-being is being self-aware and doing something about it because a lot of time I’m miserable and I’m aware that I’m miserable. So that self-awareness is not enough. I need to do something about it.”

Students felt mental anguish and a need for approval to allow themselves to engage in self-care. For Lamia, resting not only made her feel guilty but also stimulated a larger ideological debate.

I feel like I am trapped in between the obsessive thoughts that keep telling me that I have to be productive all the time and as efficient as possible, and the mindfulness monkey inside my head that has itself become mindless, insisting on me to be mindful all the time, to take time to breathe, to give myself a lot of care, and to learn how to live with the former thoughts.

Self-Awareness

Students had no common understanding of self-awareness, but there were similarities in their interpretation, such as denying or accepting pain, being authentic, acknowledging the need to change, how they were impacting others, and becoming less naïve. Students felt emotions more strongly, whether about a present or past experience. Lamia explained: “I see self-awareness as two wings. The first one is holding myself accountable and the second one is giving myself credit.” Ria indicated that self-awareness involved connecting with real feelings.

Students articulated how feedback from others—roommates, friends, family, partners—helped them become more self-aware. Amina explained

We have this Moroccan term kberti, which means you grew up. She [mother] thinks that I grew up: “Yeah, Oh, you’re 22 now. You grew up.” Because even with my mom, I had these fights over small stuff, and we don’t do it anymore.

Furthermore, students received positive feedback from friends about being happier and less confrontational. For those in romantic relationships, their partners noticed reduced conflict and greater harmony and understanding. Fathia was told, “Never leave the mindfulness practice as it is helping our relationship.”

Questioning Mental Patterns

Students wrote extensively about becoming aware of a pattern, either from their childhood or something new. Practicing mindfulness did not just lead to the painful emergence of unresolved issues, but it opened a door to resolution. For Amal, mindfulness practice brought forth old fears: “Somewhere in this new, mindful way, I have been experiencing many old fears, fears I have been carrying for a long time. Not that I want to get rid of them.” However, Nafiza was keen to resolve negative feelings from her childhood experience of quitting ballet.

Issues were triggered by an incident or through deep reflection upon their habits, struggles, and expectations for themselves. Said articulated the conflict between self-expectations and the expectations of others and feeling trapped in an “abusive relationship.” He expressed his anguish:

I don’t know what to do with my relationships anymore. Is it me? Is it them? What can I do about this? Am I just going to live through such abuse throughout my life? A never-ending cycle? When does it stop? So many questions unanswered.

Compassion for Self and Others

Students shared how they could feel more deeply, understand what another individual was experiencing, and connect with others, on a deeper level. Ria described how she could connect with a stranger in a powerful way:

I had to explain to her [washing lady] that I came to put my clothes in the dryer. She smiled at me.…That smile also made me extremely emotional. I was basically holding back tears the entire time…[and] kept thinking about my mom. My mom has had jobs where she had to wash and clean up old people. She never complained about it and always said she had to do whatever it takes to provide for me and my siblings. I saw my mother in this lady—a hardworking woman that is humble and willing to put her pride aside to make ends meet.

Expressions of compassion were for both self and others. Nafiza expressed how she had become “kinder to [her]self and…more compassionate and not always see[ing] the negative things about myself. And I’m rewarding myself,” such as “beginning to take breaks between demanding assignments.” However, learning to be more compassionate was opening issues from the past. For the first time, Sarah was thinking about her mother’s struggles.

This was a very touching transformation.…It is for first time that I want to hear from my mom. How did she feel about those experiences [her father’s behavior]? I have never thought about this. I’ve been experiencing, I’ve been witnessing this stuff. Although it has a lot of pain and hurt, I want to explore this.

Deepening Insights, Gaining Perspective

Toward the end of the course, students spoke about the need “to pause” or “see a bigger picture” or noted a perspective that “this too shall pass.” These phrases were shared in the context of extremely challenging situations—exams, family crises, illnesses, or personal losses. Students were gaining perspective, exploring options before decision making, understanding the real cause of stress, and being less impulsive. Particularly during exams, students wrote about taking time to pause and breathe. Nafiza shared her frustration with the education system: “Nobody asks you to stop, pause, for a while, know what you’re doing, be aware of your actions.…I think during the four years we never paused.” As Meriem said:

Beginning of the semester, both my mood and my personal problems [were significant], but I did not, at any moment during the [mindfulness] retreat, think about it. I was able to see how insignificant my problems are. I learned and am still learning…to see the bigger picture. I learned that things can get better.

Recognizing Change

Several students faced problems with family, finances, relationships, and demanding coursework during the semester and shared how the course enabled them to deal with their problems. Having said that, Sarah acknowledged that mindfulness “did not help solve many problems, but of course it kept controlling how to deal with the problems, how I experienced stress and pressure.”

Students noted that the course changed them both physically and mentally. They recognized subtle changes in their health, such as freedom from shortness of breath or a reduction in long-standing back pain. Salma stated, “I realized at the end of the class that it was the best thing about this semester. I could feel a change, not only physically, but also in my mindset, in my mental health as well.”

Students were explicit in expressing their awareness of change. Amina said, “I’ve done work on myself.…This time the assignment was me. I was the one in question. I had to work on myself.” Similarly, for Sarah, the journey of mindfulness was “a struggle between me and myself.” Some acknowledged an initial resistance to “foreign” practices but were able to focus on building openness as “a sincere student of knowledge.” Students were aware of the commitment needed in this course, as Fathia acknowledged that “meditation is a serious thing that not everybody can do,…at least not at the beginning.”

By the end of the course, students recognized changes in themselves. Fathia noted, “I started noticing the mood changes that I have during the day, while going from a stressful exhausted college student to a happy relaxed soul after a simple silent walk.” Meriem shared her learning:

I used to be a person who would never say no to anything, even if it hurts or it doesn’t necessarily please me. But now I’m trying to impose myself more: No, this is not going to make me happy or am I going to feel comfortable with it.

Dealing With Unease

It was clear through the students’ narratives that awareness of their body was largely nonexistent, so connecting with their bodies through body-scan meditation was a new, confusing, and overwhelming experience. As the students began sitting in silence during meditation, they became aware of their bodily and mental sensations and were deeply troubled by their unpleasantness. These experiences are common among new practitioners of mindfulness meditation (Hölzel et al., 2011); however, popular association of mindfulness with feeling calm and blissful caused further confusion. Some students resisted the practices to avoid unpleasantness, but hints of favorable feelings motivated deeper involvement in mindfulness practice. Students’ awareness moved from gross to subtle—from examining what emerged in their physical bodies, thoughts, or emotions to an increased concentration, sustained attention, and greater emotional regulation. Similarly, other studies have shown that mindfulness promotes concentration, attention, and emotional regulation among students (Crane et al., 2017; Goretzki & Zysk, 2017; Hölzel et al., 2011). Nevertheless, there is a risk of self-absorption or even depression if the student is not guided by a qualified teacher (Crane et al., 2017; Dobkin et al., 2011).

The central focus of this course was to allow students to have a personal and embodied experience of mindfulness, adopting the pedagogy of livingness: valuing the humanness in learners and fostering learning through the nature of body, mind, and life in a scholarly pursuit (Ergas, 2014). Critical reflection began with students’ questioning their thoughts, beliefs, and emotions associated with mindfulness practices and later transitioned into questioning relationships, habits, culture, educational approaches, and more. Allowing space for emotions, thoughts, and intuition in the class meant “inviting ‘the whole person’…in fullness of being: as an affective, intuitive, thinking, physical and spiritual self” (Yorks & Kasl, 2006, p. 46). Through this holistic pedagogy, students engaged in transformative learning and a lifelong developmental process well integrated with different aspects of their lives.

Mental Patterns and Transformative Learning

Along with deep and regular meditative practices that foster higher metacognitive awareness and processing of information (Shapiro et al., 2006), students engaged in weekly critical reflection. These practices and the in-class discussions allowed students to examine their beliefs and assumptions about regular life situations (e.g., an eating disorder, abusive relationships). Students entered the phase of a disorienting dilemma as they were unable to reconcile old beliefs and new worldviews (Mezirow, 2009). Some students found it extremely challenging when they recognized their own mental patterns, and dysfunctional beliefs were a cause of suffering. Students were experiencing a transformation in their perspective through a “series of cumulative transformed meaning schemes” (Taylor, 2017, p. 6).

Although students found it challenging to change, experiencing guilt as they engaged in self-care or learned to say no or ended unhealthy relationships, they were beginning to discover their own power and were developing an awareness of agency (Taylor, 2017). They were learning to move from being a victim to assuming responsibility, and some even recognized their profound transformation (for a similar observation, see Vörös, 2016). Students worked on integrating new perspectives in their lives, a new way of thinking and being (see Mezirow, 2009); they recognized the ongoing and incremental nature of change. Kabat-Zinn (2005) posited that our inherent nature to seek happiness and end suffering is what motivates us to change. Similarly, Buddhism believes that it is healing to “eliminat[e] unhelpful and misleading conceptions of self” (Hyland, 2015, p. 18), which brings us closer to our true nature. When we bring spiritual practices and critical reflection in a learning space, “new ideas and critical reflection are applied to and rooted in learners’ culture, history, personal life experiences, and spirituality,” fostering personal and culturally relevant transformative learning (Tisdell, 2003, p. 188). While most students engaged in some form of change on their own, two disclosed seeking counseling support to process preexisting issues.

Nonjudgment and Compassion

Through mindfulness practices, individuals learn to take responsibility (Gluück & Bluck, 2013); similarly, as students saw their own vulnerability through that of others, they began to shift from blaming others to assuming responsibility for their life situations. Corroborating the findings of Grossmann et al. (2016), students in this study were becoming more nonjudgmental and accepting and were shifting focus from self to others. They were experiencing the beginner’s mind, moving into the experimentation mode, being curious, and being receptive to experiences (Kabat-Zinn, 2005; Suzuki & Dixon, 1970/2011). This resonates with how “transformative learning…transforms problematic frames of reference—sets of fixed assumptions and expectations…to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, reflective, and emotionally able to change” (Mezirow, 2003, p. 58). Students’ tolerance of differences opened doors to a deeper understanding of those with divergent views, allowing them to profoundly change their way of being and experience compassion in the classroom. This newfound understanding led to emergence of compassion for self and others. Notions of self-compassion were foreign to most, but through the course, participants learned to engage in self-care. Literature shows that as individuals engage in self-care, they become more compassionate to others (Tobin, 2018).

Further, students often drew connections between mindfulness and Islamic practices, engaging in meaning making through their religious, spiritual, and cultural knowing. This finding not only corroborates the cultural–spiritual perspectives in transformative learning but also emphasizes the significance of allowing learners (and educators) to bring their emotions, thoughts, intuitions, relationships, culture, and spirituality into the classroom to enable them to make their own interpretations (Tisdell, 2017) of mindfulness in their lives.

Listening to Inner Wisdom

As the students immersed themselves in their practices, they began experiencing insights such as the need to pause or breathe in crisis situations, to connect with the impermanence of experiences, to see the big picture, and to see themselves as a witness. The ability to pause and breathe in crisis gave students time to reflect and make a choice and prevented them from repeating old dysfunctional patterns, bringing forth a transformational change. The process provides insight into how an act of pausing becomes a catalyst for change: It helps students have an inner gauge for emotional regulation (Goretzki & Zysk, 2017), thus opening them to inner wisdom (Gluück & Bluck, 2013). Although some students accepted their inability to pause and remain calm in every crisis situation, they were aware of its absence.

Wisdom is difficult to teach, but through immersion in mindfulness, students began to manifest wisdom (Bassett, 2005; Sharma & Dewangan, 2017). When immersed in the practices, students were learning from unpleasant events (Crane et al., 2017) and fostering resilience (Zubair et al., 2018), and in moments of crisis, they were drawing on the Buddhist wisdom of the impermanence of situations (Dreyfus, 2011; Tobin, 2018). They spoke about developing more gratitude and faith in God, which supported them through challenging life situations. Students acknowledged that their problems still existed, but they were learning to cope. Bassett (2005) argued that “because wisdom is understood as a developmental process,” transformational learning can be considered “a tool for fostering the growth of wisdom” to bring about permanent changes in our perspectives (p. 3).

Critical reflective writing was a catalyst for another essential element of mindfulness—the watcher or witness (Boorstein, 1996; Shapiro et al., 2006). Having an ability to watch or witness our own self, an ability to detach from the ego, is a higher level of metacognition (Jankowski & Holas, 2014; Shapiro et al., 2006). This detachment reduces pain or pleasure and fosters equanimity. The knowledge gained from witnessing is irreversible, making individuals wake up to a new reality. Mezirow (2009) referred to it as a change in existing frames of reference that happens rationally. However, in this research, students acquired the new wisdom and experienced a permanent change through mindfulness practices—an intuitive or spiritual way of knowing (Taylor, 1997).

Theoretical Contributions

This novel study of teaching mindfulness as an academic university-level course makes three contributions toward mindfulness research and transformative learning. First, the study shows that when we teach mindfulness as an academic course, balancing theory and practice, we foster transformational learning. As the students immersed in mindfulness practices, they began learning through the nature of body, mind, and life in a scholarly pursuit (Ergas, 2014). The body-oriented mindfulness practices and critical reflection gave rise to several disorienting dilemmas such as the notion of self-care versus being selfish and time to pause versus constantly performing. Students examined these disorienting dilemmas and questioned their old patterns, prompting them to change and integrate their new worldviews (Mezirow, 2009). Teaching mindfulness as an academic course in classrooms brings livingness in the learning spaces (Ergas, 2014) and becomes a new way of fostering deep awareness and transformation through self-knowledge.

Second, this study provides insight into the process of transformative learning, exploring why some individuals “desire to change” (Taylor & Cranton, 2013, p. 43). As the students engaged in critical reflection and recognized their dysfunctional behaviors (e.g., an inability to say no), they realized the cause of suffering was their own mental patterns (Germer et al., 2004). Similar to the mindfulness literature that posits it is human nature to seek freedom from suffering (Kabat-Zinn, 2005; Tobin, 2018), students in this study decided to change to end their suffering. This process of change unfolded as students chose to pause and breathe in crisis, which provided space for real-time reflection. It was in these moments of silence that students gained new perspectives and chose to respond in a new way. Dreyfus (2011) posited that pausing and breathing are powerful mindfulness techniques that make us fully attentive and connect us to our mind and body. This attention is different than cognitive attention, as it connects us to our bodily and mental sensations that are impermanent, giving rise to nuanced and complete understanding of our experiences. Once we gain perspectives such as the impermanence of pain or old mental patterns causing suffering, we can make a choice to change our past patterns (Dreyfus, 2011). Thus, this study shows that as the students realized their own role in suffering, they decided to change, and the ability to regulate their response through a pause was critical in fostering transformative change.

Finally, this research also expands the literature on cultural–spiritual perspectives of transformative learning. This course adopted the “seven principles or elements of a spiritually grounded and culturally relevant pedagogy” (Tisdell, 2003, pp. 212–213). In this course, the emphasis on self-knowledge through embodied learning fostered authenticity and cognitive, affective, relational, and symbolic explorations; readings on Sufism provided space for cultural pluralism and geographic context. Further, ongoing discourse on the individual and cultural relevance of mindfulness practices and collaborative projects such as a weekly embroidery class by a community member and gardening lessons from the university gardener allowed students to explore individual and communal dimensions of cultural identity using multiple learning modalities. Finally, last two pedagogical elements focused on acknowledging the limitations of practicing mindfulness in higher education and having a celebration of learning at the end of the course. These allowed to ground the learning in students’ current contexts (see Tisdell, 2003). When teaching a mindfulness course in an unfamiliar culture, educators need to be “grounded in their own spiritual and cultural authenticity” and be open about it to prevent any misappropriation of mindfulness and be respectful of the learners’ culture (Tisdell, 2003, p. 191). Thus, teaching mindfulness by allowing whole individuals (learners and educators) into the classroom has the power to foster deep spiritual and emotional transformation in learners (and educators) while integrating the new learning within their cultural and spiritual contexts.

Key Questions for Teaching Mindfulness

Offering mindfulness as an academic course can raise questions at the individual and institutional level. Students brought forth dilemmas such as self-care versus high expectations in academics or productivity versus time to reflect. They highlighted issues such as limited or no compassion in learning spaces, heightened competition, and no space for personal problems or spirituality in classrooms. For educators and institutions, these questions are uncomfortable. Are we ready to be uncomfortable or to make radical changes in our classrooms? If we make mindfulness part of the core curriculum of liberal arts education, we need to address questions such as what systemic changes are needed, who can teach it, whom to teach, how to teach, and how to assess learning. Contemplative pedagogy brings “whole” individuals into the learning, with their life and meaning making at the core. Are the students, educators, and institutions ready for this pedagogical change? Further, it is important to state that mindfulness cannot be a mandatory course, as students need to be prescreened to avoid harm. Finally, if we decide to adopt a mindfulness approach to teaching, we need to teach from a place of compassion, ready for students to bring their personal problems into the classroom and to deal with our own pain while teaching (Barbezat & Bush, 2014, p. 99).

Future Research

While this is one of the first studies to provide an in-depth understanding of university students’ journeys in a mindfulness course, especially in Morocco, it did not aim to generalize but rather to understand how students make meaning of their mindfulness experiences. Future studies need to expand the discussion with diverse and larger student populations. Also, we need to examine how culture and prior exposure to contemplative practices influence the mindfulness journey for both students and educators. A longitudinal study on students’ practice after course completion could provide valuable input on long-term implications and insights for future course design and implementation. Finally, my future publications will focus on teaching mindfulness through critical reflection, compassion, wisdom, and art activities (i.e., hand embroidery) in a higher education classroom.

Limitations of the Study

This study was based on students who voluntarily enrolled in the course and were prescreened. Further, all findings were based on self-reported data, and little is known about the experiences of the two students who declined to participate in the research or the three who dropped out at the interview stage. Another limitation relates to faculty–student dynamics. Despite efforts to minimize hierarchy and power distance, the students may have felt an implicit need to behave in a certain way during the course or the interview.