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

Abstract

This study examines how students experienced and made meaning of a novel academic course in mindfulness, offered to foster holistic learning through self-knowledge. For this interpretive phenomenological analysis, data were collected through critical reflective journals and semistructured interviews. The findings suggest that the course allowed students to develop deeper self-awareness, greater well-being, compassion, and wisdom and to experience profound transformation. The study suggests that gaining metacognitive awareness into causes of suffering led students to engage in change. Also, as students engaged in mindfulness practices, they drew connections with their religious and spiritual practices, deepening our understanding of cultural–spiritual perspectives on transformative learning. This course and study examined the idea that if we build mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy into the core curriculum of higher education, we can provide opportunities for transformative and lifelong learning.