Buddhist psychology and mental cultivation

Reflective writing is evidence of reflective thinking. In this reflective thinking, you will look back at an idea, concept, or theory learned in the course and see its relevance to analyze one of your unforgettable personal experiences in the past or a contemporary social issue that you have been interested in. You will analyze the experience or the issue that you choose, thinking in depth and from an enlightened perspective. You will try to explain it in relation to a Buddhist concept, model or theory discussed in the course. You will think carefully about what the idea, concept, model or theory means for you and your ongoing progress as a learner.

Reflective writing is more personal than other kinds of academic writing. We all think reflectively in everyday life, but perhaps not to the same depth as that is expected in a good piece of reflective writing at university level. Reflective writing can be unstructured, for example when it is done in a personal diary. What is expected for this assignment is a carefully-structured writing

A possible structure for reflective writing
Reflective writing can be broken down into three parts:
• Description: What happened? What is being examined?
• Interpretation: What is most important / interesting / useful / relevant about the object, event, issue
or idea? How can it be explained in relation to the Buddhist concept or theory?
• Outcome: What have I learned from this? What does this mean for my future?
This is just one way of structuring a reflective writing. There are other ways. What is important is your own creativity. Whichever approach to reflection you use, try to bear in mind the following four key points:
• Reflection is an exploration and an explanation of events—not just a description of them;
• Reflective writing involves ‘revealing’ anxieties, errors and weaknesses, as well as strengths and successes. This is fine, if you show some understanding of possible causes, and explain how you plan to improve;
• It is necessary to select just the most significant parts of the event or idea on which you are reflecting. If you try to ‘tell the whole story’ you are likely to use up your words on description
rather than interpretation.

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