Instructor Spotlight: Ray Feinleib

Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to teach this course

I'm someone who was plagued by procrastination and anxiety, particularly surrounding schoolwork, throughout high school. Although I did well in school, it came at the cost of my mental health. Between losing sleep and missing out on events I wanted to go to, I realized that something needed to change. Over the years, I've been trying to become more Zen, not only as a way to fix my relationship with schoolwork and creative tasks, but to help me be a less high-strung friend, stranger, and pickup basketball player. Now, I have the chance to put Zen's effectiveness to the test with a class of students who will help me study Zen techniques and philosophies in regard to our everyday lives.

How would you describe Zen to someone who has never heard about it before?

I would describe Zen, at least from the main dogma we discuss in class, as the way things are supposed to be. Zen is the gut feeling that typically leads you in the right direction, but that your mind may overcomplicate and try to see past. Zen means accepting your situation and knowing yourself for all of your strengths and weaknesses, then using those observations to your advantage rather than to your detriment.

What is one Zen practice that you think all Tufts students would benefit from?

For one of my activities, I sent students out of the classroom without their phones and with one goal in mind: see, hear, taste, observe everything around you while actually being there. I only asked that students write down their experience as it happened to them, but didn't care if they talked to their friend in Dewick or found a nice tree to sit under. I didn't even give them a clear time to come back to the room, simply that they should make their way back when it began to get dark. When we reconvened, we all read our adventures out loud and found that we had a lot in common: first, there was some force that pulled us to an object of attraction, like a group of voices or a pretty bunch of flowers. Secondly, we found that without our phones or a sense of time, we had no care in the world for the stack of assignments that was waiting for us later in the day or week. Walking for the sake of walking was a great reset and would likely help any Tufts student out on their most (or least) stressed day.

What do you hope that students will take away from your course?

I hope students will be able to live lives full of acceptance for themselves and feel prepared to face any potential roadblock that comes their way. As I said before, we're working to be better students and people, freeing our minds of many of the problems that can drive us up the wall. At the same time, I want students to see Zen in all of the media they consume, knowing that it comes in different shapes and sizes but most typically returns to the same message: go with the flow, do what is best for you, and that the answer is always simple and right in your back pocket.

What is something that has happened in your course that you are excited about?

To test how much my students have picked up, I simulated an old newspaper advice column; I made up a bunch of fake people with fake issues in their lives and asked my students to give them advice based on the Zen philosophy we've been talking about. Their answers were on the nose, and if they had been replying to real people, I think they'd be fixing a lot of real problems. I'm thinking about ways to adapt this exercise, which may come in the form of making a real column for real people, so stay tuned!

Ray Feinleib (he/him) is double majoring in English and Film and Media Studies (FMS). He is from South Orange, New Jersey. He is captain of the Tufts’ Ultimate Frisbee B-Team, the awesome BMEN.