Judicial Perspectives on the Research

• Author: Peter Jamadar/Elron Elahie/Richard Jamadar
• Pages: 5-9

5

Sentencing deserves and demands placing specific focus, attention, effort and

care on the process and outcomes of sentencing, immediate and long term, and

as well for the parties and the wider society. Intentional attention to sentencing

is vital.3

Building on the insights of psychologist Roberto Assagioli, intentionality includes the

harnessing of volition (the will of an individual) and gives direction to its focus and

application.4 Intentionality, for us, is a conscious, clear, and focused purpose. It is thus

teleological, having a known and desired endpoint. And it utilizes the power of attention

to achieve these ends. In this research, intentionality was harnessed by participants by

setting the intent at the beginning of each practice session, to practice awarenessing as

required. Intentions can function as affirmations that animate and actualize volition and

desire. In this sense they can add ‘power’ to purpose.

In using the term awarnessing we create a verb form for the adjective ‘aware’ and the

noun ‘awareness’. It describes an active engagement of the faculty of perception that

notices and participates dynamically and intrinsically, in a non-judgmental and non-

labelling manner, with the object(s) of perception in the present moment. It can include

an empathetic shifting of perception back and forth between subject and object that may

lead to a felt-sense of gestalt. The attention co-opted in intentionality, flows into and

through this dynamic process and activity of awarenessing, thus aligning intent with

awareness in integrity.

The end result of Intentional Awarenessing, which is a continuously emerging and

deepening process, is a more profound sense of knowing (which may include

understanding) someone, something, a situation, or subject as it exists in the present

moment, based on information received primarily through perceiving and experiencing.

As will be shown in this discourse, the data suggests strongly that the cultivation of

Intentional Awarenessing can facilitate the more effective discharge of judicial functions

in the courtroom.

JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RESEARCH

3 [2022] CCJ 4 (AJ) GY, [76]

4 Roberto Assagioli, The Act of Will (Wildwood House 1973); Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis (Penguin 1977);

Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (Penguin Books 2012)