Formation Practices to Tackle the Martyr Effect in Social Impact Work (Part Two of Two)
The Work Before the Work
Part One of this series named a problem the evaluation field has been reluctant to face: that sacrifice has become currency, that depletion is treated as dedication, and that evaluators arrive at their work without the preparation their instruments require. The field trains practitioners in methods but not in the formation those methods depend on. We learn to design studies, collect data, analyze findings, and write reports. We do not learn how to prepare ourselves to see clearly, or how to notice when we have stopped seeing clearly, or how to return when we drift.
This gap is not unique to evaluation. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program demonstrated that contemplative practice produces measurable changes in attention, emotional regulation, and quality of presence, bringing what had been spiritual discipline into clinical settings with rigorous evidence (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Ronald Epstein extended this insight to medical practice, naming what the profession had no vocabulary for: the quality of attention clinicians bring to their patients, and how that quality shapes what they are able to see (Epstein, 1999). His article received hundreds of responses from physicians who felt, for the first time, that someone had named what their training never addressed. James Pann brought this framework to evaluation, arguing that mindfulness develops the very capacities evaluation requires: presence, self-observation, the willingness to see what we would prefer not to see (Pann, 2019). Craig and Karen Russon proposed that contemplative practice functions as a form of data collection, the evaluator’s mind becoming an instrument that requires calibration (Russon & Russon, 2008, 2009).
This piece extends that work by offering specific formation practices drawn from Buddhist tradition. Buddhism is one path among several, but it is the one I practice and can speak to honestly. Other contemplative traditions—Christian centering prayer, Islamic muraqaba, Jewish mussar, Indigenous practices of preparation, secular mindfulness in the MBSR tradition—cultivate similar capacities through different forms. The question is not which tradition but whether evaluators have any sustained practice of formation at all.
The offering here is concrete: sitting practice as the foundation that makes other practices possible; the Eightfold Path as a steady framework of questions evaluators can return to; and koans as disruptions that break the expert mind when frameworks become rote. These are not abstractions. They are practices—things you do, again and again, that change who you are when you do evaluation work.
Sitting as Foundation
The formation practices that follow depend on a capacity that cannot be assumed: the ability to notice what is happening in your own mind without immediately reacting, fixing, or fleeing. This capacity is not innate. It is trained. And the training is simple, though not easy. You sit. You breathe. You notice when your mind has wandered, and you return to the breath.
Meditation is deceptively ordinary. There is no special state to achieve, no insight to grasp, no technique to master. You sit with what is. You discover that you can watch a thought arise without following it. You can feel discomfort without moving away from it. You can stay with not-knowing without reaching for an answer.
This is precisely what evaluation requires. The evaluator who cannot sit with ambiguity will close too quickly on a finding. The evaluator who cannot tolerate discomfort will turn away from data that disturbs. The evaluator who cannot notice her own mental habits will mistake projection for observation. Kabat-Zinn’s research demonstrated that these capacities are trainable—that attention, like any other skill, responds to practice (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Epstein named the specific qualities that practice develops: active observation of oneself, curiosity about the whole situation, willingness to examine and set aside categories and prejudices, ability to be present rather than thinking about the next task, and what he called the courage to see the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be (Epstein, 1999).
The practice need not be elaborate. Ten minutes in the morning. Five minutes before opening your laptop. A few breaths between meetings. What matters is regularity—the repeated return that builds the muscle of attention. You sit. Your mind wanders. You notice. You return. That sequence, repeated thousands of times, changes what you are able to see when you are not sitting.
Pann’s argument is that this is not peripheral to evaluation but central to it: the evaluator’s capacity for presence directly shapes the quality of data collected, the depth of analysis possible, the honesty of reporting (Pann, 2019). An evaluator who has not trained attention will miss what a present evaluator sees. This is not a moral claim but a practical one. The instrument requires calibration. Sitting is how you calibrate.
The Eightfold Path as Formation
In “Evaluation and Zen, Part Two,” I translated the Buddha’s Eightfold Path into evaluation practice. Right View as holding multiple perspectives. Right Intention as collective rather than solo pursuit. Right Speech as accuracy and honesty. Right Action as do no harm. Right Livelihood as aligning work with values. Right Effort as quality without perfectionism. Right Mindfulness as ongoing reflexivity. Right Concentration as staying centered amid complexity. That piece explored what each element means for how evaluators approach their work.
You can endorse these principles without being changed by them. You can agree that Right View means holding multiple perspectives and still close too quickly on a finding. You can believe in Right Speech and still reach for vague language when the truth is uncomfortable. The Eightfold Path is not a checklist to consult before an evaluation begins. It is a practice, and practice means returning to it again and again until the questions become reflexive. Until you notice, without consciously asking, that you have drifted from right intention into performance. That your attachment to a finding has compromised your seeing. That exhaustion has narrowed what you are able to perceive.
This is where sitting matters. Without the foundation of meditation practice, the Eightfold Path remains conceptual rather than embodied. Agreement is not the same as capacity. The capacity to actually hold multiple perspectives, to sit with contradiction without rushing to resolve it, to tolerate the discomfort of not knowing, that capacity is trained through practice. The questions the path raises are simple: What am I not seeing? Why am I really doing this? Am I telling the truth? Am I causing harm? Should I be doing this work at all? Am I sustaining or depleting myself? What am I bringing to this moment? Can I stay with this?
Staying with them is the practice. And staying with them changes who you are when you do evaluation work. Not because you have adopted better principles, because you have trained a different quality of attention.
Koans as Disruption
The Eightfold Path offers a steady framework, something to return to. This is its strength and its limitation. Any framework, practiced long enough, becomes familiar. Familiar becomes comfortable. Comfortable becomes automatic. And automatic is precisely where formation fails. You can ask yourself “What am I not seeing?” every morning and stop actually asking it. The question becomes ritual rather than inquiry. The path becomes another credential, another thing you do that marks you as a certain kind of evaluator.
Koans exist to break this pattern. They are not steady practice. They are disruption.
In “Seeing Mountains as Mountains: Two Koans for Evaluators,” I explored how two classic koans function as formation practice. “What was your original face before your parents were born?” asks what you saw before you learned the frameworks, before training taught you what to look for and what to ignore. You cannot answer this by thinking harder. The question is designed to exhaust the analytical mind, to stop the part of you that believes it can figure its way to truth. “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him” asks what you are attached to that has become obstacle rather than aid. The logic model you cannot imagine working without. The credential that shapes how you see yourself. The need to be right. The performance of rigor. Even beginner’s mind, if you have become proud of having it.
A koan is not a riddle to solve. Zen students sit with them for months or years, bringing answers to their teachers, getting rejected, trying again. The process is not about finding the right answer. It is about transforming the student. The koan works on you until you stop trying to master it.
This is what evaluators need when any framework has become the thing blocking their vision. The Eightfold Path can calcify into a checklist. Right View can become a particular way of seeing rather than openness to seeing. The same is true of theories of change, logic models, any structure we use to organize our looking. Craig and Karen Russon made this argument about theories of change specifically: that the theory meant to guide observation can become the filter that screens out whatever does not fit (Russon & Russon, 2014). You see what the theory predicts. You miss what it does not account for. The framework that was supposed to help you see becomes the reason you cannot.
What happens when you kill the framework? When you set down the theory of change, even temporarily? You might see what was always there but invisible because it did not fit the boxes. You might notice what participants are actually doing rather than what the logic model says they should be doing. You might hear what someone is telling you rather than coding it into predetermined themes. The koan does not give you a better framework. It breaks your grip on frameworks altogether, just long enough to see what is actually in front of you.
The practice is not to solve the koan once and move on. The Buddha will be back on the road tomorrow. The framework will obscure your vision again. You will stare at the finger and miss the moon. The practice is noticing when this has happened, and returning to the question that breaks you open again.
The Practice of Returning
Three practices, three different functions.
Sitting builds the foundation: the capacity to notice what is happening in your own mind without immediately reacting. Without this, the other practices remain conceptual. You can agree with the Eightfold Path without being changed by it. You can understand what a koan asks without being broken open by it. Sitting trains the attention that makes formation possible.
The Eightfold Path provides steady structure: questions to return to, orientations to cultivate over time. It is the daily practice, the framework you live with until its questions become reflexive. Not a checklist but a way of being in the work. What am I not seeing? Why am I really doing this? Am I telling the truth? Am I causing harm? These questions do not resolve. They deepen.
Koans disrupt when structure calcifies. Any framework, practiced long enough, becomes familiar. Familiar becomes comfortable. Comfortable becomes automatic. The koan breaks your grip on what you think you know. It returns you to not-knowing, which is where clear seeing begins.
The three practices work together. Sitting without the Eightfold Path is formless. The Eightfold Path without sitting is conceptual. Both without koans become rigid. You need the foundation, the structure, and the disruption. You need what steadies you and what unsettles you. You need what you return to daily and what breaks you open when daily practice has become routine.
This is not about becoming a Buddhist evaluator. It is about recognizing that the evaluator’s formation is a methodological concern, that how we prepare ourselves shapes what we are able to see. Other traditions offer other practices. What matters is having some sustained discipline of attention, some framework of ethical questions, some practice that disrupts your certainty when certainty has become obstacle.
The theory tree maps what evaluators do. This is about who evaluators are becoming.
I think about my own sitting practice. There is a moment when you notice you have been thinking instead of breathing. You got lost somewhere, followed a train of thought, forgot you were meditating. The practice is not to never get lost. The practice is to notice and return. You do not beat yourself up. You just come back.
Evaluation has a version of this. You notice when you are imposing instead of listening. You notice when you are confirming instead of learning. You notice when you are performing expertise instead of sitting with not-knowing. And you return.
This is what formation makes possible. Not perfection. The capacity to return. Again and again. Throughout a career. Throughout each evaluation. Throughout each day.
The invitation is simple, and demanding: Find your practice. Sit with it. Let it work on you. Return to the questions that matter. And when a framework has become the thing blocking your vision, when you meet the Buddha on the road, be willing to kill it.
Anthralytic is a small strategy and evaluation studio working with teams who care about getting it right, not just getting it done.
References
Epstein, R. M. (1999). Mindful practice. JAMA, 282(9), 833-839.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Delacorte Press.
Pann, J. M. (2019). Mindfulness-based evaluation: Increasing utilization by cultivating a mindful approach. In M. Q. Patton (Ed.), Facilitating evaluation: Principles in practice. Sage.
Russon, C., & Russon, K. (2008). Contemplative methods and evaluation: Exploring the potential. Presentation at the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference.
Russon, C., & Russon, K. (2009). The Insight evaluation approach. Presentation at the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference.
Russon, C., & Russon, K. (2014). Theory of change as instrument of evaluation: Is the theory the finger pointing at the moon, or the moon? Presentation at the American Evaluation Association Annual Conference.
Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen mind, beginner’s mind. Weatherhill.
