<p>Contains an index of terms (Tibetan-English) on painting terminology. (Michael Walter and Manfred Taube 2006-05-15, revised by Bill McGrath 2008-01-03)</p>
<p>Contains an index of terms (Tibetan-English) on painting terminology. (Michael Walter and Manfred Taube 2006-05-15, revised by Bill McGrath 2008-01-03)</p>
No clear definition of sustainable development exists to guide politicians in solving challenges at the global or regional levels. Rather, the concept's use has increasingly reflected socially desirable attributes of solutions to local- and project-level problems, but these ignore the global challenges that the concept was meant to address. We return to the original definition of sustainable development used in the Brundtland Report and suggest an assessment method to determine whether countries currently meet the threshold values of four equally important primary dimensions: safeguarding long-term ecological sustainability, satisfying basic needs, and promoting intragenerational and intergenerational equity. We also define indicators and threshold values for each of these dimensions; in addition, we show how 167 countries compare in meeting these threshold values. Currently, no country meets all four thresholds. Even so, we propose that, with the use of technology and behavioural changes, it will be possible to reach the threshold values by 2030.
In the summer of 2003, we had the remarkable blessing of being asked to design the most sustainable skyscraper in America. Even more compelling, the request came from the Durst Organization, a multigeneration family business that had previously developed the Condé Nast building at 4 Times Square – America’s first green skyscraper. “Leave this place better than you found it,” the philosophy of Jody Durst, has guided the Durst Organization through decades of sustainable building practices in New York City. Our task was to learn all we could from the first generation of green skyscrapers while pushing forward the standard in workplace performance for Bank of America, the primary tenant and joint venture partner in the building. It soon became clear that the design of a skyscraper in New York City was to speak powerfully about our generation’s goals and aspirations. We needed more than a green skyscraper; we needed to set a new standard for urban sustainability.
OBJECTIVE: we performed the first systematic review with meta-analyses of the existing studies that examined mindfulness-based Baduanjin exercise for its therapeutic effects for individuals with musculoskeletal pain or insomnia.METHODS: Both English- (PubMed, Web of Science, Elsevier, and Google Scholar) and Chinese-language (CNKI and Wangfang) electronic databases were used to search relevant articles. We used a modified PEDro scale to evaluate risk of bias across studies selected. All eligible RCTS were considered for meta-analysis. The standardized mean difference was calculated for the pooled effects to determine the magnitude of the Baduanjin intervention effect. For the moderator analysis, we performed subgroup meta-analysis for categorical variables and meta-regression for continuous variables.
RESULTS: The aggregated result has shown a significant benefit in favour of Baduanjin at alleviating musculoskeletal pain (SMD = -0.88, 95% CI -1.02 to -0.74, p < 0.001, I² = 10.29%) and improving overall sleep quality (SMD = -0.48, 95% CI -0.95 to -0.01, p = 004, I² = 84.42%).
CONCLUSIONS: Mindfulness-based Baduanjin exercise may be effective for alleviating musculoskeletal pain and improving overall sleep quality in people with chronic illness. Large, well-designed RCTs are needed to confirm these findings.
Meditation-based interventions such as mindfulness and yoga are commonly practiced in the general community to improve mental and physical health. Parents, teachers and healthcare providers are also increasingly using such interventions with children. This review examines the use of meditation-based interventions in the treatment of children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Electronic databases searched included PsycINFO, Medline, CINAHL, and AMED. Inclusion criteria involved children (aged to 18 years) diagnosed with ADHD, delivery of a meditation-based intervention to children and/or parents, and publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Studies were identified and coded using standard criteria, risk of bias was assessed using Risk of Bias in Non-randomised Studies- of interventions (ROBINS-I), and effect sizes were calculated. A total of 16 studies were identified (8 that included children in treatment, and 8 that included combined parent-child treatment). Results indicated that risk of bias was high across studies. At this stage, no definitive conclusions can be offered regarding the utility of meditation-based interventions for children with ADHD and/or their parents, since the methodological quality of the studies reviewed is low. Future well designed research is needed to establish the efficacy of meditation-based interventions, including commonly used practices such as mindfulness, before recommendations can be made for children with ADHD and their families.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the feasibility of a randomized controlled trial of the effect of a tai chi program on quality of life and exercise capacity in patients with COPD.METHODS: We randomized 10 patients with moderate to severe COPD to 12 weeks of tai chi plus usual care (n = 5) or usual care alone (n = 5). The tai chi training consisted of a 1-hour class, twice weekly, that emphasized gentle movement, relaxation, meditation, and breathing techniques. Exploratory outcomes included disease-specific symptoms and quality-of-life, exercise capacity, pulmonary function tests, mood, and self-efficacy. We also conducted qualitative interviews to capture patient narratives regarding their experience with tai chi.
RESULTS: The patients were willing to be randomized. Among 4 of the 5 patients in the intervention group, adherence to the study protocol was excellent. The cohort's baseline mean ± SD age, percent-of-predicted FEV1, and ratio of FEV1 to forced vital capacity were 66 ± 6 y, 50 ± 12%, and 0.63 ± 0.14, respectively. At 12 weeks there was significant improvement in Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire score among the tai chi participants (1.4 ± 1.1), compared to the usual-care group (−0.1 ± 0.4) (P = .03). There were nonsignificant trends toward improvement in 6-min walk distance (55 ± 47 vs –13 ± 64 m, P = .09), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (−9.0 ± 9.1 vs −2.8 ± 4.3, P = .20), and University of California, San Diego Shortness of Breath score (−7.8 ± 3.5 vs −1.2 ± 11, P = .40). There were no significant changes in either group's peak oxygen uptake.
CONCLUSIONS: A randomized controlled trial of tai chi is feasible in patients with moderate to severe COPD. Tai chi exercise as an adjunct to standard care warrants further investigation. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration NCT01007903)
<p>Publisher description: As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative. The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty. The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra.</p>
Zotero Collections:
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Buddhist Contemplation,
- Literature of Buddhist Contemplation,
- Introductions to Buddhist Contemplation,
- Practices of Buddhist Contemplation,
- Practices Specific to Tibetan Buddhism,
- Generation phase (utpattikrama, kyerim),
- Deity yoga (devata-yoga, lhé nenjor),
- Perfection phase (nispannakrama, dzokrim),
- Hindu Contemplation,
- Hindu Contemplation by Tradition,
- Hindu Tantra,
- Jain Contemplation
As David White explains in the Introduction to Tantra in Practice, Tantra is an Asian body of beliefs and practices that seeks to channel the divine energy that grounds the universe, in creative and liberating ways. The subsequent chapters reflect the wide geographical and temporal scope of Tantra by examining thirty-six texts from China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Tibet, ranging from the seventh century to the present day, and representing the full range of Tantric experience--Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and even Islamic. Each text has been chosen and translated, often for the first time, by an international expert in the field who also provides detailed background material. Students of Asian religions and general readers alike will find the book rich and informative.The book includes plays, transcribed interviews, poetry, parodies, inscriptions, instructional texts, scriptures, philosophical conjectures, dreams, and astronomical speculations, each text illustrating one of the diverse traditions and practices of Tantra. Thus, the nineteenth-century Indian Buddhist Garland of Gems, a series of songs, warns against the illusion of appearance by referring to bees, yogurt, and the fire of Malaya Mountain; while fourteenth-century Chinese Buddhist manuscripts detail how to prosper through the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper by burning incense, making offerings to scriptures, and chanting incantations. In a transcribed conversation, a modern Hindu priest in Bengal candidly explains how he serves the black Goddess Kali and feeds temple skulls lentils, wine, or rice; a seventeenth-century Nepalese Hindu praise-poem hammered into the golden doors to the temple of the Goddess Taleju lists a king's faults and begs her forgiveness and grace. An introduction accompanies each text, identifying its period and genre, discussing the history and influence of the work, and identifying points of particular interest or difficulty.
The first book to bring together texts from the entire range of Tantric phenomena, Tantra in Practice continues the Princeton Readings in Religions series. The breadth of work included, geographic areas spanned, and expert scholarship highlighting each piece serve to expand our understanding of what it means to practice Tantra.
During the last decade the research literature has shown a growing interest in teacher stress and teacher self-efficacy and how these constructs are related. In this chapter, we review current research on relations between teacher stress and teacher self-efficacy, how these constructs are influenced by the school context, and how they relate to teacher engagement and well-being. Teacher stress and teacher self-efficacy are consistently shown to be negatively related and to predict teachers’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses differently. For example, teacher stress correlates negatively with teacher job satisfaction and job commitment, but positively with burnout and teacher attrition, whereas teacher self-efficacy correlates positively with teacher job satisfaction and job commitment, but negatively with burnout and teacher attrition. We propose a model of relations between stressors in the school environment, social support, teacher self-efficacy, teacher stress, and outcome variables such as work engagement and burnout. We then report an interview study which examines experiences of stress and self-efficacy among senior teachers who chose early retirement after long periods of sick leave and teachers who were still teaching and thriving at the ages of 63 and 65.
Teaching an eight-week calm abiding meditation course to staff in a Child and Youth Mental Health Service located in a regional Australian city presented a curious meeting of Buddhism with Western culture. This meeting highlighted both the potential benefits and challenges of teaching meditation in the workplace and the value of qualitative methods for contributing to the development of meditation research. The thematic analysis of weekly participant responses to emailed reflective questions and follow-up interviews indicated that workplace meditation training can precipitate sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviour beyond the workplace. Participants reported being less reactive and better able to manage emotions, having heightened self-awareness, self-acceptance and acceptance of others and of circumstances; and, in the longer term, were better able to make healthier lifestyle choices. The analysis is contextualized by a rich description of the course and salient concerns and conditions evident in contemporary Buddhist teachings and studies of mindfulness meditation.
<p>Explains the varying techniques for working with children in different age groups (from five to eighteen) and shows how the benefits of meditation can help in a range of ways: from relieving shyness, anxiety and tension to reducing hyperactivity, aggression and impatience.</p>
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Studies confirm the wisdom of teaching social skills first: Children who feel well-liked settle down to learn better in class, and go on to do better in life.
In our roles as teachers in environmental studies programs at liberal arts colleges, we have mentored many young people whose abiding concern for the environment and for social justice drives a deep desire to live in a manner that lives up to the ideals of the newfound “sustainability” movement. Indeed, we share these values ourselves, doing our best to do our parts as good citizens who think globally and act locally. Still, we know all too well that one individual’s decision to drive a hybrid, eat low on the food chain, or recycle a beverage container is like one drop of water in the sea of forces that are pushing our world in the direction of a socially unjust, environmentally unsustainable future.
An individual's affective style is influenced by many things, including the manner in which an individual responds to an emotional challenge. Emotional response is composed of a number of factors, two of which are the initial reactivity to an emotional stimulus and the subsequent recovery once the stimulus terminates or ceases to be relevant. However, most neuroimaging studies examining emotional processing in humans focus on the magnitude of initial reactivity to a stimulus rather than the prolonged response. In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the time course of amygdala activity in healthy adults in response to presentation of negative images. We split the amygdala time course into an initial reactivity period and a recovery period beginning after the offset of the stimulus. We find that initial reactivity in the amygdala does not predict trait measures of affective style. Conversely, amygdala recovery shows predictive power such that slower amygdala recovery from negative images predicts greater trait neuroticism, in addition to lower levels of likability of a set of social stimuli (neutral faces). These data underscore the importance of taking into account temporal dynamics when studying affective processing using neuroimaging.
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Drawing on literature from environmental psychology, the present study examined place attachment as a second-order factor and investigated its relationships with place satisfaction and visitors' low and high effort pro-environmental behavioural intentions. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to test a model using a sample of 452 visitors at the Dandenong Ranges National Park, in Australia. Results supported the four-dimensional second-order factor of place attachment and indicated (a) positive and significant effects of place attachment on both low and high effort pro-environmental behavioural intentions of park visitors, (b) a significant and positive influence of place attachment on place satisfaction, (c) a significant and positive effect of place satisfaction on low effort pro-environmental behavioural intentions, and (d) a negative and significant influence of place satisfaction on high effort pro-environmental behavioural intentions. The main theoretical contribution relates to the inclusion of the four dimensions of place attachment in a single model. Findings are discussed with respect to their applied and theoretical relevance.
Abstract Theory of mind describes the ability to engage in perspective-taking, understand intentions, and predict actions and emotions. Theory of mind typically achieves major developmental milestones around age of 5, coinciding with the transition to kindergarten, and is associated with a verbal ability (receptive and expressive vocabulary), executive function (inhibitory control and working memory), and emotion knowledge. Less is known about how the theory of mind operates in low-income samples, where foundational skills (i.e., verbal ability, executive function, and emotion knowledge) tend to be delayed. Applied to classrooms, the theory of mind may support the transition to kindergarten by facilitating relationships, learning-related behaviors, and socioemotional skills that require perspective-taking. In a low-income sample of 140 kindergarteners across 21 classrooms, the theory of mind was directly associated with teacher-ratings of social and emotional skills, behavioral and academic adjustment, and closeness within the teacher?child relationship, beyond the contribution of foundational skills. Moreover, verbal ability, executive function, and emotion knowledge were indirectly associated with outcomes through the theory of mind. Findings suggest the theory of mind facilitates the transition to kindergarten and is built upon a complex set of foundational skills.
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