<p>Twenty-six younger (ages 18–36 years) and 19 older (ages 60–88 years) healthy right-handed men and women were tested for interhemispheric transfer by using visual evoked potentials lo laterally presented checkerboards. Interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) was estimated by subtracting latencies for both P100 and N160 peaks of the waveform contralateral to the stimulus from the waveform ipsilateral to the stimulus for homologous sites. The quality of interhemispheric transfer was estimated by comparing peak-to-peak amplitudes for homologous sites. IHTT did not change across age, but there was a suppression of the waveform over the indirectly stimulated hemisphere in the older participants. The significance of this finding for age-related changes in functions mediated by the corpus callosum is discussed.</p>
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<p>This paper tests whether people's sense of connectedness with the natural environment is related to cognitive styles such as Kirton's adaption–innovation (KAI), and analytic-holistic thinking (AHT). We conducted two studies with Singaporean secondary students as participants. Study 1 (N = 138), using an online survey, established the significant positive relationship between the nature relatedness self subscale and both the KAI and the AHT cognitive styles. Study 2 (N = 185), using pen and paper surveys, replicated Study 1's findings and found that connectedness with nature was significantly related to both the KAI and the AHT cognitive styles beyond alternative explanations (demographic and well-being status). Students who were more connected with nature preferred innovative and holistic cognitive styles, while controlling for their general emotional status and well-being. These findings are the first to establish the link between connectedness with nature and cognitive styles. Future research and implications are discussed.</p>
Context
Primary care physicians report high levels of distress, which is linked to burnout, attrition, and poorer quality of care. Programs to reduce burnout before it results in impairment are rare; data on these programs are scarce.Objective
To determine whether an intensive educational program in mindfulness, communication, and self-awareness is associated with improvement in primary care physicians' well-being, psychological distress, burnout, and capacity for relating to patients.Design, Setting, and Participants
Before-and-after study of 70 primary care physicians in Rochester, New York, in a continuing medical education (CME) course in 2007-2008. The course included mindfulness meditation, self-awareness exercises, narratives about meaningful clinical experiences, appreciative interviews, didactic material, and discussion. An 8-week intensive phase (2.5 h/wk, 7-hour retreat) was followed by a 10-month maintenance phase (2.5 h/mo).Main Outcome Measures
Mindfulness (2 subscales), burnout (3 subscales), empathy (3 subscales), psychosocial orientation, personality (5 factors), and mood (6 subscales) measured at baseline and at 2, 12, and 15 months.Results
Over the course of the program and follow-up, participants demonstrated improvements in mindfulness (raw score, 45.2 to 54.1; raw score change [Δ], 8.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 7.0 to 10.8); burnout (emotional exhaustion, 26.8 to 20.0; Δ = −6.8; 95% CI, −4.8 to −8.8; depersonalization, 8.4 to 5.9; Δ = −2.5; 95% CI, −1.4 to −3.6; and personal accomplishment, 40.2 to 42.6; Δ = 2.4; 95% CI, 1.2 to 3.6); empathy (116.6 to 121.2; Δ = 4.6; 95% CI, 2.2 to 7.0); physician belief scale (76.7 to 72.6; Δ = −4.1; 95% CI, −1.8 to −6.4); total mood disturbance (33.2 to 16.1; Δ = −17.1; 95% CI, −11 to −23.2), and personality (conscientiousness, 6.5 to 6.8; Δ = 0.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 5 and emotional stability, 6.1 to 6.6; Δ = 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3 to 0.7). Improvements in mindfulness were correlated with improvements in total mood disturbance (r = −0.39, P < .001), perspective taking subscale of physician empathy (r = 0.31, P < .001), burnout (emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment subscales, r = −0.32 and 0.33, respectively; P < .001), and personality factors (conscientiousness and emotional stability, r = 0.29 and 0.25, respectively; P < .001).Conclusions
Participation in a mindful communication program was associated with short-term and sustained improvements in well-being and attitudes associated with patient-centered care. Because before-and-after designs limit inferences about intervention effects, these findings warrant randomized trials involving a variety of practicing physicians.
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<p>The author argues that for understanding of Jirel cultural meanings, in-depth investigation of all aspects of their language is necessary. The article then surveys some Jirel vocabulary. Jirel is one of the languages included in the Sino-Tibetan language family. The article includes tables containing Jirel kin terms and their extensions, raksi and chang vocabulary, and Jirel household terms. (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2006-10-12)</p>
This book contains the fifteen numbers of the renowned Wheel Publication series, dealing with various aspects of the Buddha’s teaching. Wheel Publication No. 16: Buddhism and Christianity — Helmuth von Glasenapp; 17: Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha — Nyanamoli Thera; 18: Devotion in Buddhism — Nyanaponika Thera, Acarya Buddharakkhita, & Kassapa Thera; 19: The Foundations of Mindfulness — Nyanasatta Thera; 20: The Three Signata: Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta — Dr. O. H. de A. Wijesekera; 21: The Removal of Distracting Thoughts — Soma Thera; 22: Buddha The Healer — Dr. Ananda Nimalasuria; 23: The Nature and Purpose of the Ascetic Ideal — Ronald Fussell; 24–5: Live Now — Ananda Pereira; 26: The Five Mental Hindrances and Their Conquest — Nyanaponika Thera; 27–8: Going Forth — Sumana Samanera; 29: The Light of Asia or The Great Renunciation — Edwin Arnold,; 30: Women in Early Buddhist Literature — I. B. Horner.
This chapter presents an argument for mindfulness and secular Buddhism as inherently suffused with what might be called social justice concerns and thus calls for mindfulness teaching which includes practices and teachings that make explicit the links between mindfulness and social justice. Drawing on my experience within the fields of mindfulness teaching, law teaching, and contemplative pedagogy, in the first part of this chapter, I discuss how the practices we call mindfulness tend to cultivate a felt sense not only of interconnectedness and compassion but also of solidarity—unity of agreement in feeling or action (especially among individuals with a common purpose)—among practitioners, that assist us in working together for a more just world. I support these claims by reference to an exploratory case study: an offering of community-engaged mindfulness to address a community facing revelations of racism among law enforcement in a major American city.
Based upon a first-person experience of a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, this article provides a critical reflection on this clinical intervention within the context of late capitalist society. It draws inspiration from Russell Jacoby's critique of contemporary psychology, what he referred to as ‘social amnesia’, a form of collective forgetting, manifesting as a tendency to repress, forget, and exclude the larger social, historical, and political context of therapeutic interventions. With its fetishization of the present moment, MBSR is predicated on a politics of subjectivity that assumes stress is localized to the failure of the individual to regulate their emotions.
Effortless Mindfulness promotes genuine mental health through the direct experience of awakened presence—an effortlessly embodied, fearless understanding of and interaction with the way things truly are. The book offers a uniquely modern Buddhist psychological understanding of mental health disorders through a scholarly, clinically relevant presentation of Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist teachings and practices. Written specifically for Western psychotherapeutic professionals, the book brings together traditional Buddhist theory and contemporary psychoneurobiosocial research to describe the conditioned and unconditioned mind, and its in-depth exploration of Buddhist psychology includes complete instructions for psychotherapists in authentic, yet clinically appropriate Buddhist mindfulness/heartfulness practices and Buddhist-psychological inquiry skills. The book also features interviews with an esteemed collection of Buddhist teachers, scholars, meditation researchers and Buddhist-inspired clinicians.
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Medical pain management is in crisis; from the pervasiveness of pain to inadequate pain treatment, from the escalation of prescription opioids to an epidemic in addiction, diversion and overdose deaths. The rising costs of pain care and managing adverse effects of that care have prompted action from state and federal agencies including the DOD, VHA, NIH, FDA and CDC. There is pressure for pain medicine to shift away from reliance on opioids, ineffective procedures and surgeries toward comprehensive pain management that includes evidence-based nonpharmacologic options. This White Paper details the historical context and magnitude of the current pain problem including individual, social and economic impacts as well as the challenges of pain management for patients and a healthcare workforce engaging prevalent strategies not entirely based in current evidence. Detailed here is the evidence-base for nonpharmacologic therapies effective in postsurgical pain with opioid sparing, acute non-surgical pain, cancer pain and chronic pain. Therapies reviewed include acupuncture therapy, massage therapy, osteopathic and chiropractic manipulation, meditative movement therapies Tai chi and yoga, mind body behavioral interventions, dietary components and self-care/self-efficacy strategies. Transforming the system of pain care to a responsive comprehensive model necessitates that options for treatment and collaborative care must be evidence-based and include effective nonpharmacologic strategies that have the advantage of reduced risks of adverse events and addiction liability. The evidence demands a call to action to increase awareness of effective nonpharmacologic treatments for pain, to train healthcare practitioners and administrators in the evidence base of effective nonpharmacologic practice, to advocate for policy initiatives that remedy system and reimbursement barriers to evidence informed comprehensive pain care, and to promote ongoing research and dissemination of the role of effective nonpharmacologic treatments in pain, focused on the short- and long-term therapeutic and economic impact of comprehensive care practices.
<p>This article discusses the founding of Ngor (ngor) Monastery and several of its most important abbots. It was delivered at the first conference of the North American Tibetological Society, held at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California on August 25, 1979.(Kevin Vose 2004-04-18)</p>
This handbook explores mindfulness philosophy and practice as it functions in today’s socioeconomic, cultural, and political landscape. Chapters discuss the many ways in which classic concepts and practices of mindfulness clash, converge, and influence modern theories and methods, and vice versa. Experts across many disciplines address the secularization and commercialization of Buddhist concepts, the medicalizing of mindfulness in therapies, and progressive uses of mindfulness in education. The book addresses the rise of the, “mindfulness movement”, and the core concerns behind the critiques of the growing popularity of mindfulness. It covers a range of dichotomies, such as traditional versus modern, religious versus secular, and commodification versus critical thought and probes beyond the East/West binary to larger questions of economics, philosophy, ethics, and, ultimately, meaning.Featured topics include:A compilation of Buddhist meditative practices.Selling mindfulness and the marketing of mindful products.A meta-critique of mindfulness critiques - from McMindfulness to critical mindfulnessMindfulness-based interventions in clinical psychology and neuroscience.Corporate mindfulness and usage in the workplace.Community-engaged mindfulness and its role in social justice.The Handbook of Mindfulness is a must-have resource for clinical psychologists, complementary and alternative medicine professionals/practitioners, neuroscientists, and educational and business/management leaders and policymakers as well as related mental health, medical, and educational professionals/practitioners.
Using data for 25,780 species categorized on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, we present an assessment of the status of the world’s vertebrates. One-fifth of species are classified as Threatened, and we show that this figure is increasing: On average, 52 species of mammals, birds, and amphibians move one category closer to extinction each year. However, this overall pattern conceals the impact of conservation successes, and we show that the rate of deterioration would have been at least one-fifth again as much in the absence of these. Nonetheless, current conservation efforts remain insufficient to offset the main drivers of biodiversity loss in these groups: agricultural expansion, logging, overexploitation, and invasive alien species.Though the threat of extinction is increasing, overall declines would have been worse in the absence of conservation.
Though the threat of extinction is increasing, overall declines would have been worse in the absence of conservation.
The book is a political, social and institutional history of tantric Buddhism in India. Its innovativeness lies in its attempt to historically place the rise of esoteric Buddhism not only within the doctrinal context of Indian Buddhism, but also within the framework of the larger social and political contexts of the time. In particular it explains the rise of the Buddhist mandala in terms of Indian Buddhist thought, practice, institutions, politics and communities, and stresses the metaphor of royal dominion as the key to understanding the rise of Indian Buddhist tantra. It is one of the most important works every written on Indian Buddhist tantra, and is especially powerful for its analysis of its birth as an independent movement in the sixth and seventh centuries. (David Germano 2007-10-20)
<p>The book is a political, social and institutional history of tantric Buddhism in India. Its innovativeness lies in its attempt to historically place the rise of esoteric Buddhism not only within the doctrinal context of Indian Buddhism, but also within the framework of the larger social and political contexts of the time. In particular it explains the rise of the Buddhist mandala in terms of Indian Buddhist thought, practice, institutions, politics and communities, and stresses the metaphor of royal dominion as the key to understanding the rise of Indian Buddhist tantra. It is one of the most important works every written on Indian Buddhist tantra, and is especially powerful for its analysis of its birth as an independent movement in the sixth and seventh centuries. (David Germano 2007-10-20)</p>
<p>The article describes the rites and rituals of the Jirels of eastern Nepal. The Jirels practice Lamaistic Buddhism but also visit Hindu shrines according to Bista (1980:71). The Jirels are distributed among clans and every clan worships their kul devata. The assembly of clansmen to worship their kul devata is an overt expression of their common identity as members of their respective descent groups. The different clans worship different deities. The Devlinga and Meyokpa clans worship Nangy Laha, Garchiga worship Cheramjo, the Serba and Thurbido and Chungpate clans worship Chyomu. (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2006-10-14)</p>
<p>The article discusses the traditional Jirel political structure. The Jirels are the indigenous population occupying the Jiri valley in the Dolakha district of eastern Nepal. The article attempts to describe the position of the Jirels within the local political structure and to determine some of the factors that continue to keep them at the bottom of the political and economic hierarchy. The article writes about the participation of Jiri in politics in the panchayat period and post multi-party period. (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2006-10-11)</p>
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