Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2005. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 137 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-100).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2005. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-86).

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes special report study entitled : Quality of meditative space : dark matter of architecture. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Project (D. Min.)--Southern Methodist University, 1987. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-128).

Compassion is potentially an effective emotion-regulation strategy to face the suffering of self and others. The aim of this paper is to provide an evolutionary understanding of compassion and compassion training (CT) by examining the psychological, neural and behavioral effects of loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation. The author presents various definitions of compassion and examines the physiological and neural processes behind it. Compassion seems to have evolutionary roots but can be limited due to inherited blocks and fears. Compassion is however trainable and can potentially bypass certain evolutionary-based biases. CT results in various significant psychological effects, most notably positive affect, increased (self) compassion, and mindfulness. Evidence is however inconsistent, especially in relation to active controls. Neural effects are significant yet inconsistent across different experimental conditions. CT without a concurrent task activates (1) the right somatosensory cortices (2) the parieto-occipital sulcus, and (3) the right anterior insula. In relation to the socio-affective video task, CT activates medial orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens, putamen, and anterior parts of anterior cingulate cortex; regions related to positive affect, motivational reward and affiliation. These findings converge with the reviewed psychological literature. CT also results in increased altruistic and compassionate behavior towards others, even when it’s costly to the self and under no-reciprocity conditions. Behavioral effects are mostly demonstrated in game-settings against active controls but also in one real-life situation. Together, the results suggest that CT is beneficial to individuals as well as inter-group relationships.

The concern of this investigation is to explore a range of contemporary experiences of the Buddhist Meditation Practice of three South Africans of Western origin and to understand what factors were involved in their meditation practice. The number of people practising Buddhist Meditation in this country is gradually increasing and retreat centres for the meditation practice are emerging at various places in this country. A wide range of experiences accompany the meditation practice but very little research has been done amongst adults to study this phenomenon. Initially, in this study, the researcher practised Buddhist Meditation by participating in a meditation programme at the Buddhist Retreat in Ixopo in KwaZulu-Natal, for twenty-one days, to familiarize herself with the experiential knowledge of Buddhist Meditation. This was done by the researcher compiling a detailed diary of the meditative experiences and various themes were drawn from it. The data collected was compared and validated with contemporary research findings on Buddhist Meditation. This data was then used to formulate some of the questions for the semi-structured interviews that were conducted subsequently. Three adult subjects of Western origin, one male and two females were interviewed. Each subject had been meditating for an average period of ten years and can therefore be regarded as long-term meditators. They had practised Buddhist meditation in groups at various retreat centres around the country and also individually at home. The average age of the subjects was forty-five years, with the youngest subject being forty years old and the oldest being fifty-three years old. All three subjects were professional people employed at a university in South Africa and all were able to articulate their meditative experiences very well. Since the research project involved the study and exploration of the human experience related to Buddhist Meditation, it was more appropriate to use the phenomenological case-study approach rather than a measurement orientated procedure. The descriptive, phenomenological perspective is more appropriate for the elucidation of the data collected. It gives greater and clearer meaning to the human experience of meditation that is being investigated. The results of the study can best be summarised by stating that all three subjects undertook the Buddhist Meditation Practice because of their awareness of an existential conflict in their lives. Another reason for practising meditation was for personal development. The study also shows that a variety of effects of the meditation practice was experienced by the subjects. These included experiencing feelings of calmness, peace and relaxation, transformation of consciousness, heightened or increased awareness of certain external and internal stimuli, conscious of the changing nature of experience and experiences of objective consciousness.

D.Phil. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

A three month meditation programme based on Joseph Goldstein's (1976) instructions and discourses given at a Vipassana meditation retreat was implemented among four 17 year old white English-speaking school girls at a private non-racial co-educational high school in South Africa. The meditation experiences of all four subjects were noted, hut only one subject's meditative experiences were documented and used as a case study to explore their use as a tool for personal growth within the framework of ego-psychology and transpersonal psychology. It is concluded that the subject, who meditated on a daily basis, experienced personal growth primarily from the ego-psychology perspective and, it is interesting to note, less so from the transpersonal perspective. Three bypotheses have been put forward for this. Firstly, the actual length of the meditation programme may have been too short, and secondly, the daily meditation sessions too brief to facilitate a process of personal growth and development from within the trans personal psychology framework. Thirdly, the subject was an adolescent school girl and thus may not have been developmentally ready in terms of reaching a level of cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual maturity necessary to experience identification to the transpersonal self.

Following training to discriminate their own alpha and non-alpha production, five subjects were tested over five sessions to determine whether EEG alpha autocontrol by this method was similar to that produced in initial meditation practice sessions by five naive meditators. Both groups were compared with a control "resting" group of five subjects. Besides alpha data, an adjective checklist and questionnaire were scored. No significant differences on percent alpha or alpha length were found between groups. However, the interaction effect approached significance. Meditators produced the greatest amount of alpha on the first session only and subsequently decreased alpha production. They also experienced more negative feelings over the sessions. Alpha conditioned subjects increased alpha production slightly as did the controls who produced somewhat less alpha than the former group. Relevance of the results to previous studies was discussed. Suggestions for further controls and methodological improvements were proposed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

A single case study research format was used to understand what happens when Western people are involved in meditation over a long period of time. This research examines what problems are faced in integrating meditation into a modern Western style of living. In this single case study of the long term process of meditation, the co-researcher was interviewed for his account of his twelve year experience of meditation. Additional data was obtained from friends and family members as well as from the co-researcher's lifeline. The co-researcher's account of his involvement in meditation highlighted several problems. The problem of obsessively trying to become enlightened and spiritual materialism was illustrated by the co-researcher's experience. Other problems illuminated were the problems of isolation and withdrawal in relationship, developing psychological blind spots in spiritual practice and dealing with intense kundalini awakening phenomenon. The vulnerability of different paths of meditation to these problems was considered. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate