Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 24, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Kenneth H. Strand, George Padavil (co-chairs), Larry D. Kennedy, John R. McCarthy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-142) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 1985. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 306-311).

195 pages / Nosatsu is both a graphic art object and a religious object. Until very recently, scholars have ignored nosatsu because of its associations with superstition and low-class, uneducated hobbyists. Recently, however, a new interest in nosatsu has revived because of its connections to ukiyo-e. Early in its history, nosatsu was regarded as a means of showing devotion toward the bodhisattva Kannon. However, during the Edo period, producing artistic nosatsu was emphasized more than religious devotion. There was a revival of interest in nosatsu during the Meiji and Taisho periods, and its current popularity suggests a national Japanese nostalgia toward traditional Japan. Using the religious, anthropological, and art historical perspectives, this theses will examine nosatsu and the practices associated with it, discuss reasons for the changes from period to period, and explore the heritage and the changing values of the Japanese common people.

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This thesis is concerned with an exploration of counsellors’ and clients’ lived experiences of Buddhist Counselling, an indigenous Buddhist-based counselling approach in Thailand. Over the past decade, Buddhist Counselling has received a growing interest from Thai counselling trainees and practitioners, and it has also expanded to serve Thai people in various settings. Research on Buddhist Counselling is very limited and most of the existing studies in the field have focused on measuring the effectiveness of the approach. While these studies have consistently indicated the positive effects of Buddhist Counselling on psychological improvement across several population groups, the significant questions of how Buddhist Counselling brings about such outcome and how it is experienced are still largely unanswered. Moreover, existing research is concentrated much more on clients’ views than counsellors’ views, although counsellors’ views of their counselling practice can also serve as a knowledge base of the field. This thesis thus sets out to contribute to rectifying this omission by exploring Buddhist Counselling from the perspectives of both counsellors and clients. The thesis is based on two qualitative studies. The first study addressed Buddhist Counselling from the perspective of five counsellors through a focus group and semi-structured interviews. The second study explored Buddhist Counselling from the perspective of three clients, using two semi-structured interviews with each of them. All data received were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The study reveals counsellors’ and clients’ overall positive experience of engaging in Buddhist Counselling. Central to the accounts of the counsellors are the following perceptions: that their practice of Buddhist Counselling is culturally congruent with the existing values and beliefs of both themselves and their clients; that their personal and professional congruence is key to their therapeutic efficacy; and that they enhance such congruence through their application of Buddhist ideas and practices in their daily lives. Key to the clients’ accounts is their emphasis on the significant roles of the counsellors’ Buddhist ideas and personal qualities, and of their religious practices in facilitating healing and change. Key shared findings from both studies reveal that the participants’ accounts of their cultural background and their experiences of Buddhist Counselling are intertwined. Adopting hermeneutics to address this intertwinement, I reveal the cultural and moral dimensions underlying the practice of Buddhist Counselling. Based on such revelation, I suggest that Buddhist Counselling in particular, as well as psychotherapy in general, should be better understood as a historically situated, culturally bound, and morally constituted activity of people who are concerned with improving the quality of their lives and their community, rather than the transcultural and merely relational work of morally-neutral practitioners.

Comparative studies in sainthood in world religions, especially Pali Buddhism and Judaism has been a substantial component of my academic interests. Constructed out of my research findings the new typology of sainthood lays emphasis on the fact the two religions have a common universal pattern of sainthood, hence parallel sainthoods. My research concludes that Siddhartha the Buddha and Moses the Prophet as primordial saints, as saintliness as a human quality in Pali Buddhism and Judaism originates from these personalities. Any other successive types of sainthood in the said religious traditions are derived from the main type, the primordial sainthood.

Since the 1990s, the religious diversity of United States universities has increased, with growing numbers of students, faculty, and staff who are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Humanist. To support these demographics, university chaplaincies have been developing beyond their Christian and Jewish compositions to include chaplains and programs for these traditions. Through interviews with such chaplains, this project thesis examines how these chaplaincies developed, the preparation the chaplains needed, their responsibilities, and the current challenges and future prospects of these programs. It provides advice for university leaders about how and why to develop their spiritual life programs to support today’s religious diversity. / 2023-06-03T00:00:00Z

The present research attempts to discover a type of Buddhist curriculum which will best suit the needs and interests of the high school senior (twelfth grader) Buddhists in the United States. The present Buddhist Churches of America recommended curriculum in use covers only the pre-school through the eighth grades. There is an obvious need for a Buddhist curriculum in the important upper grades. As this proposed curriculum is directed to twelfth graders, the compilation of a curriculum for the other three grades {ninth, tenth, and eleventh) still remains to be completed.

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