Five Point Peace Plan

Text of announcement at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington, D.C., September 21, 198

Framework for Sino-Tibetan Negotiations

Text of address at European Parliament, Strasbourg, June 15, 198

The Human Approach to World Peace

Excerpt When we rise in the morning and listen to the radio or read the newspaper, we are confronted with the same sad news: violence, crime, wars and disasters. I cannot recall a single day without a report of something terrible happening somewhere. Even in these modern times it is clear that one’s precious life is not safe. No former generation has had to experience so much bad news as we face today; this constant awareness of fear and tension should make any sensitive and compassionate person question seriously the progress of our modern world

THE FUTURE OF THE BUDDHIST PAST: A RESPONSE TO THE READERS

I respond to comments offered by Peter Harrison and Thupten Jinpa on my book Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008). I report briefly on the reception of the book thus far and provide a summary of its contents before responding individually to the essays of Harrison and Jinpa.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79126/1/j.1467-9744.2010.01139.x.pd

Depression in partner caregivers of people with neurological conditions; associations with self-compassion and quality of life.

Objectives: Informal caregivers are vulnerable to poor mental health and quality of life (QoL). Self-compassion may protect against this. This study investigated depression and QoL in partner caregivers of people with a long-term or neurological condition (e.g. dementia or spinal cord injury) and explored the extent to which QoL and self-compassion are predictive of depression. Design: A cross-sectional, questionnaire design. Methods: Participants were recruited from charities and support groups. Partner caregivers (N = 57) completed assessments of depression, QoL, and self-compassion. Results: Over half (61.8%) of caregivers experienced at least mild symptoms of depression, illustrating high prevalence among caregivers compared with the general population. Overall QoL was poor compared with non-caregivers. QoL was poorest in the physical domain (M = 51.9, SD = 10.1) and highest in the environmental domain (M = 64.9, SD = 15.8). Both self-compassion and QoL were significant predictors of depression (p < 0.05), explaining 48.8% of the variance. Hours spent providing care was also significantly predictive of depression (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Self-compassion and QoL may be important targets for supportive interventions for this population. This study underscores the importance of developing supportive interventions for informal partner caregivers, and developing self-compassion in these

Exploring the Quality of Life of People in North Eastern and Southern Thailand.

The assumption that development brings not only material prosperity but also a better overall quality of life lies at the heart of the development project. Against this, critics assert that development can undermine social cohesion and threaten cultural integrity. Rarely, however, is the impact of development on wellbeing rigourously analysed using empirical data. This is what the Wellbeing in Developing Countries Group at the University of Bath aims to do drawing on fieldwork carried out in four developing countries, which addresses the themes of resources, needs, agency and structure, and subjective Quality of life (QoL). The first phase of the QoL research in Thailand aimed to explore the categories and components of quality of life for people from different backgrounds and locations with the aim of developing methods for QoL assessment in the third phase of the WeD QoL research. The study presents data obtained from rural and peri-urban sites in Southern and Northeastern Thailand (two villages in Songkhla and three in Khon Kaen, Mukdaharn, and Roi-et). Participants were divided into six groups by gender and age, and were divided again by religion (Buddhist and Muslim) and wealth status in the South. Data collection was conducted between October and December 2004 using focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews, and the Person Generated Index. Content analysis was used for data analysis. The use of a qualitative approach enabled the gathering of empirical data that reflects the sources of difficulty and happiness in the lives of participants. Respondents identified 26 aspects to their quality of life, including family relations, health and longevity, income and having money, jobs, housing, education, debt, and so on. The results reveal clear similarities and differences in the role of traditions, religious beliefs, and values in the lives of people living in remote rural or peri-urban areas in Northeastern and Southern Thailand. These results, together with the findings from Peru, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, will inform the rest of the WeD research and be used to develop measures to assess the quality of life of people living in developing countries

What is compassion and how can we measure it? A review of definitions and measures

The importance of compassion is widely recognized and it is receiving increasing research attention. Yet, there is lack of consensus on definition and a paucity of psychometrically robust measures of this construct. Without an agreed definition and adequate measures, we cannot study compassion, measure compassion or evaluate whether interventions designed to enhance compassion are effective. In response, this paper proposes a definition of compassion and offers a systematic review of self- and observer-rated measures. Following consolidation of existing definitions, we propose that compassion consists of five elements: recognizing suffering, understanding the universality of human suffering, feeling for the person suffering, tolerating uncomfortable feelings, and motivation to act/acting to alleviate suffering. Three databases were searched (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and Medline) and nine measures included and rated for quality. Quality ratings ranged from 2 to 7 out of 14 with low ratings due to poor internal consistency for subscales, insufficient evidence for factor structure and/or failure to examine floor/ceiling effects, test–retest reliability, and discriminant validity. We call our five-element definition, and if supported, the development of a measure of compassion based on this operational definition, and which demonstrates adequate psychometric properties