Meditation
Essays

This paper is a personal meditation on the extent to which gender defines--and does not define--the author's life. The paper is written from the perspective of a straight male who grew up in Russia. It discusses his participation in the sport of boxing and how this has affected his perceptions of masculinity and femininity. It is written in the first person.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig is perhaps one of the most unusually named works of contemporary philosophical narrative. The book takes the form of a novel in which certain philosophic…

As a system of belief, Zen Buddhism arrived in Japan in the 14th century as the result of liberalization of trade relationships between Japan and China after finding it entry into the far eastern cultures through India.

This paper discusses the religion Hinduism and how its people behave in both peaceful and violent situations. Although Hindu are considered a predominantly peaceful people, they have a rigid caste system which encourages violence. History has shown that Hindu persons were capable of warfare, such as in India and also of governing peacefully.

Myth is a story of origin that seeks to explain the existence of humankind, event, practice, belief or phenomena in the society. The facts behind myths are not verifiable meaning myths may be real or not real. Every culture has its myths held in high esteem. Different cultures across the world have different myths explaining the same phenomena as they have different interpretations of the same happenings. The different explanations form their basis from the environment and other surrounding factors.

Separation of Church and State: A Moral Dilemma

During the 1960s groups took action that caused the government to take responsibility in making and enforcing laws for equal rights of all citizens. Even though change came slow, the new legislation and newly created agencies enable citizens to exercise their rights. In this sense, responsibility and freedom can go hand in hand.

Author Tracy Kidder writes, "The world is full of miserable places…" His tongue-in-cheek quote then continues, "One way of living comfortably is not to think about them or, when you do, to send money." Kidder then…

Self-Care Strategies Self-care is a widely acknowledged aspect of Counseling. Through research, studies and hard-earned self-knowledge, experts have defined personal attributes, strategies such as mentoring, and qualities that can lead to development of the therapeutic self. Due to differing experiences and results, experts may differently name those attributes, strategies and qualities but all are focused on taking care of the self as the counselor takes care of his/her clients and other people in his/her personal and professional life. Research shows that the concept of self-care is not unique to the Counseling profession. Common, important attributes of self-care in the "five areas" of the cognitive, emotional, physical, spiritual and social self are beneficial to all professions providing services to the public. In addition, the self-care strategy that includes mentoring is potentially highly beneficial to service professions, including counseling, due to coaching, establishment and maintenance of networks, assistance with new opportunities for training, publication, presentations and research, and provision of other supports for the mentee as needed. While it may be true that mentoring may not be strictly "necessary" for the counselor, the ideal mentoring relationship is clearly quite advantageous for the counselor. Finally, personal attributes for the development of the therapeutic self may be named differently by different experts: counselors may use the categories of physical self-care, psychological self-care, emotional self-care, spiritual self-care, workplace or professional self-care and balance; mentors, particularly those with a Buddhist outlook, may name nonjudging, patience, a beginner's mind, trusting, acceptance, letting go and nonstriving; nurses may name a genuine self that is honest, open and flexible and fosters the positive attitudes of worth, integrity, open-mindedness and hopefulness. The common threads in all these named qualities are focused on the development of a genuine, balanced, well-rounded self who can healthfully meet the challenges of personal and professional life.

This paper focuses on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It defines complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine (CAM). It describes the five domains of CAM. It focuses on a single CAM practice, acupuncture, and examines how that practice can be used with complementary, alternative, and integrative approaches