Eastern Meditation Meets Christianity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Eastern Meditation Meets Christianity - Essay Example This type of meditation is a practical way to achieve real peace of mind, and leads to a deeper wisdom and clearer understanding of the truth. Misconceptions: There are some common misconceptions about meditation in Western countries. Some people think that "meditation is not for them because they are Christians, or that meditation is about just sitting and thinking nothing." In fact, meditation is about reality-seeing things as they are. There are no beliefs to adopt which might conflict with one's religion. Although there are some differences between Christian and Eastern spiritual practice, both of them share many similarities in the practice of listening to the spirit, the method of prayer and meditation and the spiritual and mental changes these bring about. All religious traditions, not only Buddhism and Christianity have different processes, movements and transformations for seeking answers from spiritual sources. Each faith tradition has grown over so many centuries and has been practiced in different societies and cultures. There is a fundamental difference between Christianity and Buddhism. The Buddha teaches people to remain fully in the realm of human experience, but Christ offers us a hope outside ourselves. The hope of a Christian is to have faith in God and Jesus Christ, but not in man or the earthly life. One of the main goals of meditation is to learn by observing what is going on in our bodies, our feelings, our mind and our worlds. The continual process of meditation greatly enhances our understanding of things around us. However, Christians mainly focus on developing more faith and a better relationship with God and Jesus Christ through prayer, using this to communicate with God, and possibly receive a personal revelation from Him, described sometimes as the Spirit of the Lord. But if we look at how people participate in meditation and prayer, we can highlight the similarities between the Buddhist and Christian approaches to spiritual practices. Meditation can lead to spiritual communion with God through the Holy Spirit. President David O. McKay (date) from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints explains We pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as a form of private devotion, or spiritual exercise, consisting in deep, continued refection on some religious theme. Even Jesus Christ also meditated during the forty days of fasting; he communed with himself and his father, and contemplated upon the responsibility of his great mission. One result of this spiritual communion was such strength as enabled him to say to temper "...Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only salt thou serve." (Matthew 4:10.) What is Meditation: In Buddhism, meditation plays an important role in developing peace, compassion and awareness. Challenges and afflictions in life make the Kositjaroenkul 3 heart yearn for the a perfection of peace, a pure love from someone, and compassion flowing through our hearts. When beginning the process of meditation, a person will focus on clearing the minds from everything around them. It is a moment of peace, calmness and mindfulness. The next part of the

Understanding ecological models Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Understanding ecological models - Assignment Example The ecological perpsective of health promotion is an approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of people with their physical and socio-cultural environments. Ecological approaches are so effective because they involve the most factors and determinants of healthFor example, anti-smoking campaigns aimed at teens in South African found that teen smoking rates were linked with a lack of recreational facilities and whether or not the teen's parents smoked. Limitations of the ecological approach include: -Difficult to implement multi-level approaches.-Health care professionals unfamiliar with these – usually just individual approaches.-large amounts of enegry, creativity, and patience.-Challenging and expensive to changealready built enviornments, especially if those environments (i.e. buildings) are privately owned.-†Operationalizing the general princiapls of evological models for specific behaviours is a challenging but essential step.†The purpose of the paper by Elder et. Al (2007) is: to describe a framwork that would be used to guide an individual study.The integration of a wide number of contributing theories into Elder et. al's ecological framework is valuable because Gathers a wider range and depth of knowledge to the framework.â€Å"Theories that helped guide and inform the TAAG SE model are operant conditioning, social cognitive theory (SCT) and organizational change theory,including diffusion of innovations. These theories are incorporated into the TAAG model (see Fig. 1), which serves to put all relevant theories into a unified whole. The model, then, informs the intervention development by providing its theoretical grounding." 6. Sallis and Owen (2002; p468) the components of the TAAG model fulfill the "principles of ecological approaches to health behaviour change" to the extent that contributing theories such as social cognative theory and organizational change theory are included within the model. HPRM3000: Portfolio Task 3 Health Priorities and the Importance of Populations 1. This kind of research so important for health promotion because demographic, and distribution information on health matters is vital for informed health policy creation and implementation. 2. The description, strengths and weaknesses of the DALY are: "Health loss expressed as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and presented as proportions of total DALYs and DALY rates (crude and agestandardised) per 1000 population." " One DALY is equivalent to one lost year of healthy life and represents the gap between current health status and an ideal situation" Links to a format used by The World Bank (allows for ease of international comparision of data). A disadvantage is that it is a "created" and not a "real" mesaurement. ii) In Australia, the progressive increase in body mass is strongly associated with an increase in Type II Diabetes. As these connected risk factors and issues have been getting worse, instead of better, new more effective strageties are required. Two other areas: women's mental health and Aboriginal peoples (especially those in the NT) require immediate, planned progressive health promotion action. 7. a) Stephen R Leeder, Susan U Raymond and Henry M Greenberg Poverty and Human Development The need for leadership in global health. The Medical Journal of Australia. MJA 2007; 187 (9): 532-535 b) Global Leadership in health is present in Australia. This has resulted in deeper and more informed ecological health policies that have lead to concrete action to prevent futher diseases from global climate change. (This is a topic that is just now recieving global attention as a health issue.) 8. International Health Risks In the early 1980s, London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose suggested another reason why the intrapopulation studies might fail to detect benefits of salt reduction that could still have a significant public health impact. Rose