scholarly journals The Dangers of Mindfulness: Another Myth?

Mindfulness ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhikkhu Anālayo

AbstractCriticism of potential drawbacks of mindfulness is crucial for the field to move forward and remain grounded in reality rather than become carried away by the mindfulness hype. At the same time, however, such criticism needs to be reasonable and based on actual facts rather than subjective imagination. The allegation that mindfulness is intrinsically dangerous appears to have been influenced by unreasonable claims made by Daniel Ingram, which have been taken seriously due to an apparent lack of acquaintance of some scholars with Buddhist doctrine and with genuine forms of insight meditation.

Author(s):  
George Hug ◽  
William K. Schubert ◽  
Shirley Soukup

McKusick subdivided the syndrome of mucopolysaccharidoses into six types according to clinical, roentenographic, and genetic criteria and to the kind of mucopolysaccharide(s) excreted in the urine (1). Deficient activity of a lysosomal enzyme, (β-galactosidase, has recently been reported in types I, II and III of mucopolysaccharidoses as well as in generalized gangliosidosis (2). This apparent lack of disease specificity makes the enzymatic deficiency difficult to interpret. Nevertheless, the involvement of a lysosomal enzyme tends to characterize these disorders as lysosomal diseases.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Norman

A series of vignette examples taken from psychological research on motivation, emotion, decision making, and attitudes illustrates how the influence of unconscious processes is often measured in a range of different behaviors. However, the selected studies share an apparent lack of explicit operational definition of what is meant by consciousness, and there seems to be substantial disagreement about the properties of conscious versus unconscious processing: Consciousness is sometimes equated with attention, sometimes with verbal report ability, and sometimes operationalized in terms of behavioral dissociations between different performance measures. Moreover, the examples all seem to share a dichotomous view of conscious and unconscious processes as being qualitatively different. It is suggested that cognitive research on consciousness can help resolve the apparent disagreement about how to define and measure unconscious processing, as is illustrated by a selection of operational definitions and empirical findings from modern cognitive psychology. These empirical findings also point to the existence of intermediate states of conscious awareness, not easily classifiable as either purely conscious or purely unconscious. Recent hypotheses from cognitive psychology, supplemented with models from social, developmental, and clinical psychology, are then presented all of which are compatible with the view of consciousness as a graded rather than an all-or-none phenomenon. Such a view of consciousness would open up for explorations of intermediate states of awareness in addition to more purely conscious or purely unconscious states and thereby increase our understanding of the seemingly “unconscious” aspects of mental life.


2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bernier

Virtually all schools of Buddhism do not accept a permanent, substantial self, and see everything as non-self (anatta). In the first part of this article I recall some arguments traditionally given in support of this perspective. Descartes’ cogito argument contradicts this, by suggesting that we know infallibly that the self, understood as a substantial enduring entity, does exist. The German aphorist Lichtenberg has suggested that all Descartes could claim to have established was the impersonal ‘There is thinking’ (Es denkt), which would support the perspective of non-self. Bernard Williams has argued that Lichtenberg’s impersonal version of the cogito is conceptually incoherent, which would entail that the Buddhist perspective of non-self is also incoherent. I propose to defend the coherence of the Buddhist perspective of non-self against Williams’s argument.


Author(s):  
Michael Jerryson

The Introduction introduces the terms Buddhism, Buddhist system, and violence for the book. The chapter reviews previous approaches to Buddhism and violence and mistake in assuming every religion understands and defines violence in a uniform manner. Ahimsa serves as a cornerstone of Buddhist morality, and means non-harm or non-injury. This slight nuance alters the way in which Buddhist doctrine and Buddhist leaders understand violence from the way in which violence is typically identified. As such, the chapters in this book serve collectively as an exploration into the Buddhist approach to violence and its various vicissitudes. It then reviews the challenges and dangers for the author in studying the relationship between religion and violence. Lastly, it provides an overview of the chapters in the book.


Author(s):  
Gil Ben-Herut

The book’s third chapter examines the devotees’ society as it is described in the saints’ stories against the background of the tradition’s ideal of egalitarianism. The Kannada Śivabhakti tradition is famed for its uncompromising resistance to the Brahminical ideology of social supremacy, and the Ragaḷegaḷu stories exhibit different aspects of this resistance, one of which is the social diversity of the Śaiva protagonists. But it is exactly this diversity that distinguishes the social terrain of devotees in the stories from modern notions about egalitarianism. After noting Harihara’s apparent lack of interest in social issues having to do with the greater society beyond the Śaiva community, I consider how, by addressing in complicated ways specific social areas such as work, wealth, and the roles of women, the Ragaḷegaḷu stories qualify certain features of the egalitarian ideal.


1990 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1083-1088
Author(s):  
KM Boberg ◽  
K Einarsson ◽  
I Björkhem
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 2296-2307
Author(s):  
Marcin Szemitko ◽  
Elzbieta Golubinska-Szemitko ◽  
Jerzy Sienko ◽  
Aleksander Falkowski

Chemoembolization with irinotecan-loaded microspheres has proven effective in the treatment of unresectable liver metastases in the course of colorectal cancer (CRC). Most researchers recommend slowly administering the embolizate at the level of the lobar arteries, without obtaining visible stasis. However, there are reports of a relationship between postoperative embolizate retention in metastatic lesions and the response to treatment. To retain residual embolizate throughout the entire neoplastic lesion requires a temporary flow stop (stasis) within all supply vessels, which may cause temporary stasis in subsegmental or even segmental vessels. Objective: To assess the risk of complications and post-embolization syndrome severity following chemoembolization of CRC metastatic liver lesions with microspheres loaded with Irinotecan, with regard to hepatic-artery branch level of temporary stasis. Patients and methods: The study included 52 patients (29 female, 23 male) with liver metastases from CRC, who underwent 202 chemoembolization treatments (mean: 3.88 per patient) with microspheres loaded with 100 mg irinotecan. Postembolization syndrome (PES) severity and complication occurrence were assessed with regard to the hepatic-artery branch level of temporary stasis. Adverse events were assessed according to Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events. Results: Median survival from the start of chemoembolization was 13 months. From 202 chemoembolization sessions, 15 (7.4%) significant complications were found. The study found a significant relationship between the branch level of temporary stasis and the presence of complications (p < 0.001), with the highest number of complications observed with temporary stasis in segmental vessels. PES was diagnosed after 103 (51%) chemoembolization treatments. A significant association was found between PES severity and the branch level of temporary stasis (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The branch level of temporary stasis affected the severity of post-embolization syndrome. A significant association was found between the branch level of temporary stasis obtained in chemoembolization procedures and the presence of complications. The apparent lack of change in numbers of complications when stasis was applied at tumor supply vessels or subsegmental arteries may indicate the safe use of temporary stasis in some cases where colorectal cancer metastases are treated. Further research is needed to determine the most effective chemoembolization technique.


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