Buddhist traditions in the West Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Buddhist traditions in the West - Term Paper Example For example, in 1959, the famous Japanese teacher Suzuki Roshi arrived in San Francisco, and was a key proponent of Buddhist values in the United States and beyond, writing a series of essays on Zen Buddhism. Mass migration from some predominantly Buddhist countries to the West has, of course, also helped in the dissemination of Buddhist religious culture, but it is questionable whether or not it then spread beyond the immigrant communities in their adopted countries. Later, Buddhism became associated with what might be called ‘New-Age’ spirituality, and became something of a fashionable religion, especially among those involved in the entertainment industry. In the West, Buddhism is often thought of as an exotic and progressive, even modern religion, whereas in the East, where it has been developing for centuries, it is more likely to be thought of as traditional and familiar, and part of the basic fabric of society in many countries. Buddhist messages and motifs have b ecome commonplace in Western culture in the past half century, and especially those associated with Tibetan Buddhism. Lopez (1998) found many examples of aspects of Buddhist culture being casually used in the West, and concluded that ‘Tibetan Buddhism has been in for some time’ (p. 2). For example, at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games, Micky Hart’s musical piece ‘Call to Nature’ was performed, and this work begins with the chant of a Tibetan monk from Gyuoto monastery. On a more popular level, the 1995 film ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls’ opens with the title character spending some time in a Tibetan monastery, while the 1992 Christmas edition of Paris Vogue magazine invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama as guest editor. While the Dalai Lama is held by Tibetan Buddhists to be the incarnation of the god of compassion, it is as much a political and cultural preoccupation as a spiritual one which gives His Holiness and other Tib etan figures such prominence in the West. Since Tibet’s occupation by the People’s Republic of China, and especially since the flight of the Dalai Lama to India in 1959, the cause of a free Tibet, and an idealization of the life that went on in Tibet prior to the Chinese invasion, has become a major political focus worldwide. Furthermore, the current Western fondness for all things Tibetan stands in stark contrast to the attitudes of their forebears. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to the extent that anything was known about isolated Tibet, its indigenous Buddhist practices were considered in some sense debased, and a perversion of proper Buddhist practice. Furthermore, Hegel, in 1822, found it ‘both paradoxical and revolting’ that the Dalai Lama held temporal power as well as being worshipped as the reincarnation of a god (Lopez, 1998, p. 4). However, since the Tibetan Diaspora has spread around the world, and the Tibetan causes has attracted m any high-profile followers, there has been a sea-change in Western attitudes towards Tibetan culture and the religion which pervades every aspect of it. For many, Tibetan culture represents what they see as the spiritual ‘

Social research methods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Social research methods - Essay Example Different types of statistics can be used to serve different purposes of the research. While descriptive statistics can be used to describe the data, statistical model can be used to forecast data. Researches that are aimed at finding relationship between variables can make use of statistical techniques such as correlation and regression. Difference between Descriptive and Inferential statistics, purpose of each and applications Descriptive statistics: Descriptive statistics can be defined as the set of tools and techniques that can be used to describe the quantitative features of a collection of data (Mann, 1995). The main purpose of using descriptive statistics is to summarize a data set. Statistics such as measures of central tendency, measures of variation, graphs, and bar charts etc are examples of descriptive statistics. The three most important types of descriptive statistics are: measures of central tendency, dispersion and distribution. While distribution is an indication of the frequency of specific values of a range of data variables, measures of central tendency such as mean and median are aimed at finding the center of the entire data set (Levin and Rubin, 2007). Measures of dispersions such as range or standard deviation are an indication of the spread of data set. Inferential statistics: Inferential statistics are the set of tools and techniques that can be used to draw inferences about a population from a small sample of data (Lane, 2011). The various examples of inferential statistics techniques include t-test, Analysis of Variance, Correlation analysis, regression analysis, factor and cluster analysis and discriminant function analysis etc. There are two types of inferential statistics: estimation testing and hypothesis testing. While in estimation testing, the confidence interval of a particular parameter is calculated using the sample, hypothesis testing is generally used to compare certain parameters in two or more samples or comparing a sa mple parameter to a specific value. A hypothesis can be defined as an assumption about a population parameter (Stattrek, 2011). The null hypothesis can be defined as the hypothesis of no difference or the hypothesis of status quo (Bajpai, 2009). The alternate possibility is called the alternate hypothesis. Hypothesis testing can be used by researchers to test certain theories that they want to prove. Frequency table and bar chart a. Ethnic origin Ethnic origin (5 groups) Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid White 3746 91.1 91.5 91.5 Mixed race 35 .9 .9 92.3 Asian 179 4.4 4.4 96.7 Black 87 2.1 2.1 98.8 Other 48 1.2 1.2 100.0 Total 4095 99.6 100.0 Missing -8 16 .4 Total 4111 100.0 Table 1: Frequency table for ethnic origin As can be seen from the frequency table, the most common ethnic group is White. The next highest frequency of ethnic group is Asian with 4.4% of the data items. Another way of representing the data is using a bar chart. The graph below shows the bar chart for the data set: Figure 1: Bar chart for ethnic origin b. Education level The frequency table for the variable education level is shown below: Education Level - 2000 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Higher Degree 147 3.6 4.6 4.6 First Degree 450 10.9 14.0 18.6 Teaching qualification 47 1.1 1.5 20.0 Other higher qualification