Hi everyone,

My name is Ben - my journey with Mahasi practice has been quite an adventure... to SE Asia taking robes, to Malaysia at MBMC, to many retreats and self practice.

In more recent years I've been inextricably led to explore personal growth too and am currently completing my masters of counselling at the University of Tasmania, Australia. I am doing a study on psychological functioning, resilience and wellbeing in short, medium and long term practitioners of mindfulness meditation. And I really need some participants!

That's where you all come in. The survey can be completed online in about 60-90 mins. You can save it at any point and come back to it if need be. I would really appreciate people taking the time to complete it. Your contribution is going to help shine some light on the benefits psychologically of meditation and perhaps dispel some myths about its use...who knows? The exciting part is that we don't really know what the results are going to show.

Please participate and pass it on to anyone you know who does a form of Buddhist insight practice. The link is

http://goo.gl/2Hiqw

Thanks everyone.

Ben

Hey Ben,
good luck on your research. i've started doing your poll and although just at the start i find i'm having difficulty with the nomenclature.

i realize that these things can be complicated but what are you using as a definition of "feelings" for example? in a generic context this can mean our emotional state but in a vipassana context it can mean "the feeling tone" of a sensation eg: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral.

there are lots of other examples in your survey which are similar and which, depending upon the context and meaning would definitely skew the results.

cheers

tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your feedback. Glad to answer any questions!

If you are talking about feelings as they pertain to my definition of insight practices at the beginning of the survey then I am referring to it in the satipatthana sense (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral).

During the surveys themselves take it to mean whatever you like in the general sense of 'emotion'. A lot of the time it doesn't matter too much statistically if you are unsure about the odd one or two questions because the surveys are designed to norm against similar questions.

I realize the survey is long and boring at times so I appreciate your participation

Thanks