Jane Compson

University of Washington Tacoma, IAS, Faculty Member

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Mark Graves

cindy mason

U.C. Berkeley

Fiona Ross

Kingston University, London

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Elisabetta Sirgiovanni

Sapienza University of Roma

University of Tuscia (Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo)

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National Centre of Scientific Research "DEMOKRITOS"

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Books by Jane Compson

Chapter: Is Mindfulness Secular or Religious, and Does it Matter

This is a pre-print of a chapter published in Monteiro, Musten & Compson (Eds.), A Practitioner’... more

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Meditation and the Classroom

Papers by Jane Compson

Compassionate AI and the Alignment Problem AIES

Proceedings of the Seventh AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, 2024

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology promises plausible increases to hu... more The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology promises plausible increases to human flourishing, health, and well-being but raises concerns about possible harms and increased suffering. By making AI compassionate, the alleviation of suffering becomes explicit, rather than proxied, and potential harms caused by AI automation can be turned into benefits. Compassionate healthcare is beneficial for patient health outcomes and satisfaction and improves caregiver resilience and burnout. AI automation has many benefits but may interfere with patient care and autonomy. Incorporating compassion into healthcare reduces potential harms, increases health benefits and well-being, and can protect patient autonomy while providing more responsive and equitable care. Whether and how one conceives of AI as plausibly compassionate depends on ethical concerns and cultural context, including assumptions about human nature and AI personhood. Insights from Buddhism have contributed to scholarship on compassion and can extend incomplete Western perspectives on AI possibilities and limitations. Psychological research on the elements of compassion can guide development of compassionate AI and its incorporation into healthcare. Compassionate AI can be deployed especially into application areas where compassion plays an essential role with high demands on the compassion capacity of caregivers, such as dementia eldercare and palliative care.

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Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect - By Joseph R. Myers

Reviews in religion and theology, 2009

Only as I sit down to write this review of John Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? do I notic... more Only as I sit down to write this review of John Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? do I notice that the editors of this latest installment in the so-far promising and intriguing series 'The Church and Postmodern Culture' let one slip past them: the book's cover has the subtitle as 'The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church', while the title and copyright pages inside record it as 'The Good News of Postmodernity for the Church'. The confusion over the postmodern hinted at by this suffix discrepancy-are we talking about a matrix of intellectual trends in continental philosophy and critical theory (the-ism), or about the cultural condition(s) that characterize the technologized, capitalist West (the-ity)?-is in one sense what Caputo's book, and the series as a whole, seeks to address. To the author's and editors' relief (and librarians' consternation), the cover gets it right. This series is interested in postmodern-ism, about the potential prophetic value of postmodern ideas for today's Christian churches. Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct? presents a clear, readable exploration of the potential ecclesial, theological, ethical, and political value of deconstruction, the late French theorist Jacques Derrida's notion that all signification contains the seed of its own unmaking. This is well-trodden ground for Caputo, who has been dealing with Derrida in a theological key for decades now (see especially The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, 1997). And while he has the nuance and sophistication of an expert, his writing, as usual, is creative, playful, frequently humorous, and often profound. In short, the book is a fun read-not too long, but not insubstantial; sufficiently provocative but not overly heady. The discussion unfolds in six chapters. Caputo begins with a surprising interpretation of Charles Sheldon's 1896 classic In His Steps, the book that launched the recent 'WWJD' campaign. With subtlety and imagination, he undertakes a deconstructive reading of In His Steps,

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Seeing Outranks Believing: Some Buddhist Reflections on Faith and Belief

Modern Believing, Jul 1, 2007

SEEING OUTRANKS BELIEVING: 6. A generous thank you to Jane Tuohy who taught me this as well as ma... more SEEING OUTRANKS BELIEVING: 6. A generous thank you to Jane Tuohy who taught me this as well as many other wonder ful exercises. 7. Peter Senge, 'The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organiza tion.' I use a modification of his original design. 8. Explanations of cultural differences such as these may be found in many sources. One particularly good source is Norma Carr-Ruffino, Diversity Success Strategies, (Boston: Butterwort'h, 1999). 9. I am uncertain of the ultimate origin of this scenario. 10. A L'niversalist, for example, may believe that it is always wrong to compromise the integrity of one's work; it is always wrong to lie. A Particularist, though, may believe it is wrong to lie, but will alter their normal course of action out of loyalty to a friend. 11. L.L. Cummings and P. Bromily, 'The Organisational Trust Inventory (OTI): Develop ment and Validation in R. Kramer and T. Tyler (eds), Trust in Organizations, (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1996). 12. http://sts.utexas.edu/projects/summerworkshop2005/PlSummary.pdf. 13. The teacher/trainer may also build a reflection exercise into this section if participation or energy is waning. One may ask: 'How does trust play out on the court?' To begin a discussion on how to engage in effective dialogue across difference, one may begin to tease out what trust means to the student participants. Whom do they trust and why? A list of trust-a/ qualities may be generated to begin the process of becoming trustworthy as a dialogue partner and leader. 14. This case as well as the trainer notes below have been modified from a real case study produced by Cambridge Hill Partners, Inc.

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Compassionate AI and the Alignment Problem

by Mark Graves, Jane Compson, and Cyrus Olsen

Theology and Science, 2024

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Finding God in the Singing River ? By Mark I. Wallace

Conversations in Religion and Theology, May 1, 2007

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Take CARE of Burnout: A Model for Increasing Well-Being and Resilience

Zen Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices ? Merv Fowler

Conversations in Religion and Theology, Nov 1, 2006

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The Philosophy of the Daodejing – Hans-Georg Moeller

Reviews in religion and theology, Mar 1, 2008

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Attending to Loyalties, Affections, Convictions … and Doubts

Routledge eBooks, Oct 14, 2016

Is Mindfulness Secular or Religious, and Does It Matter?

Mindfulness in behavioral health, 2017

This chapter will describe how many of the ethical judgments about the appropriate application of... more This chapter will describe how many of the ethical judgments about the appropriate application of mindfulness rest on various assumptions and value judgments about what it means for something to be “religious” or “secular,” and so on. It will discuss how the framing of concepts such as the religious and the secular have evolved through the modern period to the postmodern period, and how this has a bearing on the contemporary mindfulness debates. It will be argued that the contemporary mindfulness debates are most fruitfully understood in postmodern, postsecular terms, and that doing so opens the door to mutually beneficial dialogue between narratives and disciplines.

Meditation, Trauma and Suffering in Silence: Raising Questions about How Meditation is Taught and Practiced in Western Contexts in the Light of a Contemporary Trauma Resiliency Model

Contemporary Buddhism, Jul 3, 2014

Although there are very few published studies on the issue, there is much anecdotal evidence that... more Although there are very few published studies on the issue, there is much anecdotal evidence that, despite all its undisputed benefits, meditation practice can have psychologically deleterious effects. In this paper I will describe a body-based model for understanding trauma, the Trauma Resiliency model, and suggest it might be a helpful tool in anticipating, preventing and/or mitigating these effects. I will argue that Buddhist traditions are replete with frameworks, tools and techniques for addressing some of the psychological pitfalls highlighted. However, some of these methods may have been 'lost in translation' as Buddhist meditation training has been adapted for a Western audience. I will make the case that, somewhat ironically, in operational terms some of the secular modalities for teaching mindfulness (such as MBSR) may be psychologically 'safer' than those offered in a (Western) Buddhist context. I will call for further inquiry about how to mitigate and protect against psychological harms in Buddhist meditation training.

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Bridging the interdisciplinary divide: co-advancing the pedagogy of environmental justice through a digital commons initiative

Interdisciplinary environmental review, 2015

Opportunities to advance environmental justice and sustainability pedagogy in academic settings a... more Opportunities to advance environmental justice and sustainability pedagogy in academic settings are challenged by: 1) the balkanisation of such conceptions into different academic discourses, and 2) the exclusion of community discourses outside academia. Two dominant academic discourses in environmental justice originate from either anthropocentric (human) or ecocentric (non-human) conceptualisations. An interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching project that sought to integrate such discourses and privilege the voice of the community is described. In the course of an environmental ethics class, two faculty from philosophy and nursing initiated an assignment to produce short documentary interviews and transcripts (n =18) with community members in a US City 'Defining environmental justice' for archiving as open-source material in a University Library. Of the video-transcripts produced, most (n = 16) explored anthropocentric positions. In this presentation, the dominance of anthropocentric discourses is explored as both an opportunity and a challenge for advancing the pedagogy of environmental justice and sustainability.

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The CARE heuristic for addressing burnout in nurses

Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, Apr 27, 2015

This paper provides a heuristic for addressing the pressing problem of burnout in nurses. Followi... more This paper provides a heuristic for addressing the pressing problem of burnout in nurses. Following a literature review about the causes and symptoms of burnout, a case will be made that the problem is best addressed from a variety of perspectives using different modalities. These are summarized under the different headings of Compassion, Awareness, Resilient Responding and Empowerment which together from the CARE heuristic. An explanation and justification for each of these different approaches is provided, along with practical exercises that nurses might practice in order to build capacity in each of these domains and protect themselves against or treat existing symptoms of burnout.

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Adverse Meditation Experiences: Navigating Buddhist and Secular Frameworks for Addressing Them

Mindfulness, Feb 24, 2018

The intent of this article is to stimulate a conversation and encourage interdisciplinary discuss... more The intent of this article is to stimulate a conversation and encourage interdisciplinary discussion and dialog between Bsecularâ nd BBuddhist^camps around the notion of adverse psychological experiences that might occur in the context of meditation practice and training, be that as part of a day-today practice or in the context of a residential and intensive retreat. Depending on the context, there are significant differences in the way that such experiences are made sense of and, as a result, there may be significant variations in tradition-specific accounts of how to manage such experiences. In each context, implicit foundational values (about, for example, what counts as mental health, or the goals of meditation practice) may lead to very different accounts about what counts as harmful or helpful, and therefore about what is an appropriate course of action. For those teaching meditation, either in secular or religious contexts, this has clear ethical implications-how are the best interests of the student served? This paper will explore examples of this tension by comparing and contrasting accounts about adverse meditation experiences from Buddhist and secular perspectives. A case will be made for a dialogic, mutually engaged, and supportive relationship between Buddhist and secular approaches to adverse meditation experiences.

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Buddhist Chaplaincy

Springer eBooks, 2020

Do Morals Matter? A Guide to Contemporary Religious Ethics – By Ian S. Markham

Reviews in religion and theology, Jul 1, 2008

Loving Wisdom and The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar are well worth reading for their insight... more Loving Wisdom and The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar are well worth reading for their insight into how Evangelical Christians understand the role of education. Indeed, they help bring into focus vital issues about the relationship between knowing God, education, and civilization that are in need of solutions. What these two books have in common is that they posit faith as the distinguishing factor in Christian education. Here, 'faith' means believing as true the claims of the Bible. Furthermore, both books build on the advice of Alvin Plantinga, 'Christians should do philosophy with a greater sense of independence, not slavishly following the criteria or demands of secular or non-Christian philosophers, who often operate with different standards and assumptions' (Copan, p. 5); and both think of philosophy in terms of advice from J. Gresham Machen: 'False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the whole world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion' (Two Tasks, p. 49). They also put

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Don Cupitt, Is Nothing Sacred? The Non-Realistic Philosophy of Religion

Conversations in Religion and Theology, Nov 1, 2003

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The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Programme

Countless people have helped me to set up the project and write this thesis. I am very grateful t... more Countless people have helped me to set up the project and write this thesis. I am very grateful to the entire Upaya sangha and associated teachers for their tremendous wisdom, compassion, encouragement, inspiration and support. I am grateful for all my dharma teachers in the Peacemaker order and in other traditions. This includes my teacher, Peter Carlson, and members of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction community-in particular, Elizabeth Cohen, Melissa

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Chapter: Is Mindfulness Secular or Religious, and Does it Matter

This is a pre-print of a chapter published in Monteiro, Musten & Compson (Eds.), A Practitioner’... more

Download

Meditation and the Classroom

Compassionate AI and the Alignment Problem AIES

Proceedings of the Seventh AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, 2024

Download

Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect - By Joseph R. Myers

Reviews in religion and theology, 2009

Download

Seeing Outranks Believing: Some Buddhist Reflections on Faith and Belief

Modern Believing, Jul 1, 2007

Download

Compassionate AI and the Alignment Problem

by Mark Graves, Jane Compson, and Cyrus Olsen

Theology and Science, 2024

Download

Finding God in the Singing River ? By Mark I. Wallace

Conversations in Religion and Theology, May 1, 2007

It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. ... more

Take CARE of Burnout: A Model for Increasing Well-Being and Resilience

Zen Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices ? Merv Fowler

Conversations in Religion and Theology, Nov 1, 2006

It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. ... more

The Philosophy of the Daodejing – Hans-Georg Moeller

Reviews in religion and theology, Mar 1, 2008

Download

Attending to Loyalties, Affections, Convictions … and Doubts

Routledge eBooks, Oct 14, 2016

Is Mindfulness Secular or Religious, and Does It Matter?

Mindfulness in behavioral health, 2017

Meditation, Trauma and Suffering in Silence: Raising Questions about How Meditation is Taught and Practiced in Western Contexts in the Light of a Contemporary Trauma Resiliency Model

Contemporary Buddhism, Jul 3, 2014

Download

Bridging the interdisciplinary divide: co-advancing the pedagogy of environmental justice through a digital commons initiative

Interdisciplinary environmental review, 2015

Download

The CARE heuristic for addressing burnout in nurses

Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, Apr 27, 2015

Download

Adverse Meditation Experiences: Navigating Buddhist and Secular Frameworks for Addressing Them

Mindfulness, Feb 24, 2018

Download

Buddhist Chaplaincy

Springer eBooks, 2020

Do Morals Matter? A Guide to Contemporary Religious Ethics – By Ian S. Markham

Reviews in religion and theology, Jul 1, 2008

Download

Don Cupitt, Is Nothing Sacred? The Non-Realistic Philosophy of Religion

Conversations in Religion and Theology, Nov 1, 2003

Download

The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Programme

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A Meeting of Minds in Cyberspace: Eco-contemplative Methods for Online Teaching

Meditation and the Classroom inventively articulates how educators can use meditation to educate ... more Meditation and the Classroom inventively articulates how educators can use meditation to educate the whole student. Notably, a number of universities have initiated contemplative studies options and others have opened contemplative spaces. This represents an attempt to address the inner life. It is also a sign of a new era, one in which the United States is more spiritually diverse than ever before. Examples from university classrooms and statements by students indicate benefits include increased self-awareness, creativity, and compassion. The religious studies scholars who have contributed to this book often teach about meditation, but here they include reflections on how meditation has affected them and their teaching. Until recently, though, even many religious studies professors would find sharing meditation experiences, let alone teaching meditation techniques, a breach of disciplinary and academic protocols. The value of teaching meditation and teaching about meditation is discussed. Ethical issues such as pluralism, respect, qualifications, power and coercion, and avoiding actual or perceived proselytization are also examined. While methods for religious studies are emphasized, the book provides valuable guidance for all those interested in this endeavor. This book is divided into six sections. Section I, Why Contemplative Pedagogy? The Religious Studies Dialogue, contains the following: (1) The Convergence of Liberal Education and Contemplative Education--Inevitable? (Thomas B. Coburn); (2) Meditation and Education: India, Tibet, and Modern America (Robert A. F. Thurman); (3) Contemplative Studies: Can It Flourish in the Religious Studies Classroom? (Harold D. Roth); and (4) Contemplative Studies and the Art of Persuasion: The Institutional Challenge (Laurie L. Patton). Section II, The Contemplative Professor, contains the following: (5) From Content, to Context, to Contemplation: One Professor\u27s Journey (Fran Grace); (6) The Collective Dynamics of Contemplative Practice (Christopher M. Bache); (7) The Mindful Teacher as the Foundation of Contemplative Pedagogy (Richard C. Brown); (8) Compassion Beyond Fatigue: Contemplative Training for Educators and Other Helping Professionals (John Makransky); and (9) Field Notes from a Daoist Professor (Louis Komjathy). Section III, Critical Issues in Contemplative Teaching, contains the following: (10) Training the Heart Responsibly: Ethical Considerations in Contemplative Teaching (Judith Simmer-Brown); (11) Invitation and Coercion in Contemplative Pedagogy (Sid Brown); and (12) Interiority and Higher Education: The Neurophenomenology of Contemplation (Tobin Hart). Section IV, Contemplative-Based Courses, contains the following: (13) Embodied Contemplative Learning: Aikido as a Case Study (Michelle Lelwica); (14) Reflections on Theory and Practice: The Case of Modern Yoga (Stuart Ray Sarbacker); (15) Sustaining Life: Contemplative Pedagogies in a Religion and Ecology Course (Barbara Patterson); (16) Adab: Courteous Behavior in the Classroom (Bridget Blomfield); and (17) Experiencing Medieval Christian Spirituality (Kristine T. Utterback). Section V, Contemplative Exercises for the Classroom, contains the following: (18) Awareness Practices in an Undergraduate Buddhism Course (Andrew O. Fort); (19) Contemplative Inquiry: Beyond the Disembodied Subject (Anne Carolyn Klein and Ann Gleig); (20) Love of Wisdom Puts You on the Spot: The Warrior Exam (Dale Asrael); (21) A Meeting of the Minds in Cyberspace: Eco-contemplative Methods for Online Teaching (Jane Compson); (22) Mindfulness in the History Classroom: Teaching as Interbeing (Shu-chin Wu); (23) Two Contemplative Practices That Animate the Study of Religion (John D. Copenhaver); and (24) Mindfulness and Contemplative Practice in Art and Religion (Deborah J. Haynes). Section VI, Conclusion: Does It Work? Evaluations from Our Students, contains the following: (25) Emotional Learning: Recognizing Emotion and Thought in a Buddhism Course (Judith Simmer-Brown); and (26) Meditation in the Classroom: What Do the Students Say They Learn? (Fran Grace). Selected bibliography, a list of contributors and an index are included

Culture: Courageous Engagement is a Strategic Initiative - Jane Compson

Compassionate AI for Moral Decision-Making, Health, and Well-Being

by Jane Compson and Mark Graves

under review, 2024

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology promises plausible increases to hu... more The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technology promises plausible increases to human flourishing, health, and well-being but raises concerns about possible harms and increased suffering. By making AI compassionate, the alleviation of suffering becomes explicit, rather than proxied, and potential harms caused by AI automation can be turned into benefits. Compassionate healthcare is beneficial for patient health outcomes and satisfaction and improves caregiver resilience and burnout. AI automation has many benefits but may interfere with patient care and autonomy. Incorporating compassion into healthcare reduces potential harms, increases health benefits and well-being, and can protect patient autonomy while providing more responsive and equitable care. Whether and how one conceives of AI as plausibly compassionate depends on ethical concerns and cultural context, including assumptions about human nature and AI personhood. Insights from Buddhism have contributed to scholarship on compassion and can reframe limiting Western perspectives on AI possibilities and limitations. Psychological research on the elements of compassion can guide development of compassionate AI and its incorporation into healthcare. Compassionate AI can be deployed especially into application areas where compassion plays an essential role with high demands on the compassion capacity of caregivers, such as dementia eldercare and palliative care.

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Cultivating the Contemplative Mind in Cyberspace: Field notes from pedagogical experiments in fully online classes

Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, 2017

Fully online classes are on the rise in US higher education institutions. This article describes ... more Fully online classes are on the rise in US higher education institutions. This article describes pedagogical methods for incorporating contemplative practices into these courses, using an undergraduate class in "Philosophy, Religion and the Environment" to elucidate general principles. I give rationale for incorporating contemplative exercises into this class, along with specific techniques and example exercises and assignments. Drawing on literature about pedagogical best practices, I suggest some guiding principles for incorporating contemplative exercises into online classes. I then discuss the results of these pedagogical experiments, measured in terms of qualitative student feedback and instructor impressions.

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