Enlightening Experience Research Articles

Co-creation solutions and the three Co’s framework for applying Co-creation

PurposeA sense of collective free-thinking with tangible goals makes co-creation an enlightening experience. Yet despite the freedom and organic flow of the methodology, there remain barriers to deploying co-creation in the real-world context. The aim was to understand the barriers and solutions to co-creation, reflect on applying co-creation in practice and co-create an applicable framework for co-creation.Design/methodology/approachThese reflections and conceptual developments were completed using a Participatory Action Research Approach through the co-creation of the Erasmus+ funded Co-creating Welfare course.FindingsResults presented are centric to the experiences in the United Kingdom but led to application at an international level. Problem formulation led to solutions devised about who should co-create, what co-creation aims to achieve, how to receive management buy-in, co-creating beyond the local face to face context and evaluation.Originality/valueThe Three Co’s Framework is proposed using the outline of: Co-Define, Co-Design and Co-Refine. Those who take part in co-creation processes are recommended to be called co-creators, with less focus on “empowerment” and more about facilitating people to harness the power they already have. Utilising online and hybrid delivery methods can be more inclusive, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of co-creation needs to be evaluated more moving forwards, as well as the output co-created.

“Taking Comedy Seriously”: Humour in Lisa McGee’s Girls and Dolls

Laughter in the midst of tragedy can be one of life’s most disturbing, cathartic and enlightening experiences, a maxim experienced in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, one of the most painful periods of Irish history. Northern Irish playwrights were acutely aware of this when dealing with violence in their plays and so, however grim the events they depicted, the comic element was very much present. After the Good Friday Agreement, along with the change in the political situation in Northern Ireland, there was a generational change in the theatre. What seems to characterise this new wave is the ironic distance taken towards the sectarian divide and the consequences of the conflict on Northern Irish society, which is revealed above all in their use of humour. Lisa McGee, one of the most important representatives of the new generation thanks to the popularity of her television series Derry Girls, had already shown her maturity in her 2006 play Girls and Dolls, performed by Tinderbox the same year. McGee mixes the tragic and the comic to present the terrible consequences of childhood trauma alongside the violence of the late Troubles, while raising questions about guilt, the meaning of friendship and the subtle ways in which violence affects us. This article aims to analyse the different uses of humour employed by McGee to deal with tragic episodes and their theatrical effect, drawing on the existing research on humour in literature and McGee’s own observations given in an interview with the author on 3 March 2023.

An Importance–Performance Analysis Approach to a Tourism Destination: the Case of Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal

Pull factors, the attributes of a specific location, matter in tourism. These factors encompass the distinctive characteristics and alluring features that attract tourists to a destination, their importance and performance influencing the decision-making process and overall experience. A clear comprehension of this concept is crucial for destinations' economic vitality as they compete for tourists and strive for economic expansion and employment prospects. Indeed, an in-depth knowledge of these factors' importance and performance underscores the need for regions to adjust their approach to evolving tourist preferences. This adaptation is crucial to fostering responsible and sustainable tourism practices that safeguard cultural and natural resources. However, besides learning about the factors considered critical by tourists to visit a location, it is paramount to analyse how they evaluate the performance of each of these factors while staying there.This study focuses on the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), Portugal, and the findings will provide essential insights into destination competitiveness, sustainable tourism development, and the creation of unique travel experiences. As a destination that gained popularity, attracting tourists from all over the world, it is necessary to comprehend the specific factors that contribute to this vibrant region's allure and how it performs regarding them. The research will use the Importance-Performance Analysis to make data interpretation accessible and suggest relevant measures to improve competitiveness based on optimising the allocation of resources among the various factors/attributes analysed. The research incorporates numerous criteria categories, including historical significance, urban appeal, natural scenery, culinary experiences, cultural heritage, and aspects like streets' cleanliness, transport availability, or health emergency infrastructures. The study's conclusions will impact Lisbon region's (LMA) tourism and destination management. By understanding what factors are more important for tourists that visit the area and their evaluation of the performance of each of these factors, stakeholders can improve marketing, infrastructure, and the visitors' experience to promote sustainable development and maintain Lisbon's standing as a top tourist destination for rewarding and enlightening experiences. Relevant data is also provided to inform future tourism initiatives. This study adds to the academic discussion of location competitiveness and unique travel experiences.

Religion and Courtship Novels: A Comparison between The Story of the Stone and Mansfield Park in Spiritual Worlds and Secular Lives

This paper compares how the different religious traditions in China and England shaped their courtship narratives in the long eighteenth century respectively. It finds that though the courtship novels in the two countries share the theme of temptation, the hero in The Story of the Stone is tempted by general worldly pleasures, while in Mansfield Park by sexual desire. When constancy plays an important role in the Chinese context, second attachment is central to character development in English courtship narratives. The English marriage plot usually embraces worldly happiness while The Story of the Stone’s tragic ending enables the hero’s experience of enlightenment and becoming a monk. Although Xueqin Cao’s and Jane Austen’s courtship novels address similar theme, the very different Christian and Buddhist-Daoist values in China and England shape their courtship plots decisively. Courtship novels, a popular genre in the long eighteenth century that has been widely recognised as narratives focusing on secular life and marriage practice, are unable to depart from the religious tradition in each country.

EXISTENTIAL-PHILOSOPHICAL SYMBOLS AND MEANINGS IN THE SUFISTIC ROMAN “GHURBAH AL-GHARBIYAH” SUHRAWARDĪ

Suhrawardī, as the founder of illumination philosophy, has works in the field of literature that have philosophical nuances. Researchers through this article attempt to examine philosophically-hermeneutically the Sufistic Romance of Ghurbah al-Gharbiyah Suhrawardī which has not been extensively studied by researchers including Suhrawardī scholars. The novel is genealogically related to Ḥay bin Yaqẓān by Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Ṭufayl, so it is called the Ḥay bin Yaqẓān trilogy: Avicenna, Ibnu Ṭufayl, and Suhrawardī. Through Ricoeur’s Hermeneutic Approach and Corbin’s Epistemology of Sufistic Imagination, which is used as a research method, researchers intend to interpret the symbols and existential meanings of Ghurbah al-Gharbiyah's novel. The purpose of this study is to interpret the background, symbols, and meaning behind Suhrawardī’s novel. The conclusion of this study: Ghurbah al-Gharbiyah discusses the philosophical theme of human alienation in the world with the use of symbols: the city of Qairawan as the imprisoned phase, the Hudhud bird as the enlightenment phase, and the journey on Mount Sinai during the liberation phase and meeting with the "Light of all Lights". Three phases each characterize today's Sufistic consciousness of man: the experience of alienation, enlightenment, and liberation. On the other hand, this novel is a representation of Suhrawardī's subjective creative imagination (al-quwwah al-khayāliyyah) inspired by prophetic experiences: Prophet Muhammad's Ascension, Prophet Sulaiman's Hudhud bird, and Prophet Musa's Mount Sinai.

Spiritual practices of zen buddhism in the conditions of globalization challenges of modern times

The article studies the specifics of Zen Buddhism spiritual practices that influence the spread of their popularity in the contemporary Western globalised world. Zen Buddhism insists on the need for inner spiritual experience, which is directly opposed to authority and external revelation. Zen Buddhism primarily emphasises individual effort in overcoming the separation of the world into opposites, which is the result of the thinking activity. The difference between the religious system of Zen Buddhism is that Zen Buddhism, with its enlightenment, does not depend on sacred books and texts (as, for example, in Christianity, which formed the Western world system); Zen is also primarily non-verbal. The experience of enlightenment cannot be shared with others. Zen practice is a cultivated path, which at the same time has no ultimate goal or meaning; here the path (life in the inevitable) is already a "satori" here and now, which constantly flows through human existence. The relevance and novelty of the study are due to the highlighting of the features of spiritual practices of Zen Buddhism as a way of self-knowledge of a person, "returning to oneself", which ensures its active spread in modern Western society. It is determined that the essence of Zen Buddhism mysticism is that the most real is the abstract, and vice versa. The whole system of spiritual practices is the product of this essential inner spiritual experience. This mysticism often prevents us from measuring the depth of the Eastern mind in terms of Western rationalism because it denies logical analysis by its very nature. The Eastern mind is synthetic. It does not attach too much importance to insignificant trivialities. Still, it strives for an intuitive understanding of the whole, which reaches the spiritual philosophy of Zen in the daily practical challenges of the globalised world. The features of the influence of the spiritual system of Zen Buddhism on Japanese art are also analysed. The conclusions underline that Zen Buddhism has had a significant impact both directly on the religious and cultural life of the Japanese and world culture in general. The popularity of the spiritual practices of Zen Buddhism in Western society is due to their idea of breaking a person out of the subject-object dichotomy, which leads to the separation of the spiritual essence of man, and causes social conflicts. Zen has unique aesthetics, which include a high appreciation of moderation, asymmetry, imperfection, simplicity, and naturalness. In simple beauty and simplicity (transformation of "poverty" into a kind of minimalism), the Japanese find a unique charm and a source of true beauty.

How State Ownership Affects Firm Innovation Performance: Evidence from China

ABSTRACT Innovation plays a vital role in economic development. This paper examined the effect of state ownership on firm innovation as well as the moderating roles of R&D capability and marketization by Chinese firm-level data from Chinese Industrial Enterprises (2008–2011) and listed companies (2007–2016). The theoretical and empirical study verified that state ownership positively influences firm innovation, and firm’s R&D capability and the degree of marketization have significant positive moderate effect. The result was robust in a series of checks such as using lagged data, adopting alternative identification methods and variables, and using independent replication. The conclusion provided implications for the management of Chinese firms. The unique innovation pattern of Chinese firms also provided enlightening experience to other emerging economies.

The experiences of spiritual enlightenment: A mixed-method study of the development of a Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale

This article aims to explore contemplative (pray or meditation) practitioners’ direct lived experiences of enlightenment and develop a multi-item scale measuring these experiences. A mixed-method approach was adopted. The first study is a phenomenological study that interviewed 24 participants with enlightenment experiences and the second study is a scale-development study that recruited 1130 participants for scale validation. Two major clusters of the enlightenment experiences including sensory feelings and nondual realizations emerged from the phenomenological study and the four main themes of the realizations were formed: intrapersonal insights, inspiration internalization, interpersonal compassion, and interconnectedness. After exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a three-factor structure of the Spiritual Enlightenment Experience Scale (SEES), including nonduality, sensory clarity, and sensory disappearance were revealed. The findings of the research depicted a fuller picture of spiritual enlightenment experiences which may contribute to the current knowledge of religiosity and spirituality, as well as transpersonal psychology. The results suggest that the core components of spiritual enlightenment experiences include sensory clarity and disappearance experiences and realizations of nonduality.

The Digital Revolution: It’s Time to Take Control [From the Editor’s Desk

This past fall, after university students returned to the classroom, I had an opportunity to walk the campus of my alma mater. It was an enlightening experience for me, taking in the cool but sunny weather and the mosaic of colors from the autumn leaves. The experience brought back many fond memories. One thing had definitely changed though—the students. It was clear that many were focused elsewhere: looking down with thumbs racing across their device keyboards, glancing up only occasionally to be sure they didn’t run into a wall or perhaps another student. With almost every student on campus seemingly oblivious to their surroundings, I wondered if our coming generation of leaders would find a way for electronic media to somehow let go of them, or if the real question is are they able to let go of it? I too am admittedly guilty of occasionally pulling my phone out of my pocket, itching to see if there is a new text message or email. Being connected 24/7 has advantages, but it seems the United States has become a nation addicted to electronic media.

Experience Sharing on Virtual COOP Training to Mechanical Engineering Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, which started in December 2019, brought about a paradigm shift in the lifestyles of people worldwide due to the imposed constraints and lockdowns aimed at containing the spread of the infection. Each and every aspect of our lifestyle such as eating, travelling, socializing and learning was affected by this pandemic. Even the education sector was not untouched due to this pandemic, which caught the various stakeholders of this industry, such as the students, faculty and the administration, unaware. The education of a complete generation of kids and adults all over the world required some drastic adjustments so that their learning process would continue unaffected. Even though distance learning and online teaching have been around for a long time in the education sector, its importance was felt during this last year because of the role it played in the transfer of knowledge to students during the lockdowns wherein the students did not have access to physical classrooms and schools. Faculty, students and the administration developed new innovative ideas to adjust to this new change in teaching/learning styles and made the transition for all stakeholders a smooth and an enlightening experience. One such change had to be made in the delivery style of the cooperative program (COOP) for Mechanical engineering students at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). COOP is a 9-credit hour course that a student with a junior standing in the Applied Mechanical Engineering program (AME) has to take and pass. It requires the student to spend about seven months in the industry to learn applications in a practical environment and solve practical problems with the aid of the theoretical knowledge gained by him in the courses. However, due to the sudden lockdown in March 2020, most of the industries downed their shutters, which left these poor students halfway stranded through their COOP course. Hence, in order to cater to these students, the administration came up with the idea of substituting physical training with virtual training without compromising on the quality of the education. Comprehensive procedures on the various modules designed and delivered under this new virtual training program, the mode of instruction used, the assessment methods implemented and the experiences of the students are presented in this paper, which can be of tremendous help to various stakeholders.

Dōgen on Language and Experience

Understanding Zen views on language and experience from a philosophical hermeneutical point of view means conceiving such an understanding as a merging of horizons. We have to explicate both the modern Western secular horizon and the medieval Japanese Zen horizon. This article first describes how Charles Taylor’s notion of the immanent frame has shaped Western modernist understanding of Zen language and experience in the twentieth century. Zen language was approached as an instrumental tool, and Zen enlightenment experience was imagined as an ineffable “pure experience.” More recent postmodernist approaches to Zen language and experience have stressed the interrelatedness of language and experience, and the importance of embodied approaches to experience. Such new understandings of language and experience offer not only new perspectives on Dōgen’s “Zen within words and letters” and his embodied approach to enlightened experience, but also an expanded view on what it means to understand Dōgen.

Shitao and the Enlightening Experience of Painting

Having reached its zenith in the Song dynasty, Chinese landscape painting in the dynasties that followed became highly formulaic as artists simply copied the old masters to perfect their skills. This orthodox approach was not accepted by everyone however; some painters criticized it, arguing it was better to learn the ideas behind the techniques of the old masters than to blindly copy them. Shitao was one such critic and his Manual on Painting exemplifies his desire to disassociate himself from the classical approach to painting. This paper will investigate the three major themes of Shitao’s text—the holistic brushstroke, brush and ink, and the method of no-method—in order to show how they shaped his view of landscape painting and how said paintings subsequently embodied them. Unlike the near-scientific approach taken by his contemporaries and predecessors, Shitao paints to capture the unifying simplicity of nature, an onto-aesthetic experience that is profoundly enlightening.

Photocatalytic H2 Production from Water by Metal-free Dye-sensitized TiO2 Semiconductors: The Role and Development Process of Organic Sensitizers.

The utilization of solar energy to produce hydrogen from water is showing increased importance and desirability in the field of artificial photosynthesis to produce clean and sustainable fuels. In a typical three-component dye-sensitized semiconductor system for photocatalysis, the dye sensitizer plays an essential role of energy antenna for harvesting visible light and promoting the reduction reaction to generate hydrogen. In recent decades, a lot of attention has focused on metal-free organic sensitizers, which have the advantages of low cost, high molar extinction coefficient, good modifiability and, most importantly, ability to avoid the use of noble metal ions. This Review enumerates the design strategies, specific properties and photocatalytic performances of metal-free sensitizers in the past 30 years and concludes their evolution process. The advantages of different types of metal-free sensitizers are highlighted and the instructively enlightening experiences are systematic summarized.

Social Realities of Higher Education in the Age of Uncertainties

Education is an enlightening experience and social process. The new social realities, particularly the interplay between democratization of education emergence of knowledge, society and globalization greatly influence the educational process of all societies. There exists a paradoxical situation of limited higher education opportunities and a large pool of unemployable educated in India. This is partly a result of the failure of our education system to develop the competencies required for the world of work. Such competency to face epidemics of Corona and value education, i.e., sensitivity, the ability and a skill to do job or business, is expected outcome of any good education system. The student should realize that they have the right for quality education as well as quality healthy life and they also have learning responsibilities to enable the institution to provide quality education. The students and staff should mutually reinforce their efforts for quality education. The 21 century is an age of accelerated change, the age of ICT that is Information and Communication Technology. We are happy to welcome 2020 which presents a powerful message that this is an age of Knowledge, age of Quality at the same time we are facing covid 19 corona in this age of Uncertainties. In this scenario, higher education is essential for survival. We are having in an important and epoch-making age. We look at higher education for solutions.

Refocusing Sustainability Education: Using Students’ Reflections on Their Carbon Footprint to Reinforce the Importance of Considering CO2 Production in the Construction Industry

The construction industry is the most significant contributor to the UK’s CO2 emissions. It is responsible for an annual output of approximately 45% of the total. This figure highlights the role the industry must play in helping to achieve the UK Government’s CO2 reduction target. It is ergo incumbent on construction-related educators to emphasise this issue and explore ways in which it can be achieved. Unintentional desensitisation has resulted in the term ‘sustainability’, particularly CO2 production, being seen by students as just another concept to be studied from a theoretical perspective. Many students fail to grasp its broader implications and how it should affect strategic environmental decisions about construction processes, technologies, and products. In an attempt to address this problem, an innovative learning, teaching, and assessment strategy was used with final year undergraduate construction students to improve their level of sustainability literacy. The theory of threshold concepts in the context of transformative learning was used as the baseline philosophy to the study. The approach involved asking students to calculate their carbon footprint and to reflect upon and extrapolate their findings to the construction industry and its practice. Content analysis was performed on the reflective commentaries acquired from student portfolios collected over four academic years. The results showed how the students’ reflections on their carbon footprints proved to be an enlightening experience. Terms such as ‘shocked by my footprint’, ‘surprised at the findings’, and ‘change in attitude’ were among the contemplative comments. When students linked their findings to the construction industry, phrases such as ‘waste generation’, ‘technologies’, and ‘materials’ were some of the concepts considered. By using their personal experiences as a benchmark, students were able to gain a deeper level of understanding of the causes and consequences of CO2 production. They also found it more straightforward to relate these issues to the construction industry and its practice. Several novel recommendations are made to raise the level of sustainability literacy in the construction industry thereby facilitating a potential reduction in worldwide CO2 production.

A self-report of the Healer\u2019s art by junior doctors: does the course have a lasting influence on personal experience of humanism, self-nurturing skills and medical counterculture?

BackgroundHealer’s Art (HA) is a voluntary course offered during medical school. The course aims to address the growing loss of meaning and commitment experienced by doctors through the exploration of compassion, empathy and awe in medicine, and early exposure to a supportive community of practice. This project aimed to evaluate the potential influence of HA on junior doctor graduates.MethodsJunior doctors who had undertaken HA during their medical studies were interviewed. A thematic analysis was performed on the results of these semi-structured interviews.ResultsTen junior doctors who had undertaken the HA course participated in interviews. All interviewees described the HA as a positive and enlightening experience in their medical education. The thematic analysis identified four major themes: developing empathy in the doctor-patient journey, self-care and self-awareness, the creation of a supportive community, and coping with the challenging medical culture.ConclusionsHA provides experiential learning that enables participants to explore humanistic medicine. Self-selected junior doctors recall the course as a positive experience, and perceive themselves to be continuing to employ the techniques from HA in the healthcare setting. The concepts taught in the HA course appear to have a lasting personal impact on some junior doctors, who identify the course as influencing their self-reported positive patient-doctor relationships and supportive relationships with medical peers.

Integrative Maternity Health Care – The only logical way forward

In 2014-2015 I was the founding director of a global inaugural conference on Integrative Maternity Healthcare that was a groundbreaking and revolutionary symposium, held in Auckland New Zealand, which promoted a cross-discipline exchange of progressive research, innovative knowledge, enlightened experience and radical ideas; all in a medically professional and universally holistic environment of visionary open-mindedness

Page - body - performance: a journey into active analysis and how it helps the actor’s body learn

ABSTRACTThis article examines my journey into the concepts and practice of Stanislavski-based Active Analysis from my initial encounter in writings, through the embodiment of practice during the S Word: A Practical Acting Laboratory, and finally through applying current cognitive science theories to see if and how they connect. I begin with my investigation into Stanislavski’s work and the general confusion between the Method of Physical Actions and Active Analysis, and the vague understanding of the technique created by various writings. The centre of the article delves into the enlightening experience of working with Sharon Carnicke at the S-Word symposium. The process of physically engaging in Active Analysis, analysing my own and others’ work, and then physicalizing again with such a gifted teacher, shed light on the process as never before. Using cognitive theories of learning and action, I then delve into why the physicalizations of the work brought so much enlightenment and why Active Analysis may work so well in general. By grounding Active Analysis in historical and theoretical writings, exploring it physically, and then connecting the body’s physical process to the analysis, this article gives further evidence of the efficacy of Active Analysis.

화쟁선(禪) 혹은 선(禪)으로서의 화쟁

Historically, the Hwajaeng (和諍) theory of Wonhyo (617-686) cannot be rightly understood without the consideration of the two main axes of IlsimHwajaeng-Muae (一心-和諍-無碍) and Gwi-il-sim-weon Yo-ik-jung-saeng(歸一心源 饒益衆生). From the perspective of recent Wonhyo-Seon (禪) research, where these two axes seem to play the same role, Hwajaeng needs to be inevitably Hwajaeng-Seon (禪). However, the Wonhyo-Seon (禪), as presented in this research, is not only easy to understand ‘theoretically’, but also seems, very difficult to practice, because it needs a very high level of achievement in Ilsim (一心). In this situation, the Conscience-Seon(良心禪) of the Philosophy of Conscience leads us to understand and practice relatively easily Hwajaeng as Hwajaeng-Seon (和諍禪), even before the Experience of Enlightenment, no matter what is our level in Ilsim (一心). The ConscienceSeon, which can be said to be a modern version of the Wonhyo-Seon, is ‘Six ParamitasSeon’, for Six Paramitas are the very Virtues of the Conscience. The Whajaeng-Seon can be defined as «Immersion and Immersion-Thinking about Hwajaeng or Hwajaeng research, as Jungyong’s ‘Hak-mun-sa-byeon-haeng’ (學問思辯行), accompanied by Metacognitive Six Paramitas Analysis». The Immersion-Thinking is possible only if the True-Self is awaked by Immersion in our Ego (generally more than 51%). The interpretation of Seonjeong(禪定) and Jihye(智慧), two axes of ‘Seon Practice’(禪修行), into ‘Immersion and Immersion-Thinking’ means the «Humanistic Turn», that of Buddhist Wonhyo-Seon into Spiritual Conscience-Seon, which is one of the ‘Inmun-Seon’ (人文禪). To search continuously the insightful «Way of Jungyong(中庸)», intending ‘the Perfecting of Self for perfecting Others’(自利利他), based on the True-Self, this ceaseless pursuit of harmony between Six Paramitas and Jungyong, in various cases of Hwajaeng or Hwajaeng research, is the core of the Whajaeng-Seon.

Sustainable Management of Trekking Trails for the Adventure Tourism in Mountains: A Study of Nepal’s Great Himalaya Trails

The existing body of knowledge in tourism reveals that the trekking trails have global appeal and vast potentials to be established and developed as adventure tourism products cum destinations in world mountain regions. The adventure tourism is as one of the fastest growing sub-sectors of tourism. Today the world’s trail systems play a significant role in adventure tourism for its rapid growth. Such a trend inevitably necessitates a clear guideline (the formulation and application of sustainable trail management approach) not only for establishing trails heritage
 as safe, quality accredited (audited) and branded products but also for meeting trail development and maintenance international standards and best practices. Through the review of the literatures on trails and trails management for adventure tourism, participation in the Trail Standards Guidelines (TSG) formulation process for the Great Himalaya Trails (GHT) of Nepal and assessment of Nepal’s trail sites as GHT certified trail auditor by the author; this paper argues that sustainable trail
 management is trail destination specific innovative approach. It should be understood and applied through the interaction of local practices with global knowledge and best practices. There is pressing need of clear guidelines at trail destinations. Such guidelines can be easy reference for shared engagements and
 benefits of trail communities and enlightening experience of trails users. The discussion concludes with the case study of GHT as an emerging brand for adventure tourism identity of Nepal. GHT strives for sustained and beneficial tourism management system through effective implementation of the TSG by the means of integrated approach.