Hi! I started developing this site while researching graduate programs in 1997, while living in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. At the time my long-term research interests were broadly in cultural psychology, specifically in the ways we develop stressors and the manifestations of anxiety as a function of our culture. The Buddhistic slant to all this concerns 1) the effectiveness of meditation in moderating stress on self-report as well as biological measures (see the intro to Physiological Aspects of Meditation), and 2) the idea that an experience of "pure thought," through a meditative experience, can offer personal insight into a reality devoid of the "baggage" that we collect and that weighs us down in life. Through such insight, we are better equipped to rid ourselves of the extraneous thoughts, actions, possessions, and general riffraff that keep us from "self-actualizing" and becoming that wonderful, happy person we know we really are.

Best Wishes, and thanks for stopping by!
Hans