From chronically ill buddhist nuns to “happiness promoters”: Learning locally and applying globally

This study focused on the role of Buddhist spiritual practice in the lives and health of Sri Lankan Buddhist nuns with a chronic illness. The significance of this study to nursing was to provide a way of knowing as to how aspects of coping in one socio-culture can be applied globally. This ethnography followed the iterative and recursive linguistic approach of Spradley (1979, 1980). Forty five Sri Lankan Buddhist nuns with chronic illness were selected through a snow-ball sampling strategy. Twenty secondary informants were identified to shed light on the topic from health care, lay-Buddhist, and Buddhist-scholar perspective. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews were used to explore cultural domains, and clarify each domain with taxonomies. These steps facilitated uncovering cultural themes. The repeating cultural theme was responsibility: Nuns' responsibilities varied from those to the Buddha, social circle, and to herself. Nuns shaped their spiritual practices to fulfill their responsibilities. Their health was mediated by the priority of responsibilities and the strength of their social links. Coping behavior shown by the nuns were either “health- seeking” or adaptive. Integrating the viewpoints of the secondary informants indicated that behaviors witnessed in this study reached beyond Buddhist circles to be compared with those of existing theories such as Salutogeneis (Antonovsky, 1979) and happiness promotion (Seligman et al, 2000). Buddhist spiritual practice influenced positive coping within the context of a sense of purpose and social resources against a backdrop of impermanence in life. These findings have strong implications for nursing research in positive psychology.