The Effects of Wind Farms on Meditative Retreaters
A Human Impact Assessment
Tharpaland International Retreat Centre
Parkgate, Dumfries DG1 3LY
Assessment of the study
The care and rigour with which the study was conducted is impressive. The interpretation of the results seems fair and impartial, the statistical analysis exemplary. As Buddhist practitioners the participants have unique training and insight into their own subjective experiences, unlike many lay people. They are also bound by the strict moral code of Buddhist teaching and I am in no doubt that they will have gone to great lengths to give impartial and objective accounts of their experiences.
The importance of concentration to the development of Buddhist practice cannot be underestimated. Silent retreats are a crucial part of developing the concentration and inner peace required for spiritual development. The assessment of something as ill-defined as ‘concentration’ would give many psychologists long hours of head scratching. It is a testament to the subjective insights to be gained from Buddhist practice that the researchers were able to overcome this problem so neatly, producing a method that has both quantitative and qualitative elements. It is an ingenious solution to what many would see as an intractable problem.
Dr Alexa Hepburn PhD
Lecturer in Social Psychology
Discourse and Rhetoric Group
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
July 2003
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