Vajrayana Buddhist Contemplative Ritual as Spiritual Care Process (A12a) ISCS 2018 Slide Presentation Proposal: Is Vajrayāna Contemplative Ritual a Process of Clinical Spiritual Care: Presenting Results from an Exploratory Qualitative Phenomenological Hermeneutics of Lived Religion Study with the Drukpa Tradition of Vajrayāna Buddhism (Research published in December, 2017 in Trinlae. Kun-mKhyen Pad-ma dKar-po's Amitāyus Tradition of Vajrayāna Buddhist Transformative Care: Contemplative Text, Phenomenological Experience, and Epistemological Process. Zurich: LIT-Verlag.) ABSTRACT Chaplains and meditation teachers are challenged to provide an empirical rationale for using traditional resources such as contemplative liturgy ( pūjā) as a care modality, and provide translational, critically-established definitions for terms like "psychospiritual growth." I investigated whether the Tibetan Buddhist Amitāyus contemplative practice is transformative from a clinical spiritual care perspective. Terminology was first critically established using the Nursing Outcomes Classification comfort status measure of psychospiritual well-being along with Western clinical spiritual care and Buddhist scholarly sources. The Amitāyus ritual practice was performed and phenomenological interviews were conducted with IRB oversight and written consent to elicit verbatim reports from 7 participants. A composite phenomenological description of the experience was constructed. The transcripts were searched for indicators of clinical spiritual care constructs. The Tibetan ritual text was also searched for indicators of emic contemplative phenomena. These were further identified in the verbatim reports. The phenomenological reports suggest that there are preliminary grounds for suggesting that the hypothesis is positive. Empirical basis for conducting a larger statistical study is established based on preliminary factor models with relevant prospective measurement indicators produced based on the verbatim data. Spiritual Care constructs are compared with emic contemplative constructs, yielding salient details of their relationship. A contemplative process analysis was also conducted using previous research from hermeneutic phenomenology, linguistics, cognitive science, and constructive developmental psychology to suggest a coherent theoretical rationale for how the contemplative ritual process dynamics can enable positive psychospiritual transformation over time, by enabling progressively coherent, relevant, and significant shifts in epistemological perspectives. Conclusion : Based on this preliminary evidence of verbatim phenomenological data, it is possible to reject the proposition that Buddhist ritual is necessarily merely an expression of uncritical devotion incompatible with post-modern rationality or as a benevolent mystery activity that lacks a rationale for why it could be beneficial as a spiritual care resource. See the Prezi presentation online: http://prezi.com/uuf0og-ik2ai/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy (http://prezi.com/uuf0og-ik2ai/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy) Pdf slides of that presentation are attached. Full monograph available at http://www.litwebshop.de/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=13482 (http://www.litwebshop.de/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=13482) Available in Asia from: http://vajrabookshop.com/categories/vajra-publications/products/amitayus-tradition-of-vajrayana-buddhism-contemplative-text-phenomenological-experience-and-epistemological-process (http://vajrabookshop.com/categories/vajra-publications/products/amitayus-tradition-of-vajrayana-buddhism-contemplative-text-phenomenological-experience-and-epistemological-process) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ༺༓༻ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ­- - - - Bhikshuni Lozang Trinlae, B.Sc., Ed.M., Ph.D. भिक्षुणी लोजाङ द्रिन्ले शेर्पा / ཨ་ནི་དགེ་སློང་མ་བློ་བཟང་འཕྲིན་ལས་སྒྲོལ་མ། 釋賢業 - 理學士(物理學), 教育學碩士, 博士 活生生 - 宗教 - 詮釋學 - 沉思科學(佛教) orcid.org/0000-0001-5053-1027 +1 855 574 0033 fax +1 603 384 3370 Author of Kun-mkhyen Pad-ma dKar-po's Amitayus Tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism: Contemplative Text, Phenomenological Experience, and Epistemological Process (http://www.vajrabookshop.com/categories/vajra-publications/products/amitayus-tradition-of-vajrayana-buddhism-contemplative-text-phenomenological-experience-and-epistemological-process) also published in Europe as: Kun-mkhyen Pad-ma dKar-po's Amitayus Tradition of Vajrayana Buddhist Transformative Care (http://www.litwebshop.de/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&keyword=Trinlae&language=en)