The Buddhist Methods of Emotional Strength of Professional Nurses

Abstract

This article aims to present a Buddhist means to foster emotional strength in care taking practices, especially that of professional nurses. Even though “registered nurses” did not exist back in the Buddha’s time, a study of the trip takas reveals Buddha emphasized the importance of love and compassion in care-taking of sick monks, by first getting the monks into a right state of mind before proceeding to preach Dharma on Buddhist approaches to sickness. By this set of preaching, Buddha illustrated how one can use Dharma to eliminate anger, sadness, worry that come with the sick body. 

The real and ever present phenomenon in the society is constant changes of lifestyles due to world’s economy, growing materialism, and technological advances. These changes have led to more and more unwholesome (Akusala ) actions and emotionally driven decisions, which most of time go against Dharma, the universal truths. Therefore, the Buddhist approach to foster emotional strength and moral values in professional nurses requires a practical integration of every day’s lifestyle with certain teachings from Dharma, leading to desirable traits of a caretaker with high emotional strength.

The development of emotional intelligence begins with inculcating moral values in the minds through consciousness revolution, with hope that a professional nurse will 1) have emotional intelligence at the personal level, and 2) be able use the emotional intelligence to create good working relationships with patients and their families. These characters will enhance the image of nursing profession that lives up to the international standard.