Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the effect of group Buddhist counseling on the enhancement of peace through the mediating effect of Metta on employees. The research design was quasi-experimental pretest and posttest control group. The sample was 28 employees assigned to one experimental group and three control groups. Each group consisted of 7 participants. The experimental group participated in Buddhist group counseling. One control group was treated by individual Buddhist counseling. Another control group received the group teaching of the Buddhist eightfold path. The other control group was taught individually the Buddhist eightfold path. Each group attended 21 hours of 7 sessions each session for approximately 3 hours. The instruments used were the Metta Scale and the Peace Scale based on the Buddhist concepts of cetasika (psychological elements) developed by the researcher The data were analyzed by the related sample t-test, one way ANOVA, regression analysis, and multiple regressions analysis. The results were as follows : 1.the Metta Scale (α=.93) and the Peace Scale (α=.91) had good quality and standard. 2.the employees who received Buddhist group counseling and Buddhist individual counseling gained higher Metta and Peace. In addition, it was found Metta had partial mediating effect on the process of Buddhist counseling on peace. It could be concluded that this research was beneficial to academic setting in that it showed that integrating Buddhist thoughts with counseling process could produce Metta that affected the increase of Peace.