Being Peace Seminar Reflection
During the seminar, some of the Buddhism concepts that were broken down made me realize and understand the concepts in the Tiep Han order of Buddhism much better. In the beginning, I was confused because originally, Buddhism originally seemed to me a belief that focused on not believing or becoming too attached to an idea, theology, or doctrine. When there was discussion over the situations and examples that would go in direct conflict with some of the mindfulness trainings, such as killing over a religion, I was able to start understanding the reasoning behind not believing so strongly in anything, and Aiyana helped me to make that connection. Because Buddhists value life above all else, they have made the connection that you should not believe in anything that would lead you to kill or put your life in immediate danger. Jonathan made the comment that if somebody were to oppress him and try to take his religion away from him, he would kill his oppressors in order to maintain his freedom. This is when I realized why the Buddhists don’t think it’s a good idea to believe in fanaticisms or ideologies, especially strongly enough to be willing to die over it. When I realized this, I was able to piece together the other mindfulness trainings, and I felt that I was much more aware of what this Buddhist Order was trying to obtain. This was definitely the most enlightening part of the seminar for me.
During the seminar, we all talked about which mindfulness trainings we struggled with the most. At the beginning of this conversation, I thought that some people, or most people, were just naturally mean, rude, arrogant, or negative. I know that I share some of these characteristics, and I am aware of them and I know that I should change them. What I never thought of was that other people were just as aware as me, and knew that it would be good to change. My question is, what is stopping us from changing these characteristics? After a lot of thought and other input, I realized that it might be because we are afraid to change. Everybody is afraid of change because people might start to think of you differently, it might go against societal norms, or it’s way outside of a person’s comfort zone. But what if we were able to find ourselves, would that help us to move towards that goal of changing our personality flaws.
In the seminar, we determined that finding ourselves was being in touch with our feelings, without the numerous environmental factors being taken into account, and from there we would be able to realize who we really were, completely detached from the judgments, expectations, and standards that have been put into place to moderate the general behavior. Hanh states that, “we want to be in touch with other things, like religion, sports, politics, a book-we want to forget ourselves,” and I think that his statement is true and that the reason we don’t want to be in touch with ourselves is because, first of all, we are afraid to and unsure of what we would find in ourselves; and second, because we do not want to take the time because society will move on without us, and our whole identity, everything we’ve worked so hard to establish and maintain, could slip right out from under us. The idea that our identity could vanish scares us so much that we convince ourselves that “it would be better to just not think about it, because the thing I said to that person yesterday didn’t really devastate him, he’ll be fine tomorrow,” and then everything continues just as it was the day before, and the world is a victim of violence once again.
When I think about how these negative characteristics that are going unchanged, I mainly think about the people, other than myself, who possess these characteristics. But after thinking about it a little more, I realized the full impact these personality flaws have on their victims. Several articles have been in the news about kids who have committed suicide because of how badly they were bullied, whether it is physically, mentally, verbally, or even technologically. None of these tragedies were foreseen because the violence was not addressed, regardless of the level of cruelty or importance the injustice seemed.
Questions:
1. What makes the Tiep Han Order so applicable to the Western civilizations?
a. You could look up the Zen School of Lin Chi, and learn about its relations with the western societies.
b. You could compare some of the Mindfulness Trainings to the average behaviors or actions of a western society.
c. You could take the universal Buddhist principles and try to find a way to match them with western civilizations’ standards, and see how they compare with the fourteen mindfulness trainings.
2. When and why was the idea of Buddhism established?
a. You could look up the origination of Buddhism.
b. You could research the time period and the struggles presented in that time period and location.
c. You could research the leader of the set of principles of Buddhism to understand his reasoning.
3. If Buddhists believe in Siddhartha, isn’t that related to believing in God(s)?
a. You could compare biblical references, Islamic concepts, and Buddhist tests and compare and the reliability of the statements made.
b. You could research the Buddhist works for how Siddhartha differs from a belief.
c. You could ask a Buddhist with a deep understanding of Buddha as a person.
During the seminar, we all talked about which mindfulness trainings we struggled with the most. At the beginning of this conversation, I thought that some people, or most people, were just naturally mean, rude, arrogant, or negative. I know that I share some of these characteristics, and I am aware of them and I know that I should change them. What I never thought of was that other people were just as aware as me, and knew that it would be good to change. My question is, what is stopping us from changing these characteristics? After a lot of thought and other input, I realized that it might be because we are afraid to change. Everybody is afraid of change because people might start to think of you differently, it might go against societal norms, or it’s way outside of a person’s comfort zone. But what if we were able to find ourselves, would that help us to move towards that goal of changing our personality flaws.
In the seminar, we determined that finding ourselves was being in touch with our feelings, without the numerous environmental factors being taken into account, and from there we would be able to realize who we really were, completely detached from the judgments, expectations, and standards that have been put into place to moderate the general behavior. Hanh states that, “we want to be in touch with other things, like religion, sports, politics, a book-we want to forget ourselves,” and I think that his statement is true and that the reason we don’t want to be in touch with ourselves is because, first of all, we are afraid to and unsure of what we would find in ourselves; and second, because we do not want to take the time because society will move on without us, and our whole identity, everything we’ve worked so hard to establish and maintain, could slip right out from under us. The idea that our identity could vanish scares us so much that we convince ourselves that “it would be better to just not think about it, because the thing I said to that person yesterday didn’t really devastate him, he’ll be fine tomorrow,” and then everything continues just as it was the day before, and the world is a victim of violence once again.
When I think about how these negative characteristics that are going unchanged, I mainly think about the people, other than myself, who possess these characteristics. But after thinking about it a little more, I realized the full impact these personality flaws have on their victims. Several articles have been in the news about kids who have committed suicide because of how badly they were bullied, whether it is physically, mentally, verbally, or even technologically. None of these tragedies were foreseen because the violence was not addressed, regardless of the level of cruelty or importance the injustice seemed.
Questions:
1. What makes the Tiep Han Order so applicable to the Western civilizations?
a. You could look up the Zen School of Lin Chi, and learn about its relations with the western societies.
b. You could compare some of the Mindfulness Trainings to the average behaviors or actions of a western society.
c. You could take the universal Buddhist principles and try to find a way to match them with western civilizations’ standards, and see how they compare with the fourteen mindfulness trainings.
2. When and why was the idea of Buddhism established?
a. You could look up the origination of Buddhism.
b. You could research the time period and the struggles presented in that time period and location.
c. You could research the leader of the set of principles of Buddhism to understand his reasoning.
3. If Buddhists believe in Siddhartha, isn’t that related to believing in God(s)?
a. You could compare biblical references, Islamic concepts, and Buddhist tests and compare and the reliability of the statements made.
b. You could research the Buddhist works for how Siddhartha differs from a belief.
c. You could ask a Buddhist with a deep understanding of Buddha as a person.