Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #5: Bongwonsa Temple and Nature Walk

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #5: Bongwonsa Temple and Nature Walk: "After visiting the Zen Buddhist Temple, Bongwonsa and attempting to see nature as a Taoist, answer this question: What is it about creation,..."

On my walk to Bongwonsa Temple, I took time to observe my surroundings and really appreciate the nature around me. Doing so, questions arose in my head. Who made all of this? How was such a beautiful thing created in such a materialistic world like ours? These kind of questions, I think, are what drives humans to seek out religion. We seek out religion to answer these questions and to grasp such immeasurable concepts that, to us normal people, seem ambiguous. We are so confounded by all the mysteries of life, which are unanswered by science, that we need a source of truth. This source of truth would be religion. Religion provides an explanation of life, death, the way things work, and why things happen. Hinduism, for example provides an answer to why things happen. They believe in karma, which is the concept in which your actions determine your destiny. "What comes around, goes around." Another example is Christianity. They provide the explanation that all things are predetermined by God for your personal path in life. That God has a reason for all things in life. Humans are prompted to seek out religion to simply understand and have their questions answered.

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #4: Buddhist Meditation

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #4: Buddhist Meditation: "Spend 20 mintues in a silent meditation; a place you won't be disturbed, your own 'fig tree' as was Buddha's inspiration. In those 20 mintue..."

For this assignment, I spent 20 minutes in silence to meditate. Personally, it was a very hard experience. It was hard because I couldn't rid my mind of all distractions, because I wasn't able to focus on keeping all disturbances. Even though I kept reciting the mantras in order to focus, I just really couldn't FULLY only focus on the one part of the eight fold path. After many trials of reciting the mantras and trying to focus, I finally received a little inspiration. I started to (kind of) clear my mind of unnecessary distractions. I kind of had revelations of each path. For example, when I was meditating about "right thoughts", the thoughts that entered by head were about that all things in life were not permanent.