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.

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #3- Gandhi: Hindu and Activist

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #3- Gandhi: Hindu and Activist: "In class, your small groups went over movie questions about the content in Gandhi. You should know who each of the main characters are and t..."

Mohandas Gandhi was a believer in Hinduism, but he had much broader and accepting view on life than the other believers. Hinduism does call for tolerance and acceptance of other religions, but as we saw in the movie, that wasn't always the case for the followers. Gandhi had a very strong opinion, or idea, about Hinduism wars. Being a very strong proponent of the non-violence act, He was totally against having wars. Despite the harsh, sometimes violent and provocative actions of the British, he still did not fight back (physically) and just kept fighting for what he believed in, which was peace and equality for the most part. One example from the movie is when the Indians met together in a meeting place to discuss Gandhi's idea of non-violence, no matter how they were treated. The British army raided this meeting, ruthlessly killing everyone there, including women and children. Even as the British were shooting them to their death, the Indians did not fight back. The second example is the Salt protest. Many Indian gathered and marched forward against the British soldiers, getting beaten each time the stepped forward. Even as the soldiers were beating them in an inhumane fashion, they still didn't physically fight back.

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." This quote exemplifies a way that Gandhi lived out his faith in a major way. An "eye for and eye" simply represents how people take revenge on others for doing the same to them. Many people were doing this in India. For example, a Hindi man had killed a Muslim child during the fighting between the Muslims and Hindus because his child had gotten killed. Gandhi, however, strongly opposed the idea of revenge. Even when the British were ruthlessly killing and mistreating the Indians, he never took revenge. Instead, he would push the idea of non-violence even more to the Indians.

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection Question #1

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection Question #1: "According to Mircea Eliade religion has 'not vanished without a trace; [it] has contributed toward making us what we are today and so, after..."

Religion has contributed to my own personal history in a few ways. First of all, my family members have usually always been Christian. This affected my personal religion, Christianity, which has contributed my history. Being surrounded by that many Christians and being born into that community, despite the few who follow their own secular beliefs and have become areligious, somewhat determined what religion I would believe in. Religion has also contributed to my own personal history by making the person I am today. In Christianity, there are certain rules you have to follow. These "rules" guided me in the lifestyle I live and my behavior. They also guided me into making the morals I live by in life. This is how religion has affected my personal history.