In what ways has religion contributed toward your personal history?
Religion for many of us did change the history and have great impact us nowadays including the society. My view of this is slightly different. I am a Buddhist and so are everyone in my family. This religion has been around within us for many generations since my early ancestors were alive. Being a Buddhist, I start to treasure the life I am living in now and try to make it worthwhile. We believe so much about karma and also know that the karma of the past do impact our present life but this change is always possible. “Karma” means actions. And because I do not know what kind of karmic causes I have done in my previous lives, I am here in my current life to select a better pathway where I could learn to do more good so this will help to lighten my bad karma. Most Buddhists are continuously being reincarnated and we don’t exactly know if we will be human again or an animal in our next life. This depends on what you did in your current life. In Buddhism, our understanding and definition of “good” and “evil” from what I know could be somehow different to how westerners will define it as. In Buddhism, every single actions that we do affects our future rebirths and will influence the experiences that may face like how others treat us, our wealth and social status. Not only those, but also our personality. What actions am I taking?” is a type of question that always come across myself as I think it can determine my future. If I do more good deeds, there is always something good in return. This is something me and my family and even ancestors strongly believe in. This faith that we have, have helped us to perform more wisely in life. If we do evil, we will get punishments. There are many ways to approach this. In most cases for Buddhism, the load of punishment varies. Just like natural disasters and even thundering and raining is sometimes a sign of punishment that some Buddhism believe in. People in the mortal world did too many evil things. To conclude, I think that my religion, Buddhism, has shaped my personal history of my faith in knowing that we are re-born to make up for our previous lives and through every single challenges I might face is part of understanding why I am here. I also believe that this faith that we have in our family for this religion will continue.
