Reflection #5 Bongwonsa Temple and Nature Walk

I have different perspectives about the life truths which I will use my experience from the hike to explain why I thought this way. I was inspired by many things as I was making my way to the temple. The path even though was to reach the temple,it seems just like a way to get the anwers about life truths. This is because of how I felt during the hike. Personally, I felt that pathway was not comfortable to walk on. I kept asking myself how far left were we from reaching the temple. I linked this experience by connecting it to the religious side of view whereby this is an example of how people can seek life truths. We must find these answers by ourselves. These questions cannot be answered unless we try to get them. It was about 35 minutes hike for us from school to the temple and there were tricky times on the slopes and pathways. My mind told me that I should not give up and try my best not to complain about those rocks I dislike as they are not easy to walk on. At the moment when I had that thought, it gives me an idea of how reaching enlightment or attaining nirvana is not easy because challenges will be met. People seek for life truths because they have questions that they cannot answer. Answers to what we don't know about the nature and even life cannot be answered by just searching it up on the net or asking others but we ought to experience them. In tha way, we will slowly learn ourselves the truths. This is what I personally think.

Taoism believes in the idea of nature. The world is evolved around nature. What really strikes me about the idea of the power of nature when I visited the temple was the fact that I saw plants or trees which seemed to have existed for a long time. They have not been chopped down or even thrown away. So I thought to myself why is that? I then start to believe how these people should have worshipped nature. The fact that they do not want to remove them is because they felt that they cannot ever be replaced. Nature existed even longer before us. It is natural for all of us to think that if something is not alive anymore, we won't find them useful or full of meanings anymore. To some people, this is not the case. For me personally, nature is part of life. We should appreciate nature because through nature, we get to experience lots of things and gain knowledge, even just simple little things. 

Reflection #4: Buddhist Meditation

When I started the silent mediation at a place where I wasn't being disturbed at, I felt it quite suprising how different it was from the meditating activity I did in MRE class. Using the breathing process where i took deep breaths in and out and closing my eyes, I started to be able to concentrate and be focused. As I closed my eyes, I do not see anything so this helped me to gain better concentration on the spot. At this moment, many things came up to my mind. And what I have realised was that, the most thoughts and images that I had in my mind are all family related.I guess the reason why is because family means a lot in my life. Maybe the truth to my life is the relationships and bonds with my family. This is because while I was in the meditating process, the family images started to all refresh in my mind, together with the past memories. I thought about my 3 grandparents especially and there was a definite change of my mood and feelings. I started to have a deep sense of guilt that I wasn't able to go to any of their funerals due to the fact that I stayed so far away from Indonesia and because of school, I couldn't fly back just for them.To be honest, I really cannot believe how I felt throughout the 20 minutes of meditation because there were times when I felt happy and there were times when I felt upset. It's not just about the right concentration for me but there was a strong change of feeling and my mood too which I find very unusual. Not only those, but throughout the whole time when my eyes were fully shut, they never stopped blinking and my eyes just felt like it had to tremble which I find very hard to control. However what amazes me is what I see through closing my eyes wasn't just nothing. I could see some shades of white lights at times. I was thinking that this had to do with the fact that I'm a buddhist. I was actually meditating! That's why I could see lines.Overall, this mediation process was really effective especially I never expected I had so much thing going on during the meditating process.It was also different than when I did meditating in class because when we did it, there were too much influence from other peers and distractions that unable me to control my mind.

Reflection #3- Gandhi: Hindu and Activist

Gandhi was a man who made his country proud and had became one of the most well-known figure of the world. It can be seen throughout the whole movie that Gandhi faith all along was Hinduism. Hinduism is the most tolerant of all religions and they believe in more than one God. Throughout the movie, it can be seen that Gandhi is motivated by a strong religious view where he thinks God treats everyone equally and that all religions should be accepted. During the protests, Gandhi told them that he is not just a Hindu but also Muslim and Christian. Gandhi had sacrificed himself by fasting when the Hindus and Muslims were rioting. He said that he will stop fasting when they promised not to harm or kill each other. This has shown that Gandhi believes that all religions should live peacefully and killing is definitely not the best solution.  

The quote that I have chosen is ‘“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”I personally believe that this quote has described Gandhi’s actions throughout the movie. I also strongly agree especially with the last line of this quote that said“ it was a perfect act”. It can be seen how Gandhi has stressed non-violence act or protests really strongly. Because of this, he has gain a lot of respect from his people. We can see how many people have supported Gandhi’s action and have respected his actions by hearing what Gandhi has to say and putting faith in him. Gandhi had sacrificed himself so much for the sake of others. In the end, Gandhi was killed. The split between the Hindus and Muslims into Pakistan and India and trying to keep the country united was impossible at that time. The tragedy that happened to Gandhi has caused grief from many people but because of his acts and sacrifice of trying to gain independence for his country, he became a famous man in history.

Refliction #2: Sacred Poem

The Buddhist Temple

A unique, blessed and holy place,

to pay homeage to the Buddha.

where Buddhist come to this perfect environment

and grow qualities of love, compassion and wisdom.

Through bowing, chanting, lighting incense,

alter offerings and meditation,

enables one to reflect on own deeds and actions

with the accompany of Buddha who's infront watching.

Putting influence on populations

from now and the future,

but not to forget,

this place is a source of peace for all.

Reflection Question #1

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.