So today we learned about Buddhism and Shinto. Buddhism
was familiar to me but I had never heard of Shinto. I
learned that Buddhism historically traveled through
different countries including China, India, and Japan. Shinto
had only survived in Japan because of its connection to
Buddhism. Buddhism is all about welcoming other religions.
Buddhism has been around so long on the basis of happiness.
Prof. Tanabe interested me in the story of how The Buddha
came about. His mother, the Queen, has a dream of seeing an
elephant then she becomes pregnant and The Buddah pops out
of her side. Prof. Tanabe's story of The Buddah wanting to
find happiness reminds me of a story that I read last
semester called Rasselas. In both stories, the princes want
to find happiness and try to learn from different people,
but nobody exactly knows how. As The Buddha goes away from
all his family, he figures out how to find happiness, simply
getting rid of all his desires. That is something I am not
sure that I could do. I try to be content where I am, but
how the world is always gets me to want to stay updated. I
thought it was very sweet how The Buddha's wife forgives him
for leaving after hearing his weird explanation on leaving
to find happiness. It really is true that if people don't
get any attachments, whether to a person or a thing, they
won't get hurt.
As went visited the temples and shrine, they
were so different than what I'm used to. They had
incense(food) for the Buddhas. The temples were clean and a
wonderful sight to see. The Shinto Shrine was small and a
little creepy to me but it was really cool that people good
wrap good fortunes on a fortune tree. I am seeing how Hawaii
has all different types of religious sanctuaries for
everyone. Even though I don't practice Buddhism, I respect
it and I had a great learning experience.
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2 comments:
Brittany,
I was also unfirmiliar about Shinto, but I was unfirmiliar with Buddhism as well. I thought this lecture was extremely intriguing and eye-opening. I enjoyed the hands-on experience of going to the shrines and temples to get a greater understanding of the religions and beliefs. This was a great opportunity for us to learn, and thanks to George Tanabe, he made that possible. It is ineresting to learn that Shinto did not survive through many countires and that Buddhism had. I was amazed that Buddhism was a religion based on eliminating your desires. That is a lot easier said than done, yet I am eager to try that message in simpler ways. I will try to not take everything for graunteed and I will not be so picky to every little detial. I learned that happiness comes when you least expect, or want it. This lecture inspired me to be more spiritual and to be unselfish in many ways.
Brittany,
I dont think that I could ever become a Buddist becuase I would never be able to understand the ultimate goal of the religion. To completely free yourself from desire and want, I think that it is impossible. I would never be able to be hungry and not "want" to eat. I have a lot of respect for the people that are able to figue it out. Another thing that I found really interesting was Karma. George Tanabe explained that everyone has their own acount of Karma, whether it be full of good or bad. This Karma adds up and if good or bad things happen to you, it is blamed on your Karma account. I too found this to be one of the more interesting days of the trip.
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