Analysis Of Chapter 2: The Buddha Silence

“A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two”-the Talmud. When Danny and Reuven we’re friends they had each other to talk to and then in college they had nobody, In the book “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok, It talks about how silence can bring to sides together and hurt and help you.

“Silence is violence” is a common phrase used by people nowadays which references people who lack initiative when it comes to speaking out against oppression. The same phrase could be applied to the ideas within Shusaku Endo’s novel, Silence. Endo was clever to name his novel Silence, because the word is a very prominent symbol within the story. In fact, it plays a crucial role to the development of the main character. Although some readers may argue that the role of silence in the book is neutral, I claim that silence plays a negative role for the characters because it is what causes protagonist Rodrigues to renounce his faith. In the story, it represents the silence of God, which induces Rodrigues to question his religion through the torture of innocent Japanese Christians.

No one can truly understand sympathy until they have suffered. In his The Chosen, a postmodern novel, Chaim Potok surveys the meaning of compassion learned through suffering. Danny Saunders, a brilliant Hasidic Jew, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn along with his friend, Reuven Malter, in the 1940s. With his photographic memory, Danny aspires to become a psychologist, but he knows that he will have to inherit his father’s position as the rabbi of their community. In addition to this, his father, Reb Saunders, will not speak to him about anything other than the holy book of Talmund. Danny is forced to keep his ideas and experiences to himself, leading to him suffering because of this silence. Chaim Potok’s The Chosen uses Danny’s gradual shift

The fourth and fifth chapter of Buddha Boy it starts with Justin feeling really bad and he talks to his father on the phone about what has happened recently, asking if he did the right thing. Later, at school, Justin stays out of the cafeteria for the whole lunch hour. In Economics, Jinsen shows Justin his ruined sketchbook, and Justin is amazed how Jinsen used the mud to make art. In the fifth chapter, Justin goes over to help Jinsen on a project. They talk to each other a bit and learn a bit more about each other. At the end, Jinsen shows Justin a bedroom, with the walls painted showing every religion and again Justin is amazed.

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka provides an interesting perspective to the American experience through the eye of Japanese women around the time of World War 2. The author uses a number of unique writing techniques which originally confused me, but once accustomed created an immersive and intimate reading experience. Otsuka also inserts a number of metaphors and symbols throughout the novel with various possibilities for explanation depending on the opinion of the reader.

Writers often employ recurring events to show significance. In Joy Kogawa’s, Obasan, a novel about the Japanese persecution during World War 2, silence is used repeatedly to show protection. The silence of events in the book serves as a portrayal of love and protection from whatever it may be that is kept a secret. The silence in the novel shapes Naomi’s life in that it leads her to question the silence and suppress it.

Edward Taylor’s “Meditation Six” uses a coin-based conceit to explore the ambivalence of the persona; using the coin, Taylor describes his spiritual value to God in material terms. The first stanza reflects an uncertainty within Taylor about his worth to God. He equates himself to gold, asking if he is “thy gold” (1) or merely a vessel for God’s wealth—the congregation. The speaker worries he may only appear to be worthful to God, but he is worthless underneath and “brass in heart,” alluding to the Brazen Serpent of the Bible. Working through his ambivalence, the speaker compares the impression of the grace of God to the stamp on a coin, and he asks if God has left such an impression on him, stamping value onto worthless metal. Taylor writes that he is “a golden angel” in God’s hand, meaning he is valuable to God, which ends his ambivalence as he concludes that he is worthful as a man. In the final stanza, the speaker asks God to make his soul the plate, a blank coin, onto which God stamps value with his “superscription in a holy style” (16). The speaker then becomes a coin with value to God, part of God’s hoard, whereby Taylor acknowledges that he is one of many. A surrender ends the conceit and poem, the speaker asks if he may be an angel, period slang for an English coin, in God’s eyes and if God may be his Lord.

Buddha Amitabha is a bronze statue that was found in Zhaozhou Hebei of China. It was made in Sui

"The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt."

      While reading Susan Glaspell's play Trifles, the use of characters, descriptive language, and symbolism teaches the audience that one person's home and one person's way of living can also be an introduction to one person's private hell.  Throughout the play, discoveries are made to teach the audience that maybe things are not what they seem and that sometimes people must take a deeper look into what is around them.

Little Buddha, is a movie created in 1993 and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. It is very important to mention how the movie Little Buddha is one that is empowering and a very entertaining movie. It is a story about a boy’s path to self-discovery, a Lama’s search for his loved teacher, and the rich Prince Siddhartha and his journey to enlightenment. Films as such are hard to find because not only are they filled with moments of joy by uplifting the spirits of people, but it allows people to think about life and death that many tend to forget, about the happiness and pressures that humans face, that are explained through the concepts of impermanence and reincarnation. This movie also touches upon the main concepts of Buddhism which are the 4 noble truths which ultimately leads to the path of enlightenment.

This essay will reflect the meaning, as well as the mythological interpretation of a movie titled “Little Buddha.” In the movie, “Little Buddha,” there were Tibetan Buddhist monks from a monastery in Bhutan, led by Lama Norbu, searching for a child, who they believed had been reincarnated, as the Buddhist leader, Lama Dorje. This individual was thought to be in an American child named Jesse. Jesse was believed to be the son of an architect father, named Dean, and a school teacher mother, named Lisa. The family lived in Seattle, Washington. The monks traveled to Seattle to meet the boy, observe his daily routine and habits, learn his personality to determine if he could undergo further testing to prove whether or not he was the reincarnated being of Lama Dorje.

The film, Silence, has a myriad of characters that are on a spectrum of religious belief. There are certain characters that show an immense devotion to their faith, willing to risk their life and the lives of others to profess their fidelity to God. Although this film highlights two Jesuit priests, Father Sebastian Rodrigues and Father Francisco Garupe, there is an interesting contrasting devotion from the Inquisition to Buddhism. They have no tolerance for Christianity and believe it to be a cancer that must be cut from Japan. The priests go to great lengths to find a third priest, Father Cristovao Ferreira, who has gone missing while operating as a missionary. Father Ferreira ends up getting captured, recants his faith, and sides with the Inquisition, helping them investigate objects hidden as Christian relics. There are many applicable ideas relating to religious fundamentalism within the film.

When I first picked up Walking with the Devil, I wasn’t sure that I was going to enjoy it and it would be another required reading that I would have to force myself to read. The cover seemed cheesy, with police blue bordering the title surrounded by flames, I was skeptical to say the least. Once I started to read it, I could not put it down. It took me two days to finish the book and I can honestly say that I would recommend it to anyone looking for a thought provoking and incising content. The code of silence is a complex issue that police face almost every day, but Mike Quinn does an excellent job of providing examples of using the “code” and explaining how police can learn from these to move on.

E.M. Forster’s classic novel “A Passage to India” tells the story of a young doctor, Dr. Aziz, and his interactions with the British citizens who are residing in India during the time of the British Raj. Throughout the novel, the reader gets many different viewpoints on the people and the culture of India during this point in history. The reader sees through the eyes of the Indian people primarily through the character of Dr. Aziz, and the perceptions of the British through the characters of Mr. Fielding, Adela Quested, and Mrs. Moore. Through the different characters, and their differing viewpoints, the reader can see that Forster was creating a work that expressed a criticism that he held of the behavior of the British towards their Indian subjects.