Buddhist Teachings In Canada

Buddha once said, “In separateness lies the world’s great misery; in compassion lies the world’s true strength.” By this he meant that when we are separated by the things we classify people by in society, we are not truly happy. Only if we unite can we be all be satisfied with our successes. Buddha is the founder of the religion Buddhism, one that focuses on suffering in life. He tries to better the world and its people, much like Jones, Chavez, and Tubman. They were all great defenders of human rights, but the most impactful of all was Harriet Tubman.

Today’s society is filled with suffering, whether it is at experienced at home, or abroad. Some might look to ancient text for help and guidance, which can lead some to the teachings of the Buddha, almost 2500 years ago. His teachings might be ancient, but they can still apply to aspects of today’s society, such as in our ethics, economics, and everyday lives.

It goes without saying that I learned so much in Religious Studies 101. I was introduced to multiple world religions that were foreign to me prior to taking the class. I never felt the need to explore any other religion besides Christianity because I was content with my faith. However, after learning about different religions and interacting with people that are not Christian, and grew up with different beliefs and values, I now find myself questioning reconsidering my beliefs. By being exposed to the rituals and ideas of cultures and religions across the globe, I find myself wondering what it would be like to follow some of these principles or to try some of these practices for myself. I find myself trying to follow the moral guidelines and principles of the traditions I learn about all the time. It has helped me ask even more questions and broadened my horizons. It 's helping me shape my beliefs and find out who I want to become. I was especially fascinated with Buddhism and have grown a huge admiration for it. In my learning portfolio I will examine what I learned about Buddhism and what about it is so appealing to me. I will also briefly summarize that I learned that Buddhism – just like any other religions, is not flawless and cannot provide a perfect view of life that would be influential enough for me to devote my faith to it. However, there are certain

In Larissa Macfarquhar’s book, Strangers Drowning, she provides character studies of various real-life extreme do-gooders and of some could be considered moral saints. One of them is a Buddhist monk, Nemoto, who dedicates his life to a cause of helping people who want to commit suicide. He is a moral saint in the sense that he draws no barrier for when this work ends and begins. He works tirelessly by taking on the suffering of these individuals he is trying to help, taking calls any hour of the day or night, and helping anyone who wants it. He learns a very important aspect that actually changes the empathy he feels into a separation of himself an the other. In order for him to help, and truly help, he needed to stop empathizing so much and start sympathizing with emotional distance from the other. This is a similar concept in the Bodhisattva method because while empathy breaks a barrier between ‘self’ and an ‘other’, it makes working for their benefit nearly impossible. The

Dalai Lama once said “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” But how does one learn how to love or feel compassion for others? People all around the world wonder why the feel compassion for others. Most people feel compassion because it helps them understand how others are feeling so they can respond appropriately to a certain situation. Barbara Lazear Ascher, a former attorney and a current author, focused on compassion and how it is developed by people. Ascher’s purpose is to show that compassion is not something that you are born with, it is something that you have to learn and practice throughout your lifetime. A way to practice compassion is when you see homeless. Ascher’s reaches her

Numerous leaders have been stepping up by establishing and incorporating their compassion to tackle on precarious causes and generating a thread of beneficial acts that serves others needs. The willingness and boom of passion are evidently shared, witnessed, or undergone a tragic set of events. Evidently, inspiration and hope developed in means to prevent or reduce a grievous set of acts that prey on groups of people. For instance, my compassion lies with my culture and the various social challenges my foreign-born family members, friends, and community struggled in the past. The term “fish out of water,” captures the context perfectly, in which families that have transitioned into a new culture may not have the same safety net, relationships,

A slow yet, gradual increase of individuals in the West are coming to terms about the positive efforts of socially engaged Buddhism. Actualizing that modern Buddhism in Asia has transformed into this meditative vehicle for spiritual liberation which includes liberation movements for social and political changes. Engaged Buddhism is a form of dedication through movements committed to addressing social, political, economic and environmental concerns including the spiritual needs of beings. In efforts to solve problems of extreme magnitudes, specifically during times of social crisis. keeping Buddhist philosophy's at the forefront of these movements, they manage to propagate widespread awareness of current asian issues.

Bill Mehlinger shares how he learned to accept the refugees. His grocery store business was doing poorly. With help from one of his employees, Hong Diep Vo, Mehlinger got the idea of making his grocery store fit the needs of the refugees. He got all kinds of ethnic food and started selling them in his store. It was convenient for the refugees because they do not need to go very far to get their food. Then his business was doing better than before. This shows how something new can change your life forever. It proves how diversity serves the goals and interests of everyone. ‘ “If it wasn’t for the refugees knowing us and knowing we go out of our way for them, we’d be gone,’ Mehlinger said” ‘ (175). Furthermore, the old Clarkston Baptist church undergoed the same experience. ‘ “ We realized that what the Lord had in store for that old Clarkston Baptist Church was to transition into a truly international church and to help minister to all these ethnic groups moving into the country,’ he said” ‘(176). As the cliche, “what comes around goes around” greatly applies to this experience. The church was on the verge to becoming broke and there was less people going to church. Then the noticed that they needed to cater to all the refugees in Clarkston. And in turn, the church was filled with people. They believed that the church was a place for everybody and they embraced the new

Through the actions that Trudeau has made, it has been revealed that his dreams are to help others out when they are in need because he has planned to bring 25,000 refugees into Canada by the March of 2016. Even though the majority of Canadians are supporting his ideas, there are also many Canadians who are opposing his plan. At the same time, some people are being very judgemental as they believe that anybody who comes from Syria are terrorist since ISIS is also from Syria. In order to stop racism and xenophobia, I try to imagine this world where everybody comes together as a big puzzle and that people help each other out regardless of who they are and where they are from. However, I felt that imagining this situation is not enough as it wouldn’t stop people from having a biased view on a certain ethnic group. As a result, I took this opportunity to take action in my community by helping those who are new to Canada, no matter if they are Spanish, Chinese, or Indian. Hence, I am trying my help others out with best of my ability and also, I want them to feel how warm hearted and welcoming Canadians are. An example can be from school, where I helped this girl who was being discriminated at school because of her skin color and her heavy foreign accent when she speaks English. As a result, I didn’t want her to feel left out, so I gave her a school tour and introduced her to my friends. Although she still has a frowning face, I still continue to try to make her feel happy by telling her jokes to cheer her up. As days went by, she has finally got used to her new life in Canada and she started to make her own friends at school. After seeing how my assistance has helped her build her new life in Canada, I felt extremely proud of myself and at the same, I feel that I am one step closer to my goal, which is putting an end to racism and xenophobia in the

From 1991 over one-sixth of Bhutan’s people flee their country and take a shelter in Nepal, India and other countries around the world. The large populations of Bhutanese refugee are called lhotshamps, an ethnic group, who were forced to leave their country in the early 1990s. Among 105,000 Bhutanese I’m one of them. I was born in a hut made of bamboo, food rations, and dirt roads. We are hostile, unsettled, unsure of who we are and what future held for us. I often think can we ever able to get rid out of the tag called “refugee” would my life ever changed, while ongoing tussled between mind and outside world finally in 2008 United States open a door for us to settled in the United States a “promised land” with full of struggle in 2009 we came here at Grand Forks. As I was growing up in the refugee camp I have seen a countless number of violence, crimes, injuries, and rebuff that words can’t be described. Most importantly death of people from a disease that can be a cure if, we have enough facilities such as, advanced medical training and hospitals. Although during my early childhood I have seen so much of maltreatment and practices, I always thought of having a career in health-related profession because I wanted to invest and improve the lives of individuals so that their children don't have to orphans, forced to work when their parent died, nor they have to beg for food. When I was 10 years old, my friend and I were trying to climb up the mango tree and I step in

My conversation with Yen Mai provided further evidence for influence of Christianity on Midwestern culture and how Chinese culture lacks this influence. In China, the religions of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are most common and are philosophical in nature. From these religions, it can be argued that Chinese culture adopted the values to honor family and treat elders with respect and obedience above everything. As a result, Chinese students treat their family and the elderly with more respect than America students. This also reminded Yen Mai of an important cultural difference she experienced, America’s “Good Samaritan Law,” which was fascinating. Because my culture is influenced by the Christian value of helping others, I take the “Good Samaritan Law” for granted. It can be argued “The Good Samaritan Law” stems from the biblical story in Luke [10:25-37] where an unclean Samaritan shows a stranger compassion by caring for him after he has been robbed and beaten. This law protects Americans from any legal action if harm is caused to a person in need when assistance is being provided. Yen Mai had witnessed strangers assisting a women who had fallen on a sidewalk in Red Wing. This confused her. In China, the strangers would be arrested because only the person responsible for causing the harm would aid a stranger. The influence of her culture prompted her to wonder, “Why else would you help the person?” This example demonstrates how an understanding of cultural influence

Next Scott examines how this embracement of a modernist prosperity-gospel model of Buddhism becomes problematized within the socio-historical context of the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. After this, she expands the analysis looking at “the broader field of debate over the commercialization of Buddhism” and its commodification “as a product” as well as “the effects of consumerism on contemporary Thai society” (17). This is contextualized through an overview of the discourses of various “principle voices within this discussion” (17) such as Bhikkhu Buddhadasa, “a well known promoter of dhammic socialism. These diverse voices help to contextualize and complicate the discourse surrounding both the modernist prosperity Buddhism of Dhammakaya Buddhism through a post-modern commentary. It is this post-modern commentary that is the focus of the concluding chapter, in which she frames the commentary as a “rallying cry for religious reform” (17).

Buddhism in the twenty-first century is still applicable in such a fast paced and confusing world. Despite all of our advanced science and technology, we understand even less our reason for existing and we know more than ever just how big the universe is and how uncaring. These circumstances drive people to seek out spirituality even today in order to achieve the basic comfort required for them to conduct their daily lives. The recent episodes of tremendous violence have placed an unsavory patina of stifling ignorance over the religions of Christianity and Islam as they continue to carry on like demented spinsters in the decaying finery of their former glory with no intention of acknowledging the catastrophe of their current circumstances. Buddhism, with its sterling values of moderation, peace, and detachment from the impermanent things of this world, now appears dignified and splendid as the ancient beauty of Asia to modern seekers. No longer do we seek judgment and rigid, inexplicable rules from our God, with the hellfire and damnation that once drove us onward. We crave logic and sense from our world and in those circumstances, this faith tells us that lusting after expensive cars and clothes which we do not need will make us miserable. That is easy to understand. That makes

In the United States there are over four million buddhists, one thousand temples, study groups, or Buddhists associations (Monroe 108). This number has come from just one man searching to find happiness and eventually enlightenment. Buddha’s story is how buddhism became a religion all over the world. It teaches a peaceful manner, reveals the key to happiness for the mind, and eliminates the desire in life. Not just the history of buddhism is important, but how it has spread through the world and what it looks like today.

From the lavish beginnings in a wealthy kingdom nestled within the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, Siddhartha Gautama’s transformation into the Buddha and the start of Buddhism was based off of and due to confronting constant human suffering in everyday life. Abandoning his regal life in pursuit of spiritual insight, Siddhartha sought to understand the problem of human suffering and propose remedies, if any, to such a condition. Verses, lectures, and sutras transcribed in scriptures by Buddha’s followers offer an other worldly perspective to endure the hardships and how to conduct oneself harmoniously in society especially with the concept of Inner Peace. The truth goal of Buddhism is to attain peace within oneself, detaching oneself from worldly suffering, attaining enlightenment, and eventually reaching a state of escaping the cycle of suffering, the state of Nirvana. Even though there are many sects of the Buddhist faith, this essay focuses on the shared peace practices and beliefs Buddhism promotes, especially the concept of inner peace through reflection. Buddhism is known widely as a religion of peace and non-violence, though there are outlying examples contrary to the point such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and etc., the concept of achieving inner peace and living harmoniously no matter what views one has can promote a positive society.