Depth, Desire, Determination, and Disclosure Essay

Soko Morinaga was a Japanese liberal arts student who called up to the front line during World War II. At that time, he lost his parents, family’s land, and his trust in the world. Soko idled away his time for some days and decided to go to Zen temples. First, Soko went to meet Goto Zuigan Roshi, Master of Daishuin temple. After his master training him with trust, he retook his trust for others, especially for Master Roshi. Also, he made a vow to his master that to become a Zen monk. Then, Soko went to Daitokuji monastery. After few days of ordeal, Soko was allowed to enter to Daitokuji monastery. Soko had hard training and became a monk at Daitokuji monastery. At Daitokuji，Master Zuigan showed the meaning of trust for Soko. Trust can be categorized into three classes: trust in the world, trust in others, and self-confidence. In the essay “My Struggle To Become A Zen Monk, ” by introduced theme of trust and how it relates to the human problem of social trust.

Buddhism is a philosophy and a religion based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama who lived approximately 566 B.C.E. Today, Buddhism has millions of followers worldwide, known as Buddhists. (Ballou, 1976) Most practicing Buddhists believe in concepts such as karma, dharma, samsara and nirvana. In addition to these, Buddhists base their lives and actions on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold. Fortress (1999) explains that the name Buddha is a title that means “one who has been awakened” or “the Enlightened One”. On his quest for enlightenment and spirituality, Buddha escaped the life he knew as a husband and father, and turned to a life of meditation, along with ascetic practices. He lived much of his life as a monk in the monastery preaching to his followers that the way to be “awakened” or achieve inner peace and enlightenment is to” live in the now”. (Fortress, 1999) This paper will discuss Buddhism and whether it is a religion of escapism or whether Buddhist live in denial of reality.

While I was doing research for fasting rules, I noticed one of them was to not complain. I wondered the significance of stop people from complaining. To answer my question, I memorized the rule and carefully tried to practice it. Though I noticed that I broke the rule several times, I was content with my attempt. Once during dinner time, I heard other students complain about their sufferings. Sitting by them, I tried to stop myself from entering the conversation. I noticed that the dinner table was filled with negative emotions. I felt depressed after hearing all the grumbles. Finally, on Friday, the last day of deprivation week, I shared my concerns with my roommate. However, she criticized for my grumbling. I was shocked with full of regrets and guilty that I ignored my roommate’s feeling when I selfishly inject my personal negative thoughts to her. At the same time, as both a complainer and a person who was complained to, I totally understood her feelings. When others complained, I felt like they were copying their hardships and paste these hardships on mine. I found myself similar to them that I never considered other’s difficulties before groaning about mine. Reflecting on myself, I found that it is the selfishness and a lack of empathy that caused me to complain. Learning from the experience, I discovered the importance of

Twenty-five established rules allowed the doors of comprehension and the ability to personally relate and reflect to the authors’ view-points to open. As each of these rules plays a defining role in understanding the ability to practice civility, each rule is also a key component in assimilating how to improve on your meditation skills; understand what civility and mediation represent, Forni makes a solid statement that intertwines the two: “if anything, these rules may feel like a “longcut,” since civility requires work and dedication. But they do offer a path to serenity and contentment” (M., 2002, p.41). Since civility and mediation share multiple common grounds and house a wide variety of rules, three will be singled out in which I have found, the most beneficial to my own personal growth and understanding.

Reflecting on this course over this semester, there have been many lessons learned that will be valuable, as we enter the business world. Our first lesson was to learn to work together, as a team, to prepare a short memo, long memo, letter, and email for use in the business world. This is a lesson that will experience many times as we do our daily work. Punctuation and grammar are so important to present to the client and other organizations that we are professionals. It could mean the loss of a sale or acquiring new business. It’s like dressing for work; looking professional or unprofessional.

As I looked to my right and left, I noticed the veterans of meditating could easily be spotted by their perfect posture and quiet, content, stiffness. To see each person in their own position was amusing. Most had their legs in front of themselves, crossed and slightly below their hips. Their gaze was typically a few feet in front of their eyes. Some had their eyes closed and some were simply staring. One woman to my right was sitting with her arms resting on her bent legs, a unique approach. Her old age and heavy weight prevented her from sitting any other way. Another middle aged man was sitting on his heels with a tiny wooden bench under him. Each person, based upon their size and flexibility, found their own position to stay in.

While meditating, Thurman realized that “there are also various vaguely defined areas such as ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ that, like a dusty attic or dank cellar, we may feel the need to explore. It is easy to get lost these murky, dank, and oft-forgotten quarters of the mind. So we must get a clear picture of what we want to find ahead of time” (Thurman 450). Thurman demonstrates how the process of finding self through meditation is a hard process and how it can involve searching our deepest thoughts. This might be difficult for people since it becomes hard to concentrate solely on what they want to achieve and isolate their mind from their pseudo-self. Finding a clear picture of one’s self is challenging because his or her views can be polluted by what they think they have to be. This superficial mask imposes an obstacle for Thurman because he lives in a society that has the “I," “me,” “mine” mentality. The only way Thurman can discover his true self is once he has isolated his true self from his false self and escaped from an egotistical mindset. Unlike the GenMe generation that is essentially given the way of discovering one’s identity, Thurman suffers through the hardships of finding a pathway to becoming

The actions I decided to take after this were what gave me a new perspective on

There is a phrase always appeared in my mind when I closed my eyes, which is called “Everything started coming together”. I am so close to the world and I am clearly see a lot of things that is far away from me appear in the real world. This phrase is from the my learning article and is from the Buddhism, because a Buddhist came to the mediation center and began sitting, nothing can affect them during the mediation, they have a Buddha in their mind, when they start mediation, all they have which is their minds, they talk to themselves and they control it themselves. Since my family is Buddhists, I have the chance to get to know about the Buddha. I admired my grandmother so much for a long time mediation every time, I didn’t know what she was doing when I was young, sometimes when I called her she cannot even reply me, I need to shake her several times. Obviously she was not happy about that, she said she talked to the Buddha. I was trying to do the same thing as my

It was a rather casual Wednesday morning when I arrived at the gate of the Fo Guang Shan Hsi Fang Temple. As the dews drip from the tall bush of grass in front of the red gate, I rang the bell to ask for permission to enter the sacred Buddhist Temple. A female monk named Miaozang slowly opens the door to let me and a fellow student in. Having been born and raised in Vietnam, which is predominantly a Buddhist influenced country, yet grew up in the States in a Catholic high school, I did not strongly identify with any particular religion. Thus, I took this opportunity to learn more about Buddhism by interviewing the monk and took part in a guided meditation session. Each small details from the moment I entered such as the sense of the incense, the lion statues, the mild background chanting, and so on are intentionally set up to make sure that I, the visitor, can have the most wholesome Buddhist experience while being inside the temple. Buddhism, through its teachings, which are called Buddha Dharma, and other rituals such as meditations and chanting, strives to set up an environment that helps its practitioners reach the state of enlightenment, where one can see the reality of the world and the truth behind everything.

I do try to be compassionate, self-disciplined, and confident, in my everyday life, but I am human and not successful constantly. When trying to be compassionate I do little acts. For example, when walking in places I try and hold the doors open for those around me. When I am financially able to, I will pay for someone's coffee behind me, or I will give money to someone in need. When I am interacting with others, I try and see things from their perspective and figure out how they are feeling. Although, I know that I do have bad days where I am sad or angry, and I do not do what I should, there is something that always reminds me to recenter my mind and count my blessings. I try and meditate once a day, things helps me relax and recenter my brain on what is important, and what is not. This self-meditation has not only helped me become more compassionate, but it has helped me become more self-disciplined.

The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die. (Hesse 31)

We then started asking Sophia a couple of questions, like when did she decided on becoming a Buddhist, to our surprise a monk walked into the temple while we were talking to Sophia he asked us a couple of questions and then decided to sit down and talk to us, he instructed us in how to sit down and to listen, we offer us some pamphlets showing us what was Buddhism and what you needed to follow when you are part of the Buddhism we sat there and listen, he then proceeded to explain to us how to meditate, how to release our minds and how to let go. He instructed us to closed our eyes and breath “don’t let your mind wonder” were the words he constantly repeated “concentrate on your breathing, the feeling our the air leaving your lungs and entering them’ we then meditate for what I think was like 10 min, I really believe that in theory what he was saying to disconnect our minds and just feel the breathing, but it was harder for me to actually stay meditating, I get easily distracted and to my surprise I was getting distracted really easily the worst part was that the temple was in a complete silence, there was only another person in the temple walking around and this did not let me concentrate fully in the meditation process, but I did understand what he

For this assignment, I chose to abide by the five Buddhist precepts from Thursday, November 17 to Sunday, November 19. The vow of silence was incorporated for twenty four hours on November 16. However, I will explain my interpretations and my complete experience, including my challenges and discoveries.

Now I was finally going to begin my meditation session. Upon entering the hall, I noticed that everyone was taking their shoes off so I decided to do the same. I then took a spot on the floor like everyone else. Shortly after, a man, who introduced himself as Paramahamsa Prajnanananda, took a spot at the front of the room. Paramahamsa explained that he was the leader of the Temple of Harmony. He also explained that today he would be leading us in the beginner’s meditation session. The type of meditation we did was called “Loving Kindness Mediation”, which is meant to make a person more open to being kind and caring to others along with creating positive changes inside one’s self. Paramahamsa spent a good amount of time explaining the benefits of this type of meditation since this was a beginners session. We began the meditation session by sitting cross-legged with our backs straight and chin up. Paramahamsa explained that this was the normal position for meditation. We all then were asked to close our eyes and enjoy the space around us. We did this for the first 10 minutes of our meditation. Then, Paramahamsa asked us to join him in a series of breathing exercises to further relax ourselves. This was something I was personally used to because I do it with my therapist so I was surprised to see that it is also incorporated into Buddhist meditation. During this exercise, we did a series of deep breathing exercises that really got me to relax. After ten minutes