The Eight Fold Christian Path

"The mind is everything. What you think, you become."
"To understand everything is to forgive everything." 
- Buddha

Buddhism is a religion or a way of life that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices largely based on the teachings attributed to Siddhartha Guatama. He is also commonly known as the Buddha which translates into "the awakened one." He is recognized by Buddhists as an enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end their suffering by eliminating ignorance which involved our desire to be indulged. When this can be ignored, we reach the sublime state of nirvana. 

The Four Nobles Truths:

1. All things in the world bring suffering and sorrow. 
2. The cause of suffering is the craving of life's pleasures. 
3. Suffering ends only when desire ends; letting go of all desire is the end of Buddhism. 
4. One will attain Enlightenment in the end of suffering by following the Eight Fold Path.

The Eight Fold Path: 

1. Samma-Ditthi — Complete or Perfect Vision, also translated as right view or understanding. Vision of the nature of reality and the path of transformation.
2. Samma-Sankappa — Perfected Emotion or Aspiration, also translated as right thought or attitude. Liberating emotional intelligence in your life and acting from love and compassion. An informed heart and feeling mind that are free to practice letting go.
3. Samma-Vaca — Perfected or whole Speech. Also called right speech. Clear, truthful, uplifting and non-harmful communication.
   
4. Samma-Kammanta — Integral Action. Also called right action. An ethical foundation for life based on the principle of non-exploitation of oneself and others. The five precepts.
5. Samma-Ajiva — Proper Livelihood. Also called right livelihood. This is a livelihood based on correct action the ethical principal of non-exploitation. The basis of an Ideal society.
6. Samma-Vayama — Complete or Full Effort, Energy or Vitality. Also called right effort or diligence. Consciously directing our life energy to the transformative path of creative and healing action that fosters wholeness. Conscious evolution.
7. Samma-Sati — Complete or Thorough Awareness. Also called "right mindfulness". Developing awareness, "if you hold yourself dear watch yourself well". Levels of Awareness and mindfulness - of things, oneself, feelings, thought, people and Reality.
8. Samma-Samadhi — Full, Integral or Holistic Samadhi. This is often translated as concentration, meditation, absorption or one-pointedness of mind. None of these translations is adequate. Samadhi literally means to be fixed, absorbed in or established at one point, thus the first level of meaning is concentration when the mind is fixed on a single object. The second level of meaning goes further and represents the establishment, not just of the mind, but also of the whole being in various levels or modes of consciousness and awareness. This is Samadhi in the sense of enlightenment or Buddhahood.

Verses I guided my worship on:

Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Philippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." 

Titus 2:11-14"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

My Eight Fold Path: 

For my Eight Fold Path, I decided to include a theme of water in some of my steps as water represents so many values that we don't necessarily abide by on a day to day basis. Water purifies, gives life, allows us to reflect and is thus a pivotal element in our lives. 

Right View: 

Take a shower to cleanse the bad in your life. Think about life, try and reflect on the events that took place in your life prior to the shower. See how you can improve upon your mistakes and continue your successes. Find peace in reflection and solitude. 

Right Thought:

Drink an entire bottle of water to purify all the malice in your life. Stand behind a veil of ignorance and rid your mind of negative thoughts. 

Right Speech:

A thank you can go a LONG way. Go to five people who have a lot of impact on your life. Thank them for all they've done for you. I thanked my friends for coping with all of my craziness. I thanked my stepmom for caring for me as if I were her own. I thanked God for giving me this life of comfort and love. You must do this out loud. 

Right Action: 

Get out a guitar or your laptop and start jamming to some tunes - praise songs are great! Or go do something you love to do. You have to learn to alleviate the burden in your life. It'll remind you of how great life could be and with this feeling of elation, your conduct towards others should be altered to a better one. 

Right Livelihood:

Go to your closet now and take out all the clothes you don't wear or don't need. You should have a huge bag now as you are all affluent people with a lot of unnecessary clothes. Donate this bag of clothes to the needy! :) 

Right Effort:

That thing that you've always wanted to overcome or try? Do it. Try everything to appreciate life. There will be some things you don't like, but there will always be some things you adore. I took the SAT this weekend. Didn't like it at all, but I overcame the challenge and was able to look at my life more appreciatively - some people go to hagwon for this ALL summer, winter and even school days. 

Right Mindfulness:

Make a list of 10 good things in your life right now. Don't make it trite like "a loving family" and "great friends." Try and think of the things you wouldn't notice you'd be thankful for. 

Examples of mine: 

Though SATs did not go as well as I wanted them to go, I finally was able to experience it for the first time! I learned to time manage and I feel really good on one math section - my worst section. 

I'm a senior next year? Though anxious and nervous, I'm excited to go through the college process and learn to cope with the highs and lows. 

Right Concentration:

Read the Bible for 15 minutes. Feel enlightened. Pray. I would really just say to bare your soul to God during this time. 

Insight: 

From this experience, I learned a lot. First, it's really relaxing to take a break and just think about life. With the hustle and bustle of life, we often forget how beautiful life can be and how thankful we should be for all the things we have in our possession. I also learned that small things like saying thank you or taking the time to write a list of great things can make a huge impact on your life or others' lives. When I told my stepmom thank you, she hugged me and thanked me for saying such nice things. I changed the course of her day. Really communicating with God through the bible and prayer opened my eyes on how much God loves us all. He provided us with SO much in this life and I feel like I finally found something constant and everlasting within my life: His love and His support. I also learned that we should try and follow the ways of God by ridding self desire and self containment and move the concentration from ourselves to others. This is the only way we can finally achieve a right life. 

Spirited Away

This movie completely centered on the ideas of Shintoism. One idea that was clearly exhibited was animism - there are spirits and life in anything. This is clearly outlined in the scenes that involve the bathhouse. It receives a vast array of customers/spirits that range from the radish spirit to the stench spirit. Kami is ubiquitous in all aspects of life according the Shintoism.


Another idea that this movie hones in on is the idea that we are all impure and thus need to be cleansed. Chihiro is impure in the inception of the movie as she is not content with the life that she is given. She is selfish, ungrateful and lazy. Impurity lies in all human beings. In the Shinto religion, it is believed that one should be cleansed to rid the impurities for good fortune. This can be seen in the movie when the stench spirit is literally cleansed and purified from a customer filled with material and human waste to a river spirit. After cleanksing, the spirit provided money and fortune to the bathhouse. Sen also received purification as she learned to avoid and change her impurities for the better.

There are many reasons to why Chihiro had to undergo this process of purification. The prime reason I believe was that she didn't feel like she belonged and was unsure of the new life that lay ahead. Her life was filled with insecurity, resentment and ungratefulness. In order to cleanse herself of all of the detriment in her life, I believe she had to go on this trip to release all her burden in life and change into a better human being in general.

Sen learned a lot. I think she learned more about the spirit world, yes, but most importantly about herself. She learned that she should respect everything around her. She learned to love. She learned to give. She learned to overcome obstacles that were bigger than her petty problems back in the mortal realm. She learned to cope.

By changing her beliefs on life as a whole, I think she was able to gain some insight one the important things in life. In my opinion, changing herself was changing her beliefs. She was after more able to appreciate her life in any way it came at her.

Gandhi.

*Update: I realized that I posted this on my theatre blog, not my MRE blog. I can show you the theatre blog Ms. James.

Gandhi is quite an interesting man. I think he has done so much for India and South Africa and I respect him for doing so. I really enjoyed the movie though because it didn't necessarily put him on a pedestal; it offered sides of Gandhi that seemed selfish, arrogant. It really encompassed the idea that Gandhi was not perfect.

"I am a Muslim, and a Hindu, and a Christian and a Jew; and so are you."

This quote, I think, really captures the essence of Gandhi's philosophies and the flexibility of the Hindu religion. This promotes equality amongst diverse religions and individuals in society. It also dictates how Hindus are open to believe in numerous numbers of Gods as long as they live out their lives by the principles. Indeed, this quote does talk about religion, but I believe Gandhi had an underlying motive that stretched to all civilians perhaps of the same religion. It doesn't matter if you're an untouchable or a nobleman, we are all equal. This is captured by the scene where Gandhi and his wife argue about cleaning the latrines. He believes that he and his wife should take the responsibility of doing work that wouldn't adhere to their regular lifestyle and that everyone in his little community should share the workload equally. This quote is also captured by the scene where Gandhi fasts in order to inhibit the numerous riots between the Muslims and the Hindus. Despite his religious affiliation with Hinduism, he believed that equality and peace should prevail between these two groups of people. Gandhi also says in the movie how he was actually taught by his elders from the Qu'ran instead of the Hindu books, proving his leniency towards other religions.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

This quote is prevalent throughout the entire movie. Gandhi strongly believes in non-violent non-compliance in the movie. This quote is like the biblical saying "if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also," further proving the previous quote. From the inception of his campaign, we see how ardently he believes in how violence is not the path to victory. He fasts twice - almost to death - to stop the violence that his people took to revolt against the British and against each other. In all of his speeches, he does not slip a word about violence, but strongly goes against it.

An insight:

I've gained a lot from this movie. I've first of all learned that great men are still imperfect despite the air they carry themselves in. This really takes around 5 pounds off my back because in this SFS society where so much emphasis is put on grades and colleges, we should be able to take a break. I've also learned that tolerance of religions really should be promoted in our society. We see so many religious wars in the past and in the present, and though our principles and philosophies may contradict each other, we should learn to respect someone else's religion. I want to extrapolate tolerance not only to religion, but to life as well. We have a lot of conflicting ideals with different people in our lives. We may think they're mean and weird, but it should not be within our place - unless they are doing something incredibly cruel - to judge or demean them.

Easter isn't about colored eggs...

Second chances... is a topic that doesn't necessarily resonate within our complicated teenage minds on a day to day basis. I mean we're disobedient, passive and oftentimes we tend to overlook the ramifications of our actions or our inaction. It's really later in life, when we look at life from an outside perspective we begin to see the faults in our characters and the faults in our choices. The Easter assembly really allowed me to revisit my past and really delve into what could have been, what would have been and what should have been. 

I was actually a part of the assembly so I wasn't there to witness every scene/component. During rehearsals, we weren't exposed to any of the other skits, so I'm in a sense blind to the entirety of the assembly. But from what I can gather from the words of my peers and my quick glimpses from the wings of the Lyso centre, I can conclude that we all have certain regrets and certain desires to alter the past in order to change the present. But what about the possibility of changing the future by changing the present? I think this is what second chances are all about. It doesn't necessitate speeding back to the past to change your decisions, but rather a new beginning to avoid making the same mistakes. I believe that we are often the barriers that hinder our paths to do this. We have to overcome our regrets in order to start anew and change the futures of our mistakes. 

In the assembly, I talked about how I didn't spend much time with my mother when I lived in Canada with her. And now, after a divorce, my mom and I barely get to see each other; she lives in Busan, I live in Seoul. But instead of standing aside, now I make an effort to at least see her once every two weeks. I try to not let my friends or school interfere with my time with her. I devote myself to her completely for that 8 hours we have together. 

God is giving and generous. He offered us the gift of second chances. What we must do in exchange is devote ourselves to Him - in prayer, in church. He knows that we are imperfect and yet He chose to bless us with His grace. In our lives, it is so easy to just overlook different faulty events and choices, but God gave us the gift of second chances - to be forgiven. And we must take with us in Easter that feeling of starting fresh and relieving the regrets and mistakes of the past. 

Shema

Three characteristics of God:
1) He is all-powerful.
2) He is loving.
3) He is good.

An experience:
There are couple experiences in my life that gave me an idea of who God may be. I do understand, however, that life will formulate more experiences that may add onto or detract from what I know him to be now. Most of my knowledge of God comes from church, but a specific moment that stands out right now was when I lived in Canada without my parents for a year. I lived happily and was content with the situation that I was faced with, but with the absence of my parents, it gave me a lot of time alone and thus a lot of time to think. I wondered, if there was a God (which I now am sure there is), why he created the Earth. Upon further consideration, I saw how intricate and beautiful the world is, and though it may have been created by a big bang, there has to be a mind above us that controlled the making of our world.

A way:
I devote my Sundays to church. And I try to pray as often as I can. It gives me time alone with God and I feel as if I can connect with him more personally.

Shema:

He has given us all the opportunity of endless possibility.

He is capable of anything and yet he chooses to bless us and be with us.

Let us thank the Lord, our savior for he will always be with us

in times of want and need.

 

Talchum - Masks of Korea (Hahoe)

These hahoe masks were used for many diverse purposes. They were used to entertain; each mask attained a certain character and storyline. They were used to reveal; the characters often delineated within their simple storylines issues of corruption and pain around their society. And they were used for a very spiritual purpose. Every time the performers would dance for the audience, they would descend from the mountain. The bride would stand on a man's soldiers praising the Gods and the 'good spirits' to rid their village of the lurking evil spirits. They acted as shamans to purify their village. They would come from a higher place to a lower place to 'dance' with the spirits and bring them down to the town.

Corruption, despair, emptiness.
In our village lurks
the hidden, the invisible,
the evil.

They travel in heaps
inflicting our lives with pain and
misfortune.
The poor
suffer from hunger.
The rich
cannot reach fulfillment.

Oh spirits, oh spirits,
descend from your high place
in the skies to help restore the lives
to that we once had.

Oh spirits, oh spirits,
come dance with us,
come chant with us,
come rid our village of the
powerful evils that run freely amongst
our people.

A Church Diverted by Issues of Sexuality and Gender

This article written by Alan Cowell focuses on the outlook of Christianity in England. It asks "Is it ridiculous to be a Christian in England? Or, are Anglicans increasingly the object of ridicule in the land that enshrined their denomination as the established state church centries ago?"

The answer to the former question relates to a plethora of possibilities. It relies on the perspectives of diverse individuals in the today of England; it relates to faith, upbringing, or to the myriad of riddles that life asks. The latter is a statement of fact seeing church leaders embroiled in dotrinal contortions over gender and sexuality, provoking mockery, outrage and division in the hearts of the English.

Alan Cowell