Balancing One Another

Question: As Smith tells us, many people adhere to BOTH Confucianism and Taoism at once.  Based on what you have read in Smith, and the excerpts from the texts that you have read in Novak, what do you think are the most important beliefs and practices of Confucianism and Taoism?  How do you suppose adherents could do both at once?

Confucianism believed in a social nature; subjects respect their rulers, children respect their parents, wives respect their husbands, the younger respects their elders, and a friend respects a friend.  However, it was not totally authoritarian because rulers, parents, husbands, elders, and friends would all protect their subjects, children, wives, younger, and friends.  Also, the subject, child, wife, younger, and friend, in some cases, could correct their ruler, parent, husband, elder, or friend.The most important belief for Confucianism seeks to be fully harmonized and making ourselves more human; education was key.  God was not a critical way of becoming fully harmonized.  The goal was to become a junzi, someone who knows their place in the social nature.  For example, someone who realizes they are the wife to a husband, a parent to a child, and a friend to a friend.  They are someone always striving to do better.  Ren is the ideal relationship among humans, being compassionate and loving towards one another.  Li is the practice, it is doing the right thing.  Li is used in day-to-day human interactions.  Li is in relationship to ren and is used accordingly to the social nature and helps to become fully harmonized.

Taoism is in a sense the opposite to Confucianism, taoist break away from the social nature.  Taosim believes that becoming a junzi takes away from the living part of life.  They believe there is an energy force they call chi and nature is what drives chi.  For humans to stay in touch with their chi they must do healthy practices.  A way to increase the chi is by meditation and by observation. The taoist follow the wu wei which is going with the way things are suppose to be.  To become a real human who is spontaneous, silly, and genuine is a term taoist call zhenren.

The balance of ying and yang.

Their is saying that every Chinese wears a Confucian hat, Taoist robes, and Buddhist sandals.  So it is not how could they do both but how followers do all three.  One is not complete with the other because they each have their own lesson within.  All three together make a balance.  Confucianism helps the Chinese with their everyday life, ethically and publicly.  Taoism is within yourself, so it is a more private matter.  Lastly, Buddhism is at the time of death for Chinese.  Each one is done by what part of life we are experiencing or at the moment doing circling one another as ying and yang. 

The Improved Ways to Reach Enlightenment

Question:  The Buddha grew up in a society where most people believed in some form of Hinduism.  Most importantly, they believed in castes and samsara, and they had select people who followed ascetic lives.  What are these ideas of castes and samsara and asceticism?  How do you think Hindu religious practices and beliefs informed the Buddha's new dhamma?

Hinduism believed in castes which are like social orders, for the most part they are hereditary.  The castes are divided into four sections Brahmin being the highest following Kshatriya, Vaishya, and then the Shudra.  The Brahmin were the priest, the Kshatriya were the warriors, the Vaishya were the artisans, and the Shudra were the laborers.  Hinduism believed they were all born with a problem called samsara.  Samsara was the ceaseless cycle of death and rebirth.  Their solution to release them from samsara was moksha.  Moksha was liberation from reincarnation and a way to find God.  However, they needed a technique to get from samsara to moksha.  Yoga was the way.  It led three different paths for Hindus to reach moksha.  One form of yoga was karma yoga.  Karma is the idea of good action, usually done morally or ritually, by the priests.  Another form of yoga is jnana yoga which is the way of knowledge or wisdom.  People who followed the way of jnana yoga were called ascetics and were renounce to their families to live lives of spiritual contemplation.  The only goal for ascetics was to find their God within, Atman, and to also avoid maya, the illusion of what might be real.  Bhakti yoga is a path that everyday Hindu people could follow.  Bhakti yoga was a way of devotion, involving a lot of praying.  It was a way to form a personel relationship with a god(s).

Buddhism started with a man named Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakyas.  His father was a king and Gautama lived a luxurious life.  He married at the age of sixteen and had a son named Rahula.  Guatama's father insisted that Gautama never seen any form of ugliness in the world.  When Gautama was in his twenties he had four events showing him of old age, disease, death, and the withdrawal he had on the world.  He wanted to know more of a place where there was no death or age.  Gautama escaped and ventured off into the world he knew nothing of. Learning of wisdom and yoga.  He joined the ascetics but found no enlightenment from it, however it did provided a starting path for his own way.  Hinduism had every effect of the Buddhism religion.  Gautama believed in a rational life where the body is given what it is needed no more.  He was on a quest of rigorous thought and mystic concentration and found his awakening underneath the Bo Tree.  It is here is where the Buddha emerged.  Buddha had no care for castes.  He saw everybody as human.  Buddha wanted to find a way for people to be awakened.   Hinduism had religion qualities of authority, ritual , speculation, tradition, grace, and mystery, but Buddha believed that in Hinduism all these qualities were all lost in touch and very misleading.  He first announced for everyone to start their own religious seeking and pay no mind to the Brahmin.  Buddha believed that not all the answers were there and to maintain a noble silence.  He preached for people to break free from their tradition because it was no good for them, Hinduism believed in reincarnation the endless cycle of death and rebirth but Buddha thought it was ridiculous.  He led people to understand that they could all reach enlightenment not only the brahmins!  Buddha stood away from the ideas of mystery and the supernatural.  All these ideas which were complete opposite to the Hinduism way.  Buddhism was empirical, scientific, pragmatic, therapeutic, psychological, egalitarian, and directed directly to individuals.

Seeing is Believing.. Others Just Believe

Title: Why Does God Hide?

Author:  Alan Lurie

Summary

This article is basically about the idea of whether or not God really exist, and for those whose struggle with the understanding of religion.  The articles questions that if there truly were a god why would he let such horrible incidents happen; example The Holocaust.  The article also brings up the Book of Job that it is easier to say you do not believe, then believe and not have all the answers.  Also, it states that believing in a virtual sense of God is childish and for most becomes frustrating.  However, the author says that for people who cannot believe in a virtual God that they can reach God through a loving and connecting feeling.  On the other hand, he says for some people religion and God do not come naturally to them.  For some their ego is more prominent than to postulate something greater than ourselves.  The author is trying to say that God is not being but a belief that is only their to drive us in our actions and questions.

Opinion

I both disagree and agree with this article.  For instance, on the question if there really is a God why would he let such horrible catastrophes happen?  To believe in good you must believe in the bad, simple as that. If there is a God there must be a devil.  The devil is temptation, lust, gluttony, greed, hatred etc.  God is not simply walking the streets telling us what is good or bad or what to do, what not to do.  God is there to guide us and let us have faith and hope. To let us know that there is more meaning to our life and afterlife.  Even Job found hope for God by realizing his sins and walking away from the devil and closer to God, even when all of Job's questions were not answered.  Job became a believer of God and anyone can and not be childish.  For those who have never and may never see God in a virtual form knows he exist and simply just believe, because they feel that loving connection with Him.  Peoples' ego is what barricades their relationship with God or in any religion and their god like figure.  People want hardcore evidence to believe in a God, but why?  Why is not the feeling, the loving, the hope enough?  If there is no reason for God, no reason for religion, no reason for faith or hope just because there sometimes may be no physical proof, then what is left? There is nothing.  We live life unworthy, unhappy, hopeless.  So I believe that just because we do not have all the answers to God does not mean he is not there.

Intro

Hello, my name is Shirley and I am a student at Bunker Hill.  I will be blogging weekly for my World Religions class.  Every week I will choose from different articles on religion discussing the main points of the author and my views on the article itself.