The religion that I choose to explore was Buddhism, which is completely different from Christianity. I did not have many interactions with Buddhist or Buddhism growing up. I did grow up with a lot of Buddha statues in my house for decoration purposes, but never truly understand what or who the chubby man was. My knowledge prior to this exploration of faith was slim to none; I only knew that people of Asian decent prayed to him. Through this project I found out that it was a welcoming religion that originate from a man who wanted to end human suffering.
Like many other religions there are different denominations, but they all stem from the story of Guatama Siddhartha also know as the Buddha. The story begins with Queen Maya dreaming that …show more content…
Queen Maya died given birth to Guatama Siddhartha, which left his father in control of his life. Siddhartha’s father learned that there was two paths that Siddhartha could follow become king or a religious leader. In hopes to lead Siddhartha in the direction of a king, his father isolated him from the all suffering and religious teachings. Obviously, Siddhartha’s father attempt to keep his away from religion failed. Siddhartha wanted to end human suffering, he searched for the “Middle Path” and soon was enlighten after meditation under a Bodhi tree. When Siddhartha reached enlightenment he became Buddha meaning the “Awakened One.” Siddhartha travelled around various regions gaining an assembly of followers, teaching the 4 noble truths and the Noble Eightfold. American was introduced to Buddhism around 1840’s, but there was not much interest until 1893 parliament, which caused public curiosity. A sub-genre of Buddhism that stuck out was Soka Gakkai International (SGI) a form of Nichiren Buddhism. SGI gained its name in 1975, they teach “suffering is inevitable, but through faith, negative life conditions are transformed.” Through chanting diamoku and studying one can strengthen the Buddha …show more content…
I hoped to gather information about her experiences, traditions, and rituals. I found out she was born into Buddhism, but did not identify as a true Buddhist. She felt as if none of the younger generations were true Buddhist, they would call themselves Buddhist but not follow the religion. From her experiences to be a true Buddhist one would have to go to the temple every lunar moon and Chinese New Years. As a Buddhist her rituals and traditions consisted of cleaning the statues of Buddha and its surrounding areas with distilled water and vinegar, on the night of the lunar moon. Her family also laid out food like pork belly, shrimp, and fruit in front of the Buddha statue. They also did the same on the Chinese New Years with a different lay out of food. When also talked about the differences between men and women in Buddhism, which we felt there were not any. The only difference she could come up with was women on their period could not pray to Buddha, because there bodies were not cleansed, therefore praying with a body that is not cleansed would bring on bad omens. We then talked about other things that would cause bad omen like wearing the color black on the Chinese New Years, in order to bring good fortune to their home, they would wear red on this day. Red was a positive color to her; one of her most positive experiences was when she received a red
Like many other religions there are different denominations, but they all stem from the story of Guatama Siddhartha also know as the Buddha. The story begins with Queen Maya dreaming that …show more content…
Queen Maya died given birth to Guatama Siddhartha, which left his father in control of his life. Siddhartha’s father learned that there was two paths that Siddhartha could follow become king or a religious leader. In hopes to lead Siddhartha in the direction of a king, his father isolated him from the all suffering and religious teachings. Obviously, Siddhartha’s father attempt to keep his away from religion failed. Siddhartha wanted to end human suffering, he searched for the “Middle Path” and soon was enlighten after meditation under a Bodhi tree. When Siddhartha reached enlightenment he became Buddha meaning the “Awakened One.” Siddhartha travelled around various regions gaining an assembly of followers, teaching the 4 noble truths and the Noble Eightfold. American was introduced to Buddhism around 1840’s, but there was not much interest until 1893 parliament, which caused public curiosity. A sub-genre of Buddhism that stuck out was Soka Gakkai International (SGI) a form of Nichiren Buddhism. SGI gained its name in 1975, they teach “suffering is inevitable, but through faith, negative life conditions are transformed.” Through chanting diamoku and studying one can strengthen the Buddha …show more content…
I hoped to gather information about her experiences, traditions, and rituals. I found out she was born into Buddhism, but did not identify as a true Buddhist. She felt as if none of the younger generations were true Buddhist, they would call themselves Buddhist but not follow the religion. From her experiences to be a true Buddhist one would have to go to the temple every lunar moon and Chinese New Years. As a Buddhist her rituals and traditions consisted of cleaning the statues of Buddha and its surrounding areas with distilled water and vinegar, on the night of the lunar moon. Her family also laid out food like pork belly, shrimp, and fruit in front of the Buddha statue. They also did the same on the Chinese New Years with a different lay out of food. When also talked about the differences between men and women in Buddhism, which we felt there were not any. The only difference she could come up with was women on their period could not pray to Buddha, because there bodies were not cleansed, therefore praying with a body that is not cleansed would bring on bad omens. We then talked about other things that would cause bad omen like wearing the color black on the Chinese New Years, in order to bring good fortune to their home, they would wear red on this day. Red was a positive color to her; one of her most positive experiences was when she received a red