Soothing of the mind equals Meditation!

http://www.ekojirichmond.org/



I decided that for my extra credit that I would do meditation. I went last Friday at 5:45pm. I do not have any past experience with meditation. I have never done it because I was taught that other religions do meditation not Baptist. I am a Baptist and I was taught that our meditation is praying. I never knew that as a Christian that I could meditate at all.  I expected the experience to be interesting and exciting. I expected to sit in a room and chant words from a book maybe. I also expected that I would have to look at a statue for a certain period of time. My experience with meditation was a great one. I walked into the Ekoji House and I first had to be silent then I had to take my shoes off.

I went to this house with three of my friends. We talked to this lady and she sent us upstairs. When we went upstairs we then found two more people from our class there with an instructor that was a guy. He sent all of us to this bigger room. We all sat down and he showed us how to sit and he also explained to us that meditation is focusing on our breathing and clearing out everything else from our mind. After he explained what we should do we all went back downstairs and we each got our spot on the mat and closed our eyes. I believe we sat in that position for about 30-45 minutes. When I sat there it was so hard for me to focus in the beginning. There was a leaf blower outside and that is where my mind was focusing at first. When I finally tried to focus on something else I began to pray to myself. I do not know why that began but I started praying. After I prayed I began to think of ways to improve myself and to just relax. After the 30-45 minutes was done, if we wanted to we could share what was on our minds. I did not say anything but I listened to what others said. I agreed with what most of them said because I was doing the same thing. The only question that came to my mind was, “Why am I so uptight and stressed all of the time?” That is the only question that popped up. Overall, I enjoyed my experience and I plan on going and doing this again.

"Sunshine Through the Rain"

• “Sunshine Through the Rain”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhqHZypds4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHususa_mL4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-25o2lFZc

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIJBT4Rq4lk

I watched the first video series called “Sunshine Through the Rain.” I would say that these videos were very interesting. It started out with a little boy. He was outside when it was raining. While it was raining he walked to the woods. When he arrived to the woods he saw something that he was not supposed to see. I believe that he saw a group of people walking through the woods. I believe that the group of people that he saw was a group of deities.  They were just walking through the woods but they were very silent. They did not say anything just walked. The deities looked at the little boy and he ran.

He arrived back into the house and his mother asked did he see something that he was not supposed to see. He replied to her and she told him that a fox was looking for him.  His mom cannot let him back in the house until either he kills himself with the knife or he goes to the fox and asks for forgiveness. I believe that this has a lot to do with the way that the Shinto interacts with their deities. I do not think that the little boy was supposed to look at the gods without worshipping them. I also believe that the other problem was that he disobeyed his mom. She told him not to go anywhere and he did anyway.  He just stared at them in the woods and did not worship them or anything. The Shinto are very adamant about human interactions with the other. Lying is one of the most important sins and the little boy sinned. He has to either repent or he can lose his life. When a sin is committed they have serious consequences.  These videos were a little hard to decipher but I think that I finally figured it out.

           

My reaction to the "Tao of Pooh"

My first reaction when I heard that the “Tao of Pooh” was our next book was that of excitement.  I have heard of this book before but I did not know what the concept was or what the book was about. I just wanted to read it because it said Pooh in it. As I was reading, I found that this book was an easy read. The more I began to read, the more I just wanted to finish the book. This book was not only fun to read but it taught me a lot about my life. It taught me that I am always trying to plan things instead of just letting life flow. I am always trying to plan things that I do not allow myself to just sit back and enjoy my life.  A quote about how I should be is, “" ... but, no matter how he may seem to others, especially to those fooled by appearances, Pooh, the Uncarved Block, is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded." (12) This quote really showed me that if I just go with the flow or just relax that I can still get things done.

I can just try to calm my thoughts and still accomplish what I need to do. I stress myself out a lot because I am the planner. I try to do everything in a certain time and be on a schedule. Most of the time the time and schedule do not work at all. A lot of my friends tell me that I am so uptight and that I do not have fun so as I was reading I found another quote of how I should just enjoy my life. The quote says, “" From the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times. As Piglet put it in Winnie-the-Pooh, "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right." (21) This quote helped me because it taught me that I do have things to do and that need to be accomplished but with that I need to learn how to have down time to.

I believe that Taoism would be a great solution for Americans. I say this because it would allow the average American to just sit back and enjoy life more. We are so caught up in doing this, accomplishing that, that we do not have time to breathe and enjoy what has been placed in front of us. I am going to search Taoism a little more and try to live by it as well. The critique about Americans being Busy Backsons is true as well. We are always on the move that we do not have time for ourselves. I am learning that myself and I am truly going to change that. I really enjoyed this book.

Buddhist not Hindu!!!

 The blog that I chose for Buddhism was a clip from the Simpsons. This is a positive stereotype. I chose this clip because it allows the viewers to see that American really do not know what Buddhism is. In this clip, Bart calls Lisa a Hindu. He calls her that because he says she is supposed to be nice and love everyone. This is not a true statement because Hindus can dislike someone as well. He really did not know what she really was so he just picked a religion and told her that is what she is. Lisa finally tells Bart that she is not a Hindu. She is a Buddhist. This clip really opened my eyes because it allowed me to see what the average American does when it comes to different religions or faiths.

We as Americans may see or experience a certain thing and before we consider looking something up or asking questions, we make assumptions about it. This is true about a lot of religions because before I enrolled in this class I use to believe that all other religions besides Christian use to just pray all day. As I have learned about new religions, I learned that praying is not what they do all day long. Some people have lives and do other things as well. I did not realize it until now but I stereotype other religions as well. I do not stereotype them in a bad way though. I just always thought that praying is their main form of worship and that they did it all day. Brad Warner’s book taught me a lot about Buddhism. This book taught me that Buddhist practioners are supposed to behave and carry themselves in a certain matter. The book says, “ The Zen Master Rama was not your average stereotypical  Buddhist practitioner is suppose to be like he wore a "sexy leather jacket"(13) and practices "Tantric Zen". This quote shows the stereotype about Buddhist practioners and their clothing. People expect them to wear cloaks and the long gowns when they can dress like normal people if they want to. Stereotypes can be good or bad but before people feed into them, they should research a little more.