Extra Credit- Yoga Class

For my extra credit, I attended a yoga class at the Cary Street Gym.  I had never before experienced a yoga class before this.  Going into it, I thought that it would be exactly what the articles had said that it wasn't: stretching and being in flexible poses.  I think that the Western culture has influenced many people to think the same way. 

"What is Yoga?" by Georg Feuerstein states that "Underlying all forms of yoga is the understanding that the human being is more than the physical body and that, through a course of discipline, it is possible to discover what this "more" is."  Reading the articles beforehand and keeping in my mind that yoga is not just stretching, I tried to understand what the underlying meaning of yoga and these exercises were about.  However, I felt that because this was my first time and I was so concentrated on doing these poses as correctly as possible, while being surrounded by people who seemed like experts, I wasn't able to really understand what these articles were saying.  I acknowledge the fact that there is something "more" to yoga than what everyone believes, but I just wasn't able to catch on to what this "more" was.

However, I am glad that I went to the yoga class and found it beneficial in terms of relaxing myself.  Though the poses were intense and difficult for me to hold, I liked that I was trying something new.  It was also enjoyable to work out the different parts of my body than how I usually do (using the machines, crunches, weights, etc).  I also appreciated the calm environment: no loud noises, soft music, and even when the instructor gave instructions, he did so in a soothing way.  I left the class feeling that I hadn't worked my body and muscles too hard, but it definitely hit me the next day when I started to become sore. 

Shinto Blog

The section of Kurosawa's Dreams that I watched was "The Weeping Demon."  In this section, the setting is placed in a very dark, cold looking environment, and there appeared to be mountains in the background.  There are two men, one human and the other a demon.  The human seems to be new to this world, which seems to most closely resemble hell in my opinion.  The demon is very depressed in this world, calling it "stupid."  He tells the human about how this world used to be "a field of beautiful flowers, but then missiles came and turned it into a desert.  As a result, strange flowers began to grow."  These flowers were yellow, monster dandelions which were really big, even bigger than the size of the humans.  In this world, the demon mentions how the flowers are crippled, along with the human beings (just look at him, for example).  The demon then complains about how "stupid mankind is" and how the planet has become a junkyard for poisonous waste, causing nature to vanish from the earth.  Also, the fact that the planet's condition is so bad has caused there to be deformities in the animals (such as a one-eyed bird).  He goes into talking about how there's no food and the demons must feed on each other.  The weaker ones go first, and the demon mentions how he thinks he'll be next.  Towards the end of the clip, the demon showed the human how tortured the other demons were,  you can see it in their appearance.  These demons can't even die if they want to.  Their "punishment is immortality and they must suffer forever."  Then, we hear the demons screaming in pain, and the he mentions how their horns hurt them worse than cancer, but since they aren't allowed to die they just scream.  At the very end of the clip, he mentions how his horns are beginning to hurt too, and orders the human to go away.  Then the demon's tone changes and starts to come after the human, who begins to run away.   

I related this section of Kurosawa's Dreams to the slide on Shinto Afterlife.  I think the world that is portrayed in this clip is the Other World of Yomi (the Underground).  At first, I thought the setting was in the Other World in the Mountains, just because I thought there were mountains.  However, seeing how tortured these demons were and looking at the fact that they couldn't die, I definitely saw this suffering as the kind that I would imagine to take place in the Underworld.  The Shinto believe that the human spirit remains forever, meaning that the demons' spirits will last (even though they aren't allowed to die).  Another thing I found that related to the Shinto lecture was concerning the Shinto ethics.  It mentioned how there was a story of how a kami destroyed a sacred rice field and was punished.  The demon that was the main character in this section was a farmer as a human who had dumped gallons of milk in the river to keep prices up.  Now he had gravely regretted it because it landed him in the Underworld.

The Tao of Pooh!

I had a really positive reaction when reading The Tao of Pooh.   In the beginning of the book, when Benjamin Hoff mentioned how people did not believe in his idea of explaining Taoism through Winnie the Pooh, even I was curious as to how this would carry out.  I think that many people who have heard of this book never thought that a little bear could teach them so much.  Going beyond Winnie the Pooh, I feel that this book shows readers that we try to make things so complicated for ourselves, when in fact, we can find explanations in the simplest things in life. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I thought that the whole concept was adorable.

I couldn’t agree more when Hoff made the claim of America being a culture of Bisy Backsons.  Ever since birth, we always have a goal to strive for.  As infants, parents become so excited and push us to learn to sit on our own, crawl, talk, and walk.  As children, we are always encouraged to go to school, to participate in sports and extra-curricular activities, to be doing this and that.  As adults, the natural course of action is to finish our education, get a job, marry, and have kids.  It’s as if everyone is suppose to follow this formula society has laid out for us, and if anyone chooses a different path, society questions him (for example, the 50 year old bachelor that refuses to settle down).  And in trying to follow this formula, it seems that we are always striving for something that we don’t have: we want to make more money, have a better job, a bigger house.  We are never just satisfied with what we have.  We always want more.  In attempting to achieve this “something more,” we do become Bisy Backsons.  Our mind never sits still.  It always thinks of the next thing it can do to achieve that “something more.”   Hoff writes, “Our religion, sciences, and business ethics have tried to convince us that there is a great reward out there and we have to spend our lives working as lunatics to catch up with it.  And somehow, its always further along than we are, whether down the road, on the other side of the road, etc.” (p. 97-98).  Bisy Backsons always want to be somewhere else than where they are, always want something else than what they have, always want to be with other people than who they are already with.  It’s hard for them to be happy.   While I do think that American culture possesses a majority of Bisy Backsons, I think we can turn our lives around and put our happiness in our own hands.  I definitely include myself when talking about Bisy Backsons because I often find myself caught up in everything that I’m doing and not finding a chance to just be, like Pooh.  As Hoff mentions in the book, we should follow the Pooh Way: no stress, no mess (p. 87).  The less stress we place upon ourselves, the more we can appreciate life and what we are given, rather than always running after what we don’t have.

I feel that Taoist principles might do a good job in solving the problem of American culture and individuals.  If the problem is that America is a culture of Bisy Backsons and Americans are not satisfied with anything, and while striving for this “something more” they are causing themselves and this world harm, then I do believe that Taoism can be beneficial. There’s a Taoist belief that says, “while the scholarly intellect may be useful for analyzing certain things, deeper and broader matters are beyond its limited reach” (p.24). If American culture and society stops putting such a big emphasis on intellectual thought and stops considering academic achievement more successful than other kinds of achievement, the world will be better and people will have a chance to be appreciative of other things.  There will also be less stress among people in terms of achieving that next step that society expects us to overcome.  I feel that Taoism believes that matters of the heart are more important than matters of the mind.  If some of the decisions that America made were to be based on compassion instead of materialistic gains, we would be in a different, and perhaps better place right now.

The Tao of Pooh!

 I had a really positive reaction when reading The Tao of Pooh.   In the beginning of the book, when Benjamin Hoff mentioned how people did not believe in his idea of explaining Taoism through Winnie the Pooh, even I was curious as to how this would carry out.  Yet as I continued on with the book, I never realized a concept such as religion, and especially one like Taoism, which may not be as popular as major religions like Christianity or Hinduism, could be explained so easily in such a simple way.  I think that many people who have heard of this book never thought that a little bear could teach them so much.  Going beyond Winnie the Pooh, I feel that this book shows readers that we try to make things so complicated for ourselves, when in fact, we can find explanations in the simplest things in life.  Also, when reading about situations where the characters of Winnie the Pooh displayed principles of Taoism, such as when Piglet’s small size served as his limitation and strength (p. 49), I looked for examples in my own life experiences where my limitations were also my strengths.  It was easier to find Taoism in my own life because they seemed to be similar to Pooh’s in a sense.  Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I thought that the whole concept was adorable.

I couldn’t agree more when Hoff made the claim of America being a culture of Bisy Backsons.  Ever since birth, I feel that we always have a goal to strive for.  As infants, parents become so excited and push us to learn to sit on our own, crawl, talk, and walk.  As children, we are always encouraged to go to school, to participate in sports and extra-curricular activities, to be doing this and that.  As adults, the natural course of action is to finish our education, get a job, marry, and have kids.  It’s as if everyone is suppose to follow this formula society has laid out for us, and if anyone chooses a different path, society questions him (for example, the 50 year old bachelor that refuses to settle down).  And in trying to follow this formula, it seems that we are always striving for something that we don’t have: we want to make more money, have a better job, a bigger house.  We are never just satisfied with what we have.  We always want more.  In attempting to achieve this “something more,” we do become Bisy Backsons.  Our mind never sits still.  It always thinks of the next thing it can do to achieve that “something more.”   Hoff writes, “Our religion, sciences, and business ethics have tried to convince us that there is a great reward out there and we have to spend our lives working as lunatics to catch up with it.  And somehow, its always further along than we are, whether down the road, on the other side of the road, etc.” (p. 97-98).  Bisy Backsons always want to be somewhere else than where they are, always want something else than what they have, always want to be with other people than who they are already with.  It’s hard for them to be happy.   While I do think that American culture possesses a majority of Bisy Backsons, I think we can turn our lives around and put our happiness in our own hands.  I definitely include myself when talking about Bisy Backsons because I often find myself caught up in everything that I’m doing and not finding a chance to just be, like Pooh.  As Hoff mentions in the book, we should follow the Pooh Way: no stress, no mess (p. 87).  The less stress we place upon ourselves, the more we can appreciate life and what we are given, rather than always running after what we don’t have.

I already started to get into this when talking about Bisy Backsons, but I feel that Taoist principles might do a good job in solving the problem of American culture and individuals.  If the problem is that America is a culture of Bisy Backsons and Americans are not satisfied with anything, and while striving for this “something more” they are causing themselves and this world harm, then I do believe that Taoism can be beneficial. There’s a Taoist belief that says, “while the scholarly intellect may be useful for analyzing certain things, deeper and broader matters are beyond its limited reach” (p.24).  I think that if American culture and society stops putting such a big emphasis on intellectual thought and stops considering academic achievement more successful than other kinds of achievement, the world will be better and people will have a chance to be appreciative of other things.  There will also be less stress among people in terms of achieving that next step that society expects us to overcome.  I feel that Taoism believes that matters of the heart are more important than matters of the mind.  If some of the decisions that America made were to be based on compassion instead of materialistic gains, we would be in a different, and perhaps better place right now.  Even if we continued to base our decisions on the mind, we could do it in a better way: “to use the mind as it’s all too commonly used, on the kinds of things that it’s usually used on, is about as inefficient and inappropriate as using a magic sword to open a can of beans” (p. 150).  Now, what this better way might be is beyond my understanding, at least for now.

Buddhist Stereotypes

 

Citation

This is an image of Buddhist monks meditating.  I think that Western culture believes that all Buddhists do is practice meditation for hours after hours and nothing else.  They don't eat the same way the rest of the world does, nor do they sleep or behave the same way as everybody else.  Also, I feel that people view meditation as just sitting in silence with your eyes closed when in fact, it is much more complex.  The goal of Buddhist meditation is to explore other phenomena using your mind.  It teaches you about mindfulness and how to gain insight, rather than concern yourself with worldly matters.  I believe there's even a stereotype that all Buddhist monks are vegetarians.  This is not true, because from what I've read, about half of all Buddhists are vegetarian or vegan and the other half eats meat.  Also, though I don't have any proof of this, I am pretty sure that not all Buddhists are boring and don't know how to have fun.  People believe that they just sit there and meditate all day long, but  I think that they do try to enjoy life as much as they can, but they make sure to not get attached.

In Brad Warner's Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, he writes:

"When I say that Buddhism worked, I don't mean that it was a magic solution to my problems.  Nor do I mean that any miracles happened or that I was able to erase all doubt and fear from my mind through some kind of special power.  What I mean is that Buddhism, especially Dogen's Buddhism, provided the most truly realistic and practical way of dealing with life.  It isn't spirituality, but it isn't materialism either.  It bridges the gap between these two forever mutually opposing ways of understanding reality.  It negates both spirituality and materialism yet simultaneously embraces them (5)."

From this statement, I feel that Warner is saying that because he follows Buddhism doesn't mean that all the issues in his life were fixed and he was happy 24/7.  It didn't make his life perfect and free from everyday problems everyone deals with either.  It did, however, help him choose a better way of living his life and understanding it.  Buddhism helped him maintain a better state of mind.  He wasn't obsessed with spirituality, but he wasn't obsessed with all of the worldly and materialistic affairs of this world.  He was somewhere in between.  Choosing Buddhism, or any other religion, won't make your life perfect, but it will help you see life in a new way and may make it a bit easier for you.  Warner's view goes to further prove that Buddhism is not all about living life how you assume the monks do--through vegetarianism, meditating for long hours, and living a strict life.  Instead, to him it means finding a balance between living life as a Buddhist and living life in the practical world.  In the real world, you have to have money, transportation, clothes, food (which can all be considered materialistic), so it is important to live moderately, by not obsessing over the fanciest cars or the designer clothes.  By finding this balance, one can better gain insight and become more aware of themselves, others, and the natural world (which is something we lose when we concern ourselves with materialistic objects.