The Buddhist Core Values And Perspectives For Protection Challenges: Faith And Protection

Before I begin my essay let me describe what religion I have chosen and that is Buddhism. Now Buddhism is a tradition that primarily targets the spiritual development of those who practice this type of religion. Buddhist believe in the afterlife and that death is not the end, as they seek enlightenment or as they call it “Nirvana. ” They look to reach nirvana by following the path of the Buddha. The Buddha is not a god to them, but the Buddhists do understand that the Buddha is a human being who has been enlightened and truly knows how the mind works.

The basic teachings each Buddhists had to learn from was the Three Universal Truths, The Four Noble Truths, and The Noble Eightfold Path. In the Three Universal Truths it was able to explain that “nothing is lost in the Universe, everything changes, and The Law of Cause and Effect. ” Now in the Four Noble Truths, it explores human suffering. For example, it starts off by talking about the term Dukkha which states that suffering exists. Next is Samudaya, which explains that there is a cause of suffering and later on another truth called Nirodha tells them that there is an end to suffering. Lastly the term Magga explains that in order to end suffering, a Buddhist must follow the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold path consists of Panna which is wisdom, Sila which is virtue and morality and Samadhi discusses concentration and meditation. This religion was very interesting to study, which was a big reason why I chose to visit was the International Zen Institute of Florida (Buddhist) Dharma house. The institute was founded in 1989 by a Zen Master named Gesshin Myoko Prabhasa Dharma.

Throughout South Florida, many different types of religions are scattered all around. Buddhism is a great example because it’s vastly different from the other cultures. From my perspective having Buddhism in the southern Florida region is very helpful because it is open to anyone in the public that is interested in the tradition and is willing to be influenced. According to one of the members at the institute, the temple is open to everyone as it becomes a community center for the public. The Buddha than teaches to those that they are not really free. We end up getting caught up in our ideas and wishes with our likes and dislikes. While at the site I noticed that the temple had many special items that was specifically Buddhist related of course. As I’m going around the site, there were many paintings that had very deep meaning to each of them along with worshipping spots all around. Honestly it was really interesting to see how everywhere you went you were able to see the culture and tradition of Buddhism, just to get an idea on how their everyday life is. You were able to see that whenever the Buddhist would start praying or worshipping they would all gather around each other in a hall, get on their knees, and start to worship the giant Buddha statue.

During my tour I was able to see that the Buddhist all had similar attire of robes from black, blue, and orange. I don’t believe that the style of clothing is that different from the other sacred sites considering that the site I visited was strictly Buddhist, so I don’t see a reason why the attire would be different, besides maybe other temples would only have one color such as orange as an example. Back to when the Buddhists were worshipping the giant Buddha statue, they would all gather together and sit on the floor barefoot facing an image of Buddha and start a chant. The monks later on would chant from the religious texts and even include some sort of instrument to help take part in the prayers. I was also able to learn that there was more than just that type of ritual in Buddhism. I learned that meditation is used for mental concentration, Mantras has to do with sacred sounds, Mudras works with symbolic hand gestures, something called prayer wheels, which is basically reciting mantras just with the turn of a wheel, Monasticism which is when someone fully devotes their life in the pursuits of spiritual enlightenment, and finally the last ritual most Buddhist tend to do is a pilgrimage to other sacred sites. All these types of rituals help many Buddhist truly understand what they are trying to seek in their journey for Nirvana. For the International Zen Institute of Florida (Buddha) Dharma House has special days called Zazen and Zen Day. For example, on September 5th, 12th, and 26th the Buddhist monks are going through Zazen from 7: 00pm to 9: 15pm and on September 8th and the 29th the monks are going through Zen day from 8am to 1: 30pm.

Also, in October on the 3rd and the 10th go through Zazen again from 7: 00pm to 9: 15pm, but none of the Zen days are in October. Now Zazen is the Buddhist way of saying that they must go through Zen meditation, usually they perform this process in the lotus position. As for Zen day, it is just another time for the monks to spread enlightenment to those seeking out the opportunity to one day become one both spiritually and physically, as they join the many already in Nirvana. To sum everything together, I have to say going to visit that institute was very impactful to me. I say this because I was able to learn so much from these Buddhist that it felt somewhat convincing to maybe go back and learn a lot more on my next visit. During my time at the site nothing negatively affected me as I was interested by the whole clearing of the mind, looking to seek Nirvana, and just the whole meditation to also help seek the truth, all these things seemed to have inspired me to do some more research on the subject of Buddhism. The most positive moment from my site visit was just the overall atmosphere and peace that was going around the institute, clearly as a sign that they take their traditions very seriously to seek out enlightenment. Finally, I look forward to checking out more information on the religion of Buddhism as a chance to learn more about one of the vast cultures throughout South Florida.