Major Buddhist Ideas and Practices - Book Report/Review Example

?Journal Entries: Buddhist Ideas and Practices Buddhism is one of the oldest religion and concept of the world. Over thousand years, the Buddhist ideas and ideals, both have guided as well as influenced thoughts of several human beings all across the world. Bogoda, in his article mentioned that, some people in this world were born great, where as, greatness was thrust on some people. But, in the concept of Buddha –Dharma, the greatness of any individual was dependent on how far one could progress in perspective of ethical discipline and mental culture. According to him “true greatness in Buddhism was proportional to that of one’s success in unfolding the perfection dormant in human nature” (Bogoda). In this article we would review few specific journals based on the Buddhist ideas and practices. The Long Road Turns to Joy: The Long Road Turns to Joy, is a book that emphasizes on various Buddhist ideas and practices. The book was written by Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh in the year 2011. The book is a small but handful description about how walking can be transformed from a habit to mindful way of being. According to the author, when an individual started to do walking meditation then the long distances become always joyful for them. An individual when concentrate deeply to the present moment, then he or she can forget every sorrow s or regrets associated with their lives. When any individual, started to do this regularly then he or she can easily overcome depression that one was in and leave the life peacefully (Hanh 3-6). Hanh also mentioned that, breath in and then breathing out with awareness were convenient objects along with walking meditation. Various steps that one individual generally was associated with their day to day work was described by Hanh as the ways to be mentally calm and happy. In his book he cited that peace was near to us and within touching distance. The only thing one need was to think that the peace was near and then only it could be achievable. He also mentioned that regaining our own sovereignty could be possible by smile. Touching the earth were the easiest options to have control over our frustration, anger and anxiety. He cited the incident of Lord Buddha, as Lord Buddha was touch the earth with his right hand and told “with earth as my witness, I’ll sit here in meditation until I realize true awakening”, when he was challenged by Mara. According to Hannh, whenever anyone felt irritated, angry or unhappy, he or she was visited by Mara, and at that point if the individual touched the earth’s surface then he or she could feel better. In this book, author clearly demonstrated the importance of walking in an individual life. The book changed the ordinariness associated with walking. It gives us the opportunity to discover the new world available to us when we walk with mindfulness. The book describes the joy of writing in very easy word which is understandable to all, it also open our eyes to the possibilities of walking that never before mentioned. What the Buddha Taught: What the Buddha taught, was written by Sri Lankan monk scholar Dr. Walpola Rahula in the year 1959. In this book, he described the basic teaching of Buddha as it was found in the extant text, the Tipitika. He discussed about four noble truths, meditation and the relevance of Buddha’s thought to the contemporary world. After a small introduction of Buddha, he discussed about actual teaching of the Buddha, Buddhist attitude towards mind. This book is consisted with four noble truths of Buddha, how that affects individual life. According to him, the greatest strength of Buddha’s thought was it was modern and also well acceptable for all the people, while discussing about the thoughts of Buddha, he also discussed about the techniques to ensure that the Buddhism spread all across the world. In this book, he discussed about Buddha’s concept of perfect king and also applied this concept in respect to the modern day’s leader. Dr. Raula in his pointed out concepts like anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing), modern leadership, noble truth in very easy language so that general people can easily understand what the Buddha was mentioned way back and how those thoughts are still applicable in modern times. The book gives us a great introductory resource about the Buddha’s teaching, and the work is worthy of continuous reading which in turn will ensure deeper reflections about the concepts of Buddhism. This book is associated with the tips that I helpful in our day to day activities. What the Buddha Taught, is in a nutshell is all about the Buddha’s thought about truth, the modern day leaders and also about the application of his thought process in our present day to day life. Mindfulness in Plain English: Mindfulness in Plain English was written by Bhante Henepola Gunaratna, and this book is a great help for the non-Buddhists, people who newly turns to Buddhist ad also for the season politicians. The book is about developing high degree of mindfulness by practicing vipassana meditation. At the very beginning, the author discussed about the benefits of the meditation. After that, the book pointed out different aspects of meditation, different ways of doing this, what one should do with their body, mind to remain peaceful. According to the author, regular meditation helped to overcome problems and distractions in daily life. He also mentioned that how the mindfulness was related to concentration. At the end, Gunaratna focused on what meditation can give in everyday’s life and what we as individual could learn from the meditation. The book also consisted of a part which described how the friendly behaviors’ and talking about mindfulness was helpful for the development of metta. According to him, Vipassana means insight, which can be represented as awareness of exactly what is happening around us, where as Samatha can be referred to concentration when mind bought to a standstill and focused on a particular thing and not wonder about anything else. This helped in building up the concentration and also mental focus. The book is all about the importance of meditation in our daily life. With the clarity of thoughts and easy representation, the author helps us to move step by step forward through myths, realities and importance of meditation and mindfulness. The Wisdom of No Escape: The Wisdom of No Escape was written by Pema Chodron and was first published in the year 2010. According to his view, it was possible for us to say yes to life in all of its manifestations. According to him one must embraced all the happiness and sufferings, all the confusion and intelligence and considered all these as parts of our existence in this world. According to his point of view, these thought process helped us to open up huge amount of courage and love within our hearts which was the base of Buddhism. The book is consisted of traditional Buddhist wisdom which was easily relatable for any individual. In this book, Chodron explained four noble truths associated with Buddhism, and taking refuge as a practice that encourages fearlessness among individual, and also experiencing the concept of dharma. According to her point of view, willingness to die over and over again heightens the first reminder which was the sense of gratitude and preciousness. According to his point of view, we expend a phenomenal amount of energy in order to improve ourselves, instead of enjoying what we are and what we already have with ourselves. According to his point of view, meditation was a helpful practice in lighting up ourselves and also helped us to be more curious. He also mentioned that if we love ourselves then that ensured the truth of loving others. He also stated that meditation enabled us to cultivate precision, gentleness and also helped us to generate an ability to let go off small-mindedness. If we analyze the writing of Chodron with modern perspective, then it is very clear that meditation is helpful to ensure that we are far away from the tension. This book helps us to understand that the inputs from ourselves, our family, culture is enough to make us happy. It is very difficult, to let go the fact that one must continue to improve, but it is a belief the limits the experience that we can have from our life. We must accept the fact that experience from our personal life often closes us off to an appreciation and acceptance of our own inner beauty. Beyond Religion: Beyond Religion was written by H. H. Dalai Lama, and the book was all about considering the entire world as a single unit devoid of any religion. I this book, H. Dalai Lama pointed out several development that took place in the world in last few decades starting from the development in medical science, taking out million of people from the lines of poverty by means of education and healthcare, universal declaration of the human rights, ideas of democracy and freedom also spread all around the world. According to his point of view, due to all these development there was an increase in recognition of humanity, and also growing awareness of health environment all across the globe. But along with that, he also mentioned about the suffering that humanity is still facing difficulties and problems. According to his point of view, in more affluent parts of the world people was enjoying the fancy lifestyle but there were huge number of people whose basic needs were not fulfilled. Although after the end of cold war, the threat of nuclear destruction was reduced, but still there were many places where gun battle was continuing for the supremacy of power and the poor people who were facing the affects of the same. Despite the development of science, people in various parts of the world were still fighting with the environmental problems to survived and complete their daily life. In his writing, H.H. Dalai Lama also pointed out that not only the under developed countries, developing and developed countries were also facing problems like, social disturbance, domestic violence etc. People were in concern about their child’s education, future etc. According to him, there was serious lacking in the way we humans were going about the things. He mentioned that it was nothing but the fundamental problems as we were giving to much focus on external material aspects of life rather than moral ethics and inner values If we analyze the writing of H.H. Dalai lama, than it is very clear that in his book, he discussed about both the positive as well as negative side of the development of the modern world. His book focused on the development of moral ethics and values along with the materialistic development that is essential for the holistic growth of the world. Introduction to Tantra: Introduction to Tantra is a book on Buddhism written by Lama Thubten Yeshe, 2010. In this book, Yeshe discussed about basic purity, desire and happiness of an individual. According to his word, “swirling ocean of tantra is crossed through the kindness of the navigator, the vajra holders. Bless me to cherish more than my life the vows and commitments- the root of attainments”. In his work, he discussed about how the Tantra was practiced and how it was helpful to achieve the mental peace for the human beings all around the world. He also mentioned that, according to Buddhism, every human being could achieve profound and lasting happiness. The remarkable transformation could be achieved very quickly if anyone could utilize all the aspects of the human energy more importantly the energy of one’s own desire. Introduction to Tantra, in modern concept is the best possible way to understand the importance of self desire. From this book, we can understand that the powerful energy that developed from our own desire is one of the indispensible resources for the spiritual path. Our life is very much associated with the desire and we must use the energy of this desire to not only transform our lives but also for our happiness. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism: Chogyam Thumpa, in his book discussed various aspects of material spiritualism and how it affects our day to day life. According to his point of view, the spiritual path was the process which went through human confusion which was related to uncovering of the awakened state of our mind. In this book, he pointed out when awakened state of mind was crowded with ego, then it transformed to a character of underlying instinct. According to him, it was not important for an individual to building up the awakened state of mind but, the more important was to burning out the state of confusion in our mind which stops it from awakening. And while burning out the confusion state people discovers enlightenment, he pointed out the Buddhism, according to which sun coming out behind the cloud was an example of enlightenment which was related to this process which he mentioned in his book. According to him, ego could transform everything to its own use, including spiritualism. So in order to attain material spiritualism one have to have control over their own ego so that he or she can attain spiritual materialism This book and its analysis gives us an clear idea about how we can control our mental awakening by removing every kind of confusion which is their in our mind. With the help of this book, he also pointed out how ego, confusion comes in the way of spiritual materialism and how we can get rid of those. Peace Is Every Step: Peace is every step was written by Thich Nhat Hanh, and it was subtitled the Path of Mindfulness in everyday Life. This book was consisted of three parts, part one was Breath! You are alive!. Here he discussed about the principles and their application in our daily life. In this part, he discussed about the importance of the regular daily activities which helped an individual to be in peace. He also mentioned that Daily works like eating, driving, answering calls all plays an important role in peace. In second part, Transformation and Healing, Hanh discussed about how one can deal with difficult emotions and develop more compassion and happiness in ones life. According to him fighting with difficulties, facing them and overcoming them was a way to develop peace and mental satisfaction in ones life. Here he also discussed about various ways to deal with anger as according to his point of view it was a common emotion of modern society and one should work with it more effectively and in transformative way to find peace. The third part, Peace is Every Step was built on the previous two sections, and Hanh in this part taught the world how to cultivate peace while facing difficulties. In this part he mentioned that we could not act as individuals as we were always interrelated with the others in every aspect. In his review he pointed out that war, peace, awareness ecology all these things could not be possible with the concept of individual as human beings were all interrelated. In a nutshell, we can conclude, the Peace is Every Step, is a guide with direct and practical approaches that help us to find out peace in our daily life. The principles of mindfulness which are mentioned by the author in this book are not only useful for us as individual but also helpful to spread peace all across the globe. Works Cited Gururatna, Bhante, and Gunartna Henepola, Mindfulness in Plain English, Wishdom Publication, 2011, Print Trungpa, Chogyam, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Shambhala Publication, 2008. Print Lama, H.H. Dalai, Beyond Religion, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, Print. Yeshe LamaThubten, Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire, Readhow YouWant.com, 2010, Print Chodron Pema, “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness”, Shambhala Publication, 2010, Print. Bogoda Robert, Buddhist Culture, the Cultured Buddhist, Buddhist Publication Society, 2005 Web. ?http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bogoda/bl139.html?. Hanh, Thich Nhat, Peace Is Every Breath; Harper Collins, 2011, Print. Rahula, Walpola, “What the Buddha Taught”, Grove Press, 1979, Print. Read More