During this ‘Being Peace Seminar’ there were a lot of connections made such as relating to what we had been learning with Jihad and Mc World, connections to some peoples personal lives, and also to a bigger picture of real life suffering and how it relates to us by comparing it to sweatshops in China. The suffering in China happens all over the world, and it relates to the eleventh mindfulness training. In “The Being Peace article, page 100,” the author, Thich Nhat Hanh states, “Aware of global economic, political, and social realities, we will be have responsible as consumers and as citizens, not investing in companies that deprive others of their chance to live.” The bad thing is, is that this is not the only circumstance that suffering happens so that other peoples lives are benefited. Another example would have to do with diamonds in Africa. Many people suffer and die so that the people who can afford these diamonds can have them easily, without any suffering. The people who find and work for these diamonds don’t even get a share pay. There are many more examples such as something I studied recently which is the Guatemalan Genocide, but the people that were working for the fruit company finally realized that they were not receiving what they truly earned and that created a genocide. Like I said, there are many more examples but just being aware of some of them is a start.
How does this relate to your life if you are not a Buddhist?
If you are not Buddhist, I think that this relates to your life by just realizing that all of this is present, and its good to be aware of all of this. I think that everybody has a hard time with living in the present because it’s hard when everything you know is from the past and gaining wisdom, trust, respect all comes from building off of something and its hard to forget the roots of where it comes from to get to where you are in that moment. Not to mention being worried about the future and what is going to happen with time but just taking deep breaths and once again, coming back to that moment. In “The Being Peace Article, page 96” Thich Nhat Hanh says, “We will try not to lose ourselves in dispersion or be carried away by regrets about the past, worries about the future, or craving, anger, or jealousy in the present. We will practice mindful breathing to come back to what is happening in the present moment.” Even if you aren’t studying Buddhism or aren’t Buddhist, you should be aware of how to live in the present.
A major connection to this article and how this relates to your life if you aren’t a Buddhist is relating all of this to Jihad and Mc World. Mc World is majorly based on technology and not living in the moment. If this world fell into the hands of technology nobody would be living in the moment. Most everybody would be living in the world of computers, video games, and cell phones. When you are texting somebody or emailing somebody you aren’t living in the present, your living almost in the future… wondering what their response will be and how they will react to your question or statement but you would never be fully alone unless you really tried. Does reading a book allow you to be alone though? Even though you are alone without other distractions, it’s not like you’re reading your own thoughts, you’re still not in your own moment because you are reading the thoughts of someone else. In “Being Peace,” page 96, the Seventh Mindfulness Training, Thich Nhat Hanh says, “This mindfulness training is in the middle. It is the heart of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings, the most important one: to live in awareness.” As a world, and as people we need to find ways to balance all of the new technology, and keeping to yourself at times. You cant always be caught up in the lives of others, its already a lot to keep up with yourself.
Some questions I still have about this text are:
1. What would happen if the whole world was influenced and practiced Buddhism? There are a few answers to this question, it just depends on how you look at it and if your able to look past that it probably wont ever happen. If the whole world practiced Buddhism, I feel that the world would be a lot more peaceful and there wouldn’t be as many hatred or wars because everybody would be at peace with themselves and everybody would have accepted that “life is suffering” and therefore, less people would be upset with what they don’t have.
2. With time, do you think that Buddhism will come to more peoples likings? Well… I think that it would be hard for it to come to more peoples senses because a lot of people probably wouldn’t like what they found if they just sat and thought for a little. Also, it takes a lot of effort to carve out thirty minutes to an hour of your day out to sit down and meditate. At the beginning of this week I said to my group, “ I am going to meditate soon and see how it goes.” I still haven’t sat down for even ten minutes to just think. It doesn’t sound like its hard and it probably isn’t if I tried harder but I still need to reach that goal I set at the beginning of the week. Hopefully soon.
3. Do monks and nuns have a lot in common? I don’t know a lot about nuns and I now know more about monks but I still can’t really tell what they do and don’t have in common except along the lines of marriage and loving but are nuns allowed to get married before they become nuns or after? That’s one area where they differ because monks are allowed, but are monks allowed to get married after they become a monk and decide to stop living like one? Hmm…
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