I have been following the course Buddhism and Modern Psychology on Coursera since March 2014. On the third week, the mid-term assignment was released and I submitted an essay. Well, it turned out to be a good one as I received 11/12 total score. This post contains the instructions, the questions, my essay, and the summary of the peer evaluation feedback. …
Buddhism and Modern Psychology: Mid-term AssignmentRead More »
13 April 2014
Today is Vesak Day in Singapore. I went to NTUBS Vesak Day Temple Tour, which travels through 4 temples in a day.
On 8.30 am we started to gather at Boon Lay MRT Station where we visited Buddhist Fellowship first. Buddhist Fellowship held a family Vesak carnival (including bathing of baby Prince Siddharta) and we joined them until 10.30 am to start moving to Poh Ming Tse (PMT).
At PMT, we attended the book launching event by Sister Sylvia Bay. After that, there was sharing of merits and bathing of baby Prince Siddharta. Then we had a lunch there first before getting the book that is just launched by Sis Sylvia Bay, titled “Between the Lines: An Analytical Appreciation of the Buddha’s Life”. This book is the first volume of Buddha’s life that told us about the scholarly views on his life, which in reality, was quite boring, have ups and downs, and all other problems a normal monk have. The book is said to clear the distinction between what are myths and factual truths.
We then went to KMSPKS (Kong Meng San Phor Kark See), which is a Mahayana-Chinese temple. At Ven Hong Memorial Hall there, we were greeted by Ven Chuan Guan where he gave us a mini talk about the Vesak celebration at KMSPKS. This year, their theme is gratitude, which are towards: parents, nations, sentient beings, Triple Gem, and the planet. Next, we went around and watched a short movie screening there. Before we left, Bro. Seng Yip (and Bro. Hong Seng) gave us a little temple tour of KMSPKS.
We went to Sri Lankaramaya Temple after that and met Bhante Rathanasara, who gave us a little talk, basically just consisting of questions and answers. He answered some basic questions like: What is Buddhism? [ans: teaching which goals is to reduce evil doings, increase good doings, and purify heart and minds] Why Vesak day is celebrated on different days? [ans: the differences between calendar system used and the uncertainty of when is the exact date] After this, we were done and went to Jurong Point to have dinner first before going back. Overall, it was very nice to have visited Vesak celebrations in 4 temples but it was very tiring especially in transportation.
Happy Vesak Day :)
13 April 2014
On 4 May 2014, I viewed an interesting video about the meaning of life. Watch it here: http://sivers.org/ml
Brief summary of the video
The author explained some philosopher’s view and argument about the definition of life, such as:
and the author mentioned some other definition, until he mentioned about his experience in learning Chinese character, where he inferred that every character must have a meaning in the pictograph, but after his search at dictionaries, he concludes that some of the characters have no meaning in the pictograph and just chosen because of how it sounds. He states that human are very fond of pattern finding that they just cannot accept things that are random. Hence, he concludes that life has no meaning at all in the first place. It’s just random. Accept it. End of story.
Life is Suffering?
Disclaimer: all the statement written here is not yet confirmed to be true; I just voiced out my opinion based on what I’ve already known (mainly from attending many sessions of NTUBS Dhamma Classes, and BF Sunday Services)
The author also mentions about meaning of life, according to Buddhism:
Should we look at the Buddhist idea that life is SUFFERING? Nah, that’s no fun.
Well, I laughed at the author’s joke of life being “no fun”, although I know that he misinterpret the first noble truth of The Four Noble Truths. Simply put, if “life is suffering” is true, do you feel like suffering right now?
In Buddhism, the Buddha gave the first sermon about The Four Noble Truths at Deer Park around 3 months after his enlightenment. He taught about the Four Noble Truths to his first five disciples. This Four Noble Truths consists of:
This first noble truth, as quoted from the sutta (scriptures), is this:
Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering — in short, suffering is the five categories of clinging objects.
From the quote, we can infer that those 8 conditions are called suffering, but those 8 conditions did not make up “life is suffering”.
Suffering, is part of human’s life, but unnecessarily is the human’s life. Rather than stating that life is suffering, for me, it really means that the thing called suffering exists in this life, and identifying it is important in Buddhism.
Why Buddhism is all about suffering?
Instead of that, what is true happiness?
To answer this question, the Buddha’s approach to see the other side first, suffering. Because not suffering is true happiness, and true happiness is indescribable. Hence, he taught the four noble truth: the description of suffering; the cause of suffering; the end of suffering; and the ways to the end of suffering. Hence, those thinking about everything about Buddhism is about suffering is false, Buddhism is about happiness, but to achieve it, the Buddha do it this way:
Finally, back to meaning of life:
Well, I couldn’t agree more with the author’s view that life, like many other things, have no real meaning from its first creation. Everyone can put their own meaning to life and hence there is no correct answer to “what is the meaning of life”.
Happy Vesak Day. May all the beings be well and happy. :)
References
See also
My blog post on Vesak Day of 2012, and Vesak Day of 2013.
11 May 2014
As I finished 3 papers, this week marks the end of my semester 2 at NTU, which means that the holiday have been started! …
4 May 2014
May the Fourth be with you! (May the Force be with you!) Happy Star Wars day! This week I had 3 exams where the first one was held on Monday; and the other two were held on Wednesday. And like the previous week: I spent most of my time inside my room, “studying” (study, and then get distracted by other things, and then back to study again).
On Monday evening, I had exam on BU8201 Business Finance, which hopefully, I did well. Although my dinner after the exam turned out to be quite bad: I had this “Thunder Tea Rice” at Canteen 1, which tastes very weird. Whereas on Wednesday afternoon, I had exam on CZ1007, Data Structure, which I thought I did well too although it used up almost all of my brain juice. And then I had 2 hours of free time before the next exam, I did not bring my notes so I can’t revise. I just somehow killed time until the next exam on EE8087 Living with Mathematics, which turned out to be satisfactory. Yes, I hope I get that grade (Satisfactory) because I S/U-ed it. This was because, although I was able to answer all of the questions, I did not sure of my correctness and because of the group project which took a large portion of the grading (50%), which I think our group did not do well compared to other groups. After this exam, it was the end of the exam, for that week; and lesson learned: taking 2 exams on the same day will make you very tired.
On Tuesday afternoon, I had to work to cover my friend’s time slot at One Stop @ SAC, which was okay for me, I can work while studying; although most of the time the work-study was interrupted by those asking “where to submit MC” and “how to submit MC”. Hey, this is IT Support Helpdesk, and how do we know such thing?
On Friday afternoon, I worked again at my normal time slot at LWN Library. Although I planned to study during the work, I can’t. Just can’t. I somehow too lazy to study there and decided to play games and read articles. Maybe because my next exam was still quite far (in reality, no).
On Saturday, I had my routine of breakfast-laundry-room cleaning routine done again. That morning, I started and finished the final assignment of Buddhism and Modern Psychology course on Coursera. Well, after lunch, I found some “productivity” tool and I think it was quite effective in boosting up my willingness to study and not getting distracted. Quickly done, at the evening, I started the course CS169.1x Software as a Service on edx, offered by UC Berkeley, which last year I’ve attempted but failed because I stopped in the middle of the course.
I will had my 5th exam tomorrow on CM8001 Impact of Chemistry on Society, which is a Pass-Fail module now. And followed up by CZ0001 Engineers and Society on Wednesday (which I think will be the heaviest, yet hardest, subject of this exam) and CZ1008 Engineering Mathematics on Thursday. Hope that I can do well on those exams! :)