I have been following the course Buddhism and Modern Psychology on Coursera since March 2014. On the final week, the final assignment was released and I submitted an essay. Well, it turned out to be a very good one as I received 12/12 total score. This post contains the instructions, the questions, my essay, and the summary of the peer evaluation feedback. …
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
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.
16 February 2014
This week had been a physically the most tiring one. NTUBS held a special project called Buddhism Awareness Week (BAW) to raise awareness about Buddhism which lasted for 5 days starting from the Monday. …
Week 5, Semester 2 (a.k.a. Buddhism Awareness Week)Read More »
13 January 2014
So, long time ago when it is the day when the email about the result of the Dhamma Camp 2014 committee are out, and in the email I’ve been offered Publication and Publicity subcom, actually in the night Andy phoned me to offer the position of Logistic Manager on the condition that I must join the trial camp (which means that I should be back here by 28 December). But then, after thinking for a while (maybe just seconds), by the reason of unavailability during the trial camp, I refused the offer. When I’m in the phone, what’s on my mind is to have new year together with my family in my hometown. But then, if I were to choose to join the camp as a main committee, I think my father can permit me to have me return to Singapore before new year. Just shortly after the phone call ended, I started to discuss with my father on which day I should go back hometown and return to Singapore. This time, I chose the date that just made sure that I go back hometown when the holiday for the committee started and I return to Singapore just when the camp almost started.
The next day, I’ve decided to go back on 14 December (the start of the “holiday”) and return to Singapore on 6 January (2 days before the camp). Going back on 14 December turned out to be a great choice as on the subsequent weeks, NTU Ventures held a Bootcamp on HTML5 which I learned a lot from the speakers. On these days too that I somehow missed the opportunity to join some NTUBS events like Little Bodhi Outing and also the Dhamma Camp meetings.
By joining the Publication and Publicity team, mainly I’ve learned on how to take photo with DSLR and on how a great design can looks like. Besides that, I also knew how to manage files with a Mac; how does it feels like to stay up very late due to work; and how not to be in the photo almost all the time. On this committee too I knew how to delete photos. Before this, whatever photo I take, even when it is so blur, I didn’t delete it, simply because I still appreciate the photo which documents my journey on taking the photo. Other than those things, I confessed that when I saw the NTUBS logo printed on the back of the camp shirt, I realized that there is some difference on the curve compared to NTUBS logo on other NTUBS shirt. But then no one seems to realize it before I told them.
31 December 2013
Many things happened in 2013, just like in 2012. The following lists what have happened to me in 2013:
Here comes the end of 2013, happy new year 2014. This blog is never been this crowded before. Thank you for being an audience of my stories. May the blog be filled with more posts in terms of quantity and quality.
P.S. see my year in review from Facebook.
27 August 2013
Everyone is born with exploration instinct of which we, humans, must be proud of. According to National Geographic magazine issue January 2013, there is a reason why we, humans, do explorations all the time everywhere: to the highest peaks, to the deepest sea, to outer space, to wildest rainforest, to hot volcano, even in the labs: to explore the unknowns. It is because a specific gene which is embedded in every human makes us having the exploration instinct. Ever since I arrived in NTU, I used my instinct in exploration quite often and I like to challenge myself in explore the path that I’ve never gone through, to test if it is the shortest path to my destination. There are still a lot of places which are unexplored by me although they are in the NTU Campus Map.
Getting lost is common, but finding your way out yourself will make you feel very awesome. This is because we also like challenge and when we accomplished the challenge ourselves, we feel like we are victorious, and hence we feel very great. If you get lost and not in rush, the first thing you should do is to get directions. There are many ways, but in this modern era, you can use GPS of your mobile phone. Then, you should go straight to the direction of your destination, crossing the buildings, the fields, and the uncrossables. Finally, if you get to the destination, be feel great, if not, backtracking is the easiest way.
So, what are you waiting for? Explore!