Religious Literature

Religious Literature

 

Wisdom of Buda

            After reading the section from Buddhism I thought most of it reminded me of the book of Proverbs from the Old Testament.  I found it interesting and there were a lot of things that I was able to agree with.  Such as the desire for material or worldly things, and how one should not feel their minds with hate for other or for anything for that matter.

            Buda also talks about how we should not over indulge and says that we should go for moral virtues.  Towards the end of the reading Buda begins to say, “Blessed is this and blessed is…” this part of the wisdom of Buda really reminds me of the sermon on the mount in the book of Mathew this section in the Bible is titled the b-attitudes. 

            Buda has a lot of practical things to say and there is something that everyone can take away from reading his works. 

 

Tao te Ching

            I found the reading from the Tao te Ching to be very interesting.  First of all the reading started off with in a sense breaking oneself down in order to build your self up.  Then it begins to talk about how you receive more by wanting or desiring less.  The Tao has small short little saying that that are very practical and which are used to humble her followers. 

            The literature talks about the four great things according to the Toa, Toa is great, Heaven is great, Earth is great, and humanity is great.  They then go on to say, earth.  Earth follows heaven. Heaven follows the Tao.  The Tao follows only itself. 

            The Tao also talks about material positions and how we should become attached to them or acquire to many objects.  

 

Confucius

            Confucius has been one of the most interesting philosophers that I have read so far.  I like how he starts of by saying “Love all men” and the key for knowledge is to “know all men” there is so much you can learn form listening to people everyone has so much experience in life it is easy to find someone that you can relate with.  Confusions then goes on to say, “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself.”   This is something that I can remember my mom telling me as a child.             

            In the Superior man section of the text Confusions says, “The progress of the superior man is upwards, the progress of the mean man is downwards.”  Later in the reading he makes an interesting statement he says that men are born alike, but through practice the become wide apart. 

            Confucius even has philosophy on government; he strongly believes that the government should make sure there is a sufficiency of food, and a sufficiency of military equipment.  But if it came down to the choice of one or the other the government should try to achieve getting enough food over military equipment.