Buddhist Center

Last week we had the opportunity to visit a local Buddhist center in order to further understand the Buddhist religion.

We met up with some other homeschoolers at the center

Prior to our field trip the kids and I have been reading and watching DVD's on Buddhism and learning all we can about this religion.  First a little background on who is Buddha.  Siddhartha Gautama was born in India around 500 B.C.  He was born into a wealthy family and he was very sheltered from the real world.  One day he snuck outside and saw a sick man, dead man, and a old man and wondered why there was so much suffering.  Next, he saw an monk who was content and again he wondered why.  Siddhartha decided then to leave his wife and child and become a monk in search of answers to the meaning of life.

The center has 3 different shrines and meditation rooms.   The Buddhist religion does not have any deity (god).  The Rupas (statues of buddha) are not to be worshiped, according to the center--they are only there to remind people of the Buddha's life and the purpose of mediation (find the meaning of life)

Buddhists believe there are 4 Noble Truths in which we must accept in order to find enlightenment:
1.  Life involves suffering and sorrow
2.  The reason we suffer is that we want things for ourselves.
3.  Suffering can end when we reduce when selfishness
4.  The cure for suffering is to find enlightenment

We were told that a statue of Buddha could depend very heavily on the artist interpretation.   Some Rupas have more western features while others have more asian features.  Buddha did not want people to worship him only to find their own way to enlightenment

Throughout the center we saw many different Rupas and learned the different meaning of the hand placements.  My kids already knew this from visiting the British museum last month.

After a tour of the center and seeing each of the Rupas and hearing about Buddha story we headed for the largest shrine room

Where the kids learned about Tai Chi

We also learned that around the Shrine of the Buddhist there are flowers which represent life and death.  Candles that represent the light of the world. Incense represent the spread of Buddhism (think of the smell of the incense spreading around)

The kids also had another chance to practice mediation

Buddhist hand signal when he reached enlightenment; supposedly, when he touched the ground the earth shook

 We had a great morning out learning about Buddhism.  We are now going to move on to learning about 2 more popular religions found in India: Sikhism and Jainism.  The next religious temple we are schedule to visit is a Mosque in a few weeks and we will also be learning about Islam.