Journal 1 to 6

Journal 1

Today was the first day of my philosophy class. We discussed the term philosophy because to start a class off, each person must know what philosophy is. Each student in the class was able to say a word relating to philosophy and give an explanation about the relations. Some of the words that were mentioned: religion, scripture, and especially the term known as “Zen”. From religion there were links between many religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism and so on. The word, scripture established a link to the passages for the different religions. As each student received a chance to speak about their mentioned words, our professor talked about the real meaning of the course of philosophy and how it has influenced others.

I think the first lecture was good today because the teacher and students are allowed to participate a lot more than any other class. Most classes have the students sit in class and take notes, quizzes and then tests. Most of the time, participating can be done only to answer a question or read a passage from the reading. In Dr. Schubert’s class, students answer multiple questions and participate in the discussion which I think is good. Also the teacher can turn a simple question into a question that is hard to answer. This class really makes me think in class.

From Dr. Schubert’s lecture I received his definition of philosophy. His definition according to my notes was: of that discipline concerned with formulating, understanding, and answering fundamental questions through the use of reason. Fundamental question examples that were used in our discussion were:

1) What is the ultimate nature of reality?
2) What is it to reason well?
3) What is it to a person to be a good person?

Today we focused on religion, which is our shared values, our beliefs, our way of life, our deities and our spirituality. These were the main terms for religion picked out by the class discussion.

What I thought of today’s lecture: Well it was continuing the lecture from the previous lecture. I learned a lot more of what the class was. At first I signed up for the class because it sounded really interesting and the class is very interesting. I can’t wait to learn about more in Eastern Philosophy.

Journal 2
Today, we have discussed the differences between Western and Eastern philosophy. There are two different categories of philosophy classes at Los Rios Colleges. A person has the choice to choose the side of Western philosophy or Eastern philosophy. Western teaches about the religions in the United States. Eastern philosophy is my current course right now and it seems very interesting because it talks about the religions in the Eastern part of the world such as places in Asia.

The Eastern are elitist, practical and are based on experience. The Western are egalitarian, theoretical and are based on reason.

If the terms “elitist” and “egalitarian” are unclear, I shall provide their definitions according to Harper Collins Webster’s Dictionary.

A) Elitist- the pick or best part of society
B) Egalitarian- a person that believes that all people should be equal and to promote the idea

From the lecture today, I got to have a chance to know more about Western Philosophy which is another course taught by Schubert at Consumnes River College (CRC). The thoughts of the religions on the East and West are different. Western philosophy seems really interesting. I might want to take that course as well when I have time.


Hinduism is the religion that is generic for Indian philosophy. The oldest text of Hinduism includes the Vedas. In these texts contain great knowledge. The Vedas have three different parts just like in Christianity where God is split into three different forms. These forms in Christianity are known as the Holy Father, the Holy Spirit and the Almighty God. The Vedas has three forms known as the Samhita, Brahmana and the Sutra. First I would like to say a few words about these forms about what the names mean. These are Vedic divisions.

Brahma Samhita

It is a Sanskrit Pancarata. It is comprised with verses of prayer spoken by Brahma to Krishna at the beginning of creation. So the main word would be “beginning”.

Brahmana

The Brahmanas explain the Vedic rituals and Vedanta. Vedanta is a school of philosophy within Hinduism dealing within the nature of reality. It also talks about departure.

Sutra

It was a rule that held the two schools of Hindu philosophy together. Sutra refers to scripture and records.

Terms or notes from class discussion today:
The rishis or seers were the communicators of the divine.
The shruti were given authority.

Journal 3
The Upanishads has a thing called Trimurti. Trimurti means “three forms”. So what are these three forms of the Upanishads? (This is basically a re-cap of journal 4) The three forms are Brahma who creates, Shiva who destroys and Vishna who maintains everything.

Monotheism/Henotheism: It is the devotion to a single God while accepting that there exists other gods.

Polytheism: It is the belief and worship of multiple deities. The Greeks used polytheism because they believed in many gods and goddesses.

Through my visit to China, I went to a temple where there were different statues that people worshipped. They were different types of gods and spirits.
(Check out the Main Temple of Dali, China where chickens are sacrificed every week)


Brahman is the one god, divine of all reality, who is pervading the universe. He is involved in creation of the gods and unification of gods. Brahma stops being a human and he becomes a force.

My Question: Brahma becomes a force. What does that mean?

Read Page 68 of the Upanishads in discussion for more information…

Brahman is…
a) world ground
b) the creator and inner controller of all things
c) unitary (union of opposites)
d) omnipresent (everywhere)
e) the essence (“finest” part of everything)
f) the supreme personal good
g) the Self (consciousness)
h) non-dually self aware EXAMPLE: watching yourself in the past like a movie
i) beyond the power of ordinary discursive thought
j) transcendent of nama-rupa “Name and Form”
k) mystically discoverable

Page 76 of the Upanishads says Atman is Brahman.
Page 77 in paragraph two, Prajapati says “That which is seen in the eye, which is the Self. That is immortal, that is fearless, and that is Brahman.”

Class Notes:

____ has characteristics x, y, z by definition.

-------- lacks characteristics x

_____

: . --- is not _____.

This is one diagram of a basic philosophical argument. In Schubert’s class, we use a lot of philosophical arguments.

Material vs. Immaterial

Reality is depended on substance. Those who are materialistic think of their bodies. For example, people like to buy objects such as television sets and materialistic objects that aren’t needed. Those who are immaterial think of their soul which is also known as their mind. The body is known as a gross manifestation.

Notes:
The Self (notice how Self is uppercased) is more subtle than the body. The Self is also known as your consciousness.
The self (this time it is lowercased) is attached to the body.
In historical times, analogical argumentation was used.
There were two different types of these arguments: two valued logic and multi-valued logic. This is also known as our modern world way of saying “true or false”.
What is Advaita Vedanta? Let’s split it up, shall we? “Ad” means non and “vaita” means dual. So it would mean Non-dual Vedanta.
Illusions are neither real nor unreal.
Ignorance is surely an illusion.
Maya means illusion.
Maya is the phenomenal world, the world of ordinary experience.
Brahma isn’t material stuff.
Brahma isn’t individual existence.
Brahma isn’t Earth.

Journal 4
Vedanta means ending or conclusion of knowledge. “Veda” means knowledge and “Anta” means end or conclusion. Vedanta was similarly referred to the Upanishads. The book we have currently in class is a translated version of the Upanishads.

A simple question: What exactly are the Upanishads?

They are part of the Hindu Scriptures. They discuss philosophy, meditation and the nature of God. Again they are referred as the Vedanta for their mystical and spiritual contemplations of the Vedas.

Quick reflection:
There are scriptures for many religions which include philosophy and meditation. Are these two comparisons alike in any way?

From Class Discussion Notes:

Axioms are the belief or principle accepted without justification and is seen in no need of justification. Some examples of axioms included in the class discussion were:

1) The eternal, unchanging and unitary is more real than the transient, changing and multiplications.
Ex: Real romantic love is unchanging, but professing to someone else is changing

2) The universe is fundamentally fair. This includes suffering.
3) The suffering that’s part of the ordinary human condition is escapable.

To me, the lecture today didn’t make any sense until Schubert gave examples of what axioms were.

Journal 5
In class discussion, we learned about karma. Karma is a Sanskrit that exists in the world today. It is an action or deed based on the things you do. Each action has an external consequence. When reincarnation happens the body dies but the soul attaches to something else. In other words an old man that has lived a really long prosperous life could have gone through a lot of pain and sorrow. He may all of a sudden come to death and reincarnate into a little boy who is one of the richest people on Earth.

Media notices:
Sometimes in media, there are uses of reincarnation in the wrong way. Such as the way they use it in cartoons. Sometimes on Halloween specials an evil spirit will die and transfer to someone’s body and possess them. In religious beliefs, this cannot happen.

A question that I must ask would be, if a person reincarnates back into a human being do they have to go through everything they ever went through all over again?

From the class discussion meeting, Dr. Schubert mentioned it all depends on the balance of karma. The karma must be balanced.

Skandha – group, heap, aggravate: psychological aggravate

The 5 Skandhas

1) Corporeality
2) Sensation
3) Perception
4) Volitimal Formations
5) Consciousness

The Skandhas exist in the Upadana, Trishna, Buddhas and the Arhats.

The Abhidarma Kosha has four kinds of attachments. These attachments are sense, views, rites and rules, and individuality. Trishna causes this attachment.


Journal 6
We read excerpts from “The Sermon of Benures” today. We also read questions that are not tending towards edification in the teachings of the compassionate Buddha.
Terms:
Du (Bad) Kkha (Empty, hollow)
Anitya/annica: impermanence
I didn’t even know what impermanence was until I looked it up in the dictionary. Permanence means fixedness. (Ex from dictionary: The boy has fixed his hair) So impermanence means not fixedness.

Everything in the phenomenal world is “conditioned”.

There are five groups of Dukkha, these are called the skandhas. These skandhas are corporeality, sensation, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.

Notes: Sanskrit is an Indo-European language
Proto à Indo-European
Indo-European à Latin
à Sanskrit
à German à English

From Indo-European language a lot of languages originated from it.

Parts of an item do not make up a self, if you can accept the self does not exist than suffering will end. What is meant by this? An example would be if I bought a can of chicken noodle soup. Would I have to pay for every ingredient in that soup or just the soup can? In the can there may be over a hundred ingredients with a price for each one of them. No like the first sentence says the self is not made up by the parts of the body. It is a hard answer to answer when saying of what it is made up of. The self which is the body is made up of the soul and the body parts. Like the example used in class, the teacher used the example of the exchange of old car parts. The old car parts that were exchanged were not described as the car. A good example of this would be a commercial on television where one lady buys this new healthy microwavable product and it has so many ingredients in it. The cashier rings up the item and it turns out to be over a hundred dollars.