Week 5: Review

My favorite item from the current announcements page this week is:

Shapes of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut from Sunday, September 27.

I thought this was a great visual representation of our feelings when we read these types of stories. Taking a look at Cinderella and Boy Meets Girl, I have to admit that was exactly how I felt when I read them.

Week 5: Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset Memes

Meme from GrowthMindsetMemes.

Here is a meme that really hit home for me. Most of the time, we don't do things out of fear of failure or rejection and that's okay because the human mind is hardwired to be scared of those things due  of the cultural aspects of our lives. But when we really think about it, this fear really is irrational, is it not? Failure is what teaches us new things, so why do we we fear it? We should all take that leap of faith and take action instead of running away from our problems. Maybe once we get started, we realized it wasn't so bad after all, and finally... maybe we will learn something new.

Thoughts About Comments

The most helpful comments on my stories are the comments that focus on both the positive and negative aspects of my story. I like it when people tell me what they liked about it as well as what I can do to improve it. Most of us here are pretty timid when it comes to commenting because we don't really know each other, so we tend to leave nicer comments. I would like to focus more on what I can improve, you know?


As for the introduction comments, I feel like it's best if the person could find something that he/she has in common with the person who wrote the introduction and talk about that; that's mostly because we build a connection by having things in common.


As for myself, I already know that I'm guilty of being that "nice commenter" but I am working towards critiquing more. I tend to focus more on what I like about the story and that doesn't help the writer develop his/her story so next time, I will try to provide suggestions for sure!

Extra Reading Diary: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki)

My Lord Bag of Rice

• Why was he called My Lord Bag of Rice? 
• He must have been strong to carry two sword and a bow that was larger than himself.
• It was a dragon?!
• He was fearless to walk across the dragon. 
• He dragon transformed into a man. 
• Why is a centipede the dragon's enemy? He could crush it and be done with it.
• I feel bad for the dragon king's family. That's terrible.
• Yay for Hidesato coming to the rescue.
• I wish there was a picture for these goldfish dancers. like.. were they human-looking or plain large goldfish because that would be really creepy.
• What? Centipedes are vulnerable to human saliva? That's the first time I have ever heard that.
• Yay he killed the centipede!!
• I still don't get why his name was so long..
• I wish I could have that bag of inexhaustible rice, to be quite honest.

Digital art of My Lord Bag of Rice vs. the Centipede.

"My Lord Bag of Rice" by breakbot. Source: DeviantArt.

The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy

• First off, the Kintaro doll looks very creepy
• I wonder how his father died, was it grief/stress or was it murder? 
• Why did she name her son the Golden Boy? 
• How did this boy become so strong while they were living in the mountains? Is there a lot of nutrition there?
• His ability to speak with animals is pretty amazing. 
• Yaaay! He became a Chief and build a house for his mom. 
• What a good son.

The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die

• What an ironic last name to be called "Millionaire" but not be one.
• He lived without working until he was 32? He did not do a good job of planning for future..
• He didn't want to work to live but he wanted to live forever
• He sought out the elixir of life
• He was sent to the country of Perpetual Life by Jofuku
• Apparently all of the people there will never die, and at that point, all they did was want to die.
• Everything was the opposite there.
• People ate poison instead of normal food just to suicide, but they got healthier instead.
• He lived there for 300 years and got bored of it and decided to leave.
• Upon leaving, he regretted it and wanted to return,
• On the way back to Japan, he nearly drowned and got eaten by the shark. 
• It all turned out to be a dream to show Sentaro what it would have been like if he really went to the island. 
• An angel then handed him a book of how to live life and from then on, he gave up his vain ways and his family prospered.

Bibliography:

"Japanese Fairy Tales" by Yei Theodora Ozaki. Source: Un-Textbook.

Week 4 Storytelling: Story Time

Aiden was ready for sleep. If he closed his eyes this very moment, he would be off in the land of dreams, but he fought this urge because he wanted to wait until his mother came. Every night, his mother would come upstairs and tell him a story. His eight-year-old self always thought his mom was the best storyteller ever!

He waited a little before he heard her soft footsteps come up the stairs. "Ready for story time, Aiden?" his mom asked as she walked in his room. "Duhhh, mom!" he replied. She sat down next to him on the bed, tucked him in, and so she began…

Once upon a time, a little prince was born in India by the name of Siddhartha Gautama. When he was born, the world rejoiced and he was a beautiful baby. It was said this little boy would walk the path of enlightenment and save the world. As this boy was growing up, he was loved by the people and lived a life of luxury. Just his mere appearance would bring a smile and happiness to the people who saw him. “Just like you, honey!” she interjected. However, the gods felt jealous of the people’s reverence of the boy. They intended to destroy Siddhartha’s happiness by showing him the truths of life.

She stopped the story and ask Aiden, “Do you know what the truths of life are?” He thought for a bit and couldn’t come up with an answer, but he wanted to say something anyway. “Is it lots of ice cream and video games?” he asked. His mother laughed and said, “Why not?” She then continued on…

When he was older, Siddhartha went out to see the world to sate his curiosity of what was out there. Little did he know that his father wanted him to see a world of happiness rather than a world of poverty and suffering. His father would send people to take the old and sick people away from the city so that Siddhartha would not see them.

“What a nice daddy!” said Aiden. His mother thought for a moment and replied, “He was a good daddy, but he held his son back. How would you feel if daddy took away your books because he thought they taught you bad lessons?” Aiden thought about what his mother said and realized that although the father in the story had good intentions, he held back his son and showed him a false view of the world.

The gods transformed themselves into an old man, a sick person, and a corpse. Siddhartha saw these scenes and was no longer happy. He then left his home and renounced his claim to his father’s kingdom to become a hermit. His ultimate goal was to learn the true law of life in order to beat suffering, sickness, and death. He almost died during his journey but he eventually found the true law of life under the Tree of Knowledge.

“Well, are you sleepy yet?” she stopped to ask. “I am, but I want to know what the true law is. Don’t do this to me, mom!” he said. His mom was always like that. She loved cliffhangers and it was almost like torture when she didn’t finish the stories. She chuckled and said, “Alright. The truth that Siddhartha discovered was that in order to escape the cycle of birth and death and our own suffering, we had to suppress our desires and lead a moderate life.” “Oh, that’s it? All I have to do is not eat ice cream and I won’t die?” asked Aiden. “No, there’s much more to it than that, honey. All of us living in the world have a long way to go.” she told him as she got up to turn off the lights. “Good night, Aiden.”

Digital art of a statue of Buddha.

"Buddha Sky" by hanciong. Source: DeviantArt.

Author's Note: For this week, I retold the story of The Life of Buddha. In the original story, it told about the life of Buddha: how it began and the path that lead him to become the Buddha. 

I kept the story of the Buddha the same and shortened it a little while keeping the main parts of the story. This is in order to make the story easier to read because although I loved reading it, the original story got very word-y. I also framed my story as a bedtime story for Aiden. I added in some dialogue from Aiden and his mom to help the reader possibly answer some unanswered questions. I think this story had a good lesson to teach about life. 

Bibliography: 

"The Life of Buddha" by Andre Ferdinand Herold. Website: Un-Textbook.

Reading Diary B: The Life of Buddha

Unit: The Life of Buddha

Siddhartha Leaves

• Siddhartha leaves with the horse
• The Gods made Chandaka disobey the king's orders and gave Siddhartha the horse
• The Gods are really adamant about making Siddhartha leave 
• He took his dad's horse? Is this like rebellious teenage stage? jk
• Siddhartha vows to never return to the city of Kapila

Siddhartha the Hermit

• Kanthaka the horse carried him and he spoke to him like a person 
• I think that's good because we're all animals as well, why are other animals beneath us?
• Siddhartha's reason for leaving was to destroy old age and death and to be rid of unhappiness due to his desire to learn more about old age/death/suffering
• He had a son? And he left? I kind of question that..
• He exchanged clothes with a hunter for something more plain. 

Gopa and Suddhodana Grieve

• Gopa wakes in the middle of the night to find her husband gone and blames the maids for letting him go
• Everyone that Siddhartha left behind mourned his departure
• Mahaprajapati left the castle
• Kanthaka died due to sadness or was he exhausted? I'm not too sure.

Arata Kalama

• Siddhartha went into the hermitage of Arata Kalama
• Taught the doctrine of renunciation
• His knowledge became as great as Kalama's and soon he began teaching the disciples
• He then realized that the doctrine was not right and left the hermitage to go to the city of Rajagriha

Siddhartha and King Vimbasara

• His beauty was noted by the people of Rajagriha
• He lived on a mountain and the king told him to come to his palace but he refused
• He doesn't care about desire, he just wanted to seek the true law
• He sought out Rudraka, one of the famous hermits in the city, but found out that Rudraka didn't know about the "true law" so left
• Five of Rudraka's disciples left with him

Siddhartha Deserted by His First Disciples

• He was meditating one day and then fell over, not breathing
• Maya lived amongst the gods, and after she heard their worries, she descended to see him
• It turns out he did not die and that it was almost time that he was to attain supreme knowledge
• He remained at the same spot for 6 years, meditating
• He found out that starving himself wasn't the right way of going about things and eventually ate
• His disciples saw that and left him because they thought he was a fool and mad

The Tree of Knowledge

• He took a shroud from a dead body
• whut.
• He went to the tree of knowledge and meditated since that very day was the day he was ready to become a Buddha

Mara's Defeat

• Mara is the demon that tempts the Buddha

Siddhartha Becomes the Buddha

• He learns that to suppress desire, we can suppress birth, which suppress death and old age
• We must lead a life of holiness, where desire is stifled in order to stop being reborn and to end our own suffering

Art of the Buddha by Minh Nguyen, June 2015. Source: Pinterest.

Reading Diary A: The Life of Buddha

This week, I will be reading The Life of Buddha.

Maya's Dream:

• Queen Maya has a conception dream of her son as a white elephant with six tusks and thousands of gods appeared before her
• What kind of gods were they?
• What an amazing premonition of birth of the Buddha
• The power Maya gained while bearing Buddha was great as well 
• I can see why they had to check if the palace has been visited by good or evil because evil spirits can be tricky
• You get to choose what family you want to be born into? 

Birth of Siddhartha:

• How was Maya able to know that her son was to be born on a particular day?
• She had birth in a flower garden?! How unsanitary
• That was the easiest sounding birth I have ever heard of. Smiling while giving birth?
• His birth brought joy to the world and they named him Siddhartha
• "He will be the one to see the truth" I feel like that will be an important quote

Asita's Prediction:

• Asita was one of Sakya's great hermits
• The king became Buddha's father because his lineage is pure and he is kind of heart, which makes sense
• You wouldn't want the Buddha growing up in a bad environment, right?
• Asita cried because he wouldn't live long enough to hear the words of Buddha when he grows up

Siddhartha at the Temple:

• If Siddhartha was to renounce royalty, who would rule kingdom? 
• The birth of Siddhartha brought great things to the kingdom such as prosperity and fertility in all things
• MAYA DIED on the 7th day. NOOOOO.
• Mahaprajapati, Maya's sister, was given the task of raising Siddhartha after his mother's death. 
• Why was she only almost Maya's equal?
• The "light" that Siddhartha diffused was so great that precious stones looked dull
• That is one heck of an aura! 
• The Goddess of the garden is hilarious. Woman remove those necklaces and give them to slaves and his thoughts will be his adornments!
• Why does he call Mahaprajapati his Mother?
• All of the gods fell at Siddhartha's feet and paid homage to him

Siddhartha's First Meditation:

• Siddhartha got a teacher to learn the art of writing, his name was Vasvamitra.
• It turns out that Siddhartha already knew all of the 64 scriptures, so Vasvamitra told him there was nothing left to teach
• He left Vasvamitra and came to meditate under the shade of a tree
• A group of hermits saw him and predicted he will become the Buddha
• It turns out that the tree that Siddhartha sat under did not move its shadow so that he could meditate in peace
• How is that done? 
• The king really worships and loves his son

Siddhartha meditating under a tree.

Art from David Grubin's film, "The Buddha." Source: Los Angeles Times.

The First Encounter:

• Siddhartha wanted to leave the palace to see the world
• The king wanted to shield Siddhartha from the evils and sadness of the world, so he had his people remove the beggars and suffering from the sides of the road
• The king didn't really want his son to leave, didn't he? Because of reasons mentioned before, of course.
• The Gods interfered with the king's plan to shield Siddhartha by sending an old man his direction because they were jealous of the happiness that was around Siddhartha
• The old man was suffering from old age and looked bad
• Siddhartha learns that old age will steal strength, mind, and beauty from everyone
• Because of this incident, his heart had no more joy

Two More Encounters:

• The second man the Gods sent was a man riddled by sickness
• Siddhartha learns that everyone gets sick
• This made Siddhartha even sadder
• The king notices and tries to cheer him up with happy things like kicking out the sick and old people from the city and changing out his charioteer
• The third encounter the Gods made was a corpse that was carried by four weeping men
• Siddhartha saw that scene and found out about death and how it comes inevitably

The Fair Maidens and Gopa's Dream:

• Oh no, here comes the girls!
• Siddhartha was lead to a group of girls who would try to marry him
• He shunned their advances because his mind was still on death 
• His wife dreamt that she was stripped of her title and wealth 
• Siddhartha replies with happiness that this is because he will grant the light of wisdom to the world that is ignorant and blind

The Great Truths:

• Siddhartha was very unhappy with all of his encounters with old age, sickness, death, and suffering. 
• He muses that it is a shame that others look down on these types of people
• After meeting a God disguised as a monk, he decides to become a monk himself
• I've always thought being a monk was interesting. You can shed yourself of all your worries.
• He asks his father to leave the palace, but his father wants him to stay and reign in his stead and reminds him the importance of family to prevent him from going
• I can see where the king is going with this... but he knew his son would eventually leave and go on the path of enlightenment
• In the end.. he left anyways