Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen - Book Report/Review Example

'Buddhism: Plain and Simple' by Steve Hagen.

The notion of religion dates backs to ancient time since the existence of human being in the universe. According to many scholars, they define religion as the divine practices meant to connect humans with their natural and eternal life. Many of the religious groups rely on spiritual books written by writers inspired by Supreme Beings. Hundreds religious groups exist in the world. The most vibrant religious groups in the world are Christianity, Buddhism, Islamic and Hinduism. The four religions constitute more than 84% of worshippers and believers among the world population. Every religion has its unique teaching and practices that may look similar or different to the other religion. The diversity of religion group is due to many parameters such as education, social-economic factors, cultural factors, and locality. Many individuals tend to believe in a given religion because of their culture, norms, a tradition they grew up with, or inherited from their forefathers. In many religions, there are specific individuals identified and ordained to perform specific religious duties on behalf of others. Such duties include; missionary duties, teaching, performing rituals and elaborating the religious norms. The paper illustrates the elaboration of Buddhism by Steve Hagen. Steve Hagen is the head teacher of dharma Zen in Minneapolis in the United States. He is an ordained priest of Zen Buddhism and practiced Buddhism for more than forty years. He was a former student of Zen master for approximately ten years where he learned Zen Buddhism. His book Buddhism Plain and Simple explain Buddhism in simple language easily understood by a beginner of Zen Buddhism.

Buddhism rely more on experimental facts on one’s life rather than the untestable opinion of others. Hagen (10) explains that “Buddhism is just to see.” In this essence, he tries to distinguish belief and the truth. He states it is different between believing and seeing. To explain this difference, he comes with an illustration of the jewelry in a closed box. He argues he can make other parties accept that there is jewelry in the box by simply convincing them the jewelry is in the box (Hagen 26). In this sense, the other party may believe what he said is true but their belief is doubtful since they have not seen. Seeing outweighs the belief. This is because the belief can be true or lies but seeing is the truth. It is better to accept and believe on what we perceive rather than overlying on what others or books are saying. Relying on what one perceives makes one competent and efficient. It enables an individual to note their strength and weakness; hence concentrating on strength and surpassing the weakness. Believing others, it ruins somebody’s life because one clinches on a specific aspect of life rather than evaluating alternatives that lead to success. According to Hagen (25), life is full of suffering even if human only desire truth of satisfaction. Dwelling on the success of others is the desire for satisfaction while the truth is dissatisfactions are always in human life. This teaching of Buddha is much related to my academic life. I usually believe in the grade awarded by my instructors after I see them rather than what other thinks or how I perceive the paper. In many cases, I have been in a situation of undermining or overestimating, my abilities. The act of involving in actual activities it has given me a clear picture of my abilities and where I need to enhance or change. Believing in vague grades leads to frustrations and losing hope.

There are couples of benefits gained from the book. The first benefit that one can get from the book is never losing hope in life. Life is full of challenges and if an individual does not find ways to tackles those challenges in life one cannot succeed. Hagen (37), “Good times come and go, and bad times do the same.” According to him, people must recognize the toughness of the bad times the same way they enjoy the happiness of the good times. He gave an example of a farmer and nuisance’s neighbors who console the farmer on bad thing not realizing any challenge in life has got its positivity (Hagen 43). According to this idea, it is necessary to carry life positively in spite of the challenges. Some of the problem faced in life can lead to happiness if approached in the right by rejecting ignorance. The idea of problem-solving in the book enables one to persevere the anguish and pain of life challenges without running away from them. To explain this, he came up with an example of a student who has given up in life while the teacher convinces them there is no door to run away from a problem that one creates. The best thing is to be mindful and find a better way to hold them.

The other benefit of the idea in the book is the right way of how a person can relate to the others. Hagen (53) on the fourth truth of Buddha he introduces eight rightful ways on how an individual needs to lead their life. The ways are, “right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation” (Hagen 53). Following strictly on the ideas illustrated in these rightful rationale enables one to relate to their natural world well as well as associate with others without compromising their consciences. They enable one to solve and handle the drawbacks that are present in life in a better way that pleases an individual well-being and caring for the welfare of others. The Buddha states that the eight aspects should not be confused with what that one should believe in but incorporate in their actions (Hagen 59). They need to be introduced to daily activities for them to relay intended intentions of Buddha. It also gives an idea of the how to wake up. The idea of the ways to wake is illustrated as the action of the mind. The book, indicate we put ourselves in prison of not thinking creatively (Hagen 63). People fail to think about what they are following or repercussions of their illogic actions. People, need to be always wise in whatever they do so defeat the delusions which imprison them forever.

The last benefit gotten from the book is getting a deeper understanding of life. According to Hegen life is a matter of birth, growth, conditioning, and death. Every person must pass those stages no matter how ambitious one is. The life continues from one generation to another no matter our existence or not. Buddha explains life as a stream that means the life is continuous no matter the extinction of the species (Hegen 47). According to Hagen humans confuse themselves in the superstition of worldly desires. No one desire to die no matter if it is the ultimate goal. The desire to live a comfortable life on earth leads to problems such as corruption, greed, and poverty. When Buddha learns the truth that the ultimate end of human life is death he forwent the peaceful and luxurious life that he was living to endure pain and suffering while helping to embrace others rather than living in fiction life with no meaning (Hagen 9). Humans usually dwell in the baseless belief that they will live forever rather than doing their best in the life they are living. It is better to be enlightened that, life is a matter of facing reality without imagining on the better thing that will come later. Life matter on what a person is currently doing but not what will come at a later date.

Even if Hagen tries his best to explain Buddhism in a simple language, easily understood by a person who has never been in Buddhism, some clauses are still difficult to understand. The first challenging issue to interpret is the concept of Dohkha as present in scripts of Buddha. The concept is not only challenging the reader but also challenges the writer of the book. The writer could not find the close translation of the term to English hence he decided to leave it the way it is (Hagen 26). He tried to speculate its meaning by coming up with a couple of English words such as “suffering,” “pain” and “dissatisfaction” which makes it awkward and complex (Hagen 29). More than one meaning of Dukkha confuses the reader and leaves them in the world of imaginations by fantasizing it meaning. He explains right of view as seeing reality in its ampleness and flexibility (Hagen 66). When trying to figure out how I can apply this right of view in my personal life, I find out some incidences does not worth to see them. Even though he integrated the right of view with a gain of wisdom, there are some instances that one may not want to experience or to come across. Nobody wishes or wish to be in a crime or terrorist scene when terror is happening this is because of the how risky it is to one’s life. Some of the realities are not worthy to see to be enlightened or to acquire camouflage skill; it is better to believe on the experience of others. Contemplating detriments of some realities infringes my understanding of seeing reality in the book. The confusion that I experience is how he integrated freedom of mind with reality. He states that one does not need to read from other scholarly work for them to have liberation of mind they need to face and see reality (Hagen 111). When figuring out the actual meaning of this clause I find that some of the realities are out of our site, something beyond our cognition or even out of the universe. Before facing or experiencing the reality, it is better to rely on what the others have experienced or seen present in articles or news.

Although Christianity and Buddhism have analogies of being traditional religion, they have a vast of differences in teaching and practices that segregates the two doctrines by a wider margin. Christianity is a crosswise doctrine of Judaism which originated from northern Europe while Buddhism is much closer to Hinduism which dominates the southern parts of Asian. Christianity is more popular doctrine compared to Buddhism since it is multi-continental doctrine while Buddhism concentrates in a specific region. Hagen explains Buddhism as awakening or teaching of Buddha (Hagen 10). Buddhist believe in the teaching of Buddha since he was the first person to enlighten the people on the reality of life on matters concerning suffering, pain, and life of human being. In the book, he was regarded as the awakener (Hagen 11). Christianity believes in the teaching of Jesus Christ who was half human being. This is because he was conceived by Holy Spirit through the womb of Virgin Mary while Buddha was a human from a noble family. The Buddhism they don’t believe in the existence of Supreme Being or the creator but Christianity they believe in God who is the creator of the universe. Buddhism teaches that life starts from birth and terminates at the death, but Christianity believes there is life after death. According to Buddhism, the judgment, punishment, and reward of humankind are completed when they are alive, but Christianity believes in eternal judgments of the heaven and the hell. The Buddhism matters on the right and realities of doing good and relating well to other being while Christianity clinches on commandments and love to God. There is a controversy between teachings of Buddha and Christianity belief. Buddha teaches that people should live together support one another to live a charitable life but Christian’s belief that people ruins and spoil the purity of life leading to suffering in their eternal life.

Although Buddhism is a nontheistic religion where there is no supreme being worshipped by a human being, I think it should be regarded as a religion like any other religion. In recent past, people are interested in faith in their best of their knowledge due to the advancement of science and education. There is no meaning of clinching on meaningless faith which does not add value to humanity. The human needs a faith that embraces humanity as well as improves the social lives of others. Believing in mysterious and supernatural powers to lead a holy life does not make sense for disregarding Buddhism as a religion since it contravenes this ideology. As the other doctrines, Buddhism teaches on how human being could lead a divine, charitable, intellectual and righteous life through persevering suffering and hardship in life. Fair treatment and helping others are the greatest pillars of wisdom in Buddhism while the other religions such as Christianity rebuke prejudice and embrace love to all as one loves themselves. Meditation is highly regarded in Buddhism the same case with other religions they require one to meditate as a form of correcting and enhancing their spiritual wellbeing.

Buddhism is a religion like any other religion. Buddhism concentrates much on human life at current states and cares little about the future or eternal life. Buddha who is the saints of Buddhist was a true human awakened to pass the message to humanity as a form of enlightening them. The teachings of Buddha are mainly integrated into the daily life of humankind when they face the realities of life. Buddha explains the four aspects of the truth of Duhkha used as a guide of humankind to lead a righteous life. There are myriad of difference between Christianity and Buddhism a good example is in their belief and practices. In Christianity, there is eternal life, supreme beings and mysterious faith that are not in Buddhism. Buddhist believe in the truth of reality and seeing. The teaching of purity and holy life in Buddhism is the same as other doctrines.

Work Cited

Hagen, Steve. Buddhism Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware, Right Now, Every Day. Tuttle Publishing, 2011.