January 18, 2007

SINGAPORE

9 Hours of Class, Buddhist Talk, and the Idea of Enlightenment

Today was a long day with classes running from 8am to 5pm and no breaks anywhere in between. This was made worse by a three hour Mandarin lesson to finish the day. Foreign language classes are like that – you must always be on top of what you are doing lest you are called on and don’t know the proper way to respond

Otherwise, there was no sleeping through the marathon of lessons and I even managed to learn a thing or two. I am particularly pleased with my tutorial sessions, which have been excellent so far. The tutorials are all being taught by professors or research/design associates (with the obvious exception of my materials science tutorial, which has not started yet). This is the only time students are able to interact with the professors because lectures are a one way street. For the sake of time, I don’t think questions are even encouraged in the lectures.

I went running after my classes to bring my body back from the dead and barely beat the rain. One really has to be careful in Singapore because rain comes out of nowhere. It can be uncomfortably hot and sunny all day, and in twenty minutes time the sky will be as dark as night with rain coming down in droves.

Later in the evening my roommate brought me to a Buddhist gathering held on campus. I did not know this at the time, but he is the former president of the NTU Buddhist Union. The gathering consisted of small conversations and a two hour sermon about gratitude delivered by a Buddhist monk. The talk felt a little too preachy for me (“ask for answers, and thy shall receive” type thing), but it was a new experience and I got a lot out of it. The biggest difference between Buddhism and most other religions is that Buddhism has less emphasis on faith and more emphasis on Buddha as a teacher.

Buddhism is full of pearls of wisdom that are excellent codes to live by. However, I have always had a difficult time worshipping a higher being, or enlightened one. If there is something to be learned then I am all ears. I both respect and appreciate the guidance, but similar to my professors who teach me engineering, it all ends there.

On the idea of Enlightenment…

I do not buy into the idea of giving up all one’s earthly possessions in the search for enlightenment. My first reason comes down to a different approach: such a state of enlightenment, assuming it exists, must come from within. One’s surroundings are irrelevant if one is enlightened within. More credit should go to the person who can reach a state of enlightenment (or any other “higher” state common to other religions) without giving up on the world.

This leads to the second reason I do not adhere to religious ideas of enlightenment: all of the luxuries in my life are a direct result of other people’s determination not to give up on their contributions to society. More specifically, if everyone in history simply stopped what they were doing to meditate, pray, and live a life of devoutness then society’s physical standard of living would be seriously set back. This is not meant to be disrespectful because perhaps society would benefit in spiritual ways, but realistically speaking, more credit to the hard-worker who challenges himself in new ways without sacrificing his inner ideals.

In fairness to Buddhism, the religion does not ask that I accept it, and equally they do not interfere with what I do. Such an approach is in stark contrast to most other world religions, which have (historically if not presently) severely interfered with the lives of others.

Sorry for all the religious talk, but I tried to make as fair an analysis as I could. Please feel free to let me know if I have said anything offensive or unfair.