Buddhism

Tristan and I met for the third time the other day and unlike the other meetings, where I had thought about possible conversations before we met, I put no pre-thought into this meeting. I decided to go into the meeting and treat it like a normal conversation with no pre-planned topics. I now realize and think that this was the idea for the conversation meetings the entire time, treating our conversation partners as friends. Experiencing the conversations with this approach will allow us to not only learn about our conversation partner and their culture, but also prevent the conversation from having an interview type feel to it. Having an open-minded attitude about the conversation will allow for endless possibilities of where the conversation can go, instead of restricting the conversation by sticking to the topics pre-disposed in the mind. So, as I walked into the BLUU auditorium to talk to Tristan, I was excited and, honestly, a little nervous about the conversation that was about to happen. From reading some posts from my classmates, I feel as though I’d been going about the conversations all wrong since they seemed to have this feeling before their first meeting and this was my third meeting with Tristan. Tristan walked in after I had been sitting down for a few minutes and sat down across from me. We began to talk about our days and we went through the motions of typical conversation, talking about the weather and what we had planned for the day, etc. Then I had a thought. I don’t know where it came from, but I thought about Buddhism. For some reason, I have always been intrigued by Buddhism. I don’t really have a reason for it I guess; I just think it’s an interesting way of life. It dawned on me that my conversation partner was from China. So after my revelation I decided to ask him about it and what his thoughts on it were. Little did I know that Buddhism would consume the rest of our conversation. He began to tell me that he knew many Buddhists and that you can find them all over the place where he lives. He said that when he was little, he was always afraid of them. This struck me as odd because Buddhists have the reputation of being very calm, passive people who normally are not regarded as scary. He went on to tell me a story about when he visited a Buddhist monastery when he was younger. He said that the Buddhist’s had something about them that made them eerily mysterious to him. He wasn’t sure whether it was their clothes or their silence, but he knew that he didn’t like to be around them. I asked him if he still felt this way and he admitted that he does to some extent. Now that he isn’t as ignorant, their beliefs and actions make more sense to him but they still seem mysterious to him. Then he expressed a thought that was really interesting. He brought up the government in China and how they are afraid. When he said that I had no idea where he was going with this idea and I couldn’t wait to find out. He said that he believes the government is fearful that someone will undermine them and challenge their authority. They do not want new ideas getting introduced to society and that is why they exercise such tight control over the population. Tristan believes that Buddhism is a tool used by the government to manipulate society. Due to the extreme hierarchal structure that is present, if the government controls the religion, then the government controls society. He said that the government would prefer if people repressed their personalities and by controlling the religion that dominates the country, they can also control the people in the society. The government exploits the religion to depress people and keep social order. I thought to myself, “Well, it obviously isn’t working very well if Tristan thinks and recognizes all of this”. I was amazed by his ideas and thoughts on the topic. Now I have no way of telling if this is true or if there is even any evidence to back up his claims. But his perspective is what interested me. What awed me was the fact that he thought of all of these ideas and was actually beginning to convince me that the government used Buddhism as a method of exercising their control, and I know nothing about the religion! It made me realize how easily people can be taken control of if they follow a religion, or any organization for that matter, basing their decisions on the words of a spokesperson. Is this is the type of phenomenon that occurs in the moments we hear of in history and think ‘Why would anyone follow that’? I don’t know, but I thought it was interesting to think about because I had never experienced that before. Overall I really enjoyed our conversation and the new perspective and insight that I gained on the Buddhism religion. I look forward to meeting with him again.