BRATs Taiping 2008 Third Day (15 March)
Here it is, the third day of BRATs Taiping Workshop 2008! We have our individual assignments today. Unlike other days where we go in one big group, today we would be going in our individual groups.
My group was given an assignment on a temple. My first impression was "What?!!". Not that I have anything against the monks or Buddism but its just more of a taboo to me. But still I went there with a mind as open as I possibly could. After all, I thought it would be interesting to do something that I have never done before.
The nice mat layed out for us to sit on
Our interview with the monk went pretty well. I think we learn a lot in the past few days and we are kind of slowly putting those things in action. The monk's name is Phra Korn Thammawaro.
Interview session with the monk
I found his character really interesting. As me and my members poke into his life during the interview sessions, everything somehow clicks (ignoring the fact that there were few non-related-random-questions). Phra Korn was simple one interesting monk!
Phra Korn
He is a Taiping born boy and his parents migrated from China to Phuket to Malaysia. Why did he become a monk? He accidentally knocked down a girl when he was 38. So he turn to religion, naturally as he was brought up in a "religious" environment, raised in a temple community. He prayed that the girl would be well. True enough she recovered. So he payed respect back to Buddha by becoming a monk.
His open view to religion also appealed to me. It was nice listening to someone talking about religion as in such an open way. He said it in such a way where you don't feel threatened.
Well, after that we went back and discussed with Ju Eng and Niki the perspective of our stories. Seems that my group was supposed to do the story about the Thai community there. OOPS!!! HAHahah...but we did managed to pull our information together and submitted two articles later on.
I was mostly busy with the video assignment! It was really tedious work but it came our great in then end :)
Night time was FUN. It was our last night so we had a GREAT dinner! The hotel did not allow us to BBQ on our own so we had 5-star hotel BBQ! It was awesome, the lamb was really tender.
LOOK AT THE SPREAD!!!
We had group presentations later. Had great time watching all the teams coming up with hilarious ideas. I got the recording but I accidentally deleted it!!!! ARghhhhHHH!!!!!! We stayed up late playing all sorts of RIDICULOUS games which I don't get....
My group was given an assignment on a temple. My first impression was "What?!!". Not that I have anything against the monks or Buddism but its just more of a taboo to me. But still I went there with a mind as open as I possibly could. After all, I thought it would be interesting to do something that I have never done before.
The nice mat layed out for us to sit onOur interview with the monk went pretty well. I think we learn a lot in the past few days and we are kind of slowly putting those things in action. The monk's name is Phra Korn Thammawaro.
Interview session with the monkI found his character really interesting. As me and my members poke into his life during the interview sessions, everything somehow clicks (ignoring the fact that there were few non-related-random-questions). Phra Korn was simple one interesting monk!
Phra Korn He is a Taiping born boy and his parents migrated from China to Phuket to Malaysia. Why did he become a monk? He accidentally knocked down a girl when he was 38. So he turn to religion, naturally as he was brought up in a "religious" environment, raised in a temple community. He prayed that the girl would be well. True enough she recovered. So he payed respect back to Buddha by becoming a monk.
His open view to religion also appealed to me. It was nice listening to someone talking about religion as in such an open way. He said it in such a way where you don't feel threatened.
Well, after that we went back and discussed with Ju Eng and Niki the perspective of our stories. Seems that my group was supposed to do the story about the Thai community there. OOPS!!! HAHahah...but we did managed to pull our information together and submitted two articles later on.
I was mostly busy with the video assignment! It was really tedious work but it came our great in then end :)
Night time was FUN. It was our last night so we had a GREAT dinner! The hotel did not allow us to BBQ on our own so we had 5-star hotel BBQ! It was awesome, the lamb was really tender.
LOOK AT THE SPREAD!!!We had group presentations later. Had great time watching all the teams coming up with hilarious ideas. I got the recording but I accidentally deleted it!!!! ARghhhhHHH!!!!!! We stayed up late playing all sorts of RIDICULOUS games which I don't get....
Buddhism is pretty interesting to me. it has a lot of beliefs similar to Christianity. I think they believe that in order to be happy you need to rid yourself of all wants and desires. with Christianity though, ridding yourself of earthly desires AND following Jesus is the way to true happiness! =)
ReplyDeleteYeah...I agree being a Christian myself. But I was particularly impressed with the way the monk conducted himself. These are a few things that we as Christians could learn from this monk :)
ReplyDeleteYeah...I agree being a Christian myself. But I was particularly impressed with the way the monk conducted himself. These are a few things that we as Christians could learn from this monk :)
ReplyDelete