Practice In Buddhism By Carl Bielefeldt: Article Analysis

After reading the article first about “Practice” in Buddhism by Carl Bielefeldt, I understand that Buddhism is a very flexible religion because It has many different ways that people can do in order to practice this religion. I also understand that people practice Buddhism because they want to get merit from the deer that they do and sent some of their merit to help their love one. In the Article, Bielefeldt introduce four ways to practice Buddhism. The first practice is active engagement. This is the practice that people actually performing some ritual thing or it can be just a mental activity that people think they are practicing. The second practice is the theory. This is a practice in which people have to understand what it meaning about the Buddha teaching and the Buddhist texts. The third practice is to be proficiency with knowledge and training. The fourth practice is the principle. This is to know what is the actual behaviors that people have to do in order to get a merit.

The second article about Buddhism “Ritual” by Robert Sharf also have an important point. Sharf said in his article page 258 that, “Buddhist ritual practice is intended to elicit precisely the understanding that all form is empty—that all theories or views about the world, including Buddhist ones, are contingent” This quote from

In Thailand, one of the ritual practice that people de when they go to the temple is to worship the Buddha and the monks. People will bring food, flower, candle, incense, and alms with them in order to perform the ritual. During the ritual, people will sit down and prostrate the Buddha Statue. They will light the candle and incense. Next, they will listen to the dharma from the monks. Then around 11A.M., we will offer food to the monk and the monk will chanting to bless people. After the monk finish eating, people can now eat their food. This is one of the example of a ritual and practice that I had experience in the