Makailyn MacArthur
Professor Manning
TRS-260-B
November 24, 2015
What It Means To Be Buddhist Buddhism is a religion that involves much suffering caused be desire. It has many traditions, values, beliefs and spiritual practices. These are usually based on Buddha. In William Dalrymple’s book, Nine Lives, the chapter “the Monk’s Tale” shows great examples of this religion. Tashi Passang, who practices Buddhism is faced with obstacles that test his faith. He has to make a decision that can be either wrong or right and it could have serious consequences with either way he choses to go. This chapter really helps define the religion of Buddhism and gives a better understanding of its practice. The core beliefs of Buddhism are very important…show more content… It was difficult to gic=ve up so much and to have such a strong belief for a religion. To do this and to start his following, he followed in his great uncles footsteps. To really begin his Buddhist journey and experience he joined a monastery. He had some struggles along the way of his journey and faced much difficulty. He stated, ““the main struggle, especially when you are young, is to avoid four things: desire, greed, pride, and attachment” (Dalrymple pg 150). This states that avoiding things like desire, greed, pride and attachment is so hard in ones life. For most people their lives revolve around these four things. This is why it is so hard and difficult to avoid these four things and that is where suffering can come into play. But for each Buddhist, they find a way, somehow, and they avoid them. For desire, it is difficult to overcome, but they are taught to put their focus on the gods and goddesses. Also meditation can be extremely helpful in this situation, because you don’t think about anything. You are free. This helped Passang and he said he was able to find himself with meditation. Also, trying to reject attachments from the outside world and desires, impermanence helped with this. Throughout all these teachings and beliefs Tashi Passang experiences, he was was able to reach these Buddhist beliefs. This really helped him with his practice of Buddhism. His life had changed a lot with his devotion