Philosophy of Religion Spring 17

Ricardo Arcos Professor Dana Trusso HUP 105 03 April 2017 Rubin Museum Artwork             When I visited the Rubin Museum I was surprised to see that there were 2 displays of the Bhavachakra. One of them was an old and small painting on cloth piece, and the other was a much bigger and newer print. Both pieces of artwork had a large circle in the middle that was being held by a large demon. The amount of detail inside the circle the demon was holding hinted to me that there was a lot of meaning within the drawings. And I wanted to learn more. The Bhavachakra is also known as The Wheel of Life. In an archived article in bbc.com , I found that The Bhavachakra is categorized as a “mandala”, which is an intricate representation of Buddhist view of the world. So by that logic I would argue that The Wheel of Life is the way Buddhist look at what life is. The article then goes to explain each section of the piece. “The Wheel i...

Luke Ferguson                                     4/19/17 HUP 105                                     Professor Trusso     Buddhism, just like any other religion can be very confusing.There are so many different traditions, paintings, statues and objects that hold very strong beliefs relating to the major doctrines in this religion. In Buddhism, our freedom from suffering depends on our own efforts. The man who became known a the Buddha, which means “Awakened One” was a historical figure who taught about suffering on earth and the ways to cure it because he himself conquered it and was able to become enlightened. Enlightenment is a state of perfect knowledge, wisdom along with endless compassion. H...

Nuobu Gesang Professor: Dana Trusso HUA 105     4/17/17 Buddha Sitatapatra       The museum visit expanded my understanding on Buddhist teaching and allowed me to connect simple doctrines to extremely complex art pieces. I was very discouraged at first, since a lot of these artworks are related to the Vajrayana branch, which makes them almost impossible to understand without any prior Buddhist knowledge; but then, after close observations, I figured even with their abyss representation, there are still certain features within these art pieces that expresses very simple and basic Buddhist doctrines that we had learned in our class. I think this characteristic makes these art works even more precious and meaningful, because they not only contain deep symbolism within advanced Buddhist teaching but they also speaks to entry level learners by presenting certain simple Buddhist doctrines.        ...

Dr. Trusso HUC 105/Rubin museum project Samsara and the trap of Samsara   The world of philosophy of religion is a world that explain a lot about religion. It’s a course that talks about the major religion in the world and also the doctrine each of them carries through generation. The religion of Buddhism is one of these religions. In Buddhism, we have many doctrines like in all religions. The Doctrines of Buddhism are Samsara, Reincarnation, and so on. One of these doctrines, Samsara is kind of the center of the Buddhism religion belief. The wheel of life in Buddhism is a wheel that shows the view of the world in Buddhism. It shows, first a big head that represent Yama, who is the lord of death, has tree eyes, then the tree fires that represent the causes of suffering, the realm of human that is that human born is the most fortunate state, then the realm of god who show the different god, the realm of the hungry ghost, the realm of animal, the hell imagination the dep...

Alex Quito Professor Trusso   HUP 105 April 19, 2017 Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara Buddhism, A Unique World Religion Upon visiting the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, I was intrigued by all the Hindu and Buddhist artwork in display. There was one Buddhist artwork that especially grabbed my attention and became the center of my focus in this paper. This specific Buddhist artwork was a painting named the “Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara,” which dates back to Central Tibet during the 20th century. There were several details that made this specific art piece so attracting and through my own observations, I was able to connect the painting to a Buddhist doctrine. Further interest in the artwork then led me to conduct more detailed research. All in all, the “Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara” represented an important Buddhist doctrine very different to that of a Hindu doctrine and led us to ask even bigger questions of Buddhism.       ...