Cherry's Note
Do the things that worth for you to do!
Freedom Writer Workshop: Respect and Tolerance
Freedom writer workshop has happened in 18th of June 2016 at Taylors University. The whole workshop is to embrace the respect and tolerance sense among society and with the hope that audience will get inspired and become a better person in life and motivation. It is organized by the Taylors University Buddhist Club and collaborates with Buddha’s Light International Association.
To kick start, the entire workshop will consists of Movie Screening and Sharing Session with the expert. An opening note is given by the Venerable Ru Xing, who is the administrator on the Fo Guang Shan Malaysia in SS3 Petaling Jaya.
What is that all about?
The student’s background is from the family that has been discriminate and judged by the public by their background. They have gone through their hard time since their childhood and learn to be strong and pass through their daily lives. They didn’t have a dream and have lost on what they are going to do toward their hidden dream. Therefore, the teacher came out with the idea to ask them write down their life story in expressing themselves and one day showcase it to the people surrounding them through the book publication
Message
The existence of the pre-conceived idea toward certain race and colour in the community back in few decades. This kind of prejudice created a chaos for everyone and obstructed the harmonies and peace within the society. At the same time, it mentions that to achieve something big, there is a need for scarification either on the family, colleague or personal issue. As in the story, the teacher has to give up on her initial happy life and choose to stand for her students.
Movie Screening
Freedom Writer is a true story based on an experience of a passionate teacher that is trying her best to educate the student not only based n textbook, but also about the lesson in life.
Sharing Session
The discussion process has been moderated by Prof. Datuk Seri Dr. Victor Wee, who is the President of Buddhist Gem Fellowship Malaysia. It was a fun sharing session whereby the speaker correlates the film with the Buddhist teaching for the audience. There are 2 topics that will be discussed and they are as following:
Respect the Freedom of others
Speaker 1: Mr. Vijaya Samarawickrama, the chairman of Nalanda Institute education team
“No one is free in this human world”
Though there is a lot of freedom act that has been created in terms of the Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Belief, etc.
There must be a limitation and under some circumstances that the certain rules will imply on. Therefore, to achieve the goal of freedom of others, it also means to respect the human right that other people has.
Even in the normal life, human being has the potential to get into this 3 big traps. They are the ignorance, craving and hatred. Only if human can escape through those, then it is the time where they can achieve the experience of Nirwana.
Besides that human always hope that we are free from physical danger, but it will be much better to free from inner suffering. No matter which position you are in right now, everyone will have its own problem. If you are a rich people, then you are in a trap of lust and greedy. The same goes to the poor people that free from craving for daily food.
Respect the Freedom of others
Speaker 2: Daniel Lee, a pharmacist and committees in Buddhist Light International Association in London
Freedom has been manipulated.
People said they want to have a free living, but they destroy the environment surrounds them, cutting down the tree and polluted the air for the sake of cost saving.
To make sure that the freedom is come with the responsibility. There are five precepts according to Humanistic Buddhist teaching in which has the same level with the 10 commandment. Below will explain those five elements:
First, killing is forbidden. There are different types of killing and each type has different level of sins. It is either kill for the satisfaction by ourselves or request others for killing for us. For example, you might afraid of cockroach and ask other to kill the insect for you in order for you to relieve. It portrays that every lives matter, even the small creature.
Second, stealing is a no. It is no longer taking people possession without permission is the definition of stealing. It is also consider of stealing, if you borrowed people possession, but not able to return it properly.
Third is a sexual misconduct where the rapist and sex before married is a taboo. It hopes that there is a conscious where everyone has to protect and loved their own body.
Fourth, false speech is where everyone will hang out in the café and start to gossip about other. lies and spread of harsh words.
Fifth, intoxicant where alcohol, cigarettes and vape is consider as the tool that create illusion and temporary happiness. This activity prevents a mindfulness thought and might be able to harm others if human lose their conscience.
There is come to a question, what happen if freedom didn’t follow with the five precepts. Below is the possible case. There is a guy named as Baka, a monk that decided to drink an alcohol after long time didn’t consume it. Once he drank the alcohol, he felt that it will be better if he can kill a chicken that his neighbourhood possess. At the same time, the girl next door is trying to find the chicken and ask Baka about it. Since the alcohol already takes over the mind of Baka, he decided to lie, harass and rape the girl. This is such a bad ending story that every writer will refuse to write on.
Tolerance in Diversity
Speaker 1: Mr. Vijaya and Speaker 2: Ms. Tan Ai Li, who is a lawyer and taking degree programme in Buddhism
Creativity has been slowly killed by the uniformity. Sometimes the crazy ideas are the most creative ideas. Let’s not try to shut down other people innovative spirit and judgemental on who they are and through their surface appearance. Instead, we can try to make a proper and consideration judgment before we came out with the shortcut conclusion.
To close, we need to avoid the evil, create goods and purify the mind.
"Everyone is Buddha."
Just imagine if we can treat others as their Buddha like us and then we can reach a peace and harmony compare to a violence and chaos living places.
