The Journey Of One Buddhist Nun Analysis

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Buddhism is considered as one of the leading religions throughout the world today. In order for a Buddhist to follow the religion, there are certain set of guidelines that one has to follow to gain a better life, but most people have other factors that they have to face along this path. The story, “The Journey of One Buddhist Nun” by Sid Brown, is an account of a Thai woman, Maechi Wabi, who entered a spiritual life along with life struggles and outside influences. According to Brown, Wabi faced many challenges along the way to liberation and two challenges she faced most are the gender and socioeconomic issues which she overcame during her spiritual journey. Siddhartha Gautama had a luxurious lifestyle provided by his father in the palace but still he was unhappy about the life and wanted to seek an answer to it. But unlike the Siddhartha Gautama, Maechi Wabi had to go through a different phase to renounce from all the desires in order to again liberation. She was from a poor family and after her father left the family, she had to take care of her brothers and sisters even Wabi was at her younger age. She even built a disgusting phase towards men due to her father’s actions. Wabi’s father left the entire family and renounced all his desires, and therefore, Wabi had a curious thought and confusion as to why he did that (Brown, 18). Also the author states that Wabi was not happy about her life and the situation at home because of suffering and the struggle the entire family is on to survive made Wabi to finally leave her family and start a different journey to seek an answer. Although Siddhartha Gautama and Maechi Wabi went through similar phases in leaving the life of a household to find the answers, factors such as gender and so... ... middle of paper ... ...autama left behind a luxurious life and went onto gain enlightenment, but Wabi had to leave her poverty behind and moved on which see did undergoing too much pain and suffering. Wabi’s quest to gain a peaceful life was somewhat consisted many barriers but she was able to jump through each and every one of them with courage and self-motivation. Factors like gender and socioeconomics are not defined in Buddhism because anyone can follow the middle path, but Buddhist elites in the past had made these rules and regulations and they are accepted earlier and now which play a huge role in ones’ spiritual life. With the Thai culture’s setup, especially a woman to follow a spiritual life require much effort, and Wabi’s story say that in order to gain liberation, one need to be develop their inner being through self-practice even though the problems are right in front of you.

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