The essay is based on the book The Journey of One Buddhist Nun: Even against the Wind. To accomplish the desired task, the two questions are being answered purely using this book. The book generally tells a story of a woman known as Wabi who resorted and sought to become religious.
In her quest to doing so, she faces various huddles as well as difficulties. Ideally the story is told of her experiences as she worked towards being a maechi (Sid 23). The first question is with regards to why did Maechi Wabi âgo forthâ. According to the author, Wabi decided to go forth after realizing that she was fully discontented and dissatisfied with the idea of reaching adulthood and becoming a mother like her own mother. She hated the idea of constantly taking care of the others and working (Sid 74).
It was predetermined during her time that when she grows up, she is to assist her mother to take care of her siblings and work hard to earn money to buy food. In Buddhism, going forth simply means the act or situation where one, especially a monk or a nun, leaves his/her homes and decides to lead a homeless life, so that they can be deliberated from lust. Based on Buddhism, those who go forth are usually individuals who seek to get rid of the sorrows of birth and diseases, old age and death.
According to Buddhism, Buddha decided to go forth so that he could teach people what he had learned and discovered. The four major things that he taught were the following ones.
First, life usually ends in death; second, the cause of human suffering in life is because of our bad deed; third, end of desire results in end of suffering, and the last issue is that the man has to follow the right way and seek for divine truth which is within us. The story is indeed basis for Buddhism as it tells us about the day to day activities of those who practice the faith (Sid 34).
Maechi Wabi developed a very negative attitude towards men because the society honored religious men and scorned at religious women, thus disrespecting the females. The behaviors of her father contributed greatly to her resentment of men, this is because her father was greatly opposed to her will of being a nun because he wanted her to grow into a woman who would be able to take care of her own family and raise her own children, thus contributing to the societies development.
Wabiâs father was not pleased with the way the society and the women in particular were transforming. This is evident from the change in the roles and behaviors of the Thailand women. He stated the society to become promiscuous and females to begin developing anti-social behaviors that were not expected of them.
This is the issues that Wabi expressed in the book later on. Wabiâs father played a very significant role in developing his daughter’s religious life and also making her more determined to meet her goals; this is a result of his constant resent to her idea of being a nun. Wabiâs father realized that his resentment to his daughter’s decisions would not change her view, but would only contribute to her desire to fulfill her dream and support her in her quest of becoming a nun (Sid 98).
As suggested by Sid (100), Wabiâs father encouraged his daughter to be what she wanted to be without backing down on her ambitions. These words of encouragement definitely played a significant role in ensuring that she would become a nun and thus achieve her goal; her father is also involved in altering the mindset of the men in the society, thus they should have started appreciating the religious females in the society. This definitely changed the societyâs perception on religious women.
I think that Wabiâs father was a role model to her in some way. This is because he was a very hard working man who would not take anything to chance and would also stand straight to his words without changing his mind. This attitude gave her the courage to pursue her ambitions without second thoughts.
Work Cited
Brown, Sid. The Journey of One Buddhist Nun: Even Against the Wind. New York: State University of New York Press, 2001. Print