Welcome to my Anthropology Students from College of the Canyons! (Anthro 220)
As part of your Day 1 check-in procedures, you will need to get started setting up your own course blog on Blogger. This blog will be your tool for projects and assignments and discussions throughout the course.
Use this blog as just a sample of what you might want to do with your own blog. You aren't required to personalize it... If all you do is use the posting function, that's up to you, but have some fun with it! I do ask that you limit posts to strictly course projects for the duration of this class. After that, it is up to you what you want to do with it.
To get started, click the link to the right for the page "Setting up your own blog on Blogger". Please let me know if you have any questions. You will need to submit the url for your blog on the assignment page in Canvas on Day 1, though formatting and personalization of your blog can be done at your leisure.
In addition to setting up your blog, please also complete the following by 11:59 pm on Day 1:
- Submit comments to this post with regard to the discussion questions listed below. Please submit as comments below in the comments section, NOT on your personal blogs. Click the "Comments" link below to get started.
- Make two substantive responses within the comment thread below to posts made byCanvas other students. Please make sure to follow the course Netiquette rules (available on Blackboard under "Course Info") and specify the name of the person you are addressing in your comment. Again, these comments should go on the comment thread below, NOT on your personal blogs.
Scenario:
Way back in 1986, I had the opportunity to visit a Shinto temple in Japan and experience a formal Japanese tea ceremony. I was taking a comparative religions class and the ceremony was courtesy of my professor's Sensei. The tea ceremony was both incredible and terrifying, as there are formalized actions involving accepting the tea, turning the bowl so the "most beautiful side" was away from you, drinking the bitter tea, and then again turning the bowl so the "most beautiful side" was towards you and returning it to the woman who presented it to you.
I did NOT want to get this wrong. I didn't want to insult anyone. And the woman making the tea was very intimidating!
I survived the process, but it was the conversation after the ceremony that provided me with one of those "ah-ha" moments in my spiritual life and I wanted to share that with you here.
The Sensei invited us to sit beneath the blooming cherry blossoms after the ceremony to ask questions if we wished (or to just quietly meditate). One of the students was outwardly strongly Christian in her faith and had the following conversation with the Sensei:
Student: "I know from what we've learned in class that Buddhists do not believe in a 'heaven' as we Christians do. So where do you go when you die?"
Sensei: "We have nowhere to go."
His response seemed to sadden and worry the student, but Sensei's expression and tone indicated that he was very much at peace with his reality on this matter. Having no "where to go" after death didn't scare or concern him. This conversation was fodder for discussion in our next class, but I want to ask you to reflect on what this conversation tells you about belief systems and those who practice it.
Discussion question: If you had the chance to do so, could you explain to the student why the Sensei showed no sadness about not having a "heaven" to go to when he died? How would you do this in a way that would show respect for both of their belief systems?
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