Pupils give account of Buddhism trip
By Isabel Bateson (7FLJ)
On February 9, Year 7 went to the Khalpa Bhadra Buddhist Centre in Craig-y-Don. When we arrived, we took off our shoes and went into the shrine room.
The shrine room was quite long and the back wall was blue; this is the same in most Buddhist temples. The statues were set out in front of the blue wall and water offerings were also placed with them. There were 11 statues of the Buddha in the room.
The teacher told us the story of the Buddha and how he was a Prince and was given the best of everything. He was not allowed out of the palace while old and sick people were not allowed in, so he did not see any suffering at all.
Once he was a teenager, he began to get curious about the outside world; too curious, his parents thought, so they found him a wife. One day however, he and one of his friends went outside the palace walls and into the town where he saw what is known as the four sights: old age, sickness, death and a holy man.
When he returned home, his wife knew that this was something that her husband had to do: to find the reason behind suffering (to attain enlightenment).
After that we learnt what Buddhists try to do is to attain as much good Karma as they can. The teacher explained it to us like this:
‘Your mind is like a meadow and every time you do something good, you sow good seeds into the meadow of the mind and when you do bad, even just getting angry, then you sow bad seeds and this is how we have down days and good days.’
By Joshua Peevor (7LVC)
On Tuesday, February 9 the Year 7s travelled to the Buddhist Centre in Craig-y-Don, Llandudno. When we arrived, we were greeted by a Buddhist nun, Kelsang Dragden, and were asked to remove our shoes.
We were then directed into the meditation room, where we sat on the floor and listened to the resident teacher, a nun called Kelsang Oden. She talked about the life of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha). At the front of the room was an open shrine, where there were many statues and a large one of the Buddha in the middle.
The nuns were dressed in red and yellow robes, symbolising wisdom and concentration, and they had shaved heads.
It was a very interesting trip because it was so different to the Methodist community at school and I really enjoyed it!