Brief Written Response #2
Due Sunday April 2, 11:59 pm
Address one
of the prompts below in a well-formed paragraph of 200-250 words (25 points distributed as indicated below). You can freely use the textbook, primary sources posted on the Moodle site, lecture notes, and notes from discussion section to address the prompts, but no sources or tools beyond course materials. Make sure to document any ideas or evidence that you use by embedded parenthetical citations. Finally, make sure to include a word count at the top of your document. Your grade in this category is based on the highest 2 of the 3 BWRs assigned in the semester.
1.
Jainism shares the ideal of ahimsa with both Hinduism and Buddhism. Briefly define ahimsa (5 points). Describe how this principle is expressed in Jain rituals and ethics in a distinct fashion (10 points). Explain how the practice of ahimsa in Jainism is grounded in a view of the cosmos and the nature of reality and is understood as essential to achieve liberation (10 points). 2.
Identify and describe the ideal person in Confucian teaching (6 points). Identify and describe the ideal person in Daoist practice (6 points). Briefly explain how one achieves this ideal in the views of each of these traditions (3 points). Discuss how each of these ideals are related to their respective views of the nature of reality (their “cosmologies”) (10 points).
3.
Since the destruction of the Temple, Jewish people have needed to develop alternatives to sacrifice and priestly ritual by which practitioners could encounter the presence of God. Identify and describe the practices in both
Rabbinic Judaism and
Hasidism that enable practitioners to experience God’s presence within the community (10 points). Briefly summarize the stories of both
the “Oven of Akhnai” and
the “Precious Prayer” (10 points). Explain how one
of these illustrates the chief virtues prized by one of these forms of Judaism (5 points).
