Kiana Juliene De Lemos

DENT - 1

Dear God, the one and most powerful of all, I pray to you. I have a recitation tomorrow
and I want to be able to answer the questions correctly. I am asking You dear God to help me.
Please help me remember all the learnings I acquired today and may I recite it correctly in front
of my teacher and classmates. For You to be able to help me, I would also like to share my
learning with You dear Lord. Let me begin with the beliefs of Hinduism and Buddhism about
death.

I learned that Hindus are different compared to Buddhists when it comes to their beliefs.
But both of them believe in many Gods beside You, they worship divine and powerful deities. I
have learned from school that in Hindu culture, they believe in reincarnation after death, wherein
the soul of the dead is transferred to another body and will be alive again. They also believe that
Brahmin is the ultimate God, not You. On the other hand, Buddhist belief is different about
death. In Buddhist culture, they believe that death is the end of all suffering on the earth. Once
a person is dead, it is the end of it all. They believe that the suffering that ends at death was
experienced first at birth and they conquer it through their journeys in life. With that, I pray that
no matter what beliefs they believe in, you will continue to shower them with love, safety, and
protection.

I also learned about their goals and practices in life. Since both of them conduct
sacrifices, worships, fasting, and rituals as part of their practices. The goals of life in Buddhism
and Hinduism are very different. In Hinduism, the aim of their goals in life is to achieve what
they call “moksha” or internal freedom. This is achieved by Hindus when they do good deeds to
another human being. As they do good deeds, they climb levels of the caste system then they
reach “moksha”. Caste system is somewhat unfair to others in my opinion, because no one
chooses the family where they will be born into. With the caste system, others will experience
unfair treatments. On the other hand, Buddhism does not practice “moksha” and does not
believe in the caste system because they treat and see every being as equal. . The practices of
Buddhism teaches that the primary aim in one’s life is to achieve perfect peace of what they call
“nirvana”. This is achieved by getting rid of any worldly desires and caring for only yourself.

Moving on, I also learned about the symbols and signs of both religions. Some of the
more popular Hindu symbols are the aum/om, the swastika, the trishula, the Shiva Linga, and
the Nataraja. One of the most prominent symbols is the aum/om, which is very complicated to
pronounce I would say. This symbol is known as the sacred sound symbol that represents the
Universe. These symbols have different meanings and representations which I would not
mention anymore. What I would like to add is that most Hindu rituals are performed in the
presence of many of these symbols. For the Buddhists, they have emblems which include the
Wheel of Law symbol which is the most important. There is also a symbol of the conch shell, a
lotus flower which means purity, a pair of fish which usually means happiness because of the
freedom in water, and an endless knot which means infinity. It also includes an umbrella as well
which represents a protective shadow on earth.
 Those are the learning I will share to you Lord, I am hoping that you will listen to me and
grant me my request. I promise that when I succeed in my recitation tomorrow, I will give all the
praises and glory back to You. I ask all of this in the name of Jesus Christ our savior, Amen.

Explanation:

I included all the things in my prayer. For the beliefs, I have stated in the prayer some of the
beliefs of both religions about life, death, and what happens after it. I also stated the differences
of both beliefs when compared to one another. For the practices, I stated their worship services
and rituals such as fasting during Ramadan. For signs and symbols, I have stated all of the
important symbols know in Hinduism and Buddhism and their meanings.