End of Year Reflection

As the year comes to the close and as we approach the end of the school year, I'll like to take a time to reflect the time I spent on Philosophy class and everything I have learned. During my junior year while I was selecting an elective, I stumbled on to philosophy; I thought: what is it and what can I learn from this class? As I stumbled to select classes, I thought this would be a good choice and yet simple and comprehensible course to take my senior year. My first impressions was this class was going to be a easy and I would be able to understand everything that the instructor was going to offer me. As I prepared myself for philosophy for summer by reading Sophie's World, I thought philosophy was going to be an straightforward class. During the first day of school, everything seemed normal and as everyone talked about the book and what we expect to learn this year in philosophy, I was excited for the year and the new and complex things we were going to learn. I responded that this year in philosophy I would like to learn what philosophy truly is. The first weeks, our class participated in outside activities such as being our partner's eyes and detecting us where to walk and step, and a blind fold activity. Philosophy was my favorite subject out of all my classes at one point in the school year. But as the year went on, I realized everything we were doing the first half of the first quarter was in fact not philosophy but an introductory course towards philosophy. As we began to talk about philosophers and their views, things soon turned a bit more difficult most primarily the class discussions. Our exam the first quarter was one of the hardest tests I took and was confused with everything we learned in just one month about epistemology incorporating it with the philosophers. At that point forward, as we got more in depth into the course, philosophy class turned harder and harder and the readings were just impossible to form into my own words. Philosophy from that point on turned out to be the hardest class in my senior curriculum. The readings and handouts were too much and the questions made no sense. Exams were just not possible to complete and when I heard we were getting a take home test for 2nd quarter, I thought there was one thing I could actually do good at. The first time I took the test, I rushed through it and I thought it was more personal questions which led to a bad score. The second time I took the test, and as I read the book countless times for hours and reading each passage, I still didn't know what to write, and looked like I was spending hours on just the first question. That test was a nightmare and will always be looked back as the most time I ever spent on any assignment for high school. As the year went forward and we participated in debates most notably the Imperfect Societies Debate; this was one of the subjects I actually understood. I was part of the democratic group. I participated in the debate and answered the questions thoroughly and got a good understanding of my group and all the others. When we found out that we and oligarchy tied for first place for the debate, I was excited but yet surprised that our group actually did that good in the debate. Things went well afterwards and I thought I was actually understanding philosophy for a while. Afterwards, we went to our new topic, Philosophy of Art. This was my favorite session because I learned a lot about art, and it was a bit more easier to understand. The sessions in the library about art and the field trip to see graffiti and see pictures of space and art in the Smithsonian got me closer to art and the messages it foretells about the philosophers who interpret the pictures. Our practice IA on the philosophy of art was one of the assignments I actually liked writing and will always be something I will always be proud out of all the assignments in Philosophy. As we went on to religions such as Buddhism and Yin and Yang, we talked about meditation and yoga. The field trip to the Buddhist temple and the practice yoga sessions taught me the forms of meditation there are and how to concentrate within oneself. Our last assignment was the true IA. The first time I did it, I was confused and focused to much in historical context and with extra help was able to form a good thesis to finish my final draft. The second time around, when I actually thought I understood it, I did even worse and couldn't get a grasp of my thesis. The paper I wrote focused on the picture and I moved away from history to focus on the literary definition; but it looked like when I included too much history or too much of the picture I just couldn't understand what was truly asked. But in conclusion, I learned about the philosophers such as Nietzsche's will to power and Schopenhauer's moral philosophy that I never understood before. The time I spent on my IA helped me clarified points I never understood before.

Even though I didn't receive the grades I hoped to get, I learned a lot in philosophy this year. This class was not the easiest and was a true college course and was even harder than all my classes combined. This class should not be taken lightly and shouldn't be a class to automatically go without background experience of the course. I wouldn't recommend this class to just anyone but to people who are willing to put their time, weekends, and nights to philosophy to any assignment. IB Philosophy has its ups and downs, but the things you learn is phenomenal but at the same time incomprehensible. 

Yoga Session

Our class, with the help of Jordan's Dad, participated in a yoga session for the whole class period. Everyone was given a yoga mat and we departed to a near by park to a peaceful and quiet environment to do yoga. Before this experience, I never actually went to a yoga session or done any form of Pilates. I had the idea of yoga how it stretches and relaxes the body by releasing tensions in form of cardio exercises while thinking of visually images. When Jordan's Dad began and went through the session, it seemed easy and the exercises were no problem. Yoga was like any type of sport but not moving and involving the core body and focusing on ones body strength and resistance. His voice and calmness made this experience more peaceful and relaxing as he wasn't shouting or rushing through. Everything was slow and simple which made it easy for new timers to go through the exercises. This session really got us in touch with our spiritual and physical senses. Jordan's Dad surprised the whole class as how far he can stretch his body far beyond the normal limits. Yoga is not a way of relaxation but gets the body it top physical condition.

Field Trip-Buddhist Temple Reflection

Our philosophy went to a field trip to a Buddhist Temple in Fairfax county and everything I thought I learned about Buddhism astonished me when he started elaborating about this religion. The preacher had a funny way of explaining everything and from reading the lectures about Buddhist monks; he just surprised me from his personality and defining everything. He was not that strict while he was explaining Buddhism and when he described his life story, everything was relaxed and calm while he himself was shocked by the different cultures in the United States and Japan. But while one assimilates to the cultures of different nations, one gets used to the new changes, and while in Japan everyone went to the temple daily to pray or talk about their personal problems, the temple like any other religion opens on Sundays. The preacher as well explained how many other Christians from nearby churches go to the Buddhist temple to pray; even after mass. "Christian Buddhist" is the term he used to people following the 2 religions. The most interesting part of his story is when he was explaining Nirvana to us and his demonstration by lighting and candle and lighting it out. At first I was confused but the act that the fire was disappearing showed a correlation between what he was explaining. He explained it in such simplicity how Nirvana is the act of being gone and just blowing out. Our class asked good questions to him and he explained it thoroughly and in great depth. He had a form of elaborating it in every detail possible. What also was interesting was when he described meditation. Everything he said that meditation was depicted on T.V and on people selling tutorials of meditation was wrong and how placing ones hands on their knees crossed is not true meditation and I actually believed in that stereotype of Buddhism. Meditation is only a form of thinking and concentrating on a particular subject nothing fancy or hard. During the 15 minute meditation, I laid back and concentrated on the rest of the school day and on ward. I was engaged for the majority of the time and let the body relax. The use of the bell made it more interesting because it really felt like a true chi meditation and when time was up, it actually didn't feel like it was 15 minutes.

Hexagram Interpretation

:Tun 19 [33]
Understanding how a hexagram works, and the process of reaching this formation was difficult at first. The process of getting all six branches took a series of rolling 3 coins of the same value six times to receive your stack. Mine formed up to I Ching Hexagram: 33, Tun. It is a phrase for 'retreat' and is formed by the Trigrams Heaven over mountain. This hexagram means that it is wise to retreat from destructive confrontations and does not mean a sign of defeat. It means that the particular situation retreated from is not ignored or forgotten. A strategy is formed before to return to the conflict and to fix the mistakes and deal with it. It is a temporary defeat and there is no sign of weakness but revival and thinking ahead of a scenario and predicting a new approach for the problem instead of thinking and implementing all at once.

Notes on Dharma

-Dharma means "things"-everything can be conserved as a Dharma
-It also has a purpose; fulfilling a Dharma as a human being by living. "Being is your Dharma"
-defined as well as your function
-birth day- is continuation day
-everyone has become something; "a being is not created nor destroyed"
-'Death' is the creation of something else
-atomic power-nuclear war-everything is reduced to ash

Notes- Reaching Balance

mystery- dimension beyond all forms
Maya-true reality illusion of the world
-Cosmological divinity- maintain a society, laws values
-Pedagogical-how to live a human life, opens his eyes- world appears
-432,000 years -dies- drops of water; army of ants- "not fulfilling his darma but his ego"
-Samsara- never ending cycle of birth and death- return to the Bhrama-creator (Hindu triad)
-Hinduism as a 'religion' -code of conduct
-Teacher and parents bring you to God
- Join and believe to be a part
-3 paths to God:
   1) Devotion (devotee)- part of a religion community
   2) Ascetic-renounces the world to set closer to God achieve unity without divine
   3) Mysticism
-varna- casts
-7 centers the body- throat, heart, belly, reproductive organs, legs, area excrete waste,
Karma-every thought and action
-arta-material world
-kama-pleasure: emotions, physical; fulfilling darma reaches acceptance
-do it as well as you can- in what your doing Darma
-eternity way beyond we and my interpretation

Chi-Meditation Experience

           On February 16, our philosophy class participated in a meditation procedure conducted by a Chinese-yoga master translated in English for almost the entire class period. We all sat on top of our desks following every suggestion the master had to say. During a part of this experience, I was completely immobile, hands placed palms up like I was holding a sphere, eyes closed, and embarked on a journey within my conscious. The suggestions he offered us were difficult to understand, and tiredness and uneasiness of my body made such a long story interrupted constantly. The uncertainty of whether placing my hands up or eyes closed for this long created anxiety and anxiousness to move around or stretch, but the interesting part was, the master told us to imagine we were moving, mobile in every part of our body; thinking we were but not enacting. Not only did this create tension and  anger of how much he wanted me to do this, I looked around that almost all the class had given up on this meditation, so slowly cooling my grip, and realizing this meditation was a failure except for a few people still participating, I quietly withheld and waited until the presentation ended. In conclusion, this chi-meditation was a unique experience at first when true concentration was reached not realizing how much time was passing. Time was infinite and it felt like time stood still realizing this will never end. While my eyes were closed, I concentrated and created visual pictures of everything going on in my life and focused only on my conscious rather than everything around me. A part of me was concentrated, and the other part wanted to move around, and sadly, I was not able to keep this up for too long.