Quarter 3 - Blog #5

Buddhism began in India around the early 400 B.C.E. It began with a man named Siddhartha Guatama who lived in the Indian sub continent. From the article, Buddhism, from Wikipedia, "Buddhists recognize him as an awakened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end their suffering by understanding the true nature of phenomena, thereby escaping the cycle of suffering and rebirth (saṃsāra), that is, achieving Nirvana" (Wikipedia Buddhism). Simply the belief in Buddhism relates to the author of Snow Falling on Cedars because he himself has struggled with his beliefs in religion. From another article, 'Intensely, Miserably Spiritual', by Anne A. Simpkinson, "David Guterson, author of the 1994 bestseller, "Snow Falling on Cedars," declares himself an agnostic, but a spiritual amalgam seems closer to the truth. Raised more culturally than religiously Jewish, the 47-year old former English teacher has studied Buddhism, and, while researching his just published third novel, "Our Lady of the Forest"--about a runaway teen who has a vision of the Virgin Mary--stumbled upon Gnostic ideas of the Divine Feminine." The interview goes on asking the author why so spiritually lost and such. Both the belief in a religion and the understanding of religions are two different things, I guess for Guterson, he'll just have to find one that's right for him.

Works Cited for Quarter 3 - Blog #5 :
"Buddhism" (2003). Wikipedia®. 2/16/09. wikipedia.org.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
"'Intensely, Miserably Spiritual'" 1/23/2004 4:48:27 PM. belief.net 2/16/09 http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Books/2004/01/Intensely-Miserably-Spiritual.aspx?p=3