Chapter 4 & "Serving is Different from Helping and Fixing"

Chapter 4: Culture and Religion in Eurasia/ North America

  • one of the first civilizations= China
    • Zhou Dynasty- Notion of the Mandate of Heaven began to take place introducing the idea that the "normal and appropriate condition of China was one of political unity"
    • Eighth century BCE- authority of Zhou Dynasty and royal court weakened leading to the age of warring where after reflections had been done classical cultural traditions of Chinese civilization began
    • Legalist answer- believe the answer to the problems in China lay in the laws and rules that would be clearly played out and heavily enforced through the use of a reward and punishment system
    • Confucian answer- established expectations for superior parties 
    • Daoist answer- "urged withdrawal into the world of nature and encouraged behavior that was spontaneous, individualistic, and natural"(155)
  • cultural traditions of India:
    • embraced the Divine and anything that was spiritual with enthusiasm and generated elaborate philosophical visions about the nature of ultimate reality
    • religion- different from China as it was not founded by anyone but was developed over many centuries, specifically developed from Greeks, Muslims, and eventually the British
    • Buddhism also emerged roughly the same time as Hinduism, and the founder was Siddhartha Gautama, a prince from a small moth indian state (159)
    • Gautama went on a six year spiritual quest and was then known as the Enlightened One, "a human being who had awakened" (159)
  • talks about the development of other religions and about the origins of them, of which included Zoroastrianism, Judaism and the birth of Christianity

Close Reading:  http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=940

 I found this close reading to be interesting as it opened my eyes to there being a difference in the idea of helping versus serving. I found it very interesting as the author described that when we are "helping" others, we actually focus on our strengths and often look at the others like they are less than. However, when we "serve" other, we are not serving with our strengths but are instead serving with ourselves, reflecting on previous experiences. She says, "Service is a relationship between equals." She then contrasts it by saying that "helping" implies some kind of debt or favor. This concept really emphasized the idea of treating others the way you want to be treated and I find that to be very important.

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