Works Cited

WC1: Bhikkhu Bodhi in the introduction of the Dhammapada here: https://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/scrndhamma.pdf

WC2: Found throughout ancient Buddhist texts and often cited as the Buddha's first teaching

WC3: Walpola Sri Rahula in The Noble Eightfold Path at Tricycle Magazine here: https://tricycle.org/magazine/noble-eightfold-path/

WC4: Image: https://www.sfyad.org/post/2018/09/30/there-is-a-reason-why-right-concentration-is-the-last-of-the-noble-eightfold-path

Porter Stewart in concurring opinion Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U. S. 184 (1964)

Wow this semester flew by! In this class I learned not only about myself but about the world and people around me. I feel I was fairly well educated about religion because I was raised religious and while I lost my faith I did a lot of research to understand what I did or didn't believe. Throughout this course I did learn quite a bit although I don't think it challenged my beliefs very much if at all. In this course I feel we had to cast a wide net and didn't get to dig to deep. In a course like this with only 2 weeks per religion you end up only getting 8-16 hours per religion and when that includes multiple hours of watching religious practice or visiting and writing about it for even longer. This doesn't lend itself to deeper exploration and is only further harmed by the nature of online class.

These struggles doesn't mean I didn't learn anything. I learned more about all of the religions to some degree or another. One profound thing I learned was the whole religion of Sikhism. I thought Shiki was a sub-group of Islam and I was wrong. I also learned the subtlety of what is and isn't a religion. While I wish I could have learned more and dug deeper I think this class was also a reminder of how similar we all are and how religion isn't the grand divider that it can appear to be.