Boulder Student at Wellesley College Samples Life as a Buddhist Monk in India and as a Rural Farmer in Japan
| For
immediate release: November 1, 2007 |
Contact:
Molly Tarantino, |
WELLESLEY, Mass.— If you practiced Buddhism and lived in a Buddhist monastery, would you identify as Buddhist? If, before every meal, you sang Christian hymns and worked for an institution rooted in the message of Jesus Christ, would you be Christian?
As a student of meditation at the Burmese Buddhist Monastery in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India – the birthplace of Buddha’s enlightment—and an intern in Japan at the Asian Rural Institute, Wellesley College senior Catherine Jaffee faced these questions daily as she struggled to balance her personal beliefs with a desire to be an active member of these communities.
Jaffee, daughter of Melissa Jaffee of Boulder, Colo., will review the learning that took place in these different religious situations – such as 72-hour meditations or discussions on homosexuality and Christianity while harvesting eggplants-- during her presentation at the 2007 Tanner Conference at Wellesley College Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Jaffee’s study abroad experience in India last fall was all-encompassing. Each day, she would meditate at 4 am for hours, and then again at 6 pm. Weekends consisted of silent meditation retreats or homework on Buddhism. To stay in shape, she would walk around the Mahabodhi temple each morning for several hours counting prayer beads. Monks began to recognize and respect her, and she made friends at the temple.
“Never before has every action in my day been towards learning a subject,” Jaffee said. “We ate like Buddhists, lived like Buddhists and studied like Buddhists, all in an intense monastic environment. My home was the monastery and my town was the largest pilgrimage place for Buddhists in the world.”
For Jaffee’s next adventure this past summer, she went to work for an international Christian farm in rural Japan, dedicated to bringing together leaders from developing countries to learn and foster leadership skills, agricultural sustainability and social accountability. Jaffee received the Elisabeth Luce Moore ’24 scholarship, which aims to prepare students for lives and careers in a global economy. Jaffee initially found the environment difficult, as some program participants would try to convert her, preach to her or condemn her for not following the Christian faith. Eventually, she became comfortable with other participants despite their differences in faith.
“Often when harvesting vegetables and doing farm work, we would exchange stories about how our different cultures and religions treated issues such as homosexuality, widows, dating before marriage, death ceremonies, weddings and gender,” Jaffee said. “Through the established connection that we were all students learning from each other, everyone was able to share information about their lives and faith.”
Following graduation from Wellesley, Jaffee hopes to continue her studies of religion. She has applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to Turkey to study how internal migration is transforming Turkish secularity.
“As a religion and political science major, what interests me most is how people are the movers of religion and how this in turn affects politics,” Jaffee said.
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