This paper is a 15-page research paper about the Buddhist Temple of San Diego (Specifically a Shin Buddhism Temple). Field research is done on the sight of the temple. The project proposal and the interview questions/answers of a member is attached. Integrate these interview findings in this paper (DO NOT just list out the whole interview), include one specific ritual practice of the temple observed.(SHIN BUDDHISM)
MUST USE THESE SOURCES:
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McGuire, Meredith B. Religion: The Social Context (Fifth Edition). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, 2009.
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Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Praeger, 1966.
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Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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Suzuki, D.T., Zen Buddhism. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1956.
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ONE MORE SOURCE ON SHIN BUDDHISM
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ONE MORE SOURCE ON SHIN BUDDHISM
The Length and Structure of Paper: Your paper should be 15 pages long, double-spaced.
Part I (Introduction: 5-6 pages): Describe the setting that you have chosen. Give the historical background of the religious group and present your reasons for choosing it.
INCLUDE: (a) history of the group, (b) demographics and background (age, sex, and ethnic composition of the members of the group), (c) physical setting (place where services
or ceremonies are performed), (d) description of events (ritual, order of services, prayers, speeches, or sermons), and (e) style and content of the religious messages (tone of speech, type of language use, and messages conveyed). Consult Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, 2009, pp. 317-330 for further research guidelines.
ALSO INCLUDE: (a) your own recording techniques, (b) what you have seen and
heard, (c) one ritual event considered as a whole. If you have a partner on a joint project, compare his or her description with your own. What are some of the main problems you have encountered in doing an initial description? What kinds of things do you feel you need to learn about the phenomena that you are describing? Try showing this description to a member or participant. Does he or she find it adequate, amusing, skimpy, partial, or accurate?
KEEP IN NOTE FOR THIS PART:
Try to provide ways for naive readers of your description to replicate your conclusions.
Part II (5-6 pages): Briefly discuss your research methods (psychological causal model of religions) and apply the type of analysis that you have chosen, e.g., symbolic analysis, structural analysis, or organizational analysis. Isolate a single ritual, case study, or historical event as the topic of your analysis. Then write your conclusions.
KEEP IN NOTE FOR THIS PART:
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Opt, if you can, for a single mode of analysis: structural, interactional, symbolic, or descriptive (e.g., something that you put together in terms of your own basic assumptions about what you have seen and about religion and ritual in general). Carry out this form of analysis as a consistent piece of work and as a disciplined exercise. Try not to deviate from it or criticize it while you are writing the paper.
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For conclusions: Evaluate your description and analysis briefly. If you see major problems with the conclusions at which you arrive, or with the process of reaching conclusions (descriptive and analytic), briefly cite some of them here. Remember to include a brief bibliography of sources used with your final paper.
PART III (Rest of paper):
Discuss the problems of doing your choice of analysis(PART II) and problems of description, reliability, and abstraction resulting from the problematic character of the primary data. By problematic, I mean that you have presumably not witnessed the group or rituals described in order to collect first-hand data which would begin to answer some of the many questions that you have about the topic and about the author’s (or authors’) descriptions of it. You might try comparing and contrasting several recorded descriptions of a single event for similar themes, problems, or interests on the part of the observer.