Essay On Telling Stories

I was born and grow up half of my life in a small rice growing village by the river bank in southern part of Burma. Most people work in the rice fields during the day, and come home before the sunset. After dinner, adults usually drink tea and eat tea salad in the living room by the candle light. During that time, my grandmother typically tells us stories to teach ethical and moral lessons. Telling stories was easy way to capture children’s attention. I will briefly describe the story and what it taught me. Once upon a time, poor orphan boy and rich boy went into the wood together to catch a deer. Poor boy set the trap under the tree and rich boy set the trap from the tree branch. Next day, rich boy got to the trap site first and saw a deer

Old man told the rich boy and his friends to maintain the integrity. That was the brief story my grandmother told me to teach integrity. In our village, there was no schools. Children were taught at the monetary. It was the main education system to learn how to read, write and study basic Buddhism. My children will learn from American education system but, I plan to teach them traditional Burmese culture and ethics at home. I would like to teach basic understanding of Karma. Karma can be simply define as “you get what you give” (Buddhist Karma, 2011). It means, whatever the action taken toward other will result with same reaction. Causing others pain will cause pain to ourselves. Causing joy to others will result joy in ourselves. One of five remembrances the Buddha advised is “I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir. ' ...” (Upajjhatthana Sutta, 1997). This Buddha’s teaching can relate to ethical principles taught in many cultures. There is a story told by my elders to teach lesson about Karma. The story start