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A Discourse on Faith | Queenie Quynh Nguyen

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Growing up in a Buddhist family in Vietnam, I never personally identified as a Buddhist, but rather as agnostic. I didn’t even know much about formal Buddhist philosophy until I took a class on Buddhist Ethics in my sophomore year of college in the United States. When I took the class, there were many familiar concepts that I had often heard people discuss at home. I just didn’t know that some of what I had assumed were cultural norms, actually stem from Buddhist philosophy.  The word ‘faith’ feels a bit problematic for me in a changing and pluralistic world, especially between religious and atheistic individuals. I tend to think of my faith more as a matter of meaning. I love to connect the dots and make meaning out of my experiences, surrounded by the objects and events that happen in my life. Thus, perhaps, the word ‘faith’ should not be taken solely as a matter of religion and spirituality. Faith, to me, is where all the dots connect. Despite this, I still gain great benefits